Continuation of the DNA of the human species is our most pressing problem. The issue of human extinction is a real one, and yet one that is generally ignored or shoved aside.
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The DNA Frame
Much hoopla has erupted over the last year about “framing problems correctly,” so that we might search for appropriate answers, as opposed to running about in rhetorical circles. This concept should be nothing new to anyone with half a brain. But based on daily headlines and popular media, it appears that the most basic problem of our species has yet to be “properly framed.”
So here, as condensed as the functional half of my brain can make it, is THE problem we humans face: Our DNA is headed for extinction. The Homo sapien species is galloping into the eternal night of non-being. Our particular brand of deoxyribonucleic acid molecules will soon no longer be. Our evolutionary line is coming to a screeching halt. In relatively short time, Planet Earth will be a spinning ball in the vast abyss of space, with no humans lingering upon it.
Indeed, the hour is almost certainly too late for a course correction to be made. The changes necessary to avoid extinction appear to be beyond the comprehension and even vocabulary of most of our species.
My own limited optimism comes from three sources: One, I’m getting too old to give a damn; two, when we do go extinct, the world will be a better place, inasmuch as nature will once again hold the reins of evolution, and manmade pollution and destruction will gradually come to a halt; and, three, I won’t have to look at Bush’s ugly puss anymore. (Ok, there may be one or two other reasons for optimism, but they’re not nearly as solid as these, and you’ll have to wait my next article to read them).
It ought to be self-evident to anyone who comprehends that earth isn’t flat, that we live on a solitary, self-sustaining, non-expanding, one-of-a-kind, slowly evolving sphere in space. It has always seemed like common sense to me to recognize that the land surface of this planet is thus limited in size, as is its volume of fresh water, oxygen, and topsoil, along with the sunlight that falls upon earth’s surface. Once it is grasped that the earth is round rather than flat, it should seem obvious that our planet’s life support system is of a finite size, and thus of finite carrying capacity—that our planet’s ability to support humans will not grow, nor will our planet sustain a civilization that consumes and consumes and tosses away and never puts back.
Jacques Costeau and David Brower, two of my few heroes, gave this analogy: If the earth were the size of an egg, then all the water on the planet would be just a drop; all the air, if condensed to the density of water, would be a droplet only one-fortieth as big; and all the arable land would be a not-quite-visible speck of dust. That drop, droplet, and speck are all that make the earth different from the moon.
No sane person--and I admit I don’t see too many of them these days--can deny that we are running down, wearing out, or obliterating those living systems that support us, and that we are tearing asunder the fabric known as the web of life. From grasslands and savannas, to wetlands, estuaries, and oceans, to coral reefs and river systems, to tundras, rainforests, and deserts, human beings are laying to waste the inheritance of a once beautiful planet.
We are draining aquifers and chain sawing forests, creating acid rain, dumping billions of tons of chemicals into the land, water, and air, exterminating flora and fauna that have taken millions of years to evolve and that make this planet the remarkable place that it is; we are making every effort to roast our home with CO2, methane, and other infra red-retaining substances, threatening each other with nuclear weapons, killing and torturing fellow humans with demonic methods of every description, damming rivers and trashing estuaries, depleting the oceans, producing billions of tons of garbage a year, and of course happily pumping untreated effluent into the environment, whilst eroding our soils and laying to waste prime agricultural lands, as if we were waging war on the earth that feeds us. Did I mention the biological Frankensteins we are enthusiastically developing through genetic engineering, or the holes we are punching in the ozone layer?
In our so-called educational system, we treat the minds of our children as though we wished to produce a generation of morons as quickly as possible, incapable of thinking for themselves—reverse evolution though involuntary mass ignorance, you might say; we are also turning out 12 million plus men, women, and children as wandering refugees, with scarcely the shirt on their backs; and we’re blithly sitting on our hands while starvation, disease, filthy water, crime, corruption, and anarchy sprout and flourish like common weeds.
The sorry list goes on and on. Yet here are the pressing headlines for a typical day in June, 2006 A.D., for those who want to be on top of things, those who might read the news to become aware, and perhaps offer a hand to save the world: “College Republicans ridicule global warming with snow cone beach party.”
Oh yes: Let us not forget the gay marriages and flag burnings, which represent another grave threat to survival. Never mind that countless people marry cockroaches and couch potatoes every day, by the dozens and the droves, and seem content to do so. It is those gays who will do the world in, given whatever diabolical trysts they must be developing in their bedrooms.
Or so one might conclude, listening to the so-called leaders of the so-called free world. And never mind that politicians defecate daily on everything our flag is supposed to represent, then pass it off as somehow patriotic.
I think it is fair to conclude we are living in an insane asylum. Not a tiny nice white one tucked away on the edge of town, on a dead end street under some cool sycamores with rolling lawns, but rather the nuthouse of humans, where every turn makes you wonder if you actually belong here. From unmanned answering machines leading you in endless loops, so some corporation doesn’t have to pay a human—for “quality purposes,” of course—to a hundred tv channels but not one of any interest, to Jehovah Witnesses on your doorstep enlightening you about the hundred thousand scientists who’ve gone astray on evolution, to the radio dingbat gawking about some sorry teenager fondling manikins in the local mall, to the latest venom spewed from our Secretary of State, or perhaps Sean Hannity or Brainless Ann, to witnessing our so-called president struggling to compose a sentence in English, the very language he’d like immigrants to learn. It’s a madhouse, yes, with no foreseeable escape, save the peaceful, quiet rest of the grave.
But even getting there in a dignified manner may be a trick, given the state of our nursing homes, along with the archaic and barbaric laws governing medical easement of pain and death. If you don’t know about them, enjoy your ignorance--you’ll likely find out soon enough.
So it may not be all gloom and doom to learn that human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since that of the dinosaurs. In less than a hundred years, one half of all species on earth will be extinct, as a result of habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change, according to those who dedicate their lives to studying such things. At the rate we’re going, we’ll be gone too, and our worries will be over, in a manner of speaking.
I quote from the Washington Post, April 21, 1998: A majority of the nation's biologists are convinced that a "mass extinction" of plants and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century, yet most Americans are only dimly aware of the problem, a poll says.
The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet's gravest environmental worries, surpassing pollution, global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer, according to the survey of 400 scientists commissioned by New York's American Museum of Natural History.
The poll's release yesterday comes on the heels of a groundbreaking study of plant diversity that concluded than at least one in eight known plant species is threatened with extinction. Although scientists are divided over the specific numbers, many believe that the rate of loss is greater now than at any time in history.
"The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past -- including those [extinctions] related to meteor collisions," said Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity who participated in the museum's survey. [Note: the last mass extinction caused by a meteor collision was that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.]
Most of his peers apparently agree. Nearly seven out of 10 of the biologists polled said they believed a "mass extinction" was underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats.
Among the dissenters, some argue that there is not yet enough data to support the view that a mass extinction is occurring. Many of the estimates of species loss are extrapolations based on the global destruction of rain forests and other rich habitats.
Among non-scientists, meanwhile, the subject appears to have made relatively little impression. Sixty percent of the laymen polled professed little or no familiarity with the concept of biological diversity, and barely half ranked species loss as a "major threat."
The scientists interviewed in the Louis Harris poll were members of the Washington-based American Institute of Biological Sciences, a professional society of more than 5,000 scientists. [End quote.]
We hear much talk about “sustainability,” altering our actions in such a way that we will be able to continue our activities indefinitely, “in harmony with nature.” But there has been precious little indication that any kind of sustainability is coming about, even though the flip side of the sustainability coin is, by definition, extinction. Most people I know, listen to, or read about, do not seem to grasp, or want to grasp, this reality, let alone the magnitude of the situation. They are too busy jogging on the treadmill of daily life, catching up on the latest “reality show,” or yakking on a cell phone. Or so it appears to me.
We advertise cars and motor homes like children’s toys, we build huge new houses miles away from everything people need to live, we hop on planes and dump thousands of gallons of jet fuel into the atmosphere without batting an eye, we shop till we drop, we leave untold millions of kilowatt-hog tvs and other electric appliances running day and night, we build more and more highways to nowhere, we root for a certifiable lunatic for president (or allow our Supreme Baboons to appoint one); and in our blood lust, charge off to war on less evidence than a junior high teacher might expect in a science experiment, or than a judge might demand in small claims court.
Do I jest? Do I make things up to scare you?
Reuters News, Mar 20, 2006, Humans spur worst extinctions since dinosaurs:
Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs and must make unprecedented extra efforts to reach a goal of slowing losses by 2010, a U.N. report said on Monday.
Habitats ranging from coral reefs to tropical rainforests face mounting threats, the Secretariat of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity said in the report, issued at the start of a March 20-31 U.N. meeting in Curitiba, Brazil.
"In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago," said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report….
A rising human population of 6.5 billion was undermining the environment for animals and plants via pollution, expanding cities, deforestation, introduction of "alien species" and global warming, it said.
It estimated the current pace of extinctions was 1,000 times faster than historical rates, jeopardizing a global goal set at a 2002 U.N. summit in Johannesburg "to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss."
"Unprecedented additional efforts' will be needed to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target at national, regional and global levels," it said. The report was bleaker than a first U.N. review of the diversity of life issued in 2001. [End article.]
August 23, 2002, CNN: The complex web of life on Earth, what scientists call "biodiversity," is in serious trouble.
"Biodiversity includes all living things that we depend on for our economies and our lives," explained Brooks Yeager, vice president of global programs at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.
"It's the forests, the oceans, the coral reefs, the marine fish, the algae, the insects that make up the living world around us and which we couldn't do without," he said.
Nearly 2 million species of plants and animals are known to science and experts say 50 times as many may not yet be discovered.
Yet most scientists agree that human activity is causing rapid deterioration in biodiversity. Expanding human settlements, logging, mining, agriculture and pollution are destroying ecosystems, upsetting nature's balance and driving many species to extinction.
There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a period of mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our future food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water we drink and the air we breathe. Estimates vary, but extinction is figured by experts to be taking place between 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural "background" extinction.
At the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, world leaders signed a treaty to confront this crisis. But its results have been disappointing. According to Yeager, "It hasn't been a direct kind of impact that some of us had hoped for." [End article.]
National Geographic, February 1999: [S]ome 50 percent of the world’s flora and fauna could be on a path to extinction within a hundred years. And everything is affected: fish, birds, insects, plants, and mammals. By Pimm’s count [Stuart Pimm, University of Tennessee conservation biologist] 11 percent of birds, or 1,100 species out of the world’s nearly 10,000, are on the edge of extinction; it’s doubtful that the majority of these 1,100 will live much beyond the end of the next century. The picture is not pretty for plants either. A team of respected botanists recently reported that one in eight plants is at risk of becoming extinct. “It’s not just species on islands or in rain forests or just birds or big charismatic mammals,” says Pimm. “It’s everything and it’s everywhere. It’s here in this national park. It is a worldwide epidemic of extinctions.”
Such a rate of extinction has occurred only five times since complex life emerged, and each time it was caused by a catastrophic natural disaster. For instance, geologists have found evidence that a meteorite crashed into Earth 65 million years ago, leading to the demise of the dinosaurs. That was the most recent major extinction. Today the Earth is again in extinction’s grip—but the cause has changed. The sixth extinction is not happening because of some external force. It is happening because of us, Homo sapiens, an “exterminator species,” as one scientist has characterized humankind.
The collective actions of humans—developing and paving over the landscape, clear-cutting forests, polluting rivers and streams, altering the atmosphere’s protective ozone layer, and populating nearly every place imaginable—are bringing an end to the lives of creatures across the Earth. “I think we must ask ourselves if this is really what we want to do to God’s creation,” says Pimm. “To drive it to extinction? Because extinction really is irreversible; species that go extinct are lost forever. This is not like Jurassic Park. We can’t bring them back.” [End article.]
If there is some reason to conclude that as the loss of biodiversity on this planet escalates, we will somehow do better in saving our ecosystems and the species in them, including ourselves, I am at a loss to see that reason. Every time there is more conflict over limited resources, the human reaction is to fight more violently over those resources, be those resources marbles, ice cream, dollars, food, or water. Thus the genes for self-destruction appear to be built into our very DNA.
Stated another way, we are on a downward spiral that shows every sign of spinning faster and faster, and more and more out of control, as the population continues to explode and the resources of the planet—food, water, minerals, fuel—become more and more scarce. It is as if we are looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, being wielded by madmen, and the average person doesn’t know it, let alone have a clue what to do about it.
You’d think the scientific community might be of some help. Yet here’s a typical limp noodle from that department, this one from the Scientific American, October 30, 2000: The phrase mass extinction usually brings to mind events sparked by dramatic environmental change, such as the asteroid impact that led to the demise of the dinosaurs and many other species 65 million years ago. In fact, five such large-scale extinctions have been identified in the fossil record, and according to findings presented… another is under way. This time the cause is nothing so dramatic as a giant asteroid or a radical shift in climate. Rather, it appears, human pressure is to blame.
Like the other mass extinctions, says University of Michigan paleontologist Catherine Badgely, the current crisis is worldwide, affecting a broad range of species. Certain species of vertebrates (animals with backbones) are particularly vulnerable, she reports, especially those with small geographic ranges or narrow subsistence requirements. The numbers are alarming. One quarter of all mammals are endangered or extinct, as are 15 percent of birds. In both groups the larger species are in the most trouble.
The human pressures threatening these creatures include habitat destruction and modification, overhunting, introduction of foreign species, and the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Still, extinction of the animals currently designated as endangered is not inevitable, Badgely says. But in order to preserve them, there needs to be a massive change in human actions. [End article, thank you very much.]
The requisite change, of course, has not yet begun, nor even been defined in what might be called the mind’s eye of industrial societies.
I could go on, but I feel I’ve cheered myself up enough for one day. And hopefully clarified why I think “the DNA frame” is worthy of contemplation, at least on our Starbuck’s coffee breaks. If you’d like more reasons for optimism, or more clues on why “the DNA frame” gives a more meaningful context to all others, here’s a link to a slew of bona fide articles on the subject:
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html.
Sources for article:
David Ulansey’s extinction website
Natural Capitalism, by Hawkins, Lovins, and Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, 1999-2006
Personal observation
Authors Website: http://www.hyperblimp.com
Authors Bio:In my run for U.S. Senate against Utah's Orrin Hatch, I posted many progressive ideas and principles that I internalized over the years. I'm leaving that site up indefinitely, since it describes what I believe most members of our species truly want: www.voteutah.us. I thank those who sent such wonderful comments, even though it forced me to go buy a few larger hats, which were among my top campaign expenses (just kidding).
My forever-to-write novel (now my favorite book for some unfathomable reason), A Summer with Freeman, finally got out the door, via Kindle and CreateSpace. Readers of this site, and anyone else with two or more brain cells who want some "serious humorous relief" may want to check it out: http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Summer-with-Freeman-nov-by-Daniel-Geery-130528-385.html
My family and I lived off the grid in an earth-sheltered, solar powered underground house for 15 years, starting in the early '80s, proving, at least to myself, the feasibility of solar power. Such a feat would be much infinitely easier with off-the-shelf materials available now, though the bureaucracy holding us back is probably worse. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Living-on-Sunshine-Underg-by-Daniel-Geery-110318-547.html
I wrote a book on earth-sheltered solar greenhouses that has many good ideas, but should be condensed from 400 down to 50 pages, with new info from living off the grid. It's on my "to do" list, but you can find used copies kicking around online. Just don't get the one I see for $250, being hawked by some capitalist... well, some capitalist.
I'm 68 with what is now a 26 year old heart--literally, as it was transplanted in 2005 (a virus, they think). This is why I strongly encourage you and everyone else to be an organ donor--and get a heart transplant if you're over 50, unless your name is Dick Cheney.
I may be the only tenured teacher you'll meet who got fired with a perfect teaching record. I spent seven years in court fighting that, only to find out that little guys always lose (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Letter-to-NEA-Leadership--by-Daniel-Geery-101027-833.html; recommended reading if you happen to be a parent, teacher, or concerned citizen).
I managed to get another teaching job, working in a multi-cultural elementary school for ten years (we had well over 20 native tongues when I left, proving to me that we don't need war to get along--no one even got killed there!). http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_daniel_g_060716_alternatives_to_exti.htm
I spent a few thousand hours working on upward-gliding airships, after reading The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed by John McPhee. But I did my modelling in the water, so it took only two years and 5,000 models to get a shape that worked. You can Google "aquaglider" to learn more about these. As far as I know, this invention represents the first alteration of Archimedes'principle, spelled out 2,500 years ago.
"Airside," the water toys evolved into more of a cigar shape, as this was easier to engineer. Also, solar panels now come as thin as half a manila folder, making it possible for airships to be solar powered. You can see one of the four I made in action by Googling "hyperblimp"(along with many related, advanced versions).
Along with others, I was honored to receive a Charles Lindbergh Foundation Award, to use my airships to study right whales off Argentina. Now we just have to make it happen and are long overdue, for reasons that would probably not fit on the internet.
In 2010 I married a beautiful woman who is an excellent writer and editor, in addition to being a gourmet cook, gardener, kind, gentle, warm, funny, spiritual, and extremely loving. We met via "Plenty-of-Fish" and a number of seemingly cosmic connections. Christine wrote Heart Full of Hope, which many readers have raved about, as you may note on Amazon.
I get blitzed reading the news damn near every day, and wonder why I do it, especially when it's the same old shit recycled, just more of it. In spite of Barbara Ehrenreich and reality, I'm a sucker for positive thinking and have read many books on it. I find many many of them insane and the source of much negativity on my part. My favorites these days are by Alan Cohen, who seems to speak my language, and likewise thinks a bit like Albert Einstein did (as do I on this note). Albert: "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent, in fact, I am religious."
Though I rapidly note that I've kept alive my deceased and "devout atheist" friend's book, http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Foundation-of-Religion-by-Daniel-Geery-110510-382.html
Lastly, kudos to Rob Kall and those who make OEN the site that it is: one of the last bastions of free speech.