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Excerpts and PDFs
pgs 216-217 Why Brazil's
10% is not enough ...
Although some development plans for the Amazon region envision 10% as sufficient
to save half of its existing species, in fact, it seems most unlikely that such a percentage would preserve the existing
climatic services and global functioning of its tropical systems. Somewhere during the 90% eradication
that current policy envisions and may permit, a catastrophic threshold or tipping point (with global repercussions) will
almost certainly be crossed.
In addition, conserving species does not necessarily conserve function. If Brazil
"saves" only ten percent of its rainforests, will the remnant forest still generate the region's rain each day? And
sequester the world's carbon? And generate an equilibrial supply of molecular oxygen? Will it still continue to
function as the "lungs of the world?" Or will disappearance of ninety percent of the forest spell
the end of its role as a functioning system, so that even the remaining ten percent gradually deteriorates and collapses?
It is not an exact analogy, of course, but...if we were to save
10% of a person's lung tissues and destroy the remaining 90%, could we reasonably expect the person to even survive,
much less to function normally? Why should we suppose that the earth's natural systems
and environmental machinery are invulnerable?
Is saving one kidney and one lung enough? One lung, of course,
is 50% and one kidney is 50%. Is that sufficient to maintain even a suboptimal level of physiological
function? Or does a 50% loss of each system constitute a new and highly precarious condition?
We probably need to save at least fifty percent of earth's natural systems - and to the extent
that the above analogies hold, that fifty percent may not be enough.
Welcome to our PDF Collection
Eleven of our PDFs are sampled below.
Visitors wishing to view others in our
collection are invited to visit
Click "pdf 1" below for "Why Conservation Goals of 10% Are Not Enough"
pdf 1
Click "pdf 2" below for Climate, CO2,"the open-space delusion," and red-tide dinoflagellates. ............. Recommended.............
pdf 2
Click "pdf 3" for Numerics, Demographics, and "A Billion
Homework Questions" ..................Recommended.................
pdf 3
Click "pdf 4" for Razor-Thin Films: Earth's Atmosphere
and Seas
pdf 4
Click "pdf 5" for a critique of Beyond Six Billion
pdf 5
Click "pdf 6" for Carrying Capacity and Limiting Factors
pdf 6
Scroll down two paragraphs for additonal PDFs
pg 223 Putting a human face on our topic...
In his book LONGITUDES AND ATTITUDES (2002), Pulitzer prize
winner Thomas Friedman describes his return from a trip to troubled parts of the world. When his
wife asked him about his trip, Friedman remarked that "the wheels aren't on very tight out there." In too many countries,
however, it is not a matter of the wheels not being on very tight - it is a matter of the wheels coming off the vehicle.
In too many countries the norms of civilization are being undermined by rapid population growth
that overwhelms governments, government services, health care, roads, infrastructure, education, economies,
and local environments. This chapter takes us on a journey to those parts of the world that the rich never visit.
Additional PDFs
Click "pdf 7" for One Hundred Key Biospherics and Educational
Objectives
pdf 7
Click "pdf 8" for Thresholds, Tipping Points, and Unintended
Consequences
pdf 8
Click "pdf 9" for Humanity's Demographic Journey
pdf 9
Click "pdf 10" for The Fallacy of the Agricultural
Maximum (it's not just about food anymore)
pdf 10
Click "pdf 11" for Ecological Services and Ecological
Release
pdf 11
Additional pdf excerpts will be posted once or twice
weekly over coming weeks.
Please visit again.
pg 140 Thresholds, tipping points, and unintended consequences ....
Imagine the first domino in a row of adjacent dominos being toppled, thereby causing all the
others to fall in quick succession. In such an event, even an accidental instability imparted to a single domino can
unexpectedly topple a far wider and interconnected sytem.
We are living at a time when each of humanity's added billions is impacting one natural
system after another, incrementally, and in most cases, repeatedly - again, and again, and again.
And a disconcerting amount of accumulating evidence suggests that some of earth's most important
dominos may already be toppling....
pgs 31-35 A MILLION versus
A BILLION
Because
data involving human population growth typically encompasses millions and billions, we must be able to distinguish between
the two.
Educators
Pose the following two riddles to your students:
(1)
A MILLION homework questions: Suppose that school systems
in your state adopt a more rigorous graduation standard that requires each student to complete one million
homework questions in order to receive a diploma. Now further suppose that a conscientious student decides to work
toward this requirement by completing one hundred questions per night, five nights per week, for 52 weeks per year.
How long will be needed for the student to finish his or her homework? (38 and 1/2 years)
(2)
Suppose that one of the school districts decides to adopt a more stringent policy and requires its students to
complete one BILLION homework questions in order to graduate. If our young scholar
decides to tackle this assignment at the same rate, how long will be needed before the homework assignment is completed?
(38,461 years)
Since
a billion is of such demographic importance (we add an extra one billion persons to our planet every twelve to fifteen years),
let us add further clarity to our example.
Suppose
that a cave-student began to work on this assignment 20,000 years ago when ice was one-mile thick over Wisconsin
and Ohio, when wooly-mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still roamed the earth, and humans still lived in caves. Assume further that
this student works diligently to complete five hundred questions per week, fifty-two weeks a year, beginning 20,000 years
ago and works from then until now.
Despite
the most staggering homework achievement in the history of humanity, our young scholar would have to continue to work for another 18,461 years into the future in order to finish such an assignment. That is the number of
additional people we are adding to our population every twelve to fifteen years.
Now
suppose that we convert each and every one of those homework questions into a human being. Then suppose
that we add all of those persons as extra individuals to the surface of our planet every twelve
to fifteen years. Next, let us arm them with bulldozers, AK-47s, sport utility vehicles, chain saws, hydroelectric dams,
double-bacon cheeseburgers, investment portfolios, and pesticides.
Given
each such multitude, so armed, and therefore so dangerous, it is little wonder that our combined impacts might quickly amount
to an ecological holocaust.
"A
continuation of today's planet-wide demographic tidal-wave may
constitute the greatest single risk that our species
has ever undertaken."
We
humans are much smarter than dinoflagellates –
(unless, of course, the subject of the exam involves demographics, exponential mathematics, and the difference between a million and a billion.)
We can at least take comfort
in the thought that we
are smarter than a mindless population of one-celled dinoflagellates...
aren't we?
A single nation, Greece,
is estimated to have spent $12 billion to host the 2004 Olympics held
in Athens, China is estimated to have spent $44 billion to host the summer games of 2008, and London is expected to spend
$17 billion to host the games of 2012.
If three nations in a single decade
can make financial outlays that ensure the continuation of the
International Olympic games, the richest nations of
the world ought to spend similar amounts to preserve the fabric of life on earth.
Methane hydrates and warming....
Biodiversity
hotspots....
No other animals do this......
Chaos and dysfunctional states....
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