Our Biosphere Problem

biosphere

Over the next 50/150 years our Biosphere will undergo drastic temperature change. That change may bring about our extinction. Unlike past extinctions, this one will not be brought on by a random meteorite/asteroid or natural planetary happening. It will be self-inflicted by Homo sapiens.

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Over the next 50/150 years our Biosphere will undergo drastic temperature change. That change may bring about our extinction. Unlike past extinctions, this one will not be brought on by a random meteorite/asteroid or natural planetary happening. It will be self-inflicted by Homo sapiens. How could this be happening? The evidence is clear. As we spread throughout the planet, we destroyed all life and nonlife in our path. Then from the Industrial Revolution onward, without discretion we pillaged the planet’s natural resources, and in doing so burning enormous amounts of coal, oil and gas. At the same time deforestation limited the amount of CO2 being absorbed back. The result: carbon dioxide levels in the biosphere are now beyond what they were millions of years ago, well before our evolutionary beginnings. Rising global temperatures have been the result. And they will continue to rise as the scenario gets worse. Far more damaging than CO2, Methane (CH4) is now beginning to bubble in the warming Arctic. It will increase global warming exponentially. We were warned in 2012 by the World Bank that with CH4, a deadly Permian Triassic Feedback Loop could occur. This raises serious epistemological questions: Why are so many of us so blinded to all of this reality? Could it be that we have a self-destructive suicidal neurotic/psychotic cranial imperfection? And if that is the reason, how deeply implanted is it in our DNA eukaryotic chromosomic brains? Even more disturbing is this question: Clearly our aggression and disregard for Nature was an evolutionary strength from the beginning of our hominid development. Why is it now a weakness? Now to the bigger question: If a weakness, do we psychologically neurologically have the ability to overcome it; to alter what had once been our strength and replace it with a new form of non aggressive synchronous behavior that establishes for Homo sapiens coexistent unity in inter active equilibrium with all life and nonlife on the planet? And then the big question: If not, what then?

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The term “Biosphere” defines the relatively thin layer of the planet’s air and water that can support life. It envelops the planet, extending down to the deepest layers of soils and ocean trenches and up to the highest oxygenated level. Metaphorically speaking, if you took a soccer ball and painted it with a thick coat of varnish, the depth of that coat would be in the same proportion to the ball as is the biosphere depth to Planet Earth.

For humans the habitable fraction begins at sea level and extends upward a few thousand feet above sea level. Humans are born and live out their lives in their narrow fraction. Other forms of life also exist in the biosphere from top to bottom; squirrels, bears, cockroaches, sharks, Antarctic sea spiders, Plankton, and the list goes on.

Predecessors to cellular life, Prokaryotic bonds, began to form in the Biosphere several billion years ago. Predecessors to Homo sapiens began to form four million years ago. (Laetoli footprints proved that hominids walked upright as far back as 3.6 million years) We in our present form as measured by increased brain cage size began our journey about four hundred thousand years ago.

We know that all “life” forms are in a sense at one with the biosphere. Each lives in a state of complete biological niche interdependency. We are no different. We live in a state of total dependency on our niche.

Also we are the same as all other life in our need to adjust as change occurs in our niche. Adjustment generally occurs by way of adaptation to changes in the surrounding environment. It normally takes place in multiples of many hundreds or thousands or even millions of years. Adjustment can however come quickly. Darwin’s Galapagos bird beaks adapted relatively quickly as the nut shells became harder. (Discovered by meticulous 20 year study beginning in in 1970) We also know that adaptability is not always possible. Then a species will die out.

We also know that biosphere change can come quickly. The Permian Triassic mass extinction 252 million years ago and the Cretaceous extinction 66 million years ago are two examples of rapid biosphere change. The Cretaceous came from a meteorite and resulted in low biosphere temperatures and the Permian Triassic came from high temperatures. Both were accompanied by atmospheric change so sudden and temperature extremes so sudden as to extinguish in a relatively short period of time a very large percentage of planetary life. When such rapid biosphere change does occur, those species that inhabit precisely bounded biological niches are the first to be affected. They die out quickly. Then others follow.

This brings us to the question of our age. Are we now facing the possibility of another sudden biosphere change? (This one of our own making) And if we are, why are we not concerned? There is ample evidence at hand that we are about to face a change. For one, there is a continuing die out of other planetary life. Much of that die out has been of our own doing. It began early on with our population expansion. As we spread throughout the planet, we destroyed every other form of life in our path. That die out is now accelerating on land and in the oceans.

Another noticeable indicator that could affect our continued existence is more recent. It is seen in the biosphere change coming from the excessive amounts of coal, oil and gas burned since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. As a result, enormous amounts of CO2 have been added to the earth’s biosphere. At the same time deforestation is limiting the amount of CO2 being absorbed back. Rising global temperatures are the result.

This has been well known in the scientific community for some time. Back in 2012, the World Bank warned that resultant high temperatures from CO2 could trigger what is called a Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop in the Arctic. Scientists there are now telling us that this has already begun. Recent temperatures have been the highest in recorded history.

So here is the question. Are we about to face a test of our biosphere vulnerability?

 

Sources

Craig Dilworth

Uppsala University, Sweden

Craig Dilworth, Too Smart For Our Own Good. The Ecological Predicament of Humankind. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

 

“Due to the power/interest structures of global capitalism and the juggernaut-like momentum of the global economy, it is most unlikely that any of the radical changes to society and the economy proposed by environmentalists‑especially changes in philosophies and worldviews, will be adopted in time. Consequently human civilization‑primarily Western techno-industrial urban society, will self-destruct, producing massive environmental damage, social chaos and mega death. We are entering a new age, with great dieback. The only question that remains is whether we will survive this dark age, and if so, how much longer.”

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Earth Will Survive. We May Not.

By Adam Frank

Dr. Frank is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester

 

“What Earth’s history does make clear, however, is that if we don’t take the right kind of action soon the biosphere will simply move on without us, creating new versions of itself in the changing climate we’re generating now. So we must be honest. The problem is not saving the Earth or life writ large, but saving our cherished civilization. From that perspective the nature of our choices changes significantly.”

 

CLICK HERE FOR ADAM FRANK LINK

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Seas Surge as Pace of Antarctica Ice Loss Triples in 5 Yrs: 3 Trillion Tons Melted

AFP 06/14/2018

“Paris (AFP) – Antarctica has lost a staggering three trillion tonnes of ice since 1992, according to a landmark study published Wednesday that suggests the frozen continent could redraw Earth’s coastlines if global warming continues unchecked. Two-fifths of that ice loss occurred in the last five years, a three-fold increase in the pace at which Antarctica is shedding its kilometres thick casing, a consortium of 84 scientists reported in the journal Nature.”

CLICK HERE FOR JUAN COLE LINK

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Antarctica Is Melting More Than Twice as Fast as in 2012

By KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS

 

“The continent’s rate of ice loss is speeding up, which is contributing even more to rising sea levels.”

 

CLICK HERE FOR KRNDRA PIERRE-LOUIS LINK

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Arctic methane emissions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“In 2008 the United States Department of Energy National Laboratory system[14] identified potential clathrate destabilization in the Arctic as one of the most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change, which have been singled out for priority research. The US Climate Change Science Program released a report in late December 2008 estimating the gravity of the risk of clathrate destabilization, alongside three other credible abrupt climate change scenarios”

CLICK HERE FOR WIKIPEDIA LINK

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Pope Tells Oil Executives to Act on Climate: ‘There Is No Time to Lose, June 9, 2018, NY Times

 

Click Below For Link

Pope Article NY Times

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David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics.

He has written three books. A fourth is near completion. It is about a necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival.

See:   http://www.inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html

 

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