SPECIAL REPORT #15: OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA - 18 Part Series

SPECIAL REPORT: 

OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA

(Part 15 of 18)




 

Series on overpopulation in America — Growing Greenhouse Gases

By Frosty Wooldridge

“A simple look at the upward path of global greenhouse emissions indicates we will continue to squeeze the trigger on the gun we have put to our own head.”  Eugene Linden, The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilization

Worldwide, millions upon millions of smokes stacks exhaust billions of tons of chemicals, carbon dioxide and particulate into the air 24/7.  Those chemicals fall as acid rain on the land and into oceans. They change the chemistry of the soil, water and oceans.  All of it deadly. Photography by www.captainkimo.com

In the United States, 254,000,000 (million) cars, hundreds of thousands of planes, boats, trains, lawn mowers, snow machines and other combustion engines burn fuel 24/7.  They exhaust enormous amounts of pollution every second without end.

In the United States, millions upon millions of homes, office buildings, schools and factories burn billions of tons of energy to operate the engines of commerce. They also exhaust billions of tons of carbon pollution.

It all adds up to an enormous load on the Natural World that cannot be mitigated.  Note that the USA houses 319 million people.  The rest of the planet carries 7.2 billion humans also burning colossal amounts of energy to create horrific impact on the ecology of the planet.

At some point, something must give, and it will!  Systems that cannot withstand the assault must collapse.

Mother Nature deforms to fit humanity’s onslaught

Earth's average temperature rose 1.4°Farenheit over the past century.  Scientists project a rise of 2 degrees F to 11.0 degrees F within this century.

Small changes in the average temperature of the planet translates to large and dangerous shifts in climate and weather.  It also transforms our oceans with temperature changes and acidification from carbon infusing with the water.

(Cities burn millions of gallons of oil and billions of tons of coal 24/7 in order to keep up with demand. All that pollution falls back to Earth. It devastates the ecology of the planet.)  Photography by www.captainkimo.com

Previous to the Industrial Revolution, the Earth’s atmosphere carried 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. In March of 2013, that figure rose to over 400 ppm for the first time in millions of years.

Since that time, oil, gas and coal became energy sources that overwhelm the Natural World’s ability to mitigate their impact.

The evidence grows stronger with each passing year. Rising global temperatures caused Hurricane Katrina, Sandy and Haiyan in the Philippines.  Tornadoes touch down in February throughout the Midwest in America.

Many regions face extreme drought like California while extremes express themselves all over the planet.  Glaciers melt at lightning speed in Asia, Greenland and Alaska.

(Cities around the world house up to 36 million residents such as Tokyo, Japan that intensify air pollution and carbon footprint.  Lung cancer rates rise while water pollution rates scream off the charts.  Everyone breathes toxic air with every breath 24/7.)  Photography by www.theguardian.com

Oceans warm while becoming more acidic, which translates into unlivable habitat for marine creatures.  Extinction follows.

So what’s causing our massive environmental warming trend? 

Essentially, human beings burn up the planet

The United Nations weather agency chief Michel Jarraud said, “Ocean temperatures are rising fast, and extreme weather events, forecast by climate scientists, showed climate change was inevitable for the coming centuries.

"There is no standstill in global warming.  The year 2013 tied with 2007 as the sixth hottest year since 1850 when recording of annual figures began.

"The warming of our oceans has accelerated, and at lower depths. More than 90 percent of the excess energy trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the oceans. Levels of these greenhouse gases are at a record, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. The laws of physics are non-negotiable.”

We humans set a course beyond our understanding. We tinker with the mechanism of climate and ecology beyond our capacity.  We very well could become our own executioner along with much of our fellow travelers.

(Shallow-water creatures, like these corals, are extremely vulnerable to carbonic acid. Scientists are calling for drastic measures to avert massive bleaching of the world's reefs.”)Photography by Ove Hoegh-Guiderg/AFP/Getty Images

Scientists understand the Earth’s oceans absorbed half of anthropogenic, or man-made CO2 since 1850. But research shows the introduction of massive amounts of CO2 into the seas alters water chemistry, which affects the life cycles of many marine organisms throughout the food chain.

Carbonic Acid 

When carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, carbonic acid forms. This leads to higher acidity, which inhibits shell growth in marine animals and causes reproductive disorders in some fish.

On the pH scale, which runs from 0 to 14, solutions with low numbers are considered acidic and those with higher numbers are basic. Seven is neutral. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH measured “basic”, averaging 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.

During an overpopulation conference in Washington DC, I attended a lecture by Dr. Camilo Mora, professor of Geography at the University of Hawaii.  He said,  “When you look at the world ocean, there are few places that will be free of changes; most will suffer the simultaneous effects of warming, acidification, and reductions in oxygen and productivity.

“The consequences of these co-occurring changes are massive – everything from species survival, to abundance, to range size, to body size, to species richness, to ecosystem functioning are affected by changes in ocean biogeochemistry.”

Humpback whales are among the many whales that feed on krill, which will be subject to multiple climate stressors. (Photo courtesy International Whaling Commission)

If we humans continue our 24/7 carbon footprint attack on Mother Nature, she will respond.  For example: if the oceans become overly acidic, the krill that feeds endless numbers of creatures in our oceans may go extinct.  If they die, the entire food chain dies. 

It’s called “cascading extinctions”.  As one creature in the chain dies off, everything that fed upon that creature dies off in a chain-reaction that cascades into massive extinction rates for other dependent creatures.

What do we face?  Humans add 80 million of our kind annually, net gain. We add 1 billion every 12 years. We expect to increase from 7.2 billion to 10.1 billion within 36 years and continue to increase indefinitely.  The United States expects to add 138 million within 36 years.  That will increase our carbon footprint beyond measure.

Should we accept our fate and keep heading down the same road?  Result: it won’t be pretty for our kids.

Solutions:  world leaders must gather to speak about human population stabilization.  We must address one child per woman families.  Because if we don’t enact some methodical birth control measures quickly, we won’t enjoy a planet that can support us. 

 In fact, this planet will respond with deadly force with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Frosty Wooldridge

All About Frosty  - "A Hero For Our Times"

If we do not change course - consider the possible consequences.

SPECIAL REPORT #14: OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA - 18 Part Series

SPECIAL REPORT: 

OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA

(Part 14 of 18)


 

Series on overpopulation in America— Radioactive Oceans 

By Frosty Wooldridge

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” ― Chief Seattle

Twenty-nine months after Fukushima’s nuclear power plants exploded and started leaking millions or possibly billions of gallons of radioactive toxic waste into the Pacific Ocean, the contaminated liquid circulated (s) into all of the oceans of the world.

Fact: that radioactive waste enters into every living creature in the Earth’s oceans and contaminates their flesh.  If you eat salmon, tuna, shrimp and other marine creatures in 2013, you cannot help but absorb, to some degree, the radioactive contamination of Fukushima. 

(Worker walks through crippled reactors at Fukushima where millions of gallons of radioactive liquids poured into the oceans.)  Photo by IrishTimes.com

That single catastrophe may spell greater disasters for humans and all living creatures in the seas around the planet—for decades to come.  As one writer said, “We’re all standing on the beach for this one.”

“Radiation readings around tanks holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have spiked by more than a fifth to their highest levels, Japan's nuclear regulator said, heightening concerns about the clean-up of the worst atomic disaster in almost three decades,” according to Alan Sheldrik, Tokyo, Japan.

The NRA later raised the severity of the initial leak from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level 3 "serious incident" on an international scale of 1-7 for radiation releases.

"There's a strong possibility these tanks also leaked, or had leaked previously," said Hiroaki Koide, Assistant Professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute. "We have to worry about the impact on nearby groundwater...These tanks are not sturdy and have been a problem since they were constructed two years ago."

(Plastic and chemicals overflow in rivers around the world, yet humans continue polluting them at breakneck speeds. Notice that no one picks up the plastic trash or containers. They walk through it, avoid it, drink the water, but never think to take responsibility to pick it up or stop it.)   Photography by www.theelefunt.com

What bothers me as a food eating, water drinking and air breathing human being on this planet stems from the reality that we humans continue our mass contamination of our planet at breakneck speed.  If you look at the swirling radioactive plumes flying out of Japan on every ocean current—you see that Fukushima’s radioactive waters spread to every nook and cranny of every ocean in the world.

(Google photograph depiction of Fukushima radioactive waste spreading throughout the Pacific and eventually to everywhere on the planet.)

Numerous reports tell us not to eat any more fish from the oceans.

“Radiation levels around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned,” reported the BBC September 1, 2013.

(Notice the Taj Mahal, India looks so beautiful in the distance and we admire its beauty around the world.  But look what India does to its natural world.  Many of the world’s oceans and rivers look like this picture.  What sinks to the bottom of the oceans causes death and destruction to eco systems.  Why haven’t the world leaders come together to form a 25 cent deposit/return law for all plastic, glass and metal containers to insure such pollution stops?  Answer: they don’t care and neither do the people of the world.)   Photo by www.admeru.com

As to Fukushima, when the entire story comes to light and countless thousands and even millions of humans suffer from radiation poisoning, cancers and heaven knows that else—we must ask ourselves how much further we humans want to ride this planet down into a hell-hole of consequences.

Every single day of the year, we burn 84 million barrels of oil that ultimately exhausts into our oceans—to acidify them—which makes them more and more uninhabitable for all living marine creatures and planetary life.

We spray billions of tons of pesticides and insecticides onto our plants 24/7 here in the USA and abroad.  Ironically, we outlawed DDT in the USA, but Chevron Company still makes it and sells it to people around the world. I know because I smelled it in my bicycle travels in Asia and South America.  We know it kills all life and destroys ecological systems, but for the love of money, we keep selling that DDT crap abroad. Unfortunately, like the Fukushima disaster, 80,000 chemical poisons that we created also spread around the world 24/7.

(Notice how nice the sky scrapers look and the high speed traffic bridges leading into a major city.  Notice the trash and garbage running in the river and notice the brown water carrying every kind of chemical to poison the marine life, plant life and ocean life once it reaches the sea.)   Photo bywww.gayytejada.blogspot.com

Consequently, cancers affect 1 in 3 people here in the United States and cancers grow worldwide as we continue our quest to soak the planet with chemicals.  Cancer escalates as the number one cause of death in the world.  The more we continue our plundering and polluting of this miraculous globe, the more we shall face the wrath of Mother Nature in various forms: tornadoes caused in January in Illinois or massive killer tornadoes in Oklahoma that kill and destroy anyone in their paths.    All because of massive carbon footprint unbalancing of our weather patterns.  Loss of the rain forests and positive weather systems they generated. 

Loss of over 100 species every single day of the year because of human encroachment. (Source: Norman Myers, Oxford University)  Acidified oceans that continue their death spiral with radioactive wastes from Fukushima.  Not known by most Americans, we dumped billions of pounds of mustard gas and Lewisite gas into the oceans after WWII.  We dumped over 500 barrels of radioactive waste 20 miles off San Francisco, California in the 50s. Today, all those drums rusted open and spewed their contents into the Pacific waters.  We continue to draw down aquifers and contaminate ground water at the same time here in the USA with massive pig farms, cattle farms and industrial waste.  For example:  the toxic and polluted Mississippi River blooms into a 10,000 square mile dead zone at its mouth because of so many chemicals from farm and industrial run-off.

(Most Americans do not possess a clue as to the global water crisis, but it is coming to America faster and faster as our population escalates by 138 million net gain within the next 37 years.  US population projection for 2050:  from 316 million in 2013 to 438 million people and on to 625 million people. Over 1 billion humans lack a clean glass of drinking water in 2013 daily. Humans add an additional 1 billion people every 12 years.)  Photo by National Geographic

If you could see what I saw as to raw sewage-chemicals injected into the Yangtze River in China, Ganges River in India, Hudson and Potomac Rivers in the USA, and many other rivers in South America—it would cause you to mentally vomit.  We humans created upwards of 27,000 square mile dead zones at the mouths of these major rivers because of the enormous amount of chemicals we inject into them before they reach the oceans.

Now, we vomit our radioactive waste from Fukushima to all oceans of the world, which will take centuries to neutralize, if ever.

At some point, we human beings, whether Americans or planetary citizens from other countries must take stock of what we are doing to the planet and doing to ourselves.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” ― Chief Seattle

If we keep going in the same direction we tread today, the 21^st century will prove a bumpy ride for all of humanity along with all the other creatures in our path.

(Gaze upon the plastic waste on this river and most rivers flushing into the oceans. Little wonder humans accelerate their own demise via their waste streams entering every aspect of Earth’s ecology.)

Frosty Wooldridge

All About Frosty  - "A Hero For Our Times"

If we do not change course - consider the possible consequences.