"Aflockalypse Now" -- here's one possible explanation

[polaris93]

One possible reason for most -- not all, but most -- of the recent spate of mass deaths of birds and fish is that many birds and fish in the regions where these mass deaths have occurred have been weakened, physiologically speaking, by pesticides, other chemicals, and various non-chemical insults in their environment due to human activities. Up

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Third thoughts

[polaris93]

BTW, something I may not have made clear: pesticides are the least of what I'm referring to. Consider all the odd chemicals that go into making furniture, clothing, and other items we use all the time these days. The manufactories that make such things always have at least some leaks of those chemicals into the environment, because no process is perfectly efficient, and even a few molecules here and there can add up over time to a significant problem. Consider the landfills and other middens into which such items go when they are deemed no longer useful by anyone; eventually everything in the landfills breaks down and starts leaking into the ground, water, and around them -- and one of those middens is the world ocean, into which it all eventually comes. Consider our mining operations, and our uses of metal to make a host of things -- particles of metal from such things are released into the air and water and make their way to strange ports of call via winds and currents (sometimes to Antarctica and Greenland and the Arctic; particles of tin and iron and copper and sulfur from manufacturing processes employed by the Old Roman Empire have been found in the ice in such places). Consider our medications, all of which eventually find their way into our waterways and the ocean via our kidneys. Consider our use of petroleum products and natural gas, fumes from which, like the byproducts of our burning of them, enter the atmosphere and the waterways. Since the Neolithic Era, thousands of years ago, the products and byproducts of human manufacturing and our activities in general have been slowly but surely accumulating in the biosphere, resulting in a tremendous burden of toxins that affect every living thing on Earth except, perhaps, for extremophile organisms in the deep places of the Earth. And Earthly life, as it must, has been evolving to keep pace with that, working to adapt to it -- but always that adaptation lags just a bit behind.

What can we do about it? Damn little, except understand it's there and that it's going to cause problems in the future. Mix a bag of salt with a bag of sugar, then try to separate the two substances from each other once more. It can't be done. It's impossible. And getting those toxins back out of the environment -- the air, the water, the soil -- isn't possible either. We and the rest of Earthly life have to live with them. What we're adding to them now may be just a drop in the bucket, compared to what's already accumulated there. This isn't a demand for Going Green With a Vengeance. That isn't possible.

My cat died of complications of cancer of the liver on the 3rd of last month. Liver cancer is usually traceable to some sort of environmental toxicity, whether inadvertent (such as environmental pollution) or preventable (e.g., smoking nicotine or other deliberately ingested toxic substances). A few hours ago, a neighbor lady told me her cat was in the hospital, having tests run; the poor cat had undergone a sudden and rather drastic loss of weight, and was "terribly constipated" -- the same symptoms because of which I took my PuggsleyOne in to the vet to see what was wrong, both side-effects of the giant parasitic tumor growing in his belly. It's possible that some toxin in the building I live in, carried to various units in it by the air ducts, was responsible for both PuggsleyOne's cancer and whatever the other kitty has wrong with her. So this is hitting home to me, too.