Global Warming, Over Population and Ecocide – Urgent Problems to Fix

The majority of people around the world live in urban environments such as cities, towns and villages. Ever wondered about that? It’s all about survival. All creatures and plants need to reproduce to survive. To reproduce they need a safe environment, water and food. Urban environments for humans provide those requirements so humans thrive and multiply. They also isolate us from nature.

It’s different for all the millions of other species of animals and plants that are all Earthlings like us. Their requirements are normally met by the habitat in which the live which is largely created by the terrain, climate and weather that in turn set the wind, rainfall and temperature patterns.

On the land the plants can’t move so they rely on the moist soil and sunlight for nutrition, temperature and length of sunlight exposure to regulate their reproductive cycles. The land based herbivorous animals rely on the plant cycles, the availability of water, the temperature and length of day light to regulate their reproduction. The predators rely on the numbers of herbivores to supply them their food and this regulates their reproduction.

If the climate or weather changes the plants adjust or die, if the plants die the herbivores move elsewhere and are followed by the carnivores. It’s similar in the oceans with one exception. Almost every sea creature has its body at equilibrium with the water temperature and pH which is a measure of acidity.

The body metabolisms of the sea creatures are finely tuned to a narrow range of temperature and pH. If either the temperature or pH of the water changes beyond that narrow area the plants die, the herbivorous sea creatures move and their predators follow. If the herbivores all die, so too do the predators. That’s the web of life on the Earth. What would the Earth say about it all?

All humans rely on the web of life continuing as normal. But human activity is damaging and in many places destroying the web of life and the prime cause is the growing numbers of humans. Are there already too many humans? More humans need more food, water, material goods and energy.

To supply more food and water the land is cleared, forests destroyed, (what would the forests say), oceans fished and rivers dammed. All the species of animals and plants that lived on the land before it was cleared are made homeless and most die. To preserve some of the animal and plant species we have created zoos, national parks and wilderness areas but as the population of people has increased so these areas have decreased.

To supply the material goods and fuel for commerce and industry humans are burning fossil fuels for energy and the gas resulting from the combustion, predominantly carbon dioxide (CO2), is going into the atmosphere causing the planet to retain more heat than usual causing Global Warming.

The second and more recent way humans are destroying the web of life is by changing the climate. The habitats of all the millions of other species animals and plants are sensitive to climate and weather.

The Global Warming in turn changes the climate increasing the average daily temperatures which changes the water cycle causing more frequent and more severe drought and storms. The changes in temperature and water cycle put stress on the plants making them more susceptible to diseases, changing the reproductive cycles and causing their death.

When the plants die the herbivores and carnivores are stressed and must move or die. But what happens when they are all trapped in a small national park or similar restricted area. They can’t move as they are surrounded by human cultivated areas. If they move into the human areas they are killed, if the stay they suffer from starvation, disease and die.

The Oceans are affected as well. Most of the Global Warming heat (93%) is going into the oceans causing them to warm. The greenhouse gas, CO2 is dissolving into the oceans causing them to be more acid. The acidity is affecting the ability of the corals and shell fish to grow their protective shells and the temperature is causing the web of life in the oceans to change.

Global warming is changing the habitats of animals and plants on both land and in the oceans. When the habitat is changed sufficiently it can cause ecocide, the death of all that lived there. Humans are causing ecocide all over the planet. Why? Is it that they are unaware, are they stupid, are they selfish, don’t they wish to share the world with all the other species, are they greedy or are they just a malevolent curse upon the world.

I haven’t got room in this article to examine all the human reasons but I have got room to examine whether the world wide destruction of habitats is causing ecocide is real enough.

Ecocide causes mass deaths among the animals and plants. Most of us hear of droughts causing mass deaths of plants crops and farm animals. We see the evidence in pictures of bare earth on farms. We hear about the mass deaths of farm animals from poor animal husbandry, overcrowding and disease.

The farmers tell of their despair at losing their crops and animals. In the cities and towns we don’t see the evidence of all the other species of wildlife dying. It’s there if you want to look.

This year 2015 from the 1st January to 30th May there have been at least 380 examples of mass death around the world. Each mass death resulted in from hundreds, or thousands to often millions of dead creatures. I’ve listed the media reports below for May, to prove it. Read it and be shocked!

Humans are currently using more of the Earth’s resources than the Earth can provide each year creating an ecological debt. We are consuming the Earth and every other living plant and animal is paying the cost.

The scientists are really scared that unless humans fix Global Warming urgently which means limiting our population growth, keeping 80% of all know fossil fuels in the ground, changing our ways to a more sustainable life style, and truly looking after the environment we will soon be hearing of mass deaths of humans as well as other species.

We have no planet B. We either make our home safe for all the species of Earthlings or we all become extinct. Think about it carefully, make a deliberate choice soon to help fight against Global Warming, to move toward sustainability, to limit population growth or there won’t be a choice to make. We’ll simply be another failure of evolution and the Earth will move on without us.

The Earth is our HOME movie. Watch it and think of whether you want your family and friends to have a future or not!

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2 thoughts on “Global Warming, Over Population and Ecocide – Urgent Problems to Fix”

Robert Howes says:

June 9, 2015 at 4:07 pm

I have a solution to all these problems. I just need one person to help me put it into practice. But no-one has so far volunteered and I have been asking for over thirty years. Everyone is too busy destroying the planet. Who will help me save the planet? That person will be well rewarded. He or she must be able to live and work in the UK, legally. Others can watch our progress and follow us. I will just add that if one person had joined me thirty years ago the job would be almost done by now.

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January 23, 2017 at 2:43 am

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Global Warming, Over Population and Ecocide – Urgent Problems to Fix

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2 thoughts on “Global Warming, Over Population and Ecocide – Urgent Problems to Fix”

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