While climate change is arguably an existential threat to Humanity, it's timeline is usually refernced in decades if not centuries. Notice I wrote decades, because it seems that every so often some article comes out proclaiming how climate scientists failed to incorporate this or that data in their models, making their predicted degradation of the only environment upon which Mankind can currently exist that much more emminent. And, while I do have faith in Elon, I don't want to move to Mars. I don't want to live in an environment that threatens to kill me every time I stepp outside and I don't want to grow potatoes with Matt Damon for the rest of my life... No offense to the Martian, but that just doesn't sound like the best use of my time.
"So, what environmental catastrophe do you fear these days?" You may be wondering at this point and to you I say what environmental catastrophe don't you fear. From the sixth mass extinction I believe Humanity is already causing or has already caused to the seventh mass extinction we will cause, the one that closes to book on Humanity itself. I don't know, but perhaps our demise is for the best. We are afterall making this planet a little less hospitable to more of its inhabitants day by day. I mean, I would be pissed if I created this place, left for a few million years and came back to find out mankind had killed off so many of my other works. It sounds just like one of those B-movies where the parents return from vacation to find their house trashed and a bunch of drunk kids passed out and strewn about the floor. You know, the ones where there was alway one half-naked girl who runs out of the house covering her exposed chest,apologizing as she exits. I wonder what that creator would say as he or she or it floated around the globe, wide-eyed and shocked by the destruction we have wrought.
And, yes, I imagine that we are not the only species to ever destroy their own habitate, but will that really matter to subsequent generations that have to fight tooth and nail just to survive our legacy?
Maybe we should all just step back and consider what we're doing. Maybe we should think about the saying that warns us against crapping where we eat... because... we will eventually be eating crap... in case you didn't know where I was going with those words of wisdom. Anyway, let's dive into current environmental disasters that suggest to me why climate change deniers are full of it.
First, a little context Americans think that, just because our streets aren't literally littered with garbage, the impact of our garbage has been effectively mitigated. While this has been true for a long time when compared against the average American's lifespan, it's not necessarily so on larger timeframes. For instance, the age of America as a country far exceeds the amount of time we've had scheduled garbage pick up. Europe's history stretches out even further than America's and when compared to the age of the Universe, garbage day wouldn't even be visible to the naked eye on any time scale. But, we (Americans) have been shipping some of our refuse to other countries and by some I means tons of it. For quite a while now, these poorer countries have been taking it and turning parts of their homelands into landfills. So, for less than a blink of an eye (time-wise) we have dumped so much garbage on so many other nations that they are starting to reject our donations and the pittance that accompanied it. I guess when your trash doesn't degrade or break down into somethong that the environment can digest, you can only dump it on other people's homes for so long.
Think about that... When the Earth can't digest your shit, you're feeding it some pretty toxic shit. When the Sun can't melt your garbage and the oceans can't dissolve it, how could it be considered something we should, not only continue to create and amass, but increase in volume.
When, in every ocean, you have islands of garbage floating around that are as large as some states in America, you have a problem. What happens when the Sun can only break down the plastics that end up in the Sea to a certain degree? What happens when that plastic ends up looking like delectable fish eggs to sea-going birds and other fish? You end up with a bunch of birds and fish that starve to death with full bellies... Stupid birds and fish. Imagine eating something just because it looks delicious. Imagine trying to nourish yourself on fish that have tried to nourish themselves on plastic. Bon appetit.
While many of you may not care about those silly birds, you may be concerned about the stupid fish who also eat the yummy-looking plastic eggs or you may find it disconcerting that the ocean's ecosystem is dying due to plastics and other pollutants killing the great... I mean the moderately great... I mean the fairly significant... Oh wait, the wl"We might be able to live without it" barrier reef.
So, sea food is not your thing, let's consider the monoculture that America is creating by making everything out of corn. When done correctly, an agricultural system that fosters a monoculture can utterly devastate your ability to grow food. When everything is made out of Fructose Corn Syrup, corn becomes a very profitable commodity that any farmer worth his Capitalist salt will grow over and over again until the soil has lost its diversity of nutrients required to grow anything at all.
Corn is everywhere... That's why you find it in your poop even when you haven't eaten corn for months. And, I know what you meatatarians are thinking... "I don't like vegetables anyway." The only problem with that short-sighted thinking is that we feed corn to the cows and chickens you consume with little to no knowledge as to how they are raised and slaughtered. For some of the new generation, I'm talking about the means with which those plastic-wrapped, styrofoam plated chucks of boneless flesh get to the grocery stores. Currently, there are no replicators, or 3D meat printers or chicken leg trees. In these modern times, beef is cut from cows raised in their own feces, chicken legs and breasts are sawed off roided up coop cabbages (chickens grown so fast they can't even stand... I guess this makes them easier to catch. Image being descended from raptor dinosaurs and spending your days waiting to be plucked from the ground and then quartered for consumption... Good thing they're so oblivious? Unlike us Humans who have never really stopped going to war and usually don't know why.
Now, I know we haven't covered all aspects of how we are ruining the only planet that allows us to exist, but it's a good start. We need this planet more than it needs us but we act as if the inverse is true. No need to worry however, we will pay the price when Earth decides Humanity is unsustainable.
In the next installment, I will continue with the ways in which we are poisoning the only water in the closed system on the third planet from the Sun. If you're too stupid to realize the harm that lead-poisoned water causes, you've probably been to Flint Michigan or one of the other myriad of municipalities providing tainted dihydrogen monoxide to it's citizens.
Check back, because I will be providing reference links to this post when I get my laptop fixed.
The Regaining American Democracy (RAD) dictionary word or phrase of the day is;
Whizdumb - AKA Dunning-Kruger effect. When stupid people "know" they're smart
