The Great Dying

Back in November of 2011, BRT's post, Something to Consider, addressed the present day great dying we are generating today due to global warming, environment degradation and resource depletion, conditions man made, conditions rectifiable, conditions ongoing, thanks to governmental and corporate collusion performed at planetary scale, something changing life on this planet in ways not seen since the  Great Dying of 250 million years ago.

“We as a species have never experienced 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona and a climate change expert of 25 years, told me. “We’ve never been on a planet with no Arctic ice, and we will hit the average of 400 ppm... within the next couple of years. At that time, we’ll also see the loss of Arctic ice in the summers… This planet has not experienced an ice-free Arctic for at least the last three million years.”

For the uninitiated, in the simplest terms, here’s what an ice-free Arctic would mean when it comes to heating the planet: minus the reflective ice cover on Arctic waters, solar radiation would be absorbed, not reflected, by the Arctic Ocean.  That would heat those waters, and hence the planet, further. This effect has the potential to change global weather patterns, vary the flow of winds, and even someday possibly alter the position of the jet stream. Polar jet streams are fast flowing rivers of wind positioned high in the Earth’s atmosphere that push cold and warm air masses around, playing a critical role in determining the weather of our planet.

We are already @ 400ppm. How high it goes, nobody knows.

As stated before, phase transitions are exponential events, not linear, which give credence to the fact GW is happening faster then previously thought possible, something also being seen in species extinction due to the aforementioned troika of global warming, environment degradation and resource depletion, conditions eerily similar to the Permian era when the great dying occurred save that the changes happening today are thousands of times faster then when the Siberian Traps blew their tops way back when. 

Seen below is the excellent Wikipedia graphic detailing the phase transition from plasma to solid.

Addendum:

We are currently in the midst of what scientists consider the sixth mass extinction in planetary history, with between 150 and 200 species going extinct daily, a pace 1,000 times greater than the “natural” or “background” extinction rate. This event may already be comparable to, or even exceed, both the speed and intensity of the Permian mass extinction. The difference being that ours is human caused, isn’t going to take 80,000 years, has so far lasted just a few centuries, and is now gaining speed in a non-linear fashion.

Something to Consider

The end-Permian extinction occurred 252.2 million years ago, decimating 90 percent of marine and terrestrial species, from snails and small crustaceans to early forms of lizards and amphibians. “The Great Dying,” as it’s now known, was the most severe mass extinction in Earth’s history, and is probably the closest life has come to being completely extinguished. Possible causes include immense volcanic eruptions, rapid depletion of oxygen in the oceans, and — an unlikely option — an asteroid collision.


While the causes of this global catastrophe are unknown, an MIT-led team of researchers has now established that the end-Permian extinction was extremely rapid, triggering massive die-outs both in the oceans and on land in less than 20,000 years — the blink of an eye in geologic time. The researchers also found that this time period coincides with a massive buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which likely triggered the simultaneous collapse of species in the oceans and on land.

But there's more...


“The rate of injection of CO2 into the late Permian system is probably similar to the anthropogenic rate of injection of CO2 now,” Rothman says. “It’s just that it went on for … 10,000 years.”


Rothman says the total amount of CO2 pumped into Earth over this time period was so immense that it’s not immediately clear where it all came from.


“It’s just not easy to imagine,” Rothman says. “Even if you put all the world’s known coal deposits on top of a volcano, you still wouldn’t come close. So something unusual was going on.”

Phase changes are non-linear, the break from one phase or condition to another (water/ice/steam) is dramatic and powerful, something to consider as we continue to move toward a possible phase transition equal to that of  "The Great Dying", something we can avoid if we have the will to do it.

Ecocide

Man is killing the planet at speeds millions of time faster than the Great Dying of 250 millions years ago thanks to environmental degradation, resource depletion and fossil fuel production. With this not withstanding, BRT has often stated earth will recover but for us, the question of survival is questionable at best.

It started in December, just before Christmas.

Hundreds of dead perch were discovered floating along the banks of the Darling River – victims of a "dirty, rotten green" algae bloom spreading in the still waters of the small country town of Menindee, Australia.

Things didn't get better. The dead hundreds became dead thousands, as the crisis expanded to claim the lives of 10,000 fish along a 40-kilometre (25-mile) stretch of the river. But the worst was still yet to come.

This week, the environmental disaster has exploded to a horrific new level – what one Twitter user called "Extinction level water degradation" – with reports suggesting up to a million fish have now been killed in a new instance of the toxic algae bloom conditions.

It gets worse ...

Over two days in November, record-breaking heat in Australia's north wiped out almost one-third of the nation's spectacled flying foxes, according to researchers.

The animals, also known as spectacled fruit bats, were unable to survive in temperatures which exceeded 42C.

BRT has "waxed" poetic about climate change for years as it is the existential threat we face, a catastrophe of our own making.

Last but not least ...

It turns out that New Zealand is not alone. Giant trees are dying all over the globe.

2,000-year-old baobab trees in Africa are suddenly and rather mysteriously giving up the ghost.  These trees survived happily for 2,000 years and now all of a sudden they're dying. Are the deaths of our most ancient trees all across the globe some sort of natural process? Or is there a different culprit we need to recognize?

In Japan they're lamenting record low squid catches.  Oh well, maybe it’s just overfishing?  Or could it be another message we need to heed?

To all this we can add the numerous scientific articles now decrying the 'insect Apocalypse' unfolding across the northern hemisphere. The Guardian recently issued this warning: “Insect collapse: ‘We are destroying our life support systems’”. Researchers in Puerto Rico's forest preserves recorded a 98% decline in insect mass over 35 years.  Does a 98% decline have a natural explanation? Or is something bigger going on?

Meanwhile, the butterfly die-off is unfolding with alarming speed. I rarely see them in the summer anymore, much to my great regret.  Seeing one is now as exciting as seeing a meteor streak across the sky, and just as rare:

ec·o·cide

/ˈēkōˌsīd,ˈekōˌsīd

    noun

destruction of the natural environment, especially when willfully done.

"their crime is nothing less than attempted ecocide"

A Tragedy of Our Own Making

The Great Barrier Reef is dying, due to Global Warming, the man made disaster propelled by the use of fossil fuels. The unfolding of this tragedy of our own making is heartbreaking to see while the reef slowly dies, a natural wonder our grandchildren will never see if we don't change our ways before it's too late.

Large sections of the Great Barrier Reef, the Earth’s largest living structure, are dying before our eyes. Sustained high sea temperatures have stressed the corals to the point where they expel the brightly coloured algae that live within their tissues. This process is aptly named bleaching as it removes all pigment and exposes the shocking white calcium skeleton of the reef structures.

The coral can survive in this state for up to a few weeks. Thereafter, if temperatures do not decrease then they will die.

The Great Barrier Reef has experienced bleaching events twice before. The first, in 1998, was bad enough, with 50% of the reef affected. 2002 was even worse with 60% of the reef bleached. Recent aerial surveys of the northern 1000km of the reef evaluated 500 different sections – 95% were bleached.

With our survey work still ongoing, a bleak picture is emerging: more than 1,000 km of the Great Barrier Reef shows signs of significant bleaching. In the worst-affected areas, in the GBR’s previously pristine far north, many corals are now expected to die.

70 million & counting ...

North Canyon, an ancient tributary.

The 70 million-year-old Grand Canyon, carved out by the once mighty Colorado River, will remain intact but the river that made will not as its slowly dying, due to GW, the ongoing extinction event driven by injecting excess CO2 into the atmosphere, a process identical to how 5 previous extinction events occurred including The Great Dying, whereby 95% of marine life and 70% of land perished approximately 251.9 million years ago.

Marine extinction intensity during the Phanerozoic

Plot of extinction intensity (percentage of marine genera that are present in each interval of time but do not exist in the following interval) vs time in the past.[1] Geological periods are annotated (by abbreviation and colour) above. The Permian–Triassic extinction event is the most significant event for marine genera, with just over 50% (according to this source) perishing.

The immense walls form a kind of cocoon, sealing you off from the modern world, with its cell signal and light pollution and disappointments. They draw your eyes relentlessly upward, as in a cathedral.

You might think you are seeing all the way to the top. But up and above are more walls, and above them even more, out of sight except for the occasional glimpse. For the canyon is not just deep. It is broad, too — 18 miles, rim to rim, at its widest. This is no mere cathedral of stone. It is a kingdom: sprawling, self-contained, an alternate reality existing magnificently outside of our own.

And yet, the Grand Canyon remains yoked to the present in one key respect. The Colorado River, whose wild energy incised the canyon over millions of years, is in crisis.

Beyond tragic comes to mind here.

The Great Unraveling/Rev III

BRT has waxed "poetic" about why America is in such dire trouble. From gross and inept malfeasance performed by W and Weapons of Mass Destruction to The Donald mishandling COVID-19 to the nth degree, this once great nation has been ravaged by the so-called owners of the country in ways boggling the mind and ... we haven't even discussed the bankrupting kleptocracy of the MIC or the acceleration of climate change, the existential gorilla threatening to end our sorry ass existence on planet earth. 

To be sure, financial uncertainty will cast a long shadow. Hovering over the global economy for some time will be the sober realization that all the money in the hands of all the nations on Earth will never be enough to offset the losses sustained when an entire world ceases to function, with workers and businesses everywhere facing a choice between economic and biological survival.

Unsettling as these transitions and circumstances will be, short of a complete economic collapse, none stands out as a turning point in history. But what surely does is the absolutely devastating impact that the pandemic has had on the reputation and international standing of the United States of America.

In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.

Read the rest of Wade Davis' excellent and detailed article as to why America is unraveling, a notion yours truly has been writing about for quite a long time.

Adding insult to injury comes from an insightful blurb from Australia titled We are witnessing the fall of a great power describing the rottenness of the US political system with passion and accuracy, a take yours truly concurs with without question. In reading both pieces, a connect to the French Revolution comes to mind due to the fact America cannot handle the truth of a flawed political system needing a complete reset if the nation is to survive as a viable entity as it moves further into the 21st century. 

Just how rotten is the United States' political system? The answer is rotten, as in it will only take a small kick for the whole edifice to fall in, let alone a big kick like COVID-19.

The idea is about as fanciful as the collapse of the Soviet empire seemed in 1987, when President Ronald Reagan famously demanded: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Yet, a short time later, a little chink in the Iron Curtain at the Hungary-Austria border saw the whole rotten regime collapse.

"Viewed from 2020, exactly 50 years since it was published, Amalrik's work has an eerie timeliness. He was concerned with how a great power handles multiple internal crises - the faltering of the institutions of domestic order, the craftiness of unmoored and venal politicians, the first tremors of systemic illegitimacy. He wanted to understand the dark logic of social dissolution and how discrete political choices sum up to apocalyptic outcomes."

Tragically, American exceptionalism - 'we are the first and best democracy on Earth' - contributes to the self-delusion of indestructibility. There is nothing automatically self-correcting in US democracy.

Just look at US foreign policy for the past 60+ years to see why this take rings true.

1965 & Counting

Redundancy, interconnectedness and feedback loops are just some of the reasons why biodiversity is key to life on earth, something that's beginning to unravel thanks to habitat loss, resource depletion, environmental degradation and GW, the "grand" quartet leading man into the anthropocene, the era that's rapidly moving us toward the 6th great dying if we stay the course no matter what the cost may be.

Human expansion, destruction of natural habitats, pollution, and climate change have all led to biodiversity levels that are considered below the “safe” threshold for global ecosystems. And the consequences of biodiversity loss aren’t just about the extinction of certain charismatic species.

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that less biodiversity in an area increases the risk of a domino effect of extinctions, where one species’ disappearance can cause other species to follow suit.

The research, conducted by ecologists at the University of Exeter, shows that losing a species in an area is dangerous in that it makes the surrounding ecological community simpler, and therefore less robust to change.

It makes sense: the fewer species that exist in an area, the fewer that are available to “fill the gap” left by other extinctions. Other species in the ecosystem will have fewer alternatives to turn to. For example, if there are fewer insects left overall across a region, the bats and amphibians that eat them will feel the loss of just one species much more severely.

As an aside, 1965 marks the beginning of the Anthropocene. To whit ...

Anthropogenic activity is now recognised as having profoundly and permanently altered the Earth system, suggesting we have entered a human-dominated geological epoch, the ‘Anthropocene’. To formally define the onset of the Anthropocene, a synchronous global signature within geological-forming materials is required. Here we report a series of precisely-dated tree-ring records from Campbell Island (Southern Ocean) that capture peak atmospheric radiocarbon (14C) resulting from Northern Hemisphere-dominated thermonuclear bomb tests during the 1950s and 1960s. The only alien tree on the island, a Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), allows us to seasonally-resolve Southern Hemisphere atmospheric 14C, demonstrating the ‘bomb peak’ in this remote and pristine location occurred in the last-quarter of 1965 (October-December), coincident with the broader changes associated with the post-World War II ‘Great Acceleration’ in industrial capacity and consumption. Our findings provide a precisely-resolved potential Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) or ‘golden spike’, marking the onset of the Anthropocene Epoch.

Any questions?

Guesstimates

Because quantum theory, chaos, the law of initial conditions and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics preclude the ability to predict the future, the only other option one can take regarding the reading of tea leaves vis a vis the future is to guess, something that can be somewhat accurate if one is aware of strange attractors and the entities attracted to same. So, as Kurt Vonnegut says, And so it goes.

Some 2012 negatives -  A tiny sampling to be sure: 

• Obama signs the National Defense Authorization Act - Due process gone in the name of security
•  PIPA & SOPA - Web censorship writ large if congress has it's way.
• The endless Presidential Campaign - Promises never kept, just ask Obama about this.
• Presidential Campaign II - From Obama to the Repugs, incompetency, fanaticism, ignorance and corruption rule the day. A third party disruptor may show up given the sorry condition this once great nation is in. 
• Congress - Bought and paid for comes to mind along with sloth, unenlightened self interest and craven ineptness
• Religion - Reality, as seen through the wrong end of a telescope, continues to thrive in the land of the free, home of the brave. 
• Nationalism - Religion's first cousin
• Corporate Personhood - Judge Roberts & Company have no shame
• Endless war - Iran could be next now that the Iraq fubar has finally run it's course.
• Global Warming - Don't ask, don't tell
• Oceans Under Siege - Overfishing, pollution (BP anyone?) and GW, the troika from hell portends disaster if we don't change course
• Habitat Loss -   The second Great Dying looms
• Fossil Fuel Addiction - Continues unabated
• Resource Depletion - We consume more then the earth can provide. 
• The 99% - The potential for violence is nigh, especially from those with no jobs, no homes and no hope thanks to WS malfeasance perpetuated on the US aided and abetted by government, the Fed and big business.
• The Press or lack thereof - George Orwell and Paddy Chayefsky had it right all along
• Reality Shows - The race toward the bottom continues unabated
• Central Bank follies - Printing money does not equate to generating value through innovation and real capitalism. Just look at Europe and the US to see why.
• The XL Pipeline - A short term fix to maintain the unsustainable
• Water Wars - Privatization of something that never should be privatized. Akin to the patenting of genes by big pharma thanks to the ineptness of the US patent office.
• Crony Capitalism -  Without risk and transparency, the country cannot succeed, something the Fed will never understand while bailing out incompetent bankers and foreign interests as needs warrant. 
• Fascism - The US is moving toward it thanks to opacity and the power of the banks, with help of significant others, to control the courts, government and the military.
• We Can't Handle the Truth - Ignorance is not bliss

Some 2012 pluses Tiny sampler II:

• The Higgs Boson will finally be found. Noble Laureates anyone?
• M Theory will finally start to become real
• Solar gets real.
• Artificial Photosynthesis gets real
• Robotics takes off
• Fabbing takes off
• Digital money makes headway. Bitcoin is but a first step
• Cancer begins to be treated as chronic disease rather then inevitable death sentence
• Stem cell research begins to pay off in disease control and the ability to generate new organs as needs warrant. Time frame - 10 years 
• Finance & Governance - The demand for real transparency of all things political, financial and corporate gathers momentum.
• Tech, in general, shrinks in size while increasing in power. Distributed systems, cloud computing, AI and all things digital will presage the arrival of the singularity as the infrastructure is in place to make it happen if the financial and political system doesn't totally implode. Other specifics include the rise of solid state memory, flexible quantum dot displays and 3D chip design, things that will transform smart phones, pads and other discrete devices into objects of unimaginable power.
• Education - The inexorable push into digital finally starts to impact US education in a good way as tech cannot be stopped, only harnessed, something people are finally understanding as we move further into the 21st century.

End game: 2012 looks problematical to say the least, thanks, in large part, to the negative impact the central banks have had on the world's economy. Factoring this in with peak oil, endless war,  inept governance and climate change only adds to the treacherous sledding envisioned for the upcoming year but there is hope. Science, tech, innovation and creativity, combined with an emerging sense that we are the 99%, can make a difference but only if we have the courage to make it happen.

Remember, maintaining the status quo is, in fact, Einstein's definition of Insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. 

Lest we forget HAPPY NEW YEAR! :)

124 & counting ...

Credit: Shutterstock | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

124 & counting, Henry keeps on truckin' as crocs never seem to age unlike rubes like us. :)

At 124 years old, Henry is officially the world’s oldest known crocodile, and his story is nothing short of extraordinary. This colossal reptile has not only lived a long life, but has also fathered thousands of offspring over his remarkable journey. Today, Henry resides at Crocworld Conservation Centre in South Africa, where he continues to thrive despite his age.

Born around 1900 in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, Henry’s life has been filled with adventure. He was captured in 1903 by an elephant catcher named Sir Henry, which is how he got his name. After spending a few decades in the wild, he moved to Crocworld in 1985, where he quickly became a central figure in their conservation efforts. Since then, Henry has mated with at least six females, and his keepers estimate he has fathered over 10,000 offspring during his time in captivity.

Henry’s size is equally impressive. The massive crocodile measures over 5 meters (16 feet 5 inches) from snout to tail and weighs in at a staggering 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds). To put that in perspective, the average Nile crocodile reaches around 4.5 meters (14.7 feet) in length and weighs roughly 410 kilograms (900 pounds). Henry’s sheer size makes him a true outlier, not just in terms of age, but in terms of physicality as well.

Some researchers have proposed that the secret to crocodile longevity lies in their gut microbiome. The microorganisms in their digestive systems may play a crucial role in maintaining their health and extending their lifespan. One study even suggests that the substances produced by the gut microbiome could contribute to their resilience and longevity. While it’s still unclear whether this theory holds up, it adds an intriguing layer to our understanding of these ancient creatures.

Nile croc

Salties are even bigger.

And ... they've been around for a long, long time ...

Crocodilians and birds are members of the clade Archosauria. Archosaurs are distinguished from other reptiles particularly by two sets of extra openings in the skull; the antorbital fenestra located in front of the animal's eye socket and the mandibular fenestra on the jaw. Archosauria has two main groups: the Pseudosuchia (crocodilians and their relatives) and the Avemetatarsalia (dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and their relatives).[10] The split between these two groups is assumed to have happened close to the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which is informally known as the Great Dying.[11]

Crossing the Rubicon ...

Twilight

This pix, taken a few years ago, sums up a possible future for man as civilization moves further into the Anthropocene and it's tangental relationship to all things related to tech, the environment and to earth as everything's connected and ... everything's quantum where certitude is but an illusion,

3500 articles, musings on thousands of postings and guesstimates, both accurate and inaccurate, populate this blog to the nth degree but you, my loyal readers, already know that so here's to crossing the Rubicon, a most perilous journey we will all be taking whether we like it or not.

No connects or numbering schemes but rather a random walk through a partial list of issues most dire with climate change being No. 1.

Covid-19 is but a weak introduction to what's coming, a pandemic to be sure, but nothing compared to GW and the impact it will have on the world.

For starters, the equator will soon become uninhabitable. Animals and plants are migrating away as we speak but little is said as to what species will survive as they make their desperate move. This also involves us and the impact on the food supply as growing food will move north and south with large swaths of land unable to sustain civilization due to not only excess heat but also loss of water as seen by the move on Lake Mead to restrict waster supply when the water level goes below 1047'.

2020-30 will be remembrance of species lost. Researchers discovered ocean life died much quicker than land in the Great Dying of 250 million years ago. Does this mean the same for us as the acceleration of GW is happening thousands of times faster than the 30,000 year timeframe of the Permian eruption of the Siberian Traps in northern Russia.

2040-50, the real bite of GW begins, where temps of 3+ take hold and Russia and Canada become the bread baskets of the world while Cat 6 hurricanes ply the Atlantic with devastating power. This scenario is already baked including the melting of the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland as the loss of albedo is a prime GW accelerant and we haven't even discussed the release of ever more methane from the rapidly melting permafrost and ocean located in and around the arctic. Water rise - 2-3 meters?

Forget Florida and cities on the coast, right?

Too many people add to the mix. 8 billion and counting. Not good, not sustainable but Gaia's thinking about a drastic solution to this issue, something Lovelock talked about over 15 years ago.

Mass migrations loom.

AI - the open ended tech where we have lost contro but don't know it yet but we will, soon.

Question: When does AI become sentient? 5 years, next year, 10? One never knows but whenever anyone says AI cannot be this or that, remember the Rand Corporation's take on the net and the fact only 20 systems will be ever be needed to run civilization. 

The military goes full tilt into autonomous bots armed to the teeth. Who's the enemy? How can they be identified? Is man the enemy? Skynet's happening as digital swarms are already being ramped up, connected as one entity driven by, you guessed it, AI. 

The needs of AI differ from us. What does that mean?

Cybersecurity - no system is invulnerable. Everything can be hacked. The biggie is shutting down infrastructure, you know, access to electricity, heat, medical and water supply among significant others. Countries all over the world are capping on this as tech is cheap. All it takes is brainpower, desire to hack and access to the web to make it happen. Is this the end of the world?

Biotech - CRISPR and manipulation of DNA, combined with AI as enhancer, what could possibly go wrong? Pandemics are us, not only with upcoming labs on a chip used by twisted individuals to create bugs but also of the natural kind as GW disrupts all things related to life. Think mosquitoes ...

Continued abuses ...

30% of all arable land is used to feed Bessie, Loghorn T. Fog Horn and Porky, an unsustainable way to feed man, not to mention the accompanying manure, urine and fertilizers used to leverage the land in addition to rampant injections of steroids and antibiotics, along with genetic engineering, to said fauna, to create fast growing franken foods, packaged for us rubes in all shapes and sizes, to consume to our heart's content.

Plastics and chemicals of all kinds, including micro plastics in our air, soil and of course, food, invade everything, something most disturbing as researchers are now finding out this deadly combination adversely impacts fertility. Children of Men anyone? ... by possibly 2045.

The car, ubiquitous in the US because there is no high speed or medium speed rail of any consequence in the US, pollutes the planet to no end as most are gas powered. Maybe we should ask China how they build high speed rail as they are really good at it while the US does nothing. Going electric is not all that great either as the grid, powered by natural gas and oil, power these things. Question, where will the batteries go? Can they be recycled? Good question to ask is it not?

Suburbs ... journey to nowhere, ditto strip malls. Both ecologically disastrous. 

Planes, another prime driver of fossil fuels continues unabated. The production and distribution of ever more stuff never ceases to amaze, particularly in terms of landfill when said stuff become a throwaway for the ages. Think China on this one. 

Subsidies to fossil fuel polluters instead of developing sustainables has been the US mantra for years. It looks like this is slowly changing but it will take time, something we no longer have.

Nuclear war becomes a possible given just how many countries hate each other.

Resource depreciation, environmental degradation and poverty, combined with starvation and over population, become prime drivers for revolution and violence all over the world.

Right now, it's lip service. Nothing of real consequence is being done because that means enormous change for all of us, an issue not be be addressed until the real shit hits the fan. Time frame - 2050.

One point perspective

Futility

Bob Herbert is one of the few reporters who "gets it". His op-ed pieces in the NY Times are fiery, intelligent and honorable in intent. 

"Early this year, we were told that at long last the tide had turned in Afghanistan, that the biggest offensive of the war by American, British and Afghan troops was under way in Marja, a town in Helmand Province in the southern part of the country. The goal, as outlined by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, our senior military commander in Afghanistan, was to rout the Taliban and install a splendid new government that would be responsive to the people and beloved by them. 


That triumph would soon be followed by another military initiative in the much larger expanse of neighboring Kandahar Province. The Times’s Rod Nordland explained what was supposed to happen in a front-page article this week:


 “The goal that American planners originally outlined — often in briefings in which reporters agreed not to quote officials by name — emphasized the importance of a military offensive devised to bring all of the populous and Taliban-dominated south under effective control by the end of this summer. That would leave another year to consolidate gains before President Obama’s July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing combat troops.” 


Forget about it. Commanders can’t even point to a clear-cut success in Marja. As for Kandahar, no one will even use the word “offensive” to describe the military operations there. The talk now is of moving ahead with civilian reconstruction projects, a “civilian surge,” as Mr. Nordland noted. 


What’s happening in Afghanistan is not only tragic, it’s embarrassing. The American troops will fight, but the Afghan troops who are supposed to be their allies are a lost cause. The government of President Hamid is breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent — and widely unpopular to boot. And now, as The Times’s Dexter seems to be giving up hope that the U.S. can prevail in the war and is making nice with the Taliban. 


There is no overall game plan, no real strategy or coherent goals, to guide the fighting of U.S. forces. It’s just a mind-numbing, soul-chilling, body-destroying slog, month after month, year after pointless year. The 18-year-olds fighting (and, increasingly, dying) in Afghanistan now were just 9 or 10 when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in 2001."

This kind of ineptness has become the way Obama does business. Status quo and lack of courage and vision are the hallmarks of this administration. BRT doesn't often rant about politics save for how tech and science impacts same but after reading Herbert's heart felt article about the lost cause of Afghanistan, I felt it time to say some things about the current state of affairs in this nation.

• In Nov of 2008, I voted for change, to leave behind the eight years of the worst administration in our history. The things I wanted to see happen were :
• Really deal with the banks. Protect the depositors, let the banks themselves die. Rome wasn't too big the fail and last time I checked, that empire was far bigger then the Fed, Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan Chase in terms of size, power and status at that point in time.
• Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as we cannot afford to fight these lost causes. Nam proved why indigenous troops don't have to win, all they have to do is outlast as we will eventually leave while they will remain in their country, forever. I detest the Taliban but it's Afghanistan's problem, not ours.
• Health care. The plan we got is a giveaway for the drug and insurance companies. Question, why does Obama continue the policy of the government not being able to compete for the cost of drugs just as Canada does? Bush cut that disastrous deal with big pharma with the end result we Americans pay twice as much for drugs then Canada.
• Surveillance: The Bush policy continues unabated. Nothing has changed regarding 24/7 unwarranted surveillance of Americans. Ditto on incarceration without Habeis Corpus.
• Balanced budget: The grand illusion continues with defense getting over 700 billion while crushing US debt continues to push us toward sovereign insolvency
• Vision: There is none. Intelligence is a prerequisite of vision, vision is not a prerequisite of intelligence, something Obama has exhibited with great flair, We hear nothing about light rail or a way toward sustainability while Wall Street continues to siphon money from the middle class.
• Courage - There is none. As much as I hated Bush, the guy had the wherewithal to "articulate" his twisted vision in simple fashion and was able to get the word out, via an integrated communications system, with great effectiveness.  He also established a fear factor (after 9/11 of course) people respected. Just see how effective W was in perpetrating the lies in pushing this country toward war with Iraq to see why. (War crimes anyone?) No one fears Obama because he doesn't intuitively understand how to pull the levers of his office to make it happen. (FDR was the master on this one.)
• Leveraging Tech: Why isn't there a cohesive policy to get the nation off of oil? Isn't the Gulf Spill enough reason to do this? As often stated before in BRT, the tech is in the lab able to change how this country does business regarding energy. It's now time to move on this before it's too late. How about a WPA program to to start the ball rolling in the Gulf to get people back to work as the era of cheap oil is gone. You can pay for this by getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan now.
• Be honest:: Yes, as I.F. Stone said, Governments lie, but not to the extent of trying, at all costs, to hold onto the myth of getting back to "normalcy" (unfettered growth, happy motoring etc., etc.)  even though we lack the money to do it nor do we have the 'cheap" energy needed, at this point in time, to make it happen.

We are squandering what we have left and it saddens me to see how lost our "leaders" are. If Alexander the Great acted this way, he would never have become Great.

The Anthropocene

BRT's Something to Consider, a riff on man's 21st century version of The Great Dying, has now been codified by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen as The Anthropocene Epoch: How We Became Nature, a frightening scenario whose impact is becoming ever more apparent as we move further into the future.

Although Anthropocene is not a new concept, it is only now that the authors present stunning evidence in support of their claim. The article describes the negative impact of the human footprint, which ensues a gradual destruction of the Earth. Highlighting different data elements - it yields overwhelming evidence that "man, the eroder" now transforms the atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric, and other earth system processes.

The list is long and unforgiving:

-Excessively rapid climate change, so that ecosystems cannot adapt

-The Arctic ocean ice cover is thinner by approximately 40% compared to 20-40 years ago

-Ice loss and the growing sea levels

-Overpopulation (fourfold increase in the 20th century alone)

-Increasing demand for freshwater

-Releases of NO into the atmosphere, resulting in high surface ozone layers

-Loss of agricultural soil through erosions

-Loss of phosphorous. Dangerous depletion in agricultural regions

-Melting supplies of phosphate reserves (leading to serious reduction in crop yield)

Describing the negative impact of human activities on the environment, the authors identify planetary boundaries, as means to attaining global sustainability. It is "a well-documented summary of all humankind actions affecting the environment on all scales. According to Crutzen, we live in a new era, Anthropocene, and our survival fully depends on us. I strongly recommend this unusual publication in the form of highly informative compressed slides and graphs." says Marina Frontasyeva from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia.

As per WTFU, the message is becoming ever more clear, we must change or go the way of the dodo when earth recovers from our transgressions to once again, become a viable place for a new civilization to rise, wise enough to work in concert with nature and not destroy it, something radically different from the approach man has taken for the past 5000 years.

Silent Running

Silent Running, a prescient SF movie of the 3rd kind, is particularly relevant as seen in the ongoing 6th Great Dying being perpetrated by us as we move further into the 21st century, something beyond tragic as once a species is gone, it's gone forever, not to mention the negative impact species extinction does to biodiversity, the one essential needed for man to survive on planet earth. To address this critical issue, researchers have found a way to efficiently storehouse invaluable DNA of individual lifeforms before they become extinct, an approach radically different from that of Silent Running but with the same intent.

Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) have developed a cost-effective way to save a wide range of threatened species, including rare old ones that may be costly to protect.

Their new technique to help maximise both the species and genetic diversity we save helps resolve the dilemma facing conservation managers worldwide: whether to rescue a larger number of recent and more common species or fewer, unique and older species that may be more costly to preserve.
The technology will help nations such as Australia and New Zealand to protect as much diversity of both species and their genes as possible, says lead researcher Dr Joseph Bennett of CEED and The University of Queensland (UQ).

"The global extinction crisis is getting worse, and conservation funds are seldom enough to stop biodiversity from declining," says Dr Bennett. "This is like a library on fire – and we have to save as much of the precious information as we can.

Click on the little guy below to get more information on what CEED is trying to do.

Addendum: Researchers are also doing the same thing with seeds as seen by the svalbard-global-seed-vault,  one of several being built to save as many of the world's plant species before they too disappear. 

Biological Annihilation

BRT has talked about climate change for years as this is the one sure existential threat (beside nukes) man will be facing in the years and decades ahead thanks to fossil fuel burning, the livestock industry, resource depletion and environmental degradation but this great dying is different from the other five as it's happening in a time span shorter by tens of thousands of years due to just how much damage we are doing to the planet we call earth in such a short amount of time.

The population extinction pulse we describe here shows, from a quantitative viewpoint, that Earth’s sixth mass extinction is more severe than perceived when looking exclusively at species extinctions. Therefore, humanity needs to address anthropogenic population extirpation and decimation immediately. That conclusion is based on analyses of the numbers and degrees of range contraction (indicative of population shrinkage and/or population extinctions according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature) using a sample of 27,600 vertebrate species, and on a more detailed analysis documenting the population extinctions between 1900 and 2015 in 177 mammal species. We find that the rate of population loss in terrestrial vertebrates is extremely high—even in “species of low concern.” In our sample, comprising nearly half of known vertebrate species, 32% (8,851/27,600) are decreasing; that is, they have decreased in population size and range. In the 177 mammals for which we have detailed data, all have lost 30% or more of their geographic ranges and more than 40% of the species have experienced severe population declines (>80% range shrinkage). Our data indicate that beyond global species extinctions Earth is experiencing a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.

The clock is ticking.

Click here for the PDF

Amplification

Methane, lots & lots of methane, generated by a nickel loving organism called methanosarcina, may have caused the Permian Extinction, AKA The Great Dying with assistance from the nickel producing volcanic Siberian Traps.

The perpetrators, this new work suggests, were not asteroids, volcanoes, or raging coal fires, all of which have been implicated previously. Rather, they were a form of microbes — specifically, methane-producing archaea called Methanosarcina — that suddenly bloomed explosively in the oceans, spewing prodigious amounts of methane into the atmosphere and dramatically changing the climate and the chemistry of the oceans.

Volcanoes are not entirely off the hook, according to this new scenario; they have simply been demoted to accessories to the crime. The reason for the sudden, explosive growth of the microbes, new evidence shows, may have been their novel ability to use a rich source of organic carbon, aided by a sudden influx of a nutrient required for their growth: the element nickel, emitted by massive volcanism at just that time.

End result.

The burst of methane would have increased carbon dioxide levels in the oceans, resulting in ocean acidification — similar to the acidification predicted from human-induced climate change. Independent evidence suggests that marine organisms with heavily calcified shells were preferentially wiped out during the end-Permian extinction, which is consistent with acidification.

250,000,000 years later, circa the 21st century, an ongoing 6th extinction is happening before our very eyes  but this time, it's happening 1000 times faster than the original, a notion disquieting to say the least.

In the same way, and for many of the same reasons, many today find it inconceivable that we could possibly be responsible for destroying the integrity of our planet’s ecology. There are psychological barriers to even imagining that what we love so much could be lost — could be destroyed forever. As a result, many of us refuse to contemplate it. Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.

For example, we continue to use the world’s atmosphere as an open sewer for the daily dumping of more than 90 million tons of gaseous waste. If trends continue, the global temperature will keep rising, triggering “world-altering events,” Kolbert writes. According to a conservative and unchallenged calculation by the climatologist James Hansen, the man-made pollution already in the atmosphere traps as much extra heat energy every 24 hours as would be released by the explosion of 400,000 Hiroshima-class nuclear bombs. The resulting rapid warming of both the atmosphere and the ocean, which Kolbert notes has absorbed about one-third of the carbon dioxide we have produced, is wreaking havoc on earth’s delicately balanced ecosystems. It threatens both the web of living species with which we share the planet and the future viability of civilization. “By disrupting these systems,” Kolbert writes, “we’re putting our own survival in danger.”

To read more, click Something to Consider, a blurb done back in November of 2011 talking about the same thing with phase transitions added in for good measure.