CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOW AND WE ARE THE CAUSE

CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOW AND WE ARE THE CAUSE

The climate on Planet Earth has been changing most of my adult life.  The changes have been slow and are now manifesting themselves most dramatically in places like Alaska, Siberia, Greenland and Antarctica.  These alterations of our environment are NOT reversible and there is not an easy cure for this condition.  

This is an ecosystem problem. An ecosystem is a web of interconnected entities that make something work.  The human body is our ecosystem and when all of the parts of this marvel are working together we are healthy and we feel good.  When this system breaks down we get sick and feel terrible.

The Earth's ecosystem is called the Biosphere and it is sick and getting sicker due to our activities.  Some have likened humans affect on the planet  as to a disease. If you examine human incursions into the natural environment it is strikingly similar to a kind of cancer.  When a homeowner buys land for a homestead, he clears it of all native vegetation, builds the house and then plants green concrete (grass) and nonnative wallpaper plants to make it look "natural". 

Towns and cities resemble tumors as they expand their boundaries seeking more land for housing, roads, businesses, industries, etc.

It is my belief that the Biosphere is life on the planet and it will treat humans as a threat to its survival. We are facing the possible extinction of the human species if we continue on our present path.

During the last Ice Age about 15,000 years ago humans were mostly hunters and gatherers, living off the land. We were part of the ecosystem with a stable population and living within our "means". The activities we participated in were sustainable  and we did not have a very negative impact on the Biosphere.  About 10,000 years ago humans invented agriculture and everything changed.  From maybe 1 million humans  at the time, a reliable food supply, combined with increased safety of living in enclaves with others, the number of humans increased dramatically.  Today there are more than 7.7 Billion of us on the planet with future estimates reaching at least 9 to 12 Billion in the next 50 years.  This is NOT sustainable. 

If the Biosphere is sick and we are the disease, it has no choice but to use it's immune system to cure itself.  We do not appear to have the political will to limit humans numbers or control the methane and carbon dioxide pollution spewing into the atmosphere. Disease has always been a limiting factor in human existence, but with the worldwide rise of  modern medicine, drugs, hospitals, etc, just about everyone survives. No one wants to go back to "survival of the fittest", but unless we limit our numbers and our impact on the planet, I do not believe we will survive as a species.

Why do I worry?  In the twenty-first century humans are concentrating in huge cities of millions of people, often living in poverty and deplorable conditions where communicable diseases,  like EBOLA,  can spread easily.  Like chickens in a huge house, when one chicken gets sick, they all die. 

We have choices.  The religious and governmental Patriarchal world that has ruled humanity for the last 10,000 years has to change.  This rule by MEN since we lived as hunters and gathers has given us our modern way of life but can not keep on this unsustainable path. If the male of the species can't lead humans to a sustainable future, then it is time to let women take the reins of power, so they can make the needed choices for survival. I for one am willing to step aside and let them run things.  Men have screwed up the world and it is time for us to get out of the way.