Johann Hari: A turning-point we miss at our peril

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:




Johann Hari: A turning-point we miss at our peril
We have the choice of burning all the oil left and hacking down all the remaining rainforests - or saving humanity

Thursday, 26 May 2011


Sometimes, there are hinge-points in human history – moments when we have to choose between an exuberant descent into lunacy, and a still, sober voice offering us a sane way out. Usually, we can only see them when we look back from a distance. In 1793, the great democrat Thomas Paine said the French Revolution shouldn't betray its principles by killing the King, because it would trigger an orgy of blood-letting that would eventually drown them all. They threw him in jail. In 1919, the great economist John Maynard Keynes said the European powers shouldn't humiliate Germany, because it would catalyse extreme nationalism and produce another world war. They ignored him. In 1953, a handful of US President Dwight Eisenhower's advisers urged him not to destroy Iranian democracy and kidnap its Prime Minister, because it would have a reactionary ripple effect that lasted decades. He refused to listen.

Another of those seemingly small moments with a long echo is happening now. A marginalised voice is offering us a warning, and an inspiring way to save ourselves – yet this alternative seems to be passing unheard in the night. It is coming from the people of Ecuador, led by their President, Rafael Correa, and it would begin to deal with two converging crises.

In the four billion years since life on Earth began, there have been five times when there was a sudden mass extinction of life-forms. The last time was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were killed, probably by a meteor. But now the world's scientists agree that the sixth mass extinction is at hand. Humans have accelerated the rate of species extinction by a factor of at least 100, and the great Harvard biologist EO Wilson warns that it could reach a factor of 10,000 within the next 20 years. We are doing this largely by stripping species of their habitats. We are destroying the planet's biodiversity, and so we are making the natural chains that keep us alive much more vulnerable to collapse. This time, we are the meteor.

At the same time, we are dramatically warming the atmosphere. I know it has become terribly passé to listen to virtually all the world's scientists, but I remember the collapsing glaciers I saw in the Arctic, the drying-out I saw in Darfur, and the rising salt water I saw in Bangladesh. 2010 was the joint-hottest year ever recorded, according to Nasa. The best scientific prediction is that we are now on course for a 3ft rise in global sea levels this century. That means goodbye London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai. Doubt it if you want, but the US National Academy of Sciences – the most distinguished scientific body in the world – just found that 97 per cent of scientific experts agree with the evidence. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-turningpoint-we-miss-at-our-peril-2288915.html

[Citizen Worker]

1. Sadly, for the world the US lacks the political will and the leadership to try and stem the ever

rising tide.

[On the Road]

2. We're Going to Burn All the Oil Left

That's pretty much a given, and it won't destroy the earth. The question is what comes after that.

What this has to do with burning down the rainforest I don't know, unless the cleared land is used for growing crops for ethanol production.

[markpkessinger]

3. I wonder what we'll do about other petroleum products . . .

. . . like, say, plastics, for example?