Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Global warming is only the half of it

Human caused overfishing, ocean pollution, plastic ocean pollution, overpopulation, habitat destruction, forest overexploitation, the pet and animal parts trade, and addiction to economic growth are all additional causes of our current mass extinctions and a threat to all life, including ours. Being drawn into petty skirmishes about details of global warming is fighting the battle on the enemy's terms. Tobacco perception was finally turned ( and the tobacco industry gave up nitpicking) not just by evidence of lung cancer, but by hundreds of studies showing it to be nearly a universal toxin causing dozens of problems aside of lung cancer. So a calm, firm emphasis on the broad picture of human destructiveness is needed in addition to a sober presentation of details and proofs of human caused global warming. Our understanding of the details of any one of these threats will alter over time. There may be anastrophes, unexpected strokes of good fortune, or homoeostatic mechanisms of the biosphere which mitigate some of the threats, like global cooling effects of particulate pollution, But the overwhelming, exponentially increasing planetary destruction of the last 500 years is evident to almost everyone who has looked at it in good faith. It is like we are in a car with bald tires, a noisy transmission, loud knocking and so forth, but we are arguing only about whether to change the oil because the dipstick shows nearly empty and one of the passengers says he can't afford the time to top or change the dirty oil. The vehicle has a high chance of not getting where it is going. of catastrophic failure, unless it is stopped, examined carefully and the time and expense taken to change the odds.