Is it possible for a species to simultaneously
create and ignore its own extinction event?
Another year has come and gone without humanity realizing its collective weight upon the natural environments that we rely on for stability sustenance. I’ve said many times in the nearly 300 pieces I’ve written in the first two years, posting my thoughts online regarding the synthesis of energy and the environment, that the entire economic system that we have put into place over the last 200 years or so has as its foundation in the natural environment. By neglecting our collective responsibility as stewards of our natural environments, we are severely limiting our potential as a species in terms of economic prosperity.
Some environmentalists might argue that economics and environmentalism have no business walking hand-in-hand into the future, but the case has been made in the past here and many other places that economics is a powerful tool (some might argue the most powerful tool that humanity has ever created), and that this tool can be used to either pillage the earth of all of its resources in a relatively short period of time or that it can be used to solve the most treacherous of problems facing humanity on a global level.
Over the course of the past decade or so, it has been as though humanity is limping toward disaster, knowing full well that a disaster of some sort is coming if we continue the course of business as usual; but yet, we remain addicted to our ways of excessive energy consumption and conflict over resources, convinced that the solution to our economic and environmental problems is the exportation of our limited-resources paradigm to regions of the world that have not yet industrialized their consumption.
The simple fact of the matter is this: The natural environment’s collapse will parallel an economic collapse of equal proportion whether we see it coming or not. The fact that we don’t see it coming makes us more dinosaur-like than higher reasoning conscious beings.
Consider what happens to our economic systems once oil reaches $100 bbl, $200 bbl? ...in 2011? 2017? (This year and in six years respectively.) What happens if deep water oil spill become more frequent because, simply, there is more deep water drilling happening? What happens once the effects of coal ash, mountaintop mining, and air pollution start affecting millions of people? ...if China and India sign on to an American-type electricity structure, then hundreds of millions of people? What happens if the practice of natural gas hydraulic fracturing is left unregulated and the results of tainted groundwater spread across the globe, as wide as the practice itself is forecast to do over the next decade? ...and what happens if the initial reports of uranium in groundwater coming from released gas as a result of fracturing rock with pressurized water deep below the Earth’s surface turn out to be more widespread? What happens if our infrastructure system begins to fail before we can implement more reasonable energy solutions like solar and wind power? Or, very simply, what happens if the number of natural and manmade disasters that we witnessed in 2010 becomes the norm; can our economic systems really take the hit of several successive mega-disasters? Can the human body really handle any more toxins than the number it is currently being bombarde with?
We seem to be willing, collectively, to allow special interest groups bent on leading us down a road toward imminent disaster to direct the ship even though these groups seem intent only upon protecting those within their own circles of influence while leaving the rest of us hung out to dry.
The case for nationalism is spreading worldwide; protecting only oneself and one’s own interests. It looks as though there will not be an international treaty that deals with energy, climate, and the environment that will be agreed upon in time before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012; perhaps the American Congress is waiting for the election excitement of 2012 to give us a show. American Republicans seem determined to continue to discredit climate science, ignore the limits of fossil fuel dependency, and pledge their allegiance to economics ahead of the environment.
From Copenhagen to Cancun, one thing became certain; that is, developed nations have an entirely different set of priorities than developing nations, and both types remain particularly stubborn in their refusal to acknowledge the core set of problems that are hampering capitalism from being globalized.
Significantly less than half of the world’s population lives in industrialized countries. Is the planet equipped to absorb the same amount of waste that Europe and America deposited on and in the Earth during their industrialization process, as China, India, Africa, and the Middle East continue on with their industrialization based upon the fossil fuel paradigm modeled for them by the West? At this particular present point in our environmental history, it would not take much to tip us toward an environmental collapse followed by a severe, possibly an irrecoverable downturn.
More so than with climate science, the merits of the research on biodiversity loss and species extinction is not being debated. We are currently living in an age of mass extinction, the likes of which have only happened on this planet five times before in the Earth’s 4.5 billion year history. Every major ecosystem on Earth is in decline (oceans, forest, tundra, alpine, etc.). Unlike in the past where natural processes brought about the collapse of species, this time, humans are responsible for their own ultimate demise. What makes the matter worse is that no matter how many monkeys hopelessly bang away at their keyboards, none seem to be able to produce a line of logic that transforms humanity’s thinking about their collective impact on the very environment they depend upon for survival. We seem destined to continue limping toward disaster despite the dire warnings of scientists, economists, historians, and ethicists. We seem destined to repeat the same steps that led to the collapse of every other major civilization in the past.
When the financial markets collapsed in 2008, every economist bent on defending the status quo bellowed that there was no way that we could have seen this coming; there was no way that economic experts could have seen the house of cards being built and deduced that a modest wind might blow over. The truth is that the people who were warning of an imminent economic collapse for the five years leading up to the actual event taking place, they were dismissed as chicken-little alarmists. Are we to treat peak oil and environmental collapse the same? Will we say that there was no way to predict that $200 bbl oil would collapse the global economy? For how much longer does the discrediting of messengers who raise legitimate alarms need to persist? Will we say that no one could have foreseen the collapse of the very environmental system that we rely upon for survival? (A Note: Environmental collapse happens slower, in terms of years, than the human mind can consciously recognize.)
The one good thing about having a circular year attached to a linear timeline is that we are able to make resolutions to start anew whilst we keep tabs on our progress. 2011 can either be the year whereby we collectively realize the manipulative nature of the special interest groups invested in keeping our fundamentally flawed energy system in place and move past their obvious assault of science, common sense, and accumulated knowledge, or we can burrow deeper into the sand, apathetic about our very own survival.
The reason we hold Democracy up as the pinnacle of human achievement here in the West is because it allows the masses of people to hold sway over the elite few that have, throughout history, sought to amass power and concentrate it into their relatively small hands. Yet, even though we hold Democracy dear, we seem to be willing to allow a select few groups of people to profit significantly from an energy policy, economic system, and environmental paradigm that forces the collective masses to pay all of the costs while the a relative few reap all of the profits. Sure technological gadgets are neat, but I like the Earth better.
Maybe 2011 is the year the masses wake up and reclaim their role as the original conscious stewards of the planet; but, if the first decade of the Twenty-first Century was an indication of the direction we are heading, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Read more @ EarthPulseDaily
