THE EARTH: IT DOESN'T HAVE TO END LIKE THIS

I don't know just how many studies it will take before everyone wakes up that this time, really and truly, the end is near.  Viewed for a hundred different directions every reputable scientific inquiry has shown that the world is heating up and we humans are the culprit behind it all.  Time and again, we have been warned about how this will effect flora and fauna, all of the animals that walk on the land and all of the fishes that swim in the sea, all of the birds that fly in the sky...everything.  We have been told of the effects on health, on water, on food supplies.  We have been told of what vast migrations are in store for us, what they will mean, the wars and violence that will flow with them.


And yet...it goes on.  


There are only two forces that can put a stop to this and save so many life forms on our planet.


One, of course, is the planet itself.  Nature at some point will step in and just wipe the offending species off the face of the Earth.  That is one outcome that is pretty much guaranteed unless the other force steps up to the plate real quick.


The other force is you and I, us, humanity, the multitude.  We can stop those who are killing us and our planet.  We know exactly who they are and we know exactly what they represent and we know exactly why they are doing it.


CAPITALISTS, CAPITALISM, CAPITAL...


We can stop them.  


We can stop it.


We can choose to live.


Or we can just die.


The following short article comes from the Redding Record.

Survival on Earth now in question

by Doug Craig

"A leading Australian disease expert says prompt action on climate change is paramount to our survival on earth."

"The public has the right to know who is supporting the foot soldiers for business-as-usual and to learn about the web of support for the propaganda machine that serves to keep the public addicted to fossil fuels and destroys the future of their children."

Dr. James Hansen

While many cling to the fantasy that our planet's temperature isn't rising, scientists like James Hansen consistently point to the evidence that shows it is. Hansen recently wrote, "Global warming due to human-made gases, mainly CO2, is already 0.8°C and deleterious climate impacts are growing worldwide."

A temperature increase of 0.8°C means 1.44°F, which doesn't sound like much, but remember this means average temperature. The average person's average temperature is 98.6°F. If your temperature rose by 1.44°F, your thermometer would read on the plus side of 100.0°F and you would feel poorly. Our planet is running a temperature. It has a permanent, constant or chronic fever and humanity is the cause.

Following that analogy, we might say we are planetary pathogens and if the world gets hot enough, its fever will burn us off.

Epidemiologist Tony McMichael, from the Australian National University, published a paper this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that examined the extreme climate changes that have occurred over the past 10,000 years due to natural causes. One of his findings is that these climate changes "destabilised civilisations via food shortages, disease and unrest."

But here is the interesting point. McMichael said, "With the exception of a few downward spikes of acute cooling due to massive volcanic eruptions, most of the changes have been within a band of about plus or minus three-quarters of a degree centigrade."

The evidence is clear. The cause is immaterial. A rise of less than one degree centigrade has meant massive change.

Many people imagine that the Earth's temperature has undergone major fluctuations in the past but you have to go back over 100,000 years to find a hotter world than we are currently experiencing. The key point to grasp is that it doesn't take major temperature changes to disrupt human civilization.

McMichael said, "We haven't really grasped the fact that a change in climate presents a quite fundamental threat to the foundations of population health."

While it only took a rise or fall of three-quarters of a degree centigrade to destabilize human societies through "food shortages, disease and unrest," we are on track right now to go"beyond 2 degrees centigrade and quite probably, on current trajectory, reaching a global average increase of 3 to 4 degrees."

According to McMichael's paper, "The greatest recurring health risk over past millennia has been from food shortages, mostly caused by drying and drought" but "Warming also leads to an increase in infectious diseases as a result of better growth conditions for bacteria and the proliferation of mosquitoes."

McMichael wrote, "Let's be aware that we really must take early action if we are going to maintain this planet as a liveable habitat for humans."

Agreeing with McMichael, Hansen wrote, "More warming is 'in the pipeline' because Earth is out of energy balance, with absorbed solar energy exceeding planetary heat radiation. Maintaining a climate that resembles the Holocene, the world of stable shorelines in which civilization developed, requires rapidly reducing fossil fuel CO2 emissions.

"Such a scenario is economically sensible and has multiple benefits for humanity and other species. Yet fossil fuel extraction is expanding, including highly carbon-intensive sources that can push the climate system beyond tipping points such that amplifying feedbacks drive further climate change that is practically out of humanity's control.

"This situation raises profound moral issues as young people, future generations, and nature, with no possibility of protecting their future well-being, will bear the principal consequences of actions and inactions of today's adults."