Indicators of Ecological Collapse
Climate Destabilization
- Climate change is affecting us now.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report that says the effects of climate change are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans. Observed impacts of climate change have already affected agriculture, human health, ecosystems on land and in the oceans, water supplies, and some people’s livelihoods.35
- Climate change will dramatically reduce access to fresh water.
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Climate change over the 21st century is projected to reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions, intensifying competition for water among sectors. In presently dry regions, drought frequency will likely increase by the end of the 21st century. Climate change is projected to reduce raw water quality and pose risks to drinking water quality even with conventional treatment, due to interacting factors: increased temperature; increased sediment, nutrient, and pollutant loadings from heavy rainfall; increased concentration of pollutants during droughts; and disruption of treatment facilities during floods.
The more warming that occurs in the 21st century, the more people will experience water scarcity and the more people will be affected by major river floods.36
- Coastal and low-lying areas will suffer from rising sea levels.
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Due to sea-level rise projected throughout the 21st century and beyond , coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse impacts such as submergence, coastal flooding, and coastal erosion.36
- Climate change may reduce crop production.
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For the major crops (wheat, rice, and maize) in tropical and temperate regions, climate change without adaptation is projected to negatively impact production for local temperature increases of 2°C or more above late - 20th - century levels.36
- Global temperatures are increasing dramatically.
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According to the EPA, the Earth’s average surface temperature has increased by about 1.40 F in the last 100 years.1 Climate models predict that the average temperature of the Earth could increase up to 11°F by the year 2100.33
For some perspective, the last ice age occurred at 11°F less than the current global temperature.
- Global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise.
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Global annual carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have risen from ~2,000 teragrams (2 million metric tons) in 1900 to ~32,000 teragrams (32 billion metric tons) in 2010.1
Human activity (especially in industrial economies) releases roughly 7.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere. That’s 20 million tons of carbon dioxide per day, 843,000 tons per hour, 14,000 tons per minute, and 230 tons per second.32
- Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise.
-
Levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have increased to 385 parts-per-million by volume (ppm)2, a 100-ppm increase since pre-industrial times.3 It rises by more than 2ppm each year.5 “The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5° to 10° F higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland.”30
A 2008 conference of climate experts reported carbon levels are highly unlikely to be restricted to 650 ppm, or perhaps even 1000 ppm. Such levels would translate to an increase of roughly 11°F (6° C), enough to “bring extreme food and water shortages in vulnerable countries and cause floods that would displace hundreds of millions of people.” Other experts agree “we’re at the very top end of the worst case [emissions] scenario.” Carbon levels of 350 ppm or lower are required to “preserve a planet similar to that on which...life on Earth is adapted.”5
“It is also important to note that even reducing emissions 80 percent by 2050 will not eliminate all serious risks and damages.”6
- Methane is escaping from the melting permafrost.
-
Gaseous methane has recently begun entering the atmosphere after escaping from melting permafrost in many Arctic regions. Methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4°C rise in average temperatures over recent decades.4
The Oceans
The oceans help sustain our atmosphere and provide a large portion of the world’s oxygen. When the healthy functioning of these systems becomes threatened, so does the very health of the biosphere.Coral reefs are dying.On the whole, coral reefs are dying. One quarter of the world's reefs have already been lost, and those remaining are under stress from pollution, sedimentation, destructive fishing practices and global climate change. Reefs have existed on Earth for millions of years, but up to 70% of the world's shallow reefs could be gone in the next few decades.25
Reefs harbor at least one quarter of all marine life. Besides giving habitat to creatures with their own inherent right to live, reefs comprise about 10% of the world's fisheries, with much of the catch feeding protein-starved people in underdeveloped countries. Because they support so much biodiversity, reefs, like tropical rain forests, offer excellent prospects for new medicines and natural compounds that can benefit humanity. Finally, reefs provide a natural seawall that protects many coastal populations from tides, storm surges and hurricanes.
Oceanic dead zones found all over the world are increasing at alarming rates.Oceanic oxygen-deprived "dead zones" have been increasing since the 1970s and now number nearly 150, threatening fisheries as well as humans who depend on fish. These "dead zones" are caused by excess nitrogen from farm fertilizers, sewage, and emissions from vehicles and factories. In what experts call a “nitrogen cascade,” the contaminants flow untreated into oceans and trigger the proliferation of plankton, which in turn depletes oxygen in the water. While fish might flee this suffocation, slow moving, bottom-dwelling creatures like clams, lobsters and oysters are less able to escape.26Corporations dump horrifying amounts of toxins into the oceans.Corporations “dump on equivalent, at the smallest, 5,000,000 gallons per day of toxins...everything from benzene, acrylic nitrile, mercury, copper, you name it, they got it.”27
In 1997, the US Academy of Sciences estimated 6.4 million tons of annual global input of marine litter into the oceans.28
Phytoplankton populations are collapsing.
Research published in the journal Nature reveals there has been a 40% decline in ocean phytoplankton populations since 1950. These creatures are the foundation of the marine food web, produce as much as half the world's oxygen, and absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide.3
The oceans are acidifying.Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago, when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.34
Mass Extinction
One-half of all species are threatened with extinction, primarily by industrial activity.If nothing is done, one-half of all species will be gone by the end of the century14, including 1 in 4 mammal species, 1 in 8 bird species8, and 1 in 3 amphibian species. Just two years ago, only 1 in 4 mammal species were threatened with extinction.9
"The current extinction event is due to human activity, paving the planet, creating pollution, many of the things that we are doing today." The Earth might well lose half of its species in our lifetime.7
More than 100 species go extinct every day.10
The rate of extinction is increasing.For the past 300 million years, excluding this century, approximately one species went extinct every four years. Today, scientists see one species going extinct every 15 minutes.11
Species extinction has increased to rates of 10 to 100 times greater than that of 30 years ago.12 Furthermore, current species extinction rates are thought by some experts to be grossly underestimated due to mathematical misdiagnosis.13
Deforestation
Forests are critical parts of many healthy ecosystems, as they prevent soil erosion and support healthy topsoil. Trees also act as huge carbon sinks, sequestering as much as 10% of the annual carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.18The planet has lost 80% of its forest cover to deforestation.The planet has already lost 80% of its forest cover to deforestation, and at the alarming rate at which trees are being cut, it won’t take much time for that figure to reach the 100% mark. The West African region, which boasted of lush green tropical forests in the 19th century, has been stripped of 90% of its forest cover over the last century. The same trend of deforestation continues in the two remaining rainforest biomes in South America and Asia respectively.37 The U.S. has lost 95% of its old growth forests.29
70 countries in the world no longer have any intact or original forests.15
Deforestation continues at incredibly unsustainable levels.More than 72 acres of rainforest are destroyed every minute15, approximately enough to cover the entire state of Florida each year.
Between 8 and 16 billion trees are cut down every year. That averages to 22-44 million trees per day, 916,000 trees cut down per hour, 15,000 trees cut down per minute, 250 trees cut down per second.31
Formerly healthy land becomes desert at frightening rates
Every hour, more than 500 acres of land become desert. More than 4.8 billion acres worldwide are degraded. Loss of arable lands is estimated at 30 to 35 times the historical rate,38 which was already dramatically higher than the natural rate.
Topsoil is lost far faster than it can be recreated.More than 75% of the topsoil that existed worldwide when Europeans first colonized North America is now gone. Over 300 tons of topsoil are lost worldwide every minute. It takes an average of 400 years for a forest to create enough topsoil able to sustain crops.17
Agriculture is the most important cause of deforestation and soil loss.Subsistence farming accounts for 46% of world deforestation, commercial agriculture for 32%, and logging for 14%.37Cultivation of annual crops leads to massive soil loss.
Toxification
Industrial processes are contaminating the bodies of nearly every individual in this culture, as well as many others. Although the levels of toxins found in the body are often deemed as acceptable, their presence is a clear sign of the unhealthy nature of this culture's practices. We should not be surprised by the enormous increase in cancer rates in the United Sates when nearly every baby is receiving carcinogens from their mother's breast milk.Dioxin is found in almost every mother's breast milk.A 1987 study showed nearly every mother has dioxin, a known carcinogen, in her breast milk. The level of the most toxic form of dioxin in breast milk was enough to cause cancer eventually in 27 out of every million children who nurse for a year.19 Samples from mothers also show contaminants of over 350 chemicals from substances such as perfumes, suntan lotion, and pesticides.20
The percentage of girls under 8 years old with swollen breasts or pubic hair has gone from 1% to over 6% in just the last 8 years.21
Male sperm counts have dropped more than 30% in the past 60 years.22
More than a dozen highly toxic chemicals are present in our environment in large quantities.Industrial technology has polluted our environment with these, and more:23
- PCBs (Poly-chlorinated biphenyls), which are carcinogens
- Dioxins, which are carcinogens
- Furans, which are carcinogens
- Aldrin, which is both a carcinogen and mutagen
- Dieldrin, which is a carcinogen and linked to Parkinson’s disease
- DDT, which is a carcinogen and xenoestrogen (artificial estrogen)
- Endrin, which is toxic and adversely affects the nervous system
- Chlordane, which damages the nervous system, digestive system, and liver, as well as being highly toxic
- Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), which is a carcinogen
- Mirex, which is a carcinogen
- Toxaphene, which harms the lungs, kidneys, and nervous system
- Heptachlor, which harms the liver and decreases fertility
Sources
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Basic Information.” http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html
- James Hansen et. al. “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2008.
- W. L. Hare. State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World. “A Safe Landing for the Climate”. The Worldwatch Institute. 14.
- 4 Steve Conner. The Independent. “Exclusive: The methane time bomb.” http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html
- David Adam. The Guardian. “Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-copenhagen-global-warming-targets-climate-change
- W. L. Hare. State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World. “A Safe Landing for the Climate”. The Worldwatch Institute. 13; M. Parry et al. “Squaring Up to Reality”. Nature Reports Climate Change.2008.
- “Study: World is Undergoing Mass Extinction.” United Press International.http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/10/21/Study_World_is_undergoing_mass_extinction/UPI-86681224612180/
- “Half of mammals ‘in decline’, says extinction Red List.” Agence France Presse. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hpftiFBrckhaI_mtTA15UzqTfubg
- International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2007 Conference
- “Species Extinction.” Rainforest Web http://rainforestweb.org/Rainforest_Information/Species_Extinction/
- Richard Leakey, expert on paleoanthropology
- Paul Roberts. The End of Food. Houghton Mifflin.
- “Species Extinction Threat Underestimated Due To Math Glitch.” Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080702132238.htm
- Edward Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology at Harvard University
- Tzeporah Berman. The 11th Hour. Warner Independent Films.
- Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (study funded by World Bank and United Nations)
- Thom Hartmann. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Three Rivers Press.
- “Executive Summary.” Environmental Protection Agency. http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads06/06ES.pdf
- Philip Shabecoff. “Dioxin in Breast Milk is Evaluated in Private Study.” The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9B0DE3DB133AF93BA25751C1A961948260
- “Breast milk studied for toxins.” BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/391514.stm
- Gldsmith, Zac. “Chemical-Induced Puberty.” Ecologist, January 2004, 4.
- Shiva Dindyal. “The sperm count has been decreasing steadily for many years in Western industrialised counties.” http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/iju/vol2n1/sperm.xml#r2
- “The Dirty Dozen.” United Nations Industrial Development Organization. http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=o29428
- “Zooplankton Populations Plunge 70 Percent in Four Decades; Alarming Marine Biologists.” Natural News. http://www.naturalnews.com/024798.html
- “The death of coral reefs.” San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/07/20/ED93305.DTL
- “150 'dead zones' counted in oceans.” MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4624359/
- Diane Wilson. The 11th Hour. Warner Independent Films.
- United Nations Environmental Program
- "Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests." By Derrick Jensen and George Draffan. 2003.
- "Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years." By Aradhna K. Tripati, Christopher D. Roberts, and Robert A. Eagle. Science 4 December 2009: Vol. 326. no. 958, pp. 1394 - 1397 DOI: 10.1126/science.1178296. Abstract available here:http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/18/science-co2-levels-havent-been-this-high-for-15-million-years-when-it-was-5%C2%B0-to-10%C2%B0f-warmer-and-seas-were-75-to-120-feet-higher-we-have-shown-that-this-dramatic-rise-in-sea-level-i/
- "Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005." United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/A0400E/A0400E00.pdf
- "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" By David Archer. 3rd Edition, 2008 (with addendum)
- "World on course for catastrophic 6° rise, reveal scientists." The Independent, November 2009. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for-catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html
- "Nature Stunner: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton” July 29, 2010. http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/29/nature-decline-ocean-phytoplankton-global-warming-boris-worm/
- IPCC PRESS RELEASE: IPCC Report: A changing climate creates pervasive risks but opportunities exist for effective responses. 31 March 2014. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/pr_wg2/140330_pr_wgII_spm_en.pdf
- IPCC SUMMARY FOR POLICYMAKERS: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf
- World Preservation Foundation: Deforestation Statistics. June 2010. http://www.worldpreservationfoundation.org/blog/news/deforestation-statistics/#.U0nQJ1cVCok
- United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification: "Desertification, Land Degradation, & Drought"
Indicators of Cultural Crisis
Government Corruption
- The US government is mostly composed of the 1%.
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More than half the members of the House and Senate are millionaires. The median net worth for lawmakers in the House and Senate was $1,008,767 — up 4.4%, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which examines the influence of money on politics in Washington.16
At least 268 of the 534 current members of Congress had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012. The rise in wealth takes place at the same time the median family income has been relatively flat or has declined. The growing divergence may help explain why Congress, beyond the politics involved, would allow unemployment benefits to expire.
Meanwhile, 1% of Americans and 0.001% of people worldwide are millionaires. Some lawmakers profited from investments in companies that have received federal bailouts; dozens are invested in Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.1
- Corporations spend billions on lobbying the US government.
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In each of the years from 2008 to 2013, corporations spent nearly three billion dollars lobbying members of Congress and federal agencies in the United States. There are over 12,000 lobbyists in Washington DC.2
- US government and corporations are closely interrelated.
-
US government officials often leave their posts and go to work for the corporations which they regulated or oversaw in their official duties. This is called a “revolving door,” and is one of the primary ways that power circulates between the government and corporations.4
Human Rights
- Men sexually assault women at horrifying rates.
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Every year in the US, more than 230,000 sexual assaults are committed. At least 1 out of 6 American women have suffered rape or attempted rape, and 1 out of 3 women worldwide18. Native American women are the most likely targets of sexual violence. 44% of sexual assaults and rapes target children under the age of 18. Almost 2/3 of all sexual assaults are perpetrated by a non-stranger.
Sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes – 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to police. Only 3% of rapists ever spend a day in jail.6 Sexual assault is often considered "normal" male behavior within civilization.22
- Slavery is rampant today.
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Conservative estimates show 21-30 million people live in slavery in the modern world. That means there are more slaves today than ever before (even at the height of the Atlantic slave trade). Government corruption around the world allows slavery to go unpunished, even though it is illegal everywhere. In this way millions have become vulnerable to slave holders and human traffickers looking to profit through the theft of people’s lives. Slaves are also cheaper than ever before – the average slave in 1850 cost the equivalent of $40,000 – today an average slave costs only $90. Slaves are most often forced to work in agriculture, mining, and prostitution – three of the most demeaning and unhealthy jobs on the planet.7
Slavery exists in nearly every country in the world, and the US and Europe are not immune. Research conducted by Free the Slaves with the University of California, Berkeley found documented cases of slavery and human trafficking in more than 90 cities across the United States.
- Hate crimes in the US are rampant.
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There were more than 7,700 incidences of hate crimes in the US in 2009. Note that the legal definition of hate crimes does not include sexual violence or sexual abuse of women. Nearly 50% of the crimes were based in race bias. Nearly 20% were motivated by bias against sexual orientation.13
- Wealth and resources are distributed unequally.
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17% of the human population consumes 80% of the materials and energy, leaving almost 5 billion people to live on the remaining 20%. 1.2 billion (20%) of the world population lives on less that $1/day, another 1.8 billion (30%) lives on less than $2/day, 800 million go to bed hungry every day, and 30,000 - 60,000 die each day from hunger alone. The story is the same for other necessities like water, housing, education etc. On the flip side, we have increasing accumulation of wealth and power, where the world's 500 or so billionaires have assets of 1.9 trillion dollars, a sum greater than the income of the poorest 170 countries in the world. 12% of the human population consumes 85% of the fresh water.10
The richest 1% of humans hold owned 40% of the world’s household wealth- more wealth than the poorest 95%. The richest 0.5% alone hold more than a third of global wealth. Billionaires (just over 1000 of them) control more wealth than 1,500,000,000 of the poorest people in the world combined.11
1.2 billion people lack access to clean water, and 2.4 billion live without decent sanitation. 12 million people die each year from lack of water, including 3 million children from waterborne disease.
More than 113 million children in the developing world are without access to basic education; 60 percent of them are girls.
- US police regularly misconduct themselves.
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In 2010 there were almost 5,000 reported incidents of police misconduct in the US. Excessive force was the most commonly reported incident; nearly 25% of all reported misconduct. Sexual misconduct accounted for nearly 10%, followed by fraud and theft at 7%, and false arrest at nearly 7%.12
Militarization
Global military expenditures were more than $1.7 trillion in 2013.23
- Civilization is in a constant state of warfare.
-
Over the last 6500 years, more than 14,500 major wars have resulted in the death of almost 4 billion people. Since WWII, there have been about 30 armed conflicts per year on average, in which 90% of the casualties have been civilians.9
- Nuclear weapons threaten all life on the planet.
-
There are over 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today.
The US alone has spent more than $3.5 trillion on nuclear weapons programs since 1940. Each weapon is, on average, many times more powerful than the warheads detonated above Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US in WWII. This arsenal is capable of completely destroying the biosphere many times over.8
This year the US will spend roughly $57 billion on programs for nuclear weapons – weapons that must never be used, are militarily purposeless, and threaten our very survival every moment of their existence. These illegal, immoral weapons are an example of the disconnect between rhetoric and reality. The use, threat of use, and even the possession of these weapons was declared virtually entirely illegal by the International Court of Justice in 1996. The US and P5 nuclear states are in breach of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that commits us to good faith efforts to work toward nuclear disarmament.19
A report by the International Physicians for Social Responsibility on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war demonstrated 2 billion people are at risk of death from catastrophic climate change following a limited nuclear exchange using less than ½ of 1 percent of the global nuclear arsenals.
- The US military enforces a global presence.
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The US military maintains a network of over 1000 military bases and outposts worldwide.5 The Pentagon estimates it spends $22.1 billion annually to maintain its bases and troops. However the actual costs, even on conservative estimates, is about $170 billion annually. The totals could be even higher; estimates of maintaining US bases abroad since the start of the “war on terror” in 2001 range from $1.8-$2.1 trillion.17
Mental and Social Health
- Mental disorders are common in the US and internationally.
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An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans 18 and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year20, and more than 22% of those cases are severe and debilitating.14This figure translates to 57.7 million people. Nearly half of all 13-18 year olds in the US suffer from mental illnesses – and more than 20% of those illnesses are severe and debilitating.
Nearly half of all US adults use prescription drugs. Nearly 22% used 3 or more prescription drugs in the past month, and over 1 in 10 used 5 or more.. The most commonly prescribed drugs are analgesics (pain medications), antihyperlipidemic agents, and antidepressants.15
- Drug abuse is rampant.
-
Between 149-271 million people worldwide used an illicit drug at least once in 2009; which equals 1 in 20 people aged 15 to 64 who have used an illegal drug. In North America, nearly 11% of the population aged 15 to 64 used cannabis in 2009. Between 14-56 million people aged 15- 64 worldwide used amphetamine-type stimulants, such as speed and crystal meth. Cocaine use was highest in North America in 2009, and it had 14 million to 21 million users worldwide. Opioid use, including heroin, had an estimated 12 million to 21 million users globally. The highest rates of use were in the Near and Middle East, where up to 1.4% of the population aged 15-64 had tried the drug at least once in 2009. There are between 11 million and 21 million people who inject drugs worldwide.
Much of the drug abuse around the world can be found in the wealthiest and most developed countries, possibly because residents have more access to drugs, or have the means to buy drugs, or maybe because people in these countries are of the mindset that they deserve what makes them feel the best. "[T]he extent of illicit drug use and abuse in developed countries like the United States has reached epidemic proportions.”21
References
- Lovley, Erika. “Report: 237 millionaires in Congress.” Politico, 11/6/09. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29235.html
- Lobbying Database. Accessed 5/5/2011. Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php
- Revolving Door. Accessed 5/5/2011. Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/index.php
- Corporate Rights. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Accessed 5/5/2011. http://www.celdf.org/section.php?id=41
- Adbusters Magazine. North American Edition, #95 (May/June Issue). Vol. 19, No. 3.
- Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. Accessed 6/1/2011. http://www.rainn.org/
- Free The Slaves. “Slavery Today.” Accessed 6/1/2011. http://www.freetheslaves.net/Page.aspx?pid=301
- Center for Defense Information. Nuclear Issues, Facts at a Glance. Accessed 6/1/2011.http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/facts-at-a-glance.cfm
- Human Security Report Project, 2009/2010. Simon Fraser University. Accessed 6/1/2011. http://www.hsrgroup.org/human-security-reports/human-security-report.aspx
- World Centric. Social and Economic Injustice. Accessed 6/1/2011. http://www.worldcentric.org/conscious-living/social-and-economic-injustice
- Program on Inequality and the Common Good. World / Global Inequality. Accessed 6/1/2011. http://inequality.org/global-inequality/
- 2010 National Police Misconduct Statistical Report. Injustice Everywhere. Accessed 6/7/2011. http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/?p=4053#_Summary
- National Hate Crimes Statistics: Incidents and Offences 2009. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Accessed 6/7/2011. http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/incidents.html
- National Institute of Mental Health Statistics. Accessed 6/7/11. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/index.shtml
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. FastStats Home, Therapeutic Drug Use. Accessed 6/7/11.http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drugs.htm
- Half of Congress Members are Millionaires, Report Says.New York Times, Jan 9, 2014.
- Op-Ed: How many bases does U.S. have globally and what is their cost?Digital Journal, Dec 16, 2012.
- Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics.National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2005.
- Nuclear Weapons and the Fate of Life.Robert Dodge. Counterpunch. Weekend Edition, April 11-13, 2014.
- The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in America. National Institutes of Mental Health.Accessed April 13 2014.
- Worldwide Drug Statistics.Treatment Solutions. January 12, 2012.
- Normalizing Sexual Violence: Young Women Account for Harassment and Abuse.Heather R. Hlavka.
- List of countries by military expenditures. Wikipedia. Accesed April 23 2014.
The Problem of Civilization
Longer version available as PDF or at Common Dreams' Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet.
A black tern weighs barely two ounces. On energy reserves less than a small bag of M&M's and wings that stretch to cover twelve inches, she flies thousands of miles, searching for the wetlands that will harbor her young. Every year the journey gets longer as the wetlands are desiccated for human demands. Every year the tern, desperate and hungry, loses, while civilization, endless and sanguineous, wins.
A polar bear should weigh 650 pounds. Her energy reserves are meant to see her through nine long months of dark, denned gestation, and then lactation, when she will give up her dwindling stores to the needy mouths of her species' future. But in some areas, the female's weight before hibernation has already dropped from 650 to 507 pounds.[1] Meanwhile, the ice has evaporated like the wetlands. When she wakes, the waters will stretch impassably open, and there is no Abrahamic god of bears to part them for her.
The Aldabra snail should weigh something, but all that's left to weigh are skeletons, bits of orange and indigo shells. The snail has been declared not just extinct[10], but the first casualty of global warming. In dry periods, the snail hibernated. The young of any species are always more vulnerable, as they have no reserves from which to draw. In this case, the adults' "reproductive success" was a "complete failure.'"[2] In plain terms, the babies died and kept dying, and a species millions of years old is now a pile of shell fragments.
What is your personal carrying capacity for grief, rage, despair? We are living in a period of mass extinction. The numbers stand at 200 species a day.[3] That's 73,000 a year. This culture is oblivious to their passing, feels entitled to their every last niche, and there is no roll call on the nightly news.
There is a name for the tsunami wave of extermination: the Holocene extinction event. There's no asteroid this time, only human behavior, behavior that we could choose to stop. Adolph Eichman'sexcuse was that no one told him that the concentration camps were wrong. We've all seen the pictures of the drowning polar bears. Are we so ethically numb that we need to be told this is wrong?
There are voices raised in concern, even anguish, at the plight of the earth, the rending of its species. "Only zero emissions can prevent a warmer planet," one pair of climatologists declare.[4] James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, states bluntly that global warming has passed the tipping point, carbon offsetting is a joke, and "individual lifestyle adjustments" are "a deluded fantasy."[5] It's all true, and self-evident. "Simple living" should start with simple observation: if burning fossil fuels will kill the planet, then stop burning them.
But that conclusion, in all its stark clarity, is not the popular one to draw. The moment policy makers and environmental groups start offering solutions is the exact moment when they stop telling the truth, inconvenient or otherwise. Google "global warming solutions." The first paid sponsor [in 2010], Campaign Earth, urges "No doom and gloom!! When was the last time depression got you really motivated? We're here to inspire realistic action steps and stories of success." By "realistic" they don't mean solutions that actually match the scale of the problem. They mean the usual consumer choices–cloth shopping bags, travel mugs, and misguided dietary advice–which will do exactly nothing to disrupt the troika of industrialization, capitalism, and patriarchy that is skinning the planet alive. As Derrick has pointed out elsewhere, even if every American took every single action suggested by Al Gore it would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 21 percent.[6] Similarly, even if through simple living and rigorous recycling you stopped your own average American's annual three quarters of a ton of garbage production, your per capita share of the industrial waste produced in the US is still about twenty-five tons. That's thirty-three times as much waste as you were able to save by eliminating a full 100 percent of your personal waste.[7]
Industrialism itself is what has to stop. There is no kinder, greener version that will do the trick of leaving us a living planet. In blunt terms, industrialization is a process of taking entire communities of living beings and turning them into commodities and dead zones. Could it be done more "efficiently"? Sure, we could use a little less fossil fuels, but it still ends in the same wastelands of land, water, and sky. We could stretch this endgame out another twenty years, but the planet still dies. Trace every industrial artifact back to its source–which isn't hard, as they all leave trails of blood–and you find the same devastation: mining, clear-cuts, dams, agriculture. And now tar sands, mountaintop removal, wind farms (which might better be called dead bird and bat farms). No amount of renewables is going to make up for the fossil fuels or change the nature of the extraction, both of which are prerequisites for this way of life. Neither fossil fuels nor extracted substances will ever be sustainable; by definition, they will run out. Bringing a cloth shopping bag to the store, even if you walk there in your Global Warming Flip-Flops, will not stop the tar sands. But since these actions also won't disrupt anyone's life, they're declared both realistic and successful.
The next site's Take Action page includes the usual: buying light bulbs, inflating tires, filling dishwashers, shortening showers, and rearranging the deck chairs. It also offers the ever-crucial GlobalWarming Bracelets and, more importantly, Flip-Flops. Polar bears everywhere are weeping with relief.
The first noncommercial site [in 2010] is the Union of Concerned Scientists. As one might expect, there are no exclamation points, but instead a statement that "[t]he burning of fossil fuel (oil, coal, and natural gas) alone counts for about 75 percent of annual C02 emissions." This is followed by a list of Five Sensible Steps. Step One? No, not stop burning fossil fuels–"Make Better Cars and SUVs." Never mind that the automobile itself is the pollution, with its demands–for space, for speed, for fuel–in complete opposition to the needs of both a viable human community and a living planet. Like all the others, the scientists refuse to call industrial civilization into question. We can have a living planet and the consumption that's killing the planet, can't we?
The principle here is very simple. As Derrick has written, "[A]ny social system based on the use of nonrenewable resources is by definition unsustainable."[8] Just to be clear, nonrenewable means it will eventually run out. Once you've grasped that intellectual complexity, you can move on to the next level. "Any culture based on the nonrenewableuse of renewable resources is just as unsustainable." Trees are renewable. But if we use them faster than they can grow, the forest will turn to desert. Which is precisely what civilization has been doing for its 10,000 year campaign, running through soil, rivers, and forests as well as metal, coal. and oil. Now the oceans are almost dead and their plankton populations are collapsing, populations that both feed the life of the oceans and create oxygen for the planet. What will we fill our lungs with when they are gone? The plastics with which industrial civilization is replacing them? In parts of the Pacific, plastic outweighs plankton 48 to 1.[9] Imagine if it were your blood, your heart, crammed with toxic materials–not just chemicals, but physical gunk–until there was ten times more of it than you. What metaphor is adequate for the dying plankton? Cancer? Suffocation? Crucifixion?
But the oceans don't need our metaphors. They need action. They need industrial civilization to stop destroying and devouring. In other words, they need us to make it stop.
Which is why we are organizing to resist.
Footnotes
[1] Mongabay.com, "Two·thirds of polar bears at risk"
[2] Butler, "Climate Change."
[3] Wilson, The Future of Life, p. 74. See also Olson, "Species Extinction Rate."
[4] Ravilious, "Only Zero Emissions."
[5] Aitkenhead, "Enjoy Life."
[6] Jensen and McMillan, As the World Burns, p. 15.
[7] Updated version of Aric McBay's analysis in What We Leave Behind, p. 290, based on 2010 EPA estimates of municipal waste and older EPA estimates of industrial waste.
[8] Jensen, Endgame, p. 36.
[9] Leber, "Trash Course," p. 21.
[10] In a small bit of good news, seven individuals were found in 2014. So the Albadra snail is in big trouble, but not yet actually exinct.
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