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It can be very easy to live our lives and only occasionally glimpse the reality. (...) But when we zoom out and look at the sum total of our impacts, the story is clear. Put bluntly, we are eating away at our own life support systems. And this has happened extraordinarily recently. If we keep going, we risk triggering a dramatic and potentially irreversible change in living conditions.
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I would definitely say #mastodon has been the biggest wake-up call for me in appreciating the existential threat of #climateChange and #overshoot and nudging me to begin incremental steps in changing my lifestyle PRN ( medical term indicating ‘as necessary).
"Many #degrowth scholars focus on capitalism as the cause of ecological overshoot. But many civilisations destroyed ecosystems to the point of #collapse long before capitalism became our dominant economic model.
From an ecologist’s perspective, degrowth is inevitable. Many species #overshoot their environment’s carrying capacity if they have temporary access to an unusually high level of resources. Returning to more stable levels often involves large-scale starvation and die-offs as populations adjust.
A Professor Eliot Jacobson post on 7 September, 2023, screenshot:
"To be a doomer you don't have to exaggerate warming, speculate about feedback loops and tipping points, believe huge methane releases from permafrost are imminent or think 400 nuclear power plants will melt down.
This is where we’re heading. If anyone tells you fairytales about “keeping 1.5 in reach” or “keeping 1.5C alive” refer them to the Production Gap Report and this graph in particular, and if you want show them the latest statements of fossil psychopaths like the Saudi energy minister or Exxon’s CEO, all hooked up and ready to go for all the hydrocarbon molecules.
> climatologists expect the impacts of global warming to intensify, social scientists warn that humanity may be about to sleepwalk into a dangerous new era in human history
Now then.
I've analysed the data. I've carefully considered what it's telling us.
As a result I have a hypothesis, likely to be a robust law of political economy.
"The more a politician uses the word 'growth', the less they have any idea how to fix the economic, social and environmental crisis that is engulfing the world.
“It’s not just mammals. Wild bird populations are also tumbling. Domestic poultry now constitute 70% of the world’s avian biomass. Average populations of thousands of monitored species of wild vertebrates, birds, fish, mammals, amphibians, have declined ~60% since 1970. Populations of #invertebrates, including essential #pollinators, are also in free-fall: Butterflies down 53%; beetles down 49%, bumblebees down 46%… All species monitored by WWF are down 68–70% in just 50 years.”"
The #AngloSaxon capitalist model ruined earth for humanity and many other species. #BigOil has been its undertaker, b/c #BigOilKnew.
If capitalism hadn't made the #GreenRevolution possible, human society would already have reached the #overshoot (1) point at the end of the last century:
In 1968, the #biologists Paul and Anne #Ehrlich wrote the book The #PopulationBomb"...
“The battle to feed all of #humanity is over. In the 👉1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death👈 in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”
"...is created this way. There is 👉no substitute.👈 This is why fertilizer prices (and thus, food prices) are getting higher and higher, because #NaturalGas has gotten so expensive..."
Instead of using natural gas exclusively for fertilizer production, we are just "firing away"
Humans have essentially painted themselves into a corner." (1)
Surprised to encounter NO paywall / adwall on this. Maybe my plugins broke through¯_(ツ)_/¯
PS I updated the URL with a gift article version, thanks to @dsacer
"An unprecedented flu strain is attacking hundreds of animal species. Humans could be next.
The panzootic has struck some 320 bird & mammal species, including elephant seals.
The beaches of Valdes Peninsula in Argentina, normally so packed with elephant seals that time of year it is impossible to stroll along the shore, were desolate except for hundreds of dark, rotting carcasses — nearly a whole season of seal pups dead, with gulls pecking at the remains." #climate#overshoot https://wapo.st/3O4uBeS
How to know when you've crossed over to full, freakin' paranoia?? When you read an article like this & immediately envision #Christofascist legislation to grow "abandoned" frozen embryos via artificial wombs so they can become neglected, traumatized kids--oops, I mean properly-educated RW voters. Voila... the next anti-abortion tool. 🤦♀️
...factor, #overpopulation. Earth has been hit by the shockwaves of a #PopulationBomb and is suffering from the explosion's fallout of currently 8 billion people. We have been in #overshoot for decades and are all living on borrowed time, the so-called #PhantomCarryingCapacity of #Earth. 4)
Yes, the #overshoot theory entails that the human race has already failed.
The question is, however, in how many decades we can still achieve a climate similar to the one we have been enjoying in the past decades again?
Life is probabilities and statistics. If you are on a life boat, your chances of survival might be just 5%. You still fight.
On the other hand, one passenger on the boat might need sacrifice himself for the...
“Humanity’s 21st century challenge is to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet. The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries is a playfully serious approach to framing that challenge, and it acts as a compass for human progress this century.”
Kate Raworth, “renegade economist focused on making economics fit for 21st century realities.”
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Our ancient ancestors contributed to the extinction of many of the world's largest mammals ('megafauna'). This was during an event known as the Quaternary megafauna extinction (QME).
Far from being in balance with ecosystems, tiny populations of hunter-gatherers changed them forever. By 8,000 BCE – almost at the end of the QME – there were only around 5 million people in the world.
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Quite simply: As human population grows and our footprint expands, more human habitat means less habitat for endangered species. Pile on invasive species (like domestic cats) and climate change and native species don't stand a chance.
But the author almost entirely misses Section 7 in their word-fluffed up article, where critical habitat is defined as off-limit to developers. But developers rule in #hawaii
Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists
"“We’ve socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” says Joseph Merz, lead author of a new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a symptom of ecological #overshoot, which in turn is caused by the deliberate exploitation of human behaviour."
Interesting paper. It correctly identifies the source of our problems: behavioral patterns, culture and power structures glorifying consumption and pronatalism. Authors recognize that targeting only symptoms of #overshoot (like #ClimateChange) with incremental technological interventions is a losing strategy.
The 2023 Production Gap Report: “Phasing down or phasing up? Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises” finds that governments plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 69% more than would be consistent with 2°C.