How long will we last from natural causes?
The context of this post is to demonstrate that the universe has its own design. We may at some later point come up with means of delaying some impending natural universal and global events, but by and large things are out of our hands. What we have control of is our own impact which in many ways may be why we were put here. This is the starting point for many of the posts to come.
So onto listing some natural causes. Working backwards:
- Perhaps 10 billion years before the Sun’s radiation becomes too hot for Earth.
- A few hundred thousand years before the next super volcano (Yellowstone is the one most talked about – which would wipe out the middle section of North America. The resultant very cold summers could wipe out a very large number of humans globally.
- Tens or hundreds of thousands of years before a giant Tsunami. The most talked about is from a section of La Palma in the Canary islands which is predicted to eventually fall into the sea after first encountering a number of volcanic events (spreading about 20 miles inland in North America).
- Less than 20,000 years to the next ice age (temperature will be 6 or more degrees C (13.5 degrees F) colder than normal). Ice ages greatly reduce the land available to humans and force migration, although some areas of the planet which are now unproductive may provide a lot more resources.
- Collisions from asteroids and comets are shorter in timescale. There is concern and asteroid strike in 2030 but according to this BBC article the risk has been downgraded to a 1 in 500 chance and a 5 million kilometre miss.
Events 2 and 3 above may in statistical terms even be overdue, but the time scales involved are very large.
Many such natural events in the past, while catastrophic, have also helped to renew the planet.
2 comments July 10, 2009
Solution #2 – participation
Representative democracy is adversarial and is not leading itself well to solutions in a crisis. Political parties in opposition often oppose by necessity and often underine the party in power by necessity in order to increase their own chances of gaining the reins. If they succeed then roles of those in power and opposition are reversed.
The whip system means politicians on both sides have to vote in favour of things they are against and against things they are in favour of on a regular basis.
Democracy means the rule of the majority so where does that leave the minority – the poor, the weak, the disaffected, the opressed ? Often without a voice.
Additionally when crises such as the current economic situation occur, lack of agreement on solutions through lack of co-operation can arise. The attacks from opposition can be crippling for the decision makers. Moulding of the public anger and its manipulation takes place with some degree of success. The blame game takes centre stage.
Participation by the public is one key to finding solutions. Presently once politicians are elected, with the exceptiuon of a relatively small number of people active in lobbying (some for self-interest and others for the common good), the public leaves them to get on with it. However, the expertise to get out of the problems is often within the communities and not within government or its advisors. Therefore – participation from the public is going to need to increase (at the moment, the most prevalent public feeling is anger – by and large a destructive emotion which isn’t really going to get us anywhere fast).
More town hall meetings are required involving people getting together to pool their ideas on effective decision making. It means a re-examination of all levels of governance towards a more participatory system where greater consensus and non-adversarial methods are sought.
Add comment July 6, 2009
Solution #1 Helping each other
We posess more knowledge and better tools than ever before. Solutions can be found more quickly if the will is there. The rich developed and underdeveloped worlds can benefit mutually with the right co-operation and somehow the vested interests on both sides need to be bypassed. Dr. Desmond Tutu spoke about this an award acceptance speech by the at National University of Galway in February 2009. The vice grip that is debt needs to be removed. Is the global banking system extracting its many pounds if flesh on regions who have already paid far more than a fair price any good to the wider human family ? Merit in continuing to extract this debit is very hard to find.
It stands to reason that we may access sustainably, some of the resources in the underveloped regions, but in return, the people from these regions get to access some of our resources and expertise. In contrast to this is the debt caused (on our side) and conflict driven / poor / corrupt governance induced poverty. This sounds idealistic but is actually the opposite – pragmatic in the context of the multiple global crises facing us this century. Ways need to be found to bypass the debt ball and chain and diplomatic persuassion is required to sidestep the regional factors such as the greed, corruption and power abuse of the few.
By the same token people should consider pooling local skills rather than protecting their ideas and innovation. Hoarding of ideas means slowing down solutions. The recently unemployed need to be viewed as a vast resource of skills who can all contribute. Opportunities involve local co-ops in the areas of energy, agriculture, forestry, science and innovation.
Funding could also be provided by local and community banks using the mature and well-off workforce who wish to give a future to their children, grandchildren and communities.
Add comment July 6, 2009
Conundrum 1 – Poor Countries still forced down globalization route
While we can look at sustainability models in the west, these (sustainable) choices in many African, South American and Asian Countries are severely restricted by globalization. Using SAP’s (Structural Adjustment Policies) (wikipedia ref.) mean that special fiscal conditions are imposed on Countries in return for loans from the IMF, for example healthcare and education come under attack. Decisions are imposed on farmers as to what cash crops to grow. The crop prices can later come under competition attack from other Countries where SAP’s are introduced causing a downward spiral of prices for farmers and reducing the countries ability to pay back the loans. The weaker power causes destruction of environment, GM introductions and powerlessness. More recently a system called “Economic Partnership Agreements” has been introduced.
Peter Sutherland (Director General of the GATT (now the World Trade Organisation (WTO)) seems to genuinely believe that free trade is the way to help poorer countries. This fails to see the problems of imposed competition on sustainability. Worryingly, rock star anti-poverty activists like Bono and Bob Geldolf appear to be following this model. They may be adopting a short term approach that its better to do something than nothing and address immediate poverty taking a pragmatic position that they won’t change the system. As they don’t have the same vested interests of politicians and banking organisations it’s more likely they’re saying it as they see it but that they suffer from a blind spot that is failure to recognise the unsustainable nature of globalization.
The rich world is now heading more towards protectionist policies as a reaction to the sever global economic recession. Now the IMF is focussing its attention on some of the European Countries where the economic situation is worst.
The conundrum for poor countries (globalization advocates would suggest) is that they would be weakened by the removal of globalization. The poorer citizens deserve a chance of the good life we’ve just had in the rich world is part of the midnset – China and India being ana example – but we’ve just seen the impact that had on global energy supply, pollution and going forward other resource depletion.
2 comments June 29, 2009
Pesticide use – a prime example of unsustainability
Pesticides are designed to kill what we humans see as pests (weeds, insects and fungi). The problem is that anything designed to kill one thing doesn’t necessarily leave everything else alone. One of the big risks with pesticides is the hormonal impact on humans and other organisms in the food chain.
Another problem is that we humans fail to see how we are interdependent on, for example insects. Bees are the most glaring example because if they are wiped out (check out the colony collapse disorder post) then about a third of all pollination ends, and in turn there goes a huge block of food for us humans – shoot ourselves in the foot scenario.
One of the main reasons for pesticide use is monoculture farming – the growing of one crop only. The lack of diversity in a field or region makes it attractive to certain organisms and hence affects yield. The so-called pests develop resistance over time and the ammount of spraying required can increase accordingly. A vicious circle.
2 comments June 29, 2009
