Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumOur biggest mistake...
was labeling the phenomenon we are now experiencing "Global Warming" and "Climate Change".
The use of this soft and gentle language completely blinded us to the specter of what was actually happening:
TOTAL CLIMATE COLLAPSE
Yes, Earth has experienced countless episodes of Global Warming and Climate Change. The geological record is littered with the evidence of advancing and retreating glaciers as well as rising and falling sea levels. And through it all life on Earth mas managed to not only survive but thrive. But this event is different. Different and terrifying. The true scope of this horror will be revealed once the main driving agent of this phenomenon changes from humble carbon dioxide to another simple carbon-based gas: methane.
Methane's potency as a greenhouse gas makes carbon dioxide's potency look like child's play.
Since 2007, methane has been released from the thawing tundra of the far north and under the warming shallows of the Arctic in amounts that are measured by the gigaton. It was this very same mass release of methane roughly a quarter-billion years ago that delivered the final punch of the event that is referred to as the Permian Mass Extinction. While many of you have heard that human activity is driving Gaia towards her "Sixth Mass Extinction". You may be unaware of the fact that it's the Permian cataclysm that was far and away our planets closest brush with sterilization. That ancient extinction event wiped out 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species and a whopping 96% of all marine species. Throw in the profound loss of plant life to the mix, and it's possible to reason that Earth may have lost up to 98% of her entire biomass.
Not afraid yet?
It took 80,000 years of super-volcanic activity to trigger the Permian methane bomb. Our methane bomb is exploding less than two centuries after the start of the industrial revolution. If the biosphere couldn't adapt to an 80,000-year-long collapse. I don't believe that it'll fare any better to a collapse playing out at 4000X speed. We made the mistake of believing that we were facing change. We aren't. We are facing collapse. It may be the last thing any of us will ever see.
2naSalit
(86,791 posts)though I would call it bioshperic collapse as it is more than just atmospheric conditions turning for the worse. Species are going extinct at a rapid or punctuated rate, our manipulation and attempts at controlling the natural world is our undoing but because this intense rate of destruction of our natural habitat is driven by profit and political gain as in ruler-ship of all life on the planet being the goal, we're screwn. Apparently it's what we do as a species... and we're not leaving without taking everything out with us.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)With anthropogenic climate change, human appropriation of other species' habitats, and over-fishing at the top of a lengthening list of human impacts that are causing the collapse.
Unfortunately, humans are largely blind to the fact that we're already in a collapse. IMO this is due to our limited "awareness horizon", our normalcy bias and our desire to recognize only the growth of human activity.
2naSalit
(86,791 posts)SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)far too few are concerned enough to work for change
CrispyQ
(36,518 posts)At least, that's what I read on DU whenever anyone mentions the E word, without any regard, whatsoever, to the fact that it's our big brain that got us into this mess.
We're fucked.
hunter
(38,328 posts)Nobody wants to think about that.