(EDITOR’S NOTE: With this column, we begin to publish a five-part series on the environment written by our contributing political columnist Berl Falbaum, a veteran journalist and author of 12 books. The columns will appear over the next few weeks. Berl has studied the issue for the last two decades, including writing a book, “Code Red! Code! Red! How Destruction of the Environment Poses Lethal Threat to Life on Earth.” We welcome your comments.)
I thought long and hard on how to start this series to get the attention of readers. And I don’t mean just to “tickle” their interest in the subject so they read it but with the hope they understand the ominous message about the future we face.
Full disclosure: I am a journalist, not a scientist. I did not conduct any independent research. My reporting comes from researching the research done by world experts.
In these articles, I did not attribute every statistic, conclusion, prediction or finding because I thought that would be awkward and annoying to readers. But it all comes from authoritative sources. In my book, I list more than 100 references.
This series is not recreational reading. There is no good news to report.
With that warning, here goes.
David Wallace-Wells, who has written extensively on the environment, did it by starting his book with the following eight words: “It is worse, much worse, than you think.”
I will try it with the following: The Earth is becoming uninhabitable for humans much faster than many experts predicted. And it may well be too late to stop the environmental deterioration on numerous fronts, not just global warming that receives most of the attention.
Scientists are warning we are on the cusp of the Earth experiencing its sixth extinction, the first one caused by humans -- you and me.
The last extinction, the fifth, happened 65 million years ago when an asteroid crashed into the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs.
There is not an inch of land, or a body of water on the planet, no matter how small or isolated, which is not being impacted by environmental issues. Yes, including your beautiful gated subdivision.
The following comes from a story, published by The Guardian, on a report written by renowned environmental experts:
“Many of Earth’s ‘vital signs’ have hit record extremes, indicating that the future of humanity hangs in the balance….
“More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse… [The report] assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a ‘critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.’”
Consider the following: Patagonia, which sits on the western side of South America, is one of the least populated regions on the planet. With an area of one million square kilometers, Patagonia is larger than 80 percent of countries on Earth. It has less than five percent of the population of both Chile and Argentina, making it a sparsely populated region.
Yet, it is being severely impacted by polluted air and water carried by currents of both and it is inundated with microplastics.
Or consider this: A scientist testing a submarine took it to the deepest depths of the oceans, some 36,000 feet. What did he find? Plastic garbage bags and candy wrappers.
Even the shape of the Earth is being affected. You read that correctly.
Scientists at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, published a report in the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. that the moon’s gravitational pull has steadily lengthened days, but polar melting is redistributing water closer to the equator.
This makes the Earth more oblate -- or fatter -- slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day faster than the lunar effect alone.
While we should be addressing environmental dangers, the deadly threats have been met with apathy and/or denial. We should be discussing the environment as we did COVID at its peak. Instead, raging fires, floods, melting glaciers, soaring temperatures, plastic contamination, air and water pollution, nuclear waste disposal, deforestation --- and so much more -- are met with a sentence or two in news reports. Like in, “By the way…”
Jonathan Watts, The Guardian’s global environment editor, wrote: “…weather catastrophes have become so commonplace that they risk being normalized. Instead of outrage and determination to reduce the dangers, there is a sense of complacency: these things happen. Someone else is responsible. Somebody else will fix it.”
The Guardian, incidentally, publishes four stories on the environment every day and they contain mostly negative news.
In one opinion piece The Nation wrote during the Los Angeles fire calamity:
“These mega-fires have called forth a mega-failure by much of the news media. A review of coverage to date shows that most journalism is still not accurately representing how the climate crisis is upending our civilization by driving increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather.
“Too much of the [Los Angeles fire] coverage has simply ignored the climate crisis altogether, an inexcusable failure when the scientific link between such mega-fires and a hotter, dryer planet is unequivocal.”
—————
Berl Falbaum is a political author and journalist and the author of several books.
I thought long and hard on how to start this series to get the attention of readers. And I don’t mean just to “tickle” their interest in the subject so they read it but with the hope they understand the ominous message about the future we face.
Full disclosure: I am a journalist, not a scientist. I did not conduct any independent research. My reporting comes from researching the research done by world experts.
In these articles, I did not attribute every statistic, conclusion, prediction or finding because I thought that would be awkward and annoying to readers. But it all comes from authoritative sources. In my book, I list more than 100 references.
This series is not recreational reading. There is no good news to report.
With that warning, here goes.
David Wallace-Wells, who has written extensively on the environment, did it by starting his book with the following eight words: “It is worse, much worse, than you think.”
I will try it with the following: The Earth is becoming uninhabitable for humans much faster than many experts predicted. And it may well be too late to stop the environmental deterioration on numerous fronts, not just global warming that receives most of the attention.
Scientists are warning we are on the cusp of the Earth experiencing its sixth extinction, the first one caused by humans -- you and me.
The last extinction, the fifth, happened 65 million years ago when an asteroid crashed into the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs.
There is not an inch of land, or a body of water on the planet, no matter how small or isolated, which is not being impacted by environmental issues. Yes, including your beautiful gated subdivision.
The following comes from a story, published by The Guardian, on a report written by renowned environmental experts:
“Many of Earth’s ‘vital signs’ have hit record extremes, indicating that the future of humanity hangs in the balance….
“More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse… [The report] assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a ‘critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.’”
Consider the following: Patagonia, which sits on the western side of South America, is one of the least populated regions on the planet. With an area of one million square kilometers, Patagonia is larger than 80 percent of countries on Earth. It has less than five percent of the population of both Chile and Argentina, making it a sparsely populated region.
Yet, it is being severely impacted by polluted air and water carried by currents of both and it is inundated with microplastics.
Or consider this: A scientist testing a submarine took it to the deepest depths of the oceans, some 36,000 feet. What did he find? Plastic garbage bags and candy wrappers.
Even the shape of the Earth is being affected. You read that correctly.
Scientists at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, published a report in the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. that the moon’s gravitational pull has steadily lengthened days, but polar melting is redistributing water closer to the equator.
This makes the Earth more oblate -- or fatter -- slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day faster than the lunar effect alone.
While we should be addressing environmental dangers, the deadly threats have been met with apathy and/or denial. We should be discussing the environment as we did COVID at its peak. Instead, raging fires, floods, melting glaciers, soaring temperatures, plastic contamination, air and water pollution, nuclear waste disposal, deforestation --- and so much more -- are met with a sentence or two in news reports. Like in, “By the way…”
Jonathan Watts, The Guardian’s global environment editor, wrote: “…weather catastrophes have become so commonplace that they risk being normalized. Instead of outrage and determination to reduce the dangers, there is a sense of complacency: these things happen. Someone else is responsible. Somebody else will fix it.”
The Guardian, incidentally, publishes four stories on the environment every day and they contain mostly negative news.
In one opinion piece The Nation wrote during the Los Angeles fire calamity:
“These mega-fires have called forth a mega-failure by much of the news media. A review of coverage to date shows that most journalism is still not accurately representing how the climate crisis is upending our civilization by driving increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather.
“Too much of the [Los Angeles fire] coverage has simply ignored the climate crisis altogether, an inexcusable failure when the scientific link between such mega-fires and a hotter, dryer planet is unequivocal.”
—————
Berl Falbaum is a political author and journalist and the author of several books.
