https://truthout.org/articles/we-are-destroying-our-life-support-system/
[links in online article]
We Are Destroying Our Life Support System
By
Dahr Jamail,
Truthout
Published
January 28, 2019
The warming of planet Earth continues apace, and the ramifications
become ever more stunning with each passing month. While no single
meteorological event or phenomenon can be attributed solely to
human-caused climate disruption, this is now nearly always the leading
cause of the event, or at the very least a major contributing factor.
Recent data from the World Meteorological office showed that 2018 was
the fourth warmest on record, making the last four years the hottest
four years in Earth’s recorded history.
On that note, it is worth remembering that the single worst mass
extinction event in Earth’s history, the “Great Dying” that happened 252
million years ago and took out as much as 96 percent of all marine
species and two-thirds of terrestrial life, occurred due to rapid
planetary warming.
Another feedback loop has been discovered in the Arctic, this time in
Greenland, where it was recently reported that melting glaciers are yet
another source of methane.
It was also recently revealed that Greenland saw an “unprecedented” loss
of ice over the last two decades. Another study by a US research team
had shown that the decade of 2004-13 experienced more sustained and
intense melting there than during any other 10-year period in the
350-year record. This means that Greenland is contributing more to sea
level rise than previously understood, adding more than at any other
time that record keeping has existed. Melt water runoff there has
increased 50 percent since the industrial revolution began.
Also recently, and even more shocking, ice loss from the Antarctic has
sextupled since just the 1970’s, according to another study. This means
ice loss has accelerated 480 percent in the last four decades. The study
underscored how the gigantic East Antarctic ice sheet is already a giant
contributor to sea level rise. This is alarming, given that this region
was previously expected to be the last area that would succumb to
melting. Eric Rignot from the University of California, Irvine, the lead
author of the study, told CNN, “Antarctica is melting away.”
Dear readers, take a deep breath, and keep reading. We must be aware of
the reality of this crisis, if we are to behave accordingly.
Earth
A scientist returning to the Puerto Rican rainforest recently found that
98 percent of all the ground insects had disappeared since he was there
35 years ago. The scientist, Brad Lister, told The Guardian: “We are
essentially destroying the very life support systems that allow us to
sustain our existence on the planet, along with all the other life on
the planet. It is just horrifying to watch us decimate the natural world
like this.”
His findings come on the heels of other disturbing studies that have
revealed crashing insect populations in other places around the world.
Lister has warned of an “ecological Armageddon” from these crashes.
Meanwhile, increasing temperatures alone are already threatening to
decimate US crop yields. Farmer’s livelihoods are at risk as warmer
temperatures, drought and floods combine to disrupt agricultural
productivity. In addition to farmers struggling to make a living, food
prices will, of course, escalate.
Another climate change impact with obvious consequences for humans is
increasing heat waves. A study published late last year showed that more
people globally are vulnerable to heat exposure, which means they will
be at greater risk of heat stress, heart and kidney disease, and other
heat-related issues that can kill. The study estimated that between
2030-50, climate change could also kill an additional quarter million
people each year “due to malnutrition, diarrhea, malaria and heat stress.”
Another study showed that almost one-third of all of the bird species in
Wales are now “declining significantly,” with some already having
disappeared entirely.
A recent report about the state of the Arctic showed that the number of
Arctic reindeer has crashed by 58 percent in the last two decades alone,
largely due to climate change.
Two scientists warned recently that the planet’s extinction toll may be
far worse than previously understood. Climate change, overpopulation of
humans, exploitation of resources and habitat destruction are combining
to cause cascades of extinctions. The scientists warned that today’s
rates, which are already 1,000 times the normal background extinction
rate, could be a staggering 10 times worse.
In the US, another wave of US citizens have become climate change
refugees. In the wake of Hurricane Florence in North Carolina last fall,
many people of the New Bern community in the eastern part of the state
have had their homes and lives destroyed. Already a largely old, poor
and disabled community, these people cannot afford to stay where they
are, and those who try to stay are beset with the psychological tolls
and environmental toxins that are ravaging the area.
Even the corporate media are now reporting on “climate grief” — what
happens to us when the experiences of extreme weather events and dire
climate reports, such as this one, continue to intensify. Alongside
them, the mental health impacts of depression and resignation about a
grim future on the planet are striking more people than ever before.
Even just last year, the American Psychological Association published a
report on this subject, openly discussing trauma from living through
extreme weather events, but also noting how “gradual, long-term changes
in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including
fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion.”
Water
In addition to the aforementioned dramatic news of the melting ice
sheets and glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica, another study has
revealed that glaciers in the Arctic are melting so dramatically they
are pouring 14,000 tons of water every second into the ocean.
This means they are contributing more to sea level rise than even
current melting in Antarctica, and that the Arctic region has thus
contributed nearly one full inch to sea levels since just 1971.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2018 Arctic Report
Card survey showed that sea ice had reached its second-lowest extent
ever recorded as the Arctic experienced its second-warmest year on
record. The report warns that this leaves the wildlife and communities
across that region under great pressure as climate and ecosystems are
undergoing dramatic changes.
Meanwhile, the melting of ice around the world continues apace.
In the Himalayas, a photo essay by the Nepali Times shows and describes
the dramatic changes there, where the world’s highest glaciers are
melting and receding at a shocking pace.
In Canada, a recent report warned that a stunning 80 percent of mountain
glaciers in Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon will disappear
within just 50 years from now.
Meanwhile, in the realm of the privileged, Miami’s affluent, many of
whom are referring to themselves as “climate refugees,” are also
abandoning their high-dollar oceanfront residences and moving to higher
ground because of impending sea level rise. This is causing
gentrification and suffering of the less privileged who happen to
already be living in the areas where the rich are moving and driving up
the costs of living for everyone.
Last November, the extremely well researched and comprehensive National
Climate Assessment warned that, among many other things, increasingly
warmer temperatures across the US threaten national water security. The
report warned of physical alterations in the nation’s water supplies,
including rising seas driving saltwater further inland underground,
which threatens major water sources for cities such as Miami.
Mountainous regions are seeing more precipitation falling as rain rather
than snow, endangering water supplies that rely heavily on snowpack.
Meanwhile, in lakes, rivers and estuaries, warmer temperatures mean an
increase in algal blooms like those which occurred in Florida last
summer and fall, causing massive fish kills and disruption to life and
tourism.
Before the heat wave that is now scorching Australia, flash flooding in
Sydney caused chaos and two deaths when the heaviest November rainfall
in decades struck the city.
Also on the sea level rise front, Venice made the news again recently
with a tax on day tourists in hopes of raising money to address the
crisis, while local residents and businesses deal with the chaos of a
city struggling to survive against sea rise and constant flooding.
On the other end of the water spectrum, a recent study showed that
“anthropogenic climate forcing has doubled the joint probability of
years that are both warm and dry in the same location” since 1931,
posing a very serious threat to agriculture on a planetary scale. The
study also found that the frequency of simultaneous hot/dry conditions
will keep increasing, and will reach about 20 percent over the next 30
years without dramatic reductions of fossil fuel emissions.
Farmers in the US Midwest are already sounding the alarm about the
“radical” changes they describe as far as the dramatic impacts of
drought and higher temperatures on their farms. They are already
spending more money and time than ever in trying to figure out how to
grow crops amidst ever-changing harsher conditions.
Worryingly, several studies already exist that show the dramatic decline
in nutrients of food due primarily to increasingly warm temperatures,
some by as much as up to 30 percent.
Meanwhile, the oceans continue to warm apace.
Off the coast of Northwestern Alaska, the cod population is now at the
lowest level it has ever been, and state officials have declared
disasters after multiple salmon fisheries have failed. Meanwhile,
further to the north, salmon runs are dramatically increasing due to
warmer temperatures, reflecting the disruptive, chaotic and
unpredictable nature of our warming planet.
On that note, oceans are continuing to heat far faster than previously
expected, and 2018 set yet another heat record for the warming oceans, a
trend which further threatens marine life.
Fire
The Guardian recently reported how several studies have shown how the US
is woefully prepared for extreme weather events to come, including the
dramatic increase of wildfires that have been predicted as climate
disruption continues to advance. Last year, the wildfires in California
alone destroyed thousands of structures and left 85 people dead.
Meanwhile, in January, wildfires scorched many parts of Australia, as
large swaths of that country continued to bake under record-breaking
high temperatures.
Air
Temperature records around the world continue to soar, as do
projections. In the UK, a recent report by the Met Office warned that
summers there could be more than 5 degrees Celsius (5°C) warmer by 2070.
Very disturbing news came from a Japanese satellite that has spotted
signs of methane gas bubbling up from beneath lakes that are forming in
the tundra as Arctic permafrost continues to thaw. It is important to
remember that methane is a far, far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Another troubling bit of news on this topic came in the form of a study
indicating that the upper reaches of the Himalayas, the highest mountain
range on Earth, are already likely to be warmer than previously understood.
Denial and Reality
The Trump administration’s climate change denialism has, as usual, been
off the charts since the last dispatch.
Their response to the National Climate Assessment, an intensely
comprehensive study detailing the impacts of climate change across the
US, including impacts that will cost the US hundreds of billions, if not
trillions of dollars of damage in the coming decades, was to dismiss the
findings of the federal report.
Then, in the wake of that move and unable to bury its own National
Climate Assessment, since it was a government generated report, the
Trump administration and its denialist colleagues launched a full-scale
assault against the science in the report.
After releasing the report on Black Friday afternoon in an attempt to
bury it, Trump simply said of the catastrophic findings, “I don’t
believe it.” Following that, EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and
then-head of the Department of Interior Ryan Zinke, carried forward the
assault on the report, along with other climate change denialists,
calling the report “alarmist” and extreme.
Furthermore, Wheeler went on to say that the Trump administration may
even intervene in the next climate study.
Meanwhile, back in reality, a poll released in late November showed that
nearly two-thirds of Republicans and the majority of all Americans
acknowledge that climate change is real. I understand that reporting
this is akin to congratulating people for acknowledging the reality of
gravity, but it has, indeed, come to this in the United States.
Another poll also showed that seven in 10 Americans believe climate
change is happening, a 10-point increase over four years ago.
This is good, as the impacts of climate change are only going to
intensify, and then some, given the International Energy Agency’s recent
announcement that carbon dioxide emissions from the world’s richer
countries were set to increase through the end of 2018, a trend that
broke a five-year decline.
More bad news came from another report in early December 2018 which
showed that global carbon emissions, not just in richer countries, were
on track to jump to an all-time high through 2018, increasing by 2.7
percent.
Meanwhile, at the time of this writing, atmospheric CO2 had already set
three daily records for January, with an all-time high of 413.86 parts
per million (ppm) on January 22.
The year 2018 saw three daily records set for the entire year, 2017 and
2016 saw two daily records each, and 2015 saw one.
Writing these climate dispatches has become increasingly difficult over
the last five years. Each new report of the melting of glaciers and ice
fields that is accelerating yet again, each new source of methane that
is now speeding the warming of the already overburdened atmosphere, each
new bird species listed as “declining significantly,” each new
atmospheric CO2 level reached, and every round of temperature records
across the planet leads to yet more grief, anguish, rage, anxiety,
sadness — and finally, acceptance.
Yet, doing this research and collating it into this report each month is
akin to watching, very closely, the slow-motion death of someone I love
dearly.
At the same time, this work has brought some of the most magnificent
people I’ve ever known into my life. Hence, the tragic drama of this
Great New Era of Loss we have entered with Earth would not be complete
without, of course, love.
One of these people in my life is author, teacher, healer and elder of
Cherokee descent, Stan Rushworth. His writing and wisdom touched me so
deeply at the exact moment in my life when I needed it more than I even
knew. His presence in my life enabled me to conclude my recently
published book properly.
Stan and I talk pretty regularly. He wrote me shortly after finishing my
book, before it was published, as I had asked for his feedback.
Like me, Stan is burdened by the gravity of loss upon us now, and by us,
I mean the big Us … all life on Earth. But here is what he wrote me, in
part, as a response to this seemingly bottomless and unfathomable loss
(Stan doesn’t use capital letters):
i read the other day that elephants are now being born without
developing tusks, in areas where poachers have been killing them for the
ivory. years ago in northern california, i heard a story about a place
where lots of rattlesnakes lived, and the people there went on a series
of extermination hunts, killing all they could find. the next generation
of rattlers there carried no rattles, a quick adaptation to madness made
by nature, by snake. it makes me wonder if earth has something in mind
for her survival, or if human aberration has the power to change even
nature’s mind. so many creatures and beings are now dying needlessly,
that i wonder what’s going through her. i looked at big seas rolling in
today, a storm coming, and though the surface was smooth and glassy, the
waves huge, the roar was strong and carried far inland. i can open the
door and listen from here.
why so many people have chosen to forget so much is completely
beyond me.
with love and thanks,
stan
Stan reminds me to see the beauty and the mystery, even in the loss. And
in so doing, to also remember to go touch the Earth, in homage and
respect, while so much continues to live today.
It is clear that runaway climate disruption is upon us, and I wonder if
humans’ ability to adapt to this increasingly harsh new world will be as
dramatic as that of the elephants and the rattlesnakes when faced with
their annihilation.