the other two legs of the triad
I make this mistake also, when thinking and writing about ecological sustainability. I focus too much on climate change, and forget about the other two legs of the overconsumption triad: pollution and mass extinctions.
It's probably because climate change is the most easily measured of the three. We have temperature monitoring stations all over the globe and in space, and we can easily measure the rising proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere. There's a couple numbers we can easily report regularly -- global average temperature and CO2 levels -- and both are rising -- and both are rising exponentially.
Pollution and its effects are not as easily measured and aggregated into a couple of marquee statistics. There are so many different pollutants, and so many different effects. But a review by the Lancet found that pollution is responsible for 9 million deaths per year, which is 16% of all deaths globally, and which is a higher death rate than COVID caused during its most deadly years of 2020 & 2021. And, the number of deaths from pollution is accelerating quickly, the review says up 66% so far this century.
We don't talk about deaths from pollution much in the US, because we've outsourced these deaths to other countries along with the outsourcing of much of our mining and manufacturing base.
Mass extinctions are also not as easily measured. There are potentially a hundred million species on Earth, but we don't have ways to precisely track this number or how much it might be declining in real time. But experts say we could be losing 1% of these species per year, which is a much much much higher rate than the prehistorical average, and is similar to the rate of mass extinctions caused by asteroid strikes and supervolcanic eruptions once every 100 million years or so. During this 21st Century, most of the species that existed at the beginning of the century will become extinct by the end of the century. And the pace of extinction is accelerating quickly.
Our human economic activities, our exponential growth, are transforming the planet as drastically as an asteroid strike or supervolcanic eruption, but over the course of a few centuries rather than all at once as a massive explosion in one spot.
Most of the animal mass on Earth is made up of humans and our livestock now. The biomass of insects is crashing due to both intentional pesticide use and other pollutants. Wild fish populations are way down -- peak wild fish capture was reached way back in the 1980s, so fishing is being steadily replaced by aquaculture -- now most of the fish humans eat was farmed rather than caught.
Humans now dominate the planet like no species ever has. Yet, we believe as a culture that there is still room to grow our production and consumption at 3%/year indefinitely.
We believe as a culture that exponential growth is the norm and can be continued for decades, centuries, and millennia ahead. Our politics assume this, our science fiction stories assume this, and we all take growing populations, payrolls, wages, profits, stock market prices, etc., for granted.
I'm seeing on the Right, a blatant denial of all these ongoing disasters, buttressed by a culture of lies. I'm seeing on the Left, a math-blind fantasy of "balancing" abundance for the working class with environmental sustainability.
We can't keep doubling the amount of stuff we produce and consume every 25 years, which is what 3% growth means. That's quadrupling every 50 years. That's 16x/century. That's a trillionX/millenium. It's absurd, yet we treat it like it's fine.
It's probably because climate change is the most easily measured of the three. We have temperature monitoring stations all over the globe and in space, and we can easily measure the rising proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere. There's a couple numbers we can easily report regularly -- global average temperature and CO2 levels -- and both are rising -- and both are rising exponentially.
Pollution and its effects are not as easily measured and aggregated into a couple of marquee statistics. There are so many different pollutants, and so many different effects. But a review by the Lancet found that pollution is responsible for 9 million deaths per year, which is 16% of all deaths globally, and which is a higher death rate than COVID caused during its most deadly years of 2020 & 2021. And, the number of deaths from pollution is accelerating quickly, the review says up 66% so far this century.
We don't talk about deaths from pollution much in the US, because we've outsourced these deaths to other countries along with the outsourcing of much of our mining and manufacturing base.
Mass extinctions are also not as easily measured. There are potentially a hundred million species on Earth, but we don't have ways to precisely track this number or how much it might be declining in real time. But experts say we could be losing 1% of these species per year, which is a much much much higher rate than the prehistorical average, and is similar to the rate of mass extinctions caused by asteroid strikes and supervolcanic eruptions once every 100 million years or so. During this 21st Century, most of the species that existed at the beginning of the century will become extinct by the end of the century. And the pace of extinction is accelerating quickly.
Our human economic activities, our exponential growth, are transforming the planet as drastically as an asteroid strike or supervolcanic eruption, but over the course of a few centuries rather than all at once as a massive explosion in one spot.
Most of the animal mass on Earth is made up of humans and our livestock now. The biomass of insects is crashing due to both intentional pesticide use and other pollutants. Wild fish populations are way down -- peak wild fish capture was reached way back in the 1980s, so fishing is being steadily replaced by aquaculture -- now most of the fish humans eat was farmed rather than caught.
Humans now dominate the planet like no species ever has. Yet, we believe as a culture that there is still room to grow our production and consumption at 3%/year indefinitely.
We believe as a culture that exponential growth is the norm and can be continued for decades, centuries, and millennia ahead. Our politics assume this, our science fiction stories assume this, and we all take growing populations, payrolls, wages, profits, stock market prices, etc., for granted.
I'm seeing on the Right, a blatant denial of all these ongoing disasters, buttressed by a culture of lies. I'm seeing on the Left, a math-blind fantasy of "balancing" abundance for the working class with environmental sustainability.
We can't keep doubling the amount of stuff we produce and consume every 25 years, which is what 3% growth means. That's quadrupling every 50 years. That's 16x/century. That's a trillionX/millenium. It's absurd, yet we treat it like it's fine.