06 July 2015

Written by
Dahr Jamail By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Interview

Guy McPherson is a professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources and ecology at the University of Arizona, and has been a climate change expert for 30 years. He has also become a controversial figure, due to the fact that he does not shy away from talking about the possibility of near-term human extinction.

While McPherson’s perspective might sound like the stuff of science fiction, there is historical precedent for his predictions. Fifty-five million years ago, a 5-degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures seems to have occurred in just 13 years, according to a study published in the October 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A report in the August 2013 issue of Science revealed that in the near term, earth’s climate will change 10 times faster than during any other moment in the last 65 million years.

McPherson fears that we are well along in the process of causing our own extinction.

Prior to that, the Permian mass extinction that occurred 250 million years ago, also known as the “Great Dying,” was triggered by a massive lava flow in an area of Siberia that led to an increase in global temperatures of 6 degrees Celsius. That, in turn, caused the melting of frozen methane deposits under the seas. Released into the atmosphere, those gases caused temperatures to skyrocket further. All of this occurred over a period of approximately 80,000 years. The change in climate is thought to be the key to what caused the extinction of most species on the planet. In that extinction episode, it is estimated that 95 percent of all species were wiped out.

Today’s current scientific and observable evidence strongly suggests we are in the midst of the same process – only this time it is anthropogenic, and happening exponentially faster than even the Permian mass extinction did.

In fact, a recently published study in Science Advances states, unequivocally, that the planet has officially entered its sixth mass extinction event. The study shows that species are already being killed off at rates much faster than they were during the other five extinction events, and warns ominously that humans could very likely be among the first wave of species to go extinct.

So if some feel that McPherson’s thinking is extreme, when the myriad scientific reports he cites to back his claims are looked at squarely and the dots are connected, the perceived extremism begins to dissolve into a possible, or even likely, reality.

The idea of possible human extinction, coming not just from McPherson but a growing number of scientists (as well as the aforementioned recently published report in Science), is now beginning to occasionally find its way into mainstream consciousness.

“A Child Born Today May Live to See Humanity’s End, Unless …” reads a recent blog post title from Reuters. It reads:

Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, according to Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders of the effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He blames overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change. Fenner’s prediction is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn’t seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway.

McPherson, who maintains the blog “Nature Bats Last,” told Truthout, “We’ve never been here as a species and the implications are truly dire and profound for our species and the rest of the living planet.”

Truthout first interviewed McPherson in early 2014, at which time he had identified 24 self-reinforcing positive feedback loops triggered by human-caused climate disruption. Today that number has grown to more than 50, and continues to increase.

A self-reinforcing positive feedback loop is akin to a “vicious circle”: It accelerates the impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD). An example would be methane releases in the Arctic. Massive amounts of methane are currently locked in the permafrost, which is now melting rapidly. As the permafrost melts, methane – a greenhouse gas 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a short timescale – is released into the atmosphere, warming it further, which in turn causes more permafrost to melt, and so on.

As soon as this summer, we are likely to begin seeing periods of an ice-free Arctic. (Those periods will arrive by the summer of 2016 at the latest, according to a Naval Postgraduate School report.)

Once the summer ice begins melting away completely, even for short periods, methane releases will worsen dramatically.

Is it possible that, on top of the vast quantities of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels that continue to enter the atmosphere in record amounts yearly, an increased release of methane could signal the beginning of the sort of process that led to the Great Dying?

McPherson, like the scientists involved in the recent study that confirms the arrival of the sixth great extinction, fears that the situation is already so serious and so many self-reinforcing feedback loops are already in play that we are well along in the process of causing our own extinction.

Furthermore, McPherson remains convinced that it could happen far more quickly than generally believed possible – in the course of just the next few decades, or even sooner.

Truthout caught up with McPherson in Washington State, where he was recently on a lecture tour, sharing his dire analysis of how far along we already are regarding ACD.

Dahr Jamail: How many positive feedback loops have you identified up until now, and what does this ever-increasing number of them indicate?

Guy McPherson: I can’t quite wrap my mind around the ever-increasing number of self-reinforcing feedback loops. A long time ago, when there were about 20 of them, I believed evidence would accumulate in support of existing loops, but we couldn’t possibly identify any more. Ditto for when we hit 30. And 40. There are more than 50 now, and the hits keep coming. And the evidence for existing feedback loops continues to grow.

In addition to these positive feedback loops “feeding” within themselves, they also interact among each other. Methane released from the Arctic Ocean is exacerbated and contributes to reduced albedo [reflectivity of solar radiation by the ice] as the Arctic ice declines. Tack on the methane released from permafrost and it’s obvious we’re facing a shaky future for humanity.

More: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31661-mass-extinction-it-s-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it

But What if There’s No More Arctic to Bring the Mammoth Back To?

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

Scientists move closer to bringing woolly mammoth back to life

Scientists have identified extensive genetic changes that allowed the extinct giant animals to adapt to Arctic life

Washington: Scientists have moved a step closer to bringing the woolly mammoth back to life, after they identified extensive genetic changes that allowed the extinct giant animals to adapt to Arctic life.

As a test of function, a mammoth gene involved in temperature sensation was resurrected in the laboratory and its protein product characterised. The study sheds light on the evolutionary biology of these extinct giants, researchers said. “This is by far the most comprehensive study to look at the genetic changes that make a woolly mammoth a woolly mammoth,” said study author Vincent Lynch, assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago.

Woolly mammoths last roamed the frigid tundra steppes of northern Asia, Europe and North America roughly 10,000 years ago. To thoroughly characterise mammoth-specific genes and their functions, Lynch and his colleagues deep sequenced the genomes of two woolly mammoths and three Asian elephants—the closest living relative of the mammoth.

They then compared these genomes against each other and against the genome of African elephants, a slightly more distant evolutionary cousin to both mammoths and Asian elephants. The team identified roughly 1.4 million genetic variants unique to woolly mammoths.

These caused changes to the proteins produced by around 1,600 genes, including 26 that lost function and one that was duplicated. To infer the functional effects of these differences, they ran multiple computational analyses, including comparisons to massive databases of known gene functions and of mice in which genes are artificially deactivated.

Genes with mammoth-specific changes were most strongly linked to fat metabolism (including brown fat regulation), insulin signalling, skin and hair development (including genes associated with lighter hair colour), temperature sensation and circadian clock biology—all of which would have been important for adapting to the extreme cold and dramatic seasonal variations in day length in the Arctic.

Of particular interest was the group of genes responsible for temperature sensation, which also play roles in hair growth and fat storage. While his efforts are targeted towards understanding the molecular basis of evolution, Lynch acknowledged that the high-quality sequencing and analysis of woolly mammoth genomes can serve as a functional blueprint for efforts to “de-extinct” the mammoth. The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.

Push For Human Extinction

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

As ice melts, Polar bears could find last refuge in Canada’s High Arctic

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/polar-bears-could-find-last-refuge-in-canada-s-high-arctic-as-ice-melts-1.3136025

Canada’s High Arctic could become the last stable refuge for polar bears as climate change melts away their hunting grounds, a U.S. government report says.

Populations elsewhere — in Alaska, Russia, Norway and around Hudson Bay, northern Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador — are likely to decrease or greatly decrease by the year 2050 as global temperatures rise, the report projects.

But under a moderate scenario for greenhouse gas emissions, with enough reductions worldwide to keep the average global temperature hike to no more than two degrees, the polar bear population in northern Nunavut is most likely to remain stable and even has a decent chance of increasing, researchers say.

The 124-page research report comes from the U.S. Geological Survey, an entity of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and was published this week.

It looks at polar bear populations in four “eco regions,” including an area known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, home to perhaps 5,000 or more of the animals — about a quarter of the global total.

The archipelago has the best “potential to serve as a long-term refugium” for polar bears, the authors say.

But even then, if countries continue with “business as usual” and nothing is done to curb the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the long-term viability of polar bears would be in doubt.

Sea ice essential

Polar bear populations are thought to be sensitive to global warming mainly because the animals spend the winter and spring on sea ice hunting for fatty seals as well as mating and giving birth.

When the ice retreats in the summer, the bears are forced onto land. But land-based food can’t satisfy their dietary needs.

“The terrestrial resources are just not sufficient. It’s the difference between eating fat and eating a few berries,” said Andrew Derocher, a polar bear expert and professor at the University of Alberta, who wasn’t involved in the U.S. government report.

A polar bear drags a seal along a floe in Baffin Bay, above the Arctic Circle in Canada’s North. The bears need sea ice to hunt seals, their main source of food. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

“The whole fate of polar bears depends on how fast the sea ice disappears.”

Scientists have warned for years that climate change threatens polar bear populations. The U.S. Geological Survey study compares that risk against others like oil and gas shipping through the North, pollution and hunting of the bears, which is legal in Canada, the U.S. and Greenland.

It concludes that sea ice loss is the greatest menace to their survival, by a significant margin.

And it says about a third of the world’s polar bears — those in Alaska, Russia and Norway — could be in imminent danger from greenhouse gas emissions in as soon as a decade. Those areas of the Arctic have suffered some of the most dramatic declines in sea ice.

The scientists saw no rebound in overall population numbers in the projections that stretched to the year 2100 under either of the two scenarios they looked at: one in which greenhouse gas emissions stabilized, and the other in which they continued unabated.

“Polar bears are in big trouble,” said Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “There are other steps we can take to slow the decline of polar bears, but in the long run, the only way to save polar bears in the Arctic is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Other marine animals at risk

Polar bears aren’t the only marine species at risk from climate change.

In separate research released this week, an international team of scientists looked at the effects on sea creatures, concluding that under the “business as usual” scenario of unchecked greenhouse gas emissions, “most marine organisms evaluated will have very high risk of impacts.”

The effects will be felt “across all latitudes,” the authors write, “making this a global concern beyond the north/south divide.”

Sea life relocating fast in response to climate change

As more greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere, oceans will warm and become more acidic, says the study, published in the journal Science.

Fish will have to find new habitats in cooler waters. Warm-water corals and sea grasses at mid-latitudes are already being affected.

Even if the world commits and sticks to the most stringent of the proposed emissions targets, creatures like mussels, oysters, clams and scallops “will be at high risk” by the year 2100, the scientists say.

“All the species and services we get from the ocean will be impacted and everyone, including Canadians, who benefit from these goods and services are vulnerable,” said William Cheung, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s fisheries centre.

With files from The Associated Press

How Long Did They Think It Could Go On?

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

For as far back as I can remember, I’ve always thought, how long did they think they could get away with it? I guess I’ve always had a different perspective when it comes to the whole crazy industrialized world and the consequences of living so extremely against Nature as Americans have done for around a century or so.

Whenever I heard people talk of bombing Iraq or Iran (or whoever was the perceived target of the day) “back to the Stone Age,” I’d think, throw me into the briar patch, what’s wrong with that? Living like it was the Stone Age would be the best thing for the Earth and us all.

I spent nearly half my life like it was the Stone Age and never found myself wanting for more. Not only was the cabin where I lived in the mountains of the North Cascades without power, phone or running water, I didn’t have the urge to get a generator to see what I was missing out on.

Somehow I knew a gas-powered generator banging away for hours on end would be about as unnatural as you could get; I’d rather not have any power than have power produced so noisily. Such a foul assault on Mother Nature would have consequences down the line.

Perhaps it was because I studied physical anthropology rather than sociology; spent so much time backpacking—living out of a tent in National Parks and wilderness areas; and planting trees for work rather than cutting them down. But when some old rustic wilderness cabin came available to care take, I jumped at the chance. Never mind that I had to cut firewood for heat or that it was beyond the county plowed roads—I cross country skied to get around and chopped a hole in the ice on the river to water the horses. Sure, it was hard work, but it felt right.

But whenever I’d have to be where cars were stuck bumper to bumper on the freeway, or witness rampant development, I’d think, how long do they think this can go on before Nature extracts her revenge? How long do people think they can jet-set between their houses and condos, or have specialty products flown or shipped in to their nearest Costco or Walmart, or turn even more moose or elk habitat into golf courses or strip malls or housing developments for an ever-burgeoning human population before Nature says, “Enough!” and retaliates?

Well, considering deadly heat waves like the recent one that hit India; the record flooding in Texas; California’s ongoing mega-drought; the 300+ tundra and forest fires raging across Alaska and the acidic dead zones in the Pacific and other oceans, it looks like the party’s winding down.

As John A. Livingston put it, “Human uniqueness is even more profound than we have been taught to believe and to proclaim.” As you may have guessed (and not to further burst any bubbles), Livingston didn’t mean “unique” in a good way. He meant something more like what Gary Yourofsky says here: “Humans are the scum of the earth. Pure parasites. There is only one species on this planet that can be removed from Earth – and with that removal – EVERY living being, sentient and insentient, will benefit. The animals would thrive. The rainforest, the woods, the mountains, the trees, the plants would thrive. The air and the oceans would become clean again. The earth itself would be born again.”

Alaska’s Current Off-the-Charts Wildfire Situation

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

Alaskans can take a peek out the window this week to catch a glimpse of climate change. It seems the entire state is on fire, and those fires are burning up land at a pace far beyond that of 2004, the previous record-setting year.

Here are the stats:

Wildfires in Alaska have burned more than 1.25 million acres so far this year. That’s an area 32 times the size of Washington, D.C.
3,343 firefighters are currently working in Alaska. That’s one-third of all the wildland firefighters currently tasked in the United States.
85 percent of the area burned nationwide this year by wildfire has been in Alaska.

The state of Alaska is at its highest level of alert. Its Tuesday wildfire situation report was 65 pages long. And the problem is getting worse: Wildfires now burn five times more acreage each year in our northernmost state than they did in 1943.

More: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/30/alaska_wildfires_climate_change_is_helping_spark_big_fires_at_a_record_pace.html

More fireworks stands close due to fire danger

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2015/jul/01/more-fireworks-stands-close-due-to-fire-danger/

by Rick Steigmeyer

July 1, 2015,

WENATCHEE — More fireworks stands are closing as a result of widespread fireworks bans, tinder-dry fire conditions, and some outward community concern for fire safety.

Throngs of Independence Day revelers would normally be lining up this time of year to buy their annual dose of sparklers, rockets, Roman candles and firecrackers.

But tents and trailers offering fireworks for sale are either closed or shy of business this year. Those that are open have had far fewer sales than their proprietors have had harassments. The only flag waving seen, they say, is with middle fingers.

As a result, several more stands agreed to close Wednesday afternoon.

“With everything going on, and in the name of fire safety, TNT is voluntarily deciding to let local organizations shut down. It’s the right thing to do,” said Greg Burger, an area manager assistant for TNT Fireworks. The company provides fireworks, often a tent and insurance to organizations and individuals who want a share of the profits, often for local fundraisers.

The change is a response to the devastating loss of homes during the Sleepy Hollow Fire, widespread firework bans and tinder dry fire conditions throughout the region.

Several fireworks stands previously decided not to open. The Church of the Nazarene, the Wenatchee Valley Appleaires and the Douglas County Republicans earlier decided not to open stands in East Wenatchee. The new TNT decision will close four stands in Wenatchee and two others in East Wenatchee.

Most of the stands that remained open were run by organizations bound by contract. Sales at the stands had been far from sparkling.

Wenatchee Eagles had one such stand near the organization’s auxiliary hall at 1202 N. Wenatchee Ave. They planned to open another stand today at Coastal Farm & Home in East Wenatchee.

Eagles member Dena Saylor said the group signed a contract with TNT Fireworks last October. Saylor said the Eagles used profits from last year’s sales to pay organizational property taxes and to give to local charities. One was to help fire victims from last year’s Carlton Complex fires.

Member Christine Farley said the Wenatchee stand had only nine sales in the first two days they’ve been open.

“But we’re getting harassed quite a bit. A couple of people seemed really over the edge. I didn’t know what they were going to do,” she said.

Farley and Saylor said they weren’t forcing anyone to buy fireworks. They told them they can’t shoot them off in Wenatchee and most parts of Chelan County and to be cautious if they did. Burger, the TNT assistant stopped by Tuesday at the same time as a Chelan County fire marshal, and that’s when an agreement was made to shut down, Farley said.