While humans are busy debating, doubting and even denying anthropogenic climate change, the rest of the living world is scrambling to adapt quickly to a rapidly changing climate.
At the Northeast Natural History Conference this year, biologist Thor Hanson described how anole lizards in Turks & Caicos are ingeniously adapting to more intense storms with their larger toe pads and enhanced upper body strength to hold on tighter to twigs.
Sadly, most animals and plants aren’t able to adapt as quickly as these hurricane lizards and in the short timeframe I’m writing this, lives are lost forever to extinction. Have you looked up the current extinction rates?
Chances are you haven’t, as most people are more invested in their day-to-day distractions than tuning into this global existential crisis, the human caused 6th mass extinction of Life on Earth.
First, we need to recognize that we caused this crisis with our behaviors (habitat destruction, deforestation and pollution). Second, we need to mitigate harm by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and restoring health to ecosystems.
We’ve made a difference for the better before. Success stories include the ban on DDT that brought back bald eagles from the brink of extinction and the gradual recovery of the ozone layer by banning certain refrigerants.
So why aren’t we able to stop burning through ancient, fossilized plant materials (fossil fuels)?
Humans have generated an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 pollution from combustion of fossil fuels. The Inconvenient Truth is that this mess could’ve been prevented if it wasn’t for strong financial stakeholders denying the science.
Thousands of scientists have warned that human-made CO2 emissions are changing the climate.
As early as the mid-19th century, Eunice Foote and John Tyndall showed how CO2 traps heat. But in the last few decades, scientific data has been deliberately drowned in doubt and denial fueled by greed and gaslighting.
Transition Town Port Washington recently hosted an event called Gaslit: How Gas Industry Lies Have Cost Us and What You Can Do About It, at the Jeanne Rimsky Landmark Theater on Main Street in Port Washington.
You can visit the recording from this event through their website https://www.transitiontownpw.org. To shed some light on the dark forces of delusion, research scientist and climate advocate Anshul Gupta emphasized the misinformation campaigns that aim to confuse consumers.
In search for Truths, I’ve decided to venture into deep time with you. Evolutionary biology puts things into perspective, I promise. Our humble human life measured in years and decades seems so insignificant compared to geologic time measured in millions and billions of years.
Yet, my life of course feels rather significant to me, today. And you, of course, matter too. And what we do today, actually matters tremendously in geologic time to all current and future beings.
Never before has one species altered the landscape and atmosphere in such dramatic ways as humans have. Except perhaps for tiny microbes that forever changed the course of life on Earth with their activity.
A little over 2 billion years ago cyanobacteria altered the atmospheric composition in the Great Oxidation/Oxygenation Event. They were able to harness energy from sunlight and released oxygen as a byproduct.
CO2 is the currency of Life that connects respiration to photosynthesis. Plants make use of our exhale, and with the help of sunlight convert CO2 into carbohydrates that serve as the building blocks for all plant and animal life.
For most of human history CO2 levels were relatively constant, or below 280 ppm. The last ten thousand years were marked by climate stability and relatively predictable conditions, perfect for the development of agrarian civilization.
The Industrial Revolution is the measurable point when CO2 starts rising and the burning of fossil fuels led to an exponential rise in CO2 levels. We’re now at 420 ppm.
Human activity has raised the atmospheric CO2 content by 50% of its value in 1750. And this increase is experienced as Global Warming, or Global Weirding as some people call it as weather events are becoming more intense and unpredictable.
And contrary to industry claims, natural gas isn’t the solution. Fracking is far from natural, it requires disruption of sediments that disturbs millions of years of evolution. “Natural gas” while cleaner than coal and oil is still “dirty” and dangerous to public health every step of the way.
We’re at a tipping point and we must stop emitting greenhouse gasses and be creative about capturing Carbon and returning it to the ground.
You can do your part today by reducing your personal emissions and by voting for officials who enforce and fund the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (https://climate.ny.gov/) that promises 40% reduction in emissions by 2030. Clean energy solutions are easy, affordable and safe.