I thought long about this and until this morning I had not made up my mind whether I would write this. You see, this is not based on facts (or at least extreme loosely facts), I had spoken to a priest about this, but as I see the article in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/21/five-biggest-threats-human-existence), I decided to write the story anyway.
Consider the notion, the one that Anders Sandberg wrote in his story “Not those who will live 200 years from now, but 1,000 or 10,000 years from now“. In my view the man might actually be an optimist. For the most we have been deceived so long (not by the fore mentioned writer), that we have not been heeding anyone’s word in matters of survivability.
What if we are ending the option of life the way we currently are? What if we have at the maximum only 8 generations left? Did you consider this? Why 8 generations? Well, the number is slightly random, we might actually only have 7 or even 6 generations left.
This train of thought started with two events. The second one is the one I wrote about in ‘Tusks!’ earlier this month. It was about the Ivory trade and how at this stage, elephants will be extinct in 15 years (a claim by the World Wildlife Federation). The first one was the news by several sources that Japan was intend on slaughtering whales again for ‘scientific’ purposes (at http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/experts-concerned-japans-talk-scientific-whaling-n156766). The interesting quote is “What bothers Clapham is that ‘whaling nations have said forever that they advocate sustainable whaling, and then they go on to ignore mounting evidence of population declines in the interests of profit’“. I must say that the IWC has not been overly outspoken in visibility of the numbers, some they have, some are estimates and it can all be found here: http://iwc.int/estimate. The numbers imply that between the two markers 1985-1991 and 1992-2003, the Minke Whales in the southern Hemisphere were ‘culled’ for almost 30%. That is a MASSIVE number! So far Japan has not produced ANY viable information on why whales have to die for their ‘research’. In my view, Japan has an obligation to openly produce the entire scientific data on the whales, with the spectrum of issues they want to prove/disprove by slaughtering whales. If they do not, it is only fair that we perform medical experimentations on the Japanese population in regards to resistance to radiation for the term 1944-1947 and 2010-2014. Will they wait until 30% of the population is ‘culled’ until they complain? I do reckon that national interest in Whale meat would likely go down.
Let us all remain calm and realise that this is not some anti-Japanese issue! But, the example is here for a reason!
The whale has a massive impact on the aquatic balance “When one species of animal that is important to the food chain dies it allows other species to thrive” (from whalefacts.org). In addition there is the quote “Studies have shown that the nutrients in sperm whale poop helps stimulate the growth of phytoplankton which pull carbon from the atmosphere to provide a cleaner and healthier breathing environment for all animals. Estimates state that as much as 400,000 tonnes of carbon are extracted from the air due to these whales each year!“, the whales also keep the krill population in balance, who in term deal with some of the carbon issues we create. Here is where it all becomes a bit weird. It seems that we, Homo Sapiens need Krill oil too. We have been taking massive amounts of it from the arctic and as such, we have denied the whales their food source. Another part is the quote “The adult Antarctic krill feeds preferentially on phytoplankton” implying that the whales themselves foster and nurture their own food source, making it a symbiotic relationship. “Several threats to Antarctic krill have been identified, including increasing commercial demand for krill oil and meal for the aquaculture, medical and cosmetic industries, as well as advancing technologies which enable much greater catches and quicker processing” show that we need the krill food source too, making the whale a competitor, as such, in conjunction with global warming (which removes the chances of successful Krill reproduction), should give us a larger pause then it is currently giving us.
All this has further consequences, as these two species are culled stronger and stronger, the predators in the arctic will end up with different needs. Like the whale, the Elephant has a similar impact. As the Lions and subsequent the Hyena’s lose this food source, they will have to pick on other sources. Consider that an elephant carcass will feed the pride for a week, taking them out means that they become solely dependent on the other species, which will then take a downturn in numbers too. How is all this linked to these 8 generations?
We have been feeding ourselves and through this our biosphere into extinction. The time we could have had to resolve issues are slowly and surely getting lost to us due to sheer greed! You do not have to believe me, but when was the last time you have beef without the fear of horse meat? Is it about profit (partially accepted as correct), or is this because veal is getting harder and harder to get? We see part of this at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/us-usa-agriculture-inflation-idUSBREA4M0FI20140523, where it is stated that prices in the US are at a record high. They blame the drought, which might be true in part. Another side here is the fact that this planets population grew by 30% in the last 20 years, that is within two generations. This is the need to feed over one and a half billion more people. The US only grew by 22% in that time, but consider the given truth that you need greens and livestock to feed another 60 million and add obesity into the mix and you have the beginning of a food disaster.
It goes beyond food, which is the main event, but not the whole picture. The site IndexMundi is telling us, that the world requires 90 million barrels of oil EACH DAY! This number becomes an issue, when we know that the bulk of all oil comes from OPEC and the OPEC-12 reported in that same time a production of 31 million barrels a day. The entire world produces roughly 80 million barrels of oil a day, there seems to be the issue that we need more. Before you go into the idea that it is just oil, and like running water we have plenty. Think again, oil is begotten (for the lack of a better word), from the earth. These fields are finite plain and simple! If we take the following premise that over the last 12 years, we used on average 80 million barrels of oil a day and a barrel in 159 litres, then how much oil did we need to spawn? that number comes to 12.72 billion litres of oil each day for 4380 days, which gets us to a cube that is 59 Km by 59Km by 59Km. That is one massive cube and this is only for the last 12 years. If we accept that the atmosphere end (roughly) at 17Km, then we get an interesting rectangular cuboid which is just over 109 Kilometres long and wide reaching to the edge of our atmosphere (at twice the height of the Mount Everest). I think the picture is clearly shaping that we are seriously on route of consuming ourselves quite literally into extinction. That view is only enhanced when we see the extreme ways on how large companies are now trying to get a little more gas using shale gas methods of getting a little more out of rock. Do you think they would go this distance and setting themselves up to these dangers if it was not ‘essential’? The question becomes, is it greed, or is it finality that is getting us into these waters?
I do not claim to have the answers, but there is every indication that 8 generations might be optimistic. Yes, we see the words on ‘responsible’ fishing and on the need for other solutions. It was only last July when we saw on ABC the quote “Australia’s east coast is experiencing a chronic shortage of wheat and stocks could run out by November“. No matter what this precise reason is for that one newscast, we are confronted that a larger part of the 7 billion population (a 2012 number) needs bread on a daily basis. How much wheat is needed to make 7 billion buns of bread each day?
It is when we realise these astronomical numbers that we get a first inkling on the dangers we face when we hear the words ‘food’ and ‘shortage’ together. More important, what can we do to prevent the nightmare the eight generation will face once he/she arrives there. I am not the first one to make these claims and in many places, we see some ‘expert’ giving us numbers that it will not be such a harsh reality. Is that so? For decades global warming was ‘debunked’ by carefully selected ‘experts’ even today they are still trying to throw sand in many eyes to dissuade many from seeing the perilous times that lie ahead.
In this article I only raised two of the daily needs we face every day, what happens when we add the need for clean (healthy) water? Part of that was illustrated last February in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/global-water-shortages-threat-terror-war).
The six areas in direct threat give us an indication that drought or not, we are in long term dire need for the one substance we cannot do without. If the human body needs 3 litres of water each day, then how will we get by on getting 21 billion litres of water each day for years to come? We all think too easy that this planet is 70% water. That water is not all fresh water and we have to share it with many other life forms (not just the fish). Feel free not to take my word on this. The WWF had this to say “By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages”, that is just a decade from now, will this come to pass? Consider that the current population requires a body of water the size of the Dead Sea is not entirely comfortable when we consider the amounts of fresh water we have been polluting in recent years.
Time will tell, in the end we might not even get 8 generations to figure it out, however I always was an incurable optimist.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 