Category Archives: Mass Extinction

Global Warming, Government, Mass Extinction, Ocean Acidification, Sea Level Rise, Warnings

Humanity needs to change course immediately on climate change

February 27, 2021 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

This report from the United Nations is sobering:

U.N. Says World Has 10 Months to Get Serious on Climate Goals

“The language of diplomacy rarely allows for a true sense of emotion or urgency. But reading between the lines of the latest report commissioned by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—the body representing the 197 member nations of the Paris Agreement to minimize a global average temperature rise this century—the message is clear. The world has precisely ten months to get our act together if there is to be any hope of staving off a climate catastrophe by the end of the century.”

As described many times in this blog, there are steps that humanity could take (e.g. the immediate halt to fossil fuel usage and the immediate initiation of direct carbon dioxide capture from the atmosphere). But humanity shows little interest in averting the catastrophe that is approaching. Even though we know what will happen, and even though it will cause trillions of dollars in damage along with the displacement of millions of people, humanity seems unable to take action.

At this point it is difficult to imagine anything that would cause humanity to change course in any significant way. And what is really needed is an intense effort, similar to space program in the United States in the 1960s, where significant funding and hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers are dedicated to the task of solving and then reversing climate change.

“Failing to address climate change is “marching forward to what is almost tantamount to a mutual suicide pact”, said Kerry. “We bury our heads in the sand at our own peril. It’s urgent to treat the climate crisis as the urgent security threat that it is.””

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Government, Mass Extinction, Sea Level Rise

John Kerry (Special Envoy for Climate) gives us 9 years to get our climate act together

February 19, 2021 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

According to John Kerry, we have 9 years to start getting out act together and 29 years to hit net-zero on Carbon:

Kerry warns the US has 9 years to avoid worst climate consequences

From the article:

““The scientists told us three years ago we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crisis. We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left,” Kerry said. The former secretary of State appeared to be referring to a 2018 United Nations report, which warned that global emissions needed to decrease 45 percent by 2030 in order to avert 1.5 degrees of global warming… “We all need to develop not just a number but a road map for how we will actually make the dramatic progress we need to make over the next 10 years and what we will specifically do to get to net-zero by no later than 2050,” Kerry stated.”

The question that many experts are exploring now is, “have we already stretched nature so far that 1.5 degrees is impossible without drastic measures.

What Kerry should instead be doing is taking a big leap and advocating dramatic global measures. Net Zero should be happening in 10 years, not 30, and CO2 needs to be extracted from the atmosphere to boot. Fossil fuel consumption must end quickly and completely, and we must remediate the carbon dioxide we have already released. Why should Kerry do this?

We have to do this if the planet is to survive
Dramic steps like this will drive publicity
If we turn on crisis mode behaviors, there is some hope that humanity can get the job done.

Trillions of dollars or infrastructure, millions of human lives and quadrillions of plant/animal lives are at stake. Humans must take drastic steps, and Kerry should be leading the charge globally.

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry at Climate Adaptation Summit

Mass Extinction

90% of large fish are gone. Will humanity act in time to save those that remain?

February 13, 2021 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

The Earth’s oceans feed billions of people, but overfishing is decimating the fish stocks that make this possible:

We’ve removed 90% of all large fish from the oceans. Just 10% to go.

From the article:

Daniel Pauly: This is 90% of all big fish, tuna, cod and groupers, the problem is the big fish that live longer and they are gone almost everywhere. And while in some regions of the world, in Europe a little bit, in the US, there has been a trend towards rebuilding the stocks, reducing the effort or at least not letting it increase as it was happening before, and the result of this is that the situation as you will read in newspapers is not as bad as before.
Robyn Williams: The point about big fish, many fishers have always gone for the bigger fish and thrown the little fish back, but it turns out that the big fish are the ones which are most fertile and produce the most offspring, so if you catch big fish you are depleting the next generation. Is that true?
Daniel Pauly: That is exactly what is happening. The depletion of big fish effects that species very much. These are the more threatened. If you think of groupers, big groupers or big bluefin tuna or sturgeons that are almost extinct everywhere. So the fish that gets big and that need a long time to reach maturity, they are the ones that are the most under pressure. And then within the species, the fish that are big are pushed to the brink because fisheries are selective for big fish usually. There are two kinds of big fish and both of them are impacted.

The Doomsday Book has a whole chapter on the decimation of living organisms on Earth today: fish, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, rainforest biomes, etc. All wildlife is being crushed by humanity from multiple angles: habitat loss, pesticides, extermination, hunting, poaching, artificial lighting… Populations are falling, and unless humanity takes radical steps toward preservation, extinction is inevitable for many species. Thus we are in the planet’s sixth mass extinction event.

Global Warming, Mass Extinction

The bees are disappearing

January 24, 2021 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

Many agricultural crops need bees in order to bear fruit. Unfortunately, humanity is killing off the bees. These two articles paint the picture:

A quarter of all known bee species haven’t been seen since the 1990s

“The number of bee species recorded worldwide has been sharply decreasing since the 1990s. Eduardo Zattara and Marcelo Aizen at the National University of Comahue in Argentina analysed how many wild bee species are observed each year as recorded in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility – a publicly available platform where researchers and citizens can record sightings of bee species. They found that there were a quarter fewer species reported between 2006 and 2015, as compared with the records we have from before 1990.”

Why are the bees declining? Gigantic fields with just one crop, plus pesticides, plus loss of habitat are the main problems cited.

A CRITICAL ANIMAL FOR EARTH’S SURVIVAL HAS GONE MISSING

“Due to their significant role as pollinators of plant life, bees have an outsized impact on the global ecosystem. The study notes the roughly 20,000 bee species are “are the most important group of insect pollinators” on Earth, contributing to the pollination of 85 percent of all cultivated crops. As a result, the decline in global bee species spells trouble for the planet — and the survival of people. “Insect decline is a hot topic now and bees are widely recognized as one of the most important pollinator groups,” Orr says.”

The loss of bees is similar to climate change, rainforest collapse and sea level rise. Rational human beings know these are huge problems that will eventually create an existential threat for billions of human beings. But we seem unable as a species to muster the energy or courage to solve the problems. Thus the time til doomsday ticks closer and closer. For example, if bee populations collapse, humans will not longer be able to eat many fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Global Warming, Mass Extinction, Rainforest Collapse

What does climate change look like from orbit?

December 29, 2020 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

It can sometimes be difficult for an individual person on the ground to personally witness the effects of climate change right now. If you were in California or Australia during the wildfires, you might have been directly affected, but more people still are now seeing direct effects. However, satellite imagery allows a view of the whole planet, and what we can see from satellites paints a terrible picture:

Watching Earth Burn – For 10 days in September, satellites in orbit sent tragic evidence of climate change’s destructive power.

Last winter, for example, Australia experienced one of the worst brushfire seasons in its history. On the first Sunday of 2020 I decided to take a look. Himawari-8 revealed a vista as spectacular as it was unnerving. A giant furnace door had seemingly been pried open. A plume of smoke extended outward from the continent’s southeastern quarter, a region twice the size of Texas where flame vortexes had been spiraling 200 feet into the air. Carrying the color of the land it came from, that noxious exhalation bore the residue of a billion or more incinerated animals and innumerable plants, baked into tinder from decades of ever-hotter summers.

The author points out in the article how you can look through the eyes of these satellites yourself:

My earth-watching, made possible by NOAA and Colorado State University websites, originates in three geostationary weather satellites parked in exceedingly high orbits above the Equator.
The effects of climate change will only become worse and worse unless humanity takes direct and massive steps to correct things.

Mass Extinction, Warnings

China has a fleet of Super Trawlers capable of stripping the ocean bare

December 26, 2020 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

Humans are rapidly depleting the ocean of fish. There are simply too many people catching too many fish for the fish to replenish themselves, and soon we will see more and more species collapsing. There is a whole chapter in The Doomsday Book about these kinds of mass extinction events. Watch this video:

Peru defends its waters as Chinese boats are accused of illegal fishing

Example:

Why is the government letting destructive ‘supertrawlers’ fish in Marine Protected Areas?

The intensity and scale of supertrawler fishing is a real threat to the habitats within MPAs. These industrial vessels stay at sea for weeks on end, catching, processing and freezing hundreds of tonnes of fish every single day. Ocean life is deeply interconnected, so when vast numbers of fish suddenly vanish from one part of the ecosystem, it’ll inevitably have serious impacts on everything else.
Supertrawler-size ships also carry a massive extra risk if anything goes wrong. There’s simply no margin for error when you’re working with mile-long nets that can cause serious damage if they’re not used correctly. Even without the direct impacts from fishing, supertrawlers put these vulnerable habitats at risk every time they enter an MPA.
Currently, it’s completely legal for them to do all of this, which makes a mockery of the idea of a Marine Protected Area.

Exposed : Supertrawlers fish in UK Marine Protected Areas in 2019

Global Warming, Mass Extinction, Rainforest Collapse

It cannot get any worse – active destruction of the Amazon rainforest

December 24, 2020 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

This article is terrifying:

Amazon fires: Bolsonaro actively trying to devastate rainforest, leaked documents show

The Brazilian government intend to build bridges, motorway and hydroelectric plant in the jungle to “fight off international pressure” to protect the world’s largest rainforest. The plans, leaked to political website openDemocracy, emerged as devastating fires rage through the Amazon.

As described in the Doomsday book, the Amazon rainforest is too important to let a country like Brazil destroy it. The entire forest should be taken over through international stewardship, humans should be removed from the forest, and every effort should be taken to keep it alive. If the rainforest is allowed to die, there will be a huge pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the loss of the rain cycle, and the destruction of a million or more species. It will be catastrophic. See:

Mass Extinction

Songbirds are dying of starvation

December 23, 2020 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

Imagine that you are a songbird. Winter is coming and you need to fly south for the winter. But all of the insects and berries you would normally eat during the migration are missing. So you die of starvation. That is the picture being painted by this year’s mass die-off:

Mass die-off of birds in south-western US ’caused by starvation’ – Necropsy reveals 80% of the thousands of songbirds that died suddenly showed typical signs of emaciation

The mass die-off of thousands of songbirds in south-western US was caused by long-term starvation, made worse by unseasonably cold weather probably linked to the climate crisis, scientists have said. Flycatchers, swallows and warblers were among the migratory birds “falling out of the sky” in September, with carcasses found in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska. A USGS National Wildlife Health Center necropsy has found 80% of specimens showed typical signs of starvation.

Also:

Allison Salas, a graduate student at NMSU, said the volume of carcasses she had collected had given her chills. She said: “The fact that we’re finding hundreds of these birds dying, just kind of falling out of the sky is extremely alarming.”

It is the harbinger of the mass extinction events to come, as a ripple effect of one after another. Kill off too many insects and the birds have nothing to eat.

Mass Extinction

An unfathomable story of human destruction at a massive scale

December 17, 2020 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

Here is a documentary that describes massive infrastructure projects in Florida – dams and canals – that have destroyed entire ecosystems:

Sweetwater- A Film by Spencer Miller

The video describes a path to repair, but what is the chance that we take it?

The problems include:

A massive sugar industry
Housing development
Politics

Whole areas destroyed by misguided human infrastructure and economic development. The destruction documented in the video is heartbreaking. By the 29 minute point you just want to cry.

More details: Help save Florida Bay and Florida’s water

Global Warming, Hurricanes & Cyclones, Mass Extinction, Ocean Acidification, Rainforest Collapse, Sea Level Rise, Warnings

Humans continue burning fossil fuels despite the obvious stupidity of doing so

December 3, 2020 Marshall Brain Leave a comment

Such a depressing headline:

World is ‘doubling down’ on fossil fuels despite climate crisis – Production must fall by 6% a year to avoid ‘severe climate disruption’ but Covid-19 funding is supporting increases

The world’s governments are “doubling down” on fossil fuels despite the urgent need for cuts in carbon emissions to tackle the climate crisis, a report by the UN and partners has found. The researchers say production of coal, oil and gas must fall by 6% a year until 2030 to keep global heating under the 1.5C target agreed in the Paris accord and avoid “severe climate disruption”. But nations are planning production increases of 2% a year and G20 countries are giving 50% more coronavirus recovery funding to fossil fuels than to clean energy.

The headline, however, is not nearly strong enough. The reality is that fossil fuel burning should be reduced to zero immediately, and humanity must start sucking excess CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Otherwise the planet faces an unstoppable cascade of catastrophic effects including:

As discussed in the book, humanity somehow needs to transform its thinking to a wartime posture against climate in order to prevent all of these cataclysms from occurring. If we do not take immediate action, the prospects are dire.

Doomsday Now

Category Archives: Mass Extinction

Humanity needs to change course immediately on climate change

John Kerry (Special Envoy for Climate) gives us 9 years to get our climate act together

90% of large fish are gone. Will humanity act in time to save those that remain?

The bees are disappearing

What does climate change look like from orbit?

China has a fleet of Super Trawlers capable of stripping the ocean bare

It cannot get any worse – active destruction of the Amazon rainforest

Songbirds are dying of starvation

An unfathomable story of human destruction at a massive scale

Humans continue burning fossil fuels despite the obvious stupidity of doing so

A companion website for "The Doomsday Book" by Marshall Brain