The Feedback Loop: Ecological Damage Soon Beyond Control

[Turborama]

Run time: 03:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_iBGkSqFAw   Posted on YouTube: June 04, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 05, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1280

 
Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/06/Bill_McKibben_350_The_Most_Important_Number_in_the_World

http://books.google.com/books?id=AMiU_clYEY4C&dq=Bill+McKibben+deep+ecologist&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=secoStKoDMKGkAWvudCACw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4">Deep Economy author Bill McKibben, co-founder and director of www.350.org , argues for immediate environmental reform, warning that the consequences of climate change may already be beyond repair.

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350 is the red line for human beings, the most important number on the planet. The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth.

In this exclusive lecture for Sydney Ideas leading environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben talks about how climate science and climate politics are quickly evolvingand how we now have a much more specific idea both of the peril we face and the steps (large and difficult) necessary to solve it.

Even two years ago, scientists could offer only vague ideas of how much carbon in the atmosphere was too much. But in the wake of the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice in 2007, it's become clear that this is a problem not for the future but very much for the present.

In addition, McKibben describes the swelling grassroots global movement, 350.org, which looks set to coordinate the largest day of global environmental action ever, with actions from high in the Himalayas to underwater on the Great Barrier Reef. - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Environmentalist Bill McKibben is a scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College. Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the risks associated with human genetic engineering. Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent. He is the author of http://books.google.com/books?id=q0aM5t5GMpsC&dq=the+end+of+nature&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=oOYoSsewK5CG6AO4n-n7CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4">The End of Nature (1989), the first book for a general audience about global warming. Recent books include Enough (2004), which critiques human genetic engineering and other rapidly advancing technologies; Wandering Home (2005), which catalogs his foot-travels across the Vermont landscape; and Age of Missing Information (2006), in which he compares his experience watching 1700 hours of videotaped TV to that of contemplating nature in the Adirondacks.

"End of Nature: Tenth Anniversary Edition" Amazon Reviews: http://www.amazon.com/End-Nature-Tenth-Anniversary/dp/0385416040

[lapfog_1]

1. That's pretty much my assumption...

0 increase in emissions of CO2 by 2012, reducing to 0 emissions by 2020 to 2025.

Ain't gonna happen.

Get ready for a much different world than the one our ancestors (going back 100s if not thousands of generations) knew.

[summer borealis]

2. Agreed

We don't have the intellect to fix what we're fucking up. Only when climatic devastation and atmospheric peril crashes down our front doors will we realize what we're doing. Climate change? Global warming? It's already too late. Our own ignorance has made it so.

[AlbertCat]

7. Get ready for a much different world than the one our ancestors (going back 100s if not thousands of

Uh...it already is a much different world than what they knew.

And it isn't the "end of nature". Nature will be just fine, with or without us.


Now don't misunderstand me. Climate Change IS real and happening and will make things very different. I am no climate change denier.
But stupid titles like "End of Nature" just help make it sound all so sensational and hysterical and help the deniers.

[Turborama]

8. The title of the book may be disagreeable to you, but it's a seminal work and worth reading

You think nature will be fine with or without us?

It's already not fine and getting a lot worse.

Have you seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOXUza9ZeE">this yet?

[AlbertCat]

9. It's already not fine and getting a lot worse.

Nature IS FINE.... the laws of physics are working as they should. Alas, nature and the laws of physics don't care about what we want or even if there is life on the planet. We're not doing fine in Nature... a more accurate assessment.

[Turborama]

10. Depends how you define nature, I guess

The context I'm looking at it is the biosphere we live in.

Whatever, that's not what this video's about and arguing about semantics isn't really my thing.

The point is, we should all be extremely disturbed about the way we're treating the ecosystems we should be taking care of and the future that lays in store for humans and all the other species we share this planet with. Whether or not we turn earth into another Venus or Mars is quite a big deal, saying 'nature will look after itself' is a weak get out clause when we should be taking more responsibility for our actions.

[appal_jack]

13. "End of Nature"defined

It's been years since I read McKibben's seminal and pioneering work, but iirc, his point was that from the time of its publication onward, every storm, drought, and other climatic event could not be attributed to Nature alone. Humans have wrought an impact on such a planetary scale that nothing is purely 'natural' now. All is mediated through the shifts that humanity has engendered.

You are of course correct that 'nature' as in life itself will manage just fine through this anthropogenic climate change and mass extinction. But it will not be just humanity that suffers from our negligence. Most charismatic megafauna (e.g. - pandas, tigers, polar bears, elephants, etc.) and many migratory species (especially birds) might not make it through this upcoming bottleneck.

How's that for a cheerful thought of the day?

-app

-app

[lapfog_1]

14. No, not really, and not for a long long time

and NEVER when we had 7+ billion mouths to feed.

Any climate changes in the past (significant) were accompanied by mass migration... and, possibly, significant die offs of humans. There is good reason to suspect that the climate change had a role to play in the spread of plague.

We are much more at risk from the spread of disease now than any time in human history, One slow acting (to allow more infections) drug resistant airborne fatal virus and you can kiss off most of mankind. Such viruses tend to arise when populations move into areas that were lightly inhabited before, or when climate change allows viruses to migrate from one zone to another and mutate as a result.

No to mention that migration (which WILL happen if climate change dries up previous farmland) is not as easy today... military being what they are and national boundaries to protect and all.

And the climate change that he is talking about, that hasn't happened since the dawn of civilization some 4500 years ago.

We are eating oil. Literally. If it wasn't for the oil we pump out of the ground, 4/5ths of humans would starve to death. While not a climate change issue, it's always there as another stress point on the survival of our race (well, the majority of us).

[tclambert]

3. Huh. And here I thought it was beyond control 20 years ago.

If we add 0 to atmospheric carbon dioxide, the ice caps will melt. And we're pretty much committed to adding CO2 for decades more.

[Triana]

4. lack of political will...

...that is the ONLY reason this has not been IMMEDIATELY remedied.

That new MPG Obama just got through? WAY too little. WAY too late. We don't have that kind of time and it should have been double what it was.

We're still using filthy COAL for most of our electricity. So is China. I don't see wind farms, solar farms, or any other type of energy being implemented on a large scale. I DO see a lot more mountaintop removal permits being given out.


Pfft.

Humans are parasites. They're idiots, collectively. They are sitting here like brain-addled baboons sawing off the very branch upon which their existence is perched (the Earth).

Ain't gonna happen. The Earth will survive in some form. Humans - not so much.

[BigD_95]

5. there just is no public out cry

to get this moving. We have Big Business spending more money to say it isnt true and the public to lazy to research it just doesnt know what to believe.

The goverment needs to spend money to educate the people to get them to understand the importance of this problem.

[Necon-Be-Gone]

6. Nature in balance

It shouldn't be called global warming, rather human and species extermination.

Nature will take care of us. Once a large percentage of humans are exterminated due to an environment that doesn't support life, the CO2 in the atmosphere will begin to decrease.

Not much will be done because people always elect a President for short term personal economic gain. The science was well known in the 70's.

[quidam56]

11. Well, I can tell 'ya, Appalachia can't stand anymore of the

progress and prosperity of mountaintop removal and the new and improved, greem, clean, hybrid coal industry. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138 Decapitating 350 million year old mountains and streams is a sin !

[Wednesdays]

12. K&R

:kick: