Memoirs of a Meltdown
“It would be naive, at this point in history, to assume that we
are on the verge of (or approaching) another major extinction
event…when in fact we are already there“.
Item One: Only 2.5% of the Earth’s water is fresh (potable, drinkable)…70% of that is locked away in the Antarctic ice fields. That brings the planet’s remaining fresh water reserves down to less than 1% and a vast, vast majority of that – in the form of cisterns, aquifers, remote lakes, and glaciers – is inaccessible to humans. That doesn’t leave us (and the rest of the biosphere) with much fresh water upon which to exist for the rest of this century. Humans currently consume roughly 4,000,000,000,000,000 litres of fresh potable water annually… that’s 4 quintillions or 4 million billions. Most of that (70%) is used up by the agriculture, livestock and golfing industries…. the remaining 30% (of the 4,000,000,000,000,000 litres) is spread out over a wide variety of industrial and domestic usages, which when combined with agriculture, livestock (and golfing), constitute a segment of that unique phenomenon commonly referred to as ‘human activity’.
Item Two: The Earth’s land surface today has approximately 3.1 trillion trees growing on it. (This figure was arrived at by close inspection of 275,000 satellite images). The number of trees covering the Earth during the early stages of the agricultural revolution has been pegged at roughly 5.6 trillion which indicates a decrease of 2.5 trillion trees, or 45%, over the past 7 or 8 millennia. Human activity, combined with forest fires, consumes about 15 billion trees per anum and through replanting and natural regeneration 5 billion trees are added back into the system during that same time frame. This leaves an annual over-all deficit of 10 billion trees world-wide. If that deficit were to remain stable over the next few centuries, the Earth would mathematically run out of trees in 300 years. That’s if things remain ‘stable’. Unfortunately, there are many destabilizing factors at play today which all point to an accelerated rate of depletion for the Earth’s remaining forests. These factors include, (1) an increase in the global human population of 3-4 billion by the end of the century (UN figures) which will further translate into an increased demand for crop lands and grazing pastures for both humans and their livestock, (2) climate change, which means more severe droughts and an acute increase of wild-fire activity, (3) the imminent crisis re dwindling global fresh water reserves, (4) wars and other forms of collateral damage.
Item Three: There is a new kind of fishing vessel plying the international waters of the planet. It would be inaccurate to refer to these crafts as ‘boats’….they are more the size of large whaling ships or medium sized ocean liners. The ships are very powerful and their main function is to tow large drag-nets across the ocean floor and vacuum in whatever aquatic life forms are in their path. Simple enough concept right? The problem is that not only are the ships themselves ‘titanic’ in size but the drag-nets as well…in fact, seven Boeing 747s could fit comfortably side-by-side and on top of one another within the gaping mouth of a single drag-net. You have to use your imagination on this one folks… a vessel the size of an ocean liner, towing a net approximately the dimension of two football fields, bull-dozing its way along a wide swath of delicate ocean floor whose Eco-system has taken hundreds of millions of years to evolve. It boggles the mind. The drag-nets not only destroy the natural habitat of the ocean floor but also inhale tons and tons of ‘by-catch’ or ‘by-kill’ (i.e., myriad aquatic life forms – whales, dolphins, sharks, octopi – that are deemed unsuitable for market-demands and therefore cast back into the sea like useless and lifeless garbage).
Item Four: A single well that employs hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’ to extract natural gas uses 160,000 barrels of fresh, potable water, which is then laced with poisonous chemical additives and other carcinogens. After the well is exhausted the poisonous water, or ‘blow-back’, is extracted and transported by tanker-trucks to a large containment well (a natural cavity deep underground) where it is dumped and then pretty-much forgotten about.
Item Five: Even Canada, which up until recently was widely renowned for its natural beauty, its mighty and bountiful river systems and its pristine northern lakes, is not immune to the global fresh water crisis. Since 1970 scientists have been monitoring the ‘flow rates’ of the four major rivers which flow east out of the Rocky Mountains – the North Saskatchewan, South Saskatchewan, the Athabasca and the Bow Rivers – and have discovered that the volume of water carried by these once-mighty rivers has decreased by a whopping 25-50%… in only 45 years. These life-giving arteries are the main source of ground water for the vast provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba, an area twice the size of western Europe. There is no doubt that the cause of this impending disaster is climate change…the disappearing glaciers and the loss of the snow-pack in the Rockies. (And don’t get me started on the ‘Great Lakes’).
Item Six: According to the folks at Smithsonian Inc and WWF, the Earth has lost, on average, 50% of its wildlife since 1970 (that’s volume not species) due mainly to the agriculture/livestock industries and the accelerated expansion of human societies. The oceans have been hit the hardest with the disappearance of 70% of aquatic organisms due to over-fishing, pollution and abrupt temperature changes in ocean currents.
Item Seven: North Americans spend 20 billion dollars annually on medical expenses… for their pets.
(Note: This document is a work in progress…more items will be added)