The Earth is sick, humanity is the disease
Earth’s health is declining. Its seas are over-fished, and filling with plastic; its forests are shrinking as they are cleared for farming and development. Its soils are dying from the effects of fertilisers and pesticides used to feed more people than the planet can sustain. Its atmosphere is polluted with ever-increasing carbon dioxide and methane, which is heating the planet and destabilising the climate.
Consequently our icecaps are melting, the Gulf Stream is slowing, and our forests’ capacity to absorb carbon is shrinking as forests shrink. As the icecaps melt, arctic permafrost is melting allowing trapped methane to escape. These changes are tipping points: once they become embedded they, and further global heating, become unstoppable.
Our Earth is sick; humanity is the disease. Tipping points will be the antibodies that attack and defeat that disease. The climate will provide the cure. In the fullness of geological time, life on this planet will regain an equilibrium. There will be far fewer people, and those who survive will be far less well provided with industrial infrastructure, so their lives will be simpler. Hopefully, too, they will have learned the lessons from our current extravagant lifestyles, and live thereafter in harmony with their environment.
Contributions to Pearls and Irritations
Your contribution will fund quality independent comment and analysis in Pearls and Irritations
Contribute
