For a long time i’ve had a serious foreboding about humanities eventual demise. Why?
From time immoral man has constantly plunder earths natural resources be they minerals ( gold, silver, cobalt, nickel, aluminium, iron, titanium copper tin and lead )animal species (whales fish, chickens, cows , North American bison and any other critters). The exploitation of black africans for 300 years for the profit and benefit for colonial european nations such as France, Britain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and the USA and finally the Spanish who raped and plundered the Caribbean and South America of its lands and people and natural resources.
Serfdom in Russia and native indigenous peoples of the world over!
The persecuted religious people of the world such as the Jews, Protestants such as Lutheran’s. Fought over and killed millions for lands and resources and man is still doing this to today. There’s no let up on his greed, corruption and sheer stupidity to rape and plunder the very environment he depends upon for his own existence!
He and I use “he” as its the “male member” of our species . The lying and the cheating we see even today had become an art form in our so called enlighten age. Man acts like a “cancer” upon planet earth. Cancer definition; The term “cancer” came from Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos), meaning “crab”, because like a crab cancer cells seem to “grab on and won’t let go”.
Man acts like a “grab and won’t let go” for things be they resources, land, material wealth, other humans such as the opposite sex he needs to control and slowly destroys what ever he touches.
How do we try and eradicate a cancer? Usually by Surgery. The goal of surgery is to remove the cancer or as much of the cancer as possible. To cut it out completely!
Now over the past several years I watched man and his antics with the so called political class such as Trump and Johnson who lie and cheat to gain and hold power just like a crab who don’t want to let go! Now we have an invasion of a smaller sovereign nations by more powerful one based upon lies and resource plunder.
Does man ever learn I would definitely say a BIG NO!. But this only is the malaise of the real underlying problem which is man himself he is the real threat and until his eventual demise he will always be an ongoing problem for the planets ecological systems.
Man will not sort out this problem by himself alone it will have to revert to nature and its power. It’s not going to be a nice demise it will be fraught with difficulties. But nature doesn’t care about man, nature and the biosphere are an interlinked self righting mechanism.
So how will nature react to man’s incessant damage to the biosphere. Nature has to eliminate this dangerous cancer. The biosphere (from Greek βίος bíos “life” and σφαῖρα sphaira “sphere”), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος oîkos “environment” and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems.
It can also be termed the zone of life on Earth. The biosphere is virtually a closed system with regard to matter, with minimal inputs and outputs. With regard to energy, it is an open system, with photosynthesis capturing solar energy at a rate of around 130 Terawatts per year. However it is a self-regulating system close to energetic equilibrium. By the most general biophysiologicaldefinition, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.
The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoiesis (life created naturally from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds) or biogenesis (life created from living matter), at least some 3.5 billion years ago.
Let’s look at the history of man from ancient times and more importantly population size and growth.
Going back 70.000 years ago world population was tiny during an after the Toba catastrophe was only 10,000 to 30,000 humans individuals. These are guesstimates in reality.
The Youngest Toba eruption was a Supervolcano eruption that occurred around 75,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the Earth‘s largest known explosive eruptions. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of six to ten years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode.
What we can say with some authority is population size was fairly constant for 1,500 years at 400- 500million. By 1800 it was 1000 million by 1900 it was 1.5 billion.
Human acceleration came when I was born from 1950 onwards 2.5 billion and today at 7.5 billion humans on planet Earth. This is has become a ecological disaster for the biosphere. We humans are totally out of control in so many ways. I was born in 1951 I was one of the so called Baby Boomers after world war 2.
You can see how humans now significantly dominate planet earth unfortunately not in a good way. Natural disasters such as the pandemics have thinned out man throughout the ages but in the earlier times as population were so much smaller pandemics had a more significant impact on population size.
Let’s look at some of the various pandemics that have occurred and the death rates as compared with them world population size.
There is a single word that can serve as a fitting point of departure for our brief journey through the history of pandemics – that word is the plague. Stemming from Doric Greek word plaga (strike, blow), the word plague is a polyseme, used interchangeably to describe a particular, virulent contagious febrile disease caused by Yersinia pestis, as a general term for any epidemic disease causing a high rate of mortality, or more widely, as a metaphor for any sudden outbreak of a disastrous evil or affliction. This term in Greek can refer to any kind of sickness; in Latin, the terms are plaga and pestis
Intermittent outbreaks of infectious diseases have had profound and lasting effects on societies throughout history. Those events have powerfully shaped the economic, political, and social aspects of human civilization, with their effects often lasting for centuries.
The 20th century we had the outbreak of the Spanish flu that killed more humans than the Great War. We’ve had a number of other contagious diseases over past 30 years. Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and latest Corona virus now monkey pox.
What this tells me with these cross over zoological diseases jumping from animals to humans is we humans are constantly encroaching upon animals habitats for food and resources.
Lets change the subject slightly recently I sailed into Majorca to Puerto Portals, reason I went there was to visit a friend. Puerto Portals which isn’t a harbour for sailing boats it’s a harbour geared up for super yachts and motor cruisers. I could count on one hand the number of sailing boats in the marina.
It was for the monied super yacht owners and quay side fine dining restaurants certainly not for your typical yachties and the mooring fees reflected that. For these large super yachts their mooring fees must be absolutely astronomical. I paid slightly less once in Palermo Sicily for one of my previous sailing boats which was only 9.5 metres long.
The bunkering fuel cost for these motor yachts again must be prohibitive. I always chuckle to myself because the onboard professional crews spend each and every day washing and polishing these boats from bow to stern and they end up gleaming. At night these boats are all lit up with deck and underwater lights! I can use one word for these boats EGO booster or babe magnets!
The seem to attract certain type of person be they male or female superficial humans were physical looks are paramount and are skin deep the “WAGS” of the boating world
I’ve been reading about severe weather conditions with torrential rains in Bangladesh and eastern Australia in Sydney. Australia is in the firing line when comes to climatic change.
The Australian people voted out the political climate deniers which was long overdue.
Abraham Lincoln once stated the following; You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
People are starting to slowly realise that we have a real problem and it’s slow insidious problem and we humans aren’t in anyway getting to grips with this climatic crisis slowly unfolding. It’s the crab in water syndrome you slowly heat up the water in the pot until you eventually kill it! That’s what’s happening with humanity. Unfortunately we have charlatans as a political class and capitalists who only care about the last buck or dollar.
That’s why my short stay at Puerto Portals Majorca was a ”stark eye opener” with these EGO driven private “Gin palaces” motoring or roaring around the Mediterranean and the Caribbean with a range of water toys in their huge stern lockers. I remember a number years ago when I was anchored off the Bitter End yacht club in North Sound Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. Larry Ellis the CEO of the Oracle computer company sailed in to the sound in his private motor yacht which was 75 metres long. Evidently he owns several yachts. Yachts they are not, they’re are motor vessels and have no sails.
This is were the real problem lies it’s the wealthy few who have such large carbon foot prints most of them live in the west they are the ones creating the problem . Therefore climate change is an equality problem. However, all of us contribute to climate change but not to the same degree as the super rich. Then we have the climate disinformation brigade saying climate heating or CO2 in the atmosphere is a left wing socialist conspiracy?
I regularly check NASA climate website and look at CO2 levels in the atmosphere and they’re at critical levels 418ppm
Now you might say I’m a prophet of Doom. But actions always speak louder than words and I see carbon dioxide on its upward trajectory year in and year out. Now we have a rogue state Russian (coerced) Federation invading a sovereign independent neighbouring nation and what are western nations NATO allied doing in response virtually zilch. For me this is another indictment of the deluded weak nature of modern democracies who get into bed with a despotic dictators for cheap fossilised energy resources.
I suppose this is one of the reasons why I’m undertaking my sailing odyssey. To see planet Earth in all its glory before we humans fuck it up big style. To be fair when I was in my 30’s and early 40’s I hadn’t realised or even understood we had a climatic problem with the combusting of fossil fuels.
Coal, oil and natural gas has underpinned modern civilisation and propelled it into the Stratosphere of economic growth and relative prosperity, well for some more than others.
In conclusion we are sleep walking towards our own demise. Trump, Johnson, Putin and his like are only tip of iceberg of humanities mass delusion.
The great Carl Sagan, just before he died, predicted the problems we have today with non scientific political charlatans that rule through slight of hand with lies and disinformation. The big steal, Brexit and Ukrainians are non people. Sad reality of our ruling entitled classes. look at the spectacles of leaders refusing to leave office with Trumps and his lies about the big steal and capital building insurrection now Johnson clinging on to power and refusing to leave when all can see he’s an out an out charlatan of a prime minister! .
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/today-in-focus/id1440133626?i=1000568950837
Guardian Podcast Flooding catastrophe in Bangladesh