It occurs to me . . .
There is a frightening environmental trend underway that isn't being talked about nearly as much as issues surrounding global warming, but in the long run will be far more important, having to do with the vast, rapidly increasing burden of exotic chemicals in our environment, our water, and our air that never even existed prior to the 20th century, many of them having come into existence only since 1980 or even later. There are strong indications that the presence of these weird chemicals, which include prescription drugs, cleaning compounds, industrial substances, and a host of others, at large in our world is associated with the rising incidence of medical and psychiatric conditions affecting humans, such as ADHD and ADD, autism, cancer, psychosis, fertility problems, and numerous others, and with outbreaks of infectious diseases affecting countless nonhuman creatures, including both wild ones and our domestic stocks.
Given the presence of those chemicals in our world, it would be surprising if that weren't the case. These are chemical species which nothing in our world had any reason to adapt to prior to the 20th century and even later. Since they are chemicals, if they get into a creature's body, they will certainly affect that creature's biochemistry -- and that includes us. And since they are virtually ubituitous in our world now, there is almost no way for any creature to avoid encounters with at least some of them, whether in the air it breathes, the food it eats, the water it drinks or lives in, or the soil it lives in (in the case of many invertebrates, reptiles, and mammals). Because an organism is at its most vulnerable before it hatches or is born, these chemicals have their most powerful impact on the generations to come prior to their emergence into the world. And because these chemicals can and often do penetrate the cell wall and enter the cell proper, with a potential to interact chemically with the DNA contained in that cell, it also means that they can affect the generations to come in another, even more powerful way: by causing mutations in the DNA in ova and sperm -- few of which have the potential to be benign.
Life will adapt to this, too, all right. But the creatures that will adapt the most quickly are those that reproduce the most quickly and prolifically, and are the most basic, essential parts of any ecosystem: bacteria, viruses, algae, molds, some other fungi, one-celled eukarya such as amoeba, and very small multicellular organisms such as nematodes. It takes larger animals and plants a while to catch up -- which many of them won't be able to do, because the chemicals affect them so powerfully and deleteriously that they will become extinct.
That almost happened to the bald eagle, the California condor, and a number of other avian species who weren't able to produce viable eggs because the internal process of producing shells for the eggs was so badly disrupted by certain chemicals released into the environment by human activities. Those chemicals were finally banned, and many of those bird populations are recovering -- but not all.
On the other hand, many species of frogs are severely threatened by epidemic diseases that have only appeared in the last few decades, diseases caused by pathogens that may well have adapted to these new chemicals, changing in ways that have turned them into a massive global threat to amphibians everywhere. Amphibians have survived every great mass extinction since they first came into existence, some 400 million years ago, in the early Devonian. They even made it through the mother of all mass extinctions, the Permian-Triassic event, when most of Earth's life died. But it's beginning to look as if they may not survive this catastrophe -- or if they do, their descendants may be so radically changed as a result of having to adapt to the new biochemical regime on Earth that we wouldn't recognize them as amphibians, and they couldn't do the job they do now for us, gobbling up a host of pest species which, without amphibians, bats, and other insectivores around to keep their buzzing, stinging, disease-ridden numbers down to a low epidemiological roar, would soon overrun the Earth.
Can we adapt to those chemicals quickly enough to avoid extinction? Can anything?
As to the latter, sure. The aforementioned small game -- bacteria, viruses, one-celled eukarya, etc. -- is certain to. Such creatures live and die very nearly at the same level as those chemicals, especially bacteria, and while they thus have the most immediate and the nastiest encounters with those chemicals, they also reproduce so quickly that sheer numbers guarantee that some of them will survive to carry on their various lineages. But the larger the creature, the less certain it is that it can mount defensive and evolutionary strategies that will enable it to survive and reproduce in the face of that ongoing onslaught of strange chemicals, which is only going to get worse over time. And we are very large, relative to most creatures on Earth. The average cat or dog is large compared to them, for that matter. The same goes for any fish larger than a minnow. And when it comes to creatures such as elephants, buffalo, giraffes, whale sharks, and sperm whales, their fate becomes dicey, indeed.
For the threat to all such creatures, ourselves included, isn't a large predator, such as tigers or humans, or even a small one, such as a rat or a frog. It's a vast horde of exotic chemicals that are becoming weirder and more prevalent by the day, and the tiny things that have already begun adapting to them, even requiring them in their diet because they've already adapted so thoroughly to the presence in their environment and in their cells of many of those chemicals. As a result, the larger creatures of the world are in danger of becoming evolutionarily obsolete, and that includes us.
Oh, some of us will almost certainly survive and leave descendants adapted to a world stiff with those chemicals. But what will those descendants be like? What sort of creatures will they share their world with? Would we recognize any of them?
It'll be a while before the human cost of all this becomes so high that we can no longer pretend it isn't happening -- I'd give that at least 500 years before the problem becomes critical. So you can all relax and go back to whatever you were doing. It isn't likely to affect most of you -- just those of you who are allergic to some of those chemicals, or who have other biochemical vulnerabilities to them that put you at great risk for developing a serious medical condition as a result of chronic exposure to them. But your grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, will be at far more risk -- and as a result, they may have to deal with widespread medical and psychiatric problems we've never even heard of, anywhere.
What can be done about it? Nothing, really. Even if every producer, distributer, wholesaler, and retailer of such chemicals on Earth disappeared right now, the chemistry of landfills all over the world would continue to contribute to the overall environmental burden of exotic chemicals for centuries, even millennia as rain and other processes continue to leech their contents out and loose them into the world at large.
We're in deep trouble. As they say, if you find yourself riding a tiger, hang on to the ears and ride like hell, because that's about all you can do.
Given the presence of those chemicals in our world, it would be surprising if that weren't the case. These are chemical species which nothing in our world had any reason to adapt to prior to the 20th century and even later. Since they are chemicals, if they get into a creature's body, they will certainly affect that creature's biochemistry -- and that includes us. And since they are virtually ubituitous in our world now, there is almost no way for any creature to avoid encounters with at least some of them, whether in the air it breathes, the food it eats, the water it drinks or lives in, or the soil it lives in (in the case of many invertebrates, reptiles, and mammals). Because an organism is at its most vulnerable before it hatches or is born, these chemicals have their most powerful impact on the generations to come prior to their emergence into the world. And because these chemicals can and often do penetrate the cell wall and enter the cell proper, with a potential to interact chemically with the DNA contained in that cell, it also means that they can affect the generations to come in another, even more powerful way: by causing mutations in the DNA in ova and sperm -- few of which have the potential to be benign.
Life will adapt to this, too, all right. But the creatures that will adapt the most quickly are those that reproduce the most quickly and prolifically, and are the most basic, essential parts of any ecosystem: bacteria, viruses, algae, molds, some other fungi, one-celled eukarya such as amoeba, and very small multicellular organisms such as nematodes. It takes larger animals and plants a while to catch up -- which many of them won't be able to do, because the chemicals affect them so powerfully and deleteriously that they will become extinct.
That almost happened to the bald eagle, the California condor, and a number of other avian species who weren't able to produce viable eggs because the internal process of producing shells for the eggs was so badly disrupted by certain chemicals released into the environment by human activities. Those chemicals were finally banned, and many of those bird populations are recovering -- but not all.
On the other hand, many species of frogs are severely threatened by epidemic diseases that have only appeared in the last few decades, diseases caused by pathogens that may well have adapted to these new chemicals, changing in ways that have turned them into a massive global threat to amphibians everywhere. Amphibians have survived every great mass extinction since they first came into existence, some 400 million years ago, in the early Devonian. They even made it through the mother of all mass extinctions, the Permian-Triassic event, when most of Earth's life died. But it's beginning to look as if they may not survive this catastrophe -- or if they do, their descendants may be so radically changed as a result of having to adapt to the new biochemical regime on Earth that we wouldn't recognize them as amphibians, and they couldn't do the job they do now for us, gobbling up a host of pest species which, without amphibians, bats, and other insectivores around to keep their buzzing, stinging, disease-ridden numbers down to a low epidemiological roar, would soon overrun the Earth.
Can we adapt to those chemicals quickly enough to avoid extinction? Can anything?
As to the latter, sure. The aforementioned small game -- bacteria, viruses, one-celled eukarya, etc. -- is certain to. Such creatures live and die very nearly at the same level as those chemicals, especially bacteria, and while they thus have the most immediate and the nastiest encounters with those chemicals, they also reproduce so quickly that sheer numbers guarantee that some of them will survive to carry on their various lineages. But the larger the creature, the less certain it is that it can mount defensive and evolutionary strategies that will enable it to survive and reproduce in the face of that ongoing onslaught of strange chemicals, which is only going to get worse over time. And we are very large, relative to most creatures on Earth. The average cat or dog is large compared to them, for that matter. The same goes for any fish larger than a minnow. And when it comes to creatures such as elephants, buffalo, giraffes, whale sharks, and sperm whales, their fate becomes dicey, indeed.
For the threat to all such creatures, ourselves included, isn't a large predator, such as tigers or humans, or even a small one, such as a rat or a frog. It's a vast horde of exotic chemicals that are becoming weirder and more prevalent by the day, and the tiny things that have already begun adapting to them, even requiring them in their diet because they've already adapted so thoroughly to the presence in their environment and in their cells of many of those chemicals. As a result, the larger creatures of the world are in danger of becoming evolutionarily obsolete, and that includes us.
Oh, some of us will almost certainly survive and leave descendants adapted to a world stiff with those chemicals. But what will those descendants be like? What sort of creatures will they share their world with? Would we recognize any of them?
It'll be a while before the human cost of all this becomes so high that we can no longer pretend it isn't happening -- I'd give that at least 500 years before the problem becomes critical. So you can all relax and go back to whatever you were doing. It isn't likely to affect most of you -- just those of you who are allergic to some of those chemicals, or who have other biochemical vulnerabilities to them that put you at great risk for developing a serious medical condition as a result of chronic exposure to them. But your grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, will be at far more risk -- and as a result, they may have to deal with widespread medical and psychiatric problems we've never even heard of, anywhere.
What can be done about it? Nothing, really. Even if every producer, distributer, wholesaler, and retailer of such chemicals on Earth disappeared right now, the chemistry of landfills all over the world would continue to contribute to the overall environmental burden of exotic chemicals for centuries, even millennia as rain and other processes continue to leech their contents out and loose them into the world at large.
We're in deep trouble. As they say, if you find yourself riding a tiger, hang on to the ears and ride like hell, because that's about all you can do.