Tag: collapse

“Biological Annihilation” – Stanford Scientists Discover Human-Driven Mass Extinction Is “Mutilating” the Tree of Life

Human actions have precipitated a significant acceleration in the extinction of vertebrate animal species, causing not only species but entire genera to vanish, dramatically affecting the planet’s biodiversity. This rapid loss, dubbed “biological annihilation” by scientists, has severe repercussions for human life, ecosystems, and potential medical insights, urging an urgent and large-scale response.
Human actions have precipitated a significant acceleration in the extinction of vertebrate animal species, causing not only species but entire genera to vanish, dramatically affecting the planet’s biodiversity. This rapid loss, dubbed “biological annihilation” by scientists, has severe repercussions for human life, ecosystems, and potential medical insights, urging an urgent and large-scale response.

The passenger pigeon, the Tasmanian tiger, and the Baiji (Yangtze river dolphin) are among the most recognized casualties of what many experts refer to as the sixth mass extinction. This is a consequence of human activities leading to the vanishing of vertebrate animal species at rates hundreds of times faster than their natural pace of extinction.

However, a new study conducted by Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that the crisis may run even deeper. Each of the three species above was also the last member of its genus, the higher category into which taxonomists sort species. And they aren’t alone.

LINK: https://scitechdaily.com/biological-annihilation-stanford-scientists-discover-human-driven-mass-extinction-is-mutilating-the-tree-of-life/

Addicted to Cool

How the dream of air conditioning turned into the dark future of climate change

Addicted to Cool

In 2023, Jeep rolled out a new edition of its popular four-wheel-drive SUV. For the first time since the company introduced the car in 1986, air conditioning wasn’t an option, it was a must. This appears to be the end of an era: “The last car in the U.S. without standard air conditioning,” read the headline of an article in the automotive press, “finally gives up the fight against refrigerant.”

LINK: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/interactive/2023/air-conditioning-climate-change/

 

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda“Instrumental reason is at the core of the emerging bio-tech paradigm, which is rapidly increasing the social, ecological, and spiritual degradation produced by civilization as a model of dominance. To counter this apocalyptic scenario based on the domination of nature, I propose poetic reason as the foundational matrix to move away from the instrumentalization of life in order to reshape in a more harmonious way the coexistence of human beings with each other, the environment, the cosmological order, and the animal realm.”

LINK: https://badideapublishing.com/

Earth is outside its ‘safe operating space for humanity’ on most key measurements, study says

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.

LINK: https://apnews.com/article/earth-climate-change-biodiversity-environment-pollution-c8582c3ae0344b5a88cc38cd8e725702

Antarctica warming much faster than models predicted in ‘deeply concerning’ sign for sea levels

Study finds ‘direct evidence’ of polar amplification on continent as scientists warn of implications of ice loss

An Adelie penguin in Antarctica. The icy continent is heating faster than climate models had predicted, a study has found. Photograph: Reuters/Alamy
An Adelie penguin in Antarctica. The icy continent is heating faster than climate models had predicted, a study has found. Photograph: Reuters/Alamy

Antarctica is likely warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate change models are predicting, with potentially far-reaching implications for global sea level rise, according to a scientific study.

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/08/antarctica-warming-much-faster-than-models-predicted-in-deeply-concerning-sign-for-sea-levels

Why the Coral Reef Crisis in Florida Is a Problem for All of Us

The Hottest Days in 100,000 Years. How Long Do We Have, and What Does “Collapse” Mean for a Civilization?

A marine heat wave is warming the waters off the coast of Florida, pushing temperature readings as high as 101 Fahrenheit and endangering a critical part of sea life: the coral reef.

Catrin Einhorn, who covers biodiversity, climate and the environment for The Times, discusses the urgent quest to save coral and what it might mean for the world if it disappears.

LINK: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS81NG5BR2NJbA/episode/YjZhYjdmNDktMzE2My00ZDM1LTliMWQtZDVhZWM4MmJiZWYx?ep=14

The summer from hell was just a warning

Wildfires, hurricanes, floods, extreme heat and other climate disasters rocked the globe this summer as climate change worsens record-breaking extreme weather events. | Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images (man); Matthew Thayer/Maui News via AP (fire); Julio Cortez/AP Photo (D.C. smoke)
Wildfires, hurricanes, floods, extreme heat and other climate disasters rocked the globe this summer as climate change worsens record-breaking extreme weather events. | Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images (man); Matthew Thayer/Maui News via AP (fire); Julio Cortez/AP Photo (D.C. smoke)

It’s been a summer of norm-shattering extremes — with temperatures beyond human memory, catastrophic floods from Beijing to Vermont, choking wildfires and climate records tumbling on every continent.

Welcome to the rest of our lives.

LINK: https://www.inkl.com/news/the-summer-from-hell-was-just-a-warning/MalJNgHRPXn

The next pandemic could strike crops, not people

Genetic uniformity is central to modern farming. It leaves us vulnerable to plant disease breakouts.

Genetic uniformity is central to modern farming. It leaves us vulnerable to plant disease breakouts.

LINK: https://grist.org/agriculture/next-pandemic-will-be-plants-not-people/

‘Off-the-charts records’: has humanity finally broken the climate?

Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/28/crazy-off-the-charts-records-has-humanity-finally-broken-the-climate

Major ‘Population Correction’ Coming For Humanity, Scientist Predicts

Major 'Population Correction' Coming For Humanity, Scientist Predicts
Abandoned city
© Provided by ScienceAlert

A little over two centuries ago, in the year 1800, roughly a billion people called Earth home.

Just a century later, it had grown by another 600 million.

Today, there are around 8 billion people on the planet.

That sort of growth is unsustainable for our ecosphere, risking a ‘population correction’ that according to a new study could occur before the century is out.

The prediction is the work of population ecologist William Rees from the University of British Columbia in Canada. He argues that we’re using up Earth’s resources at an unsustainable rate, and that our natural tendencies as humans make it difficult for us to correct this “advanced ecological overshoot”.

The result could be some kind of civilizational collapse that ‘corrects’ the world’s population, Rees says – one that could happen before the end of the century in a worst case scenario. Only the richest and most resilient societies would be left.

“Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources,” Rees writes in his published paper.

LINK: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/major-population-correction-coming-for-humanity-scientist-predicts/ar-AA1fqbMu