ALTERNATIVES
Mankind is facing the existential threat of runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population, says a new, dire “warning to humanity” written by 15,000 scientists from 184 countries.The message updates an original warning sent 25 years ago. The experts say the picture now is far, far worse than it was in 1992….
Read More about A second warning to humanity, from the world’s scientists
Conserve/Resist
From The Guardian: Insects are multitudinous beyond our imagining, and have triumphed for hundreds of millions of years, in every habitat. This makes all the more alarming the great truth now dawning upon us: insects as a group are in terrible trouble and the remorselessly expanding human enterprise has become too much, even for them….
Read More about The insect ecosystem is collapsing due to humans. It’s a catastrophe
The white rhinoceros, the largest species of rhinoceros, is on the verge of extinction
Conserve/Resist
From Mother Jones: Most scientists now agree that we are experiencing a sixth mass extinction, but unlike before, humans are responsible for this one. Here are some of the highlights from the Red List, the most comprehensive roster of threatened species available, including three that went extinct last year and others to watch out for in 2017….
Read More about We’ll never see these animals again
CLIMATE CRISIS
The Atlas for the End of the World chronicles the archipelago of protected areas into which the world’s genetic biodiversity is now huddled. It is not about the end of the world per se; but the end of the world as a God-given and unlimited resource for human exploitation and its concomitant myths of progress….
Read More about An Atlas for the End of the World
ALTERNATIVES
Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges….
Read More about Module 5: Biodiversity & Species Extinction
The 2008 movie 'Wall-E' features a small waste-collecting robot as its protagonist
Consumerism/Lifestyle
From Slate.com: Industrial civilisation’s impact is so massive that it goes way beyond climate change. Earth scientists now suggest that it is creating a distinct geological layer made of ‘technofossils’. The scale of our stuff is so gargantuan, that it is throwing off the quite robust balance of our natural systems—that’s how powerful it is….
Read More about Humans are creating a new geological layer of techno-fossilsConserve/Resist
From The Independent: Scientists warn in a new study that Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction that’s “more severe than perceived.” Not only that, human activity —including pollution, deforestation, overpopulation, poaching, warming oceans and extreme weather events tied to climate change— is to blame for this massive loss in biodiversity, according to the analysis….
Read More about Study: The world is facing a ‘biological annihilation’ of species, researchers warn
Coral reef in Papua New Guinea's Kimbe Bay. Almost all coral reefs may experience bleaching by 2050
David Doubilet/National Geographic
Conserve/Resist
From National Geographic: Our waters have borne the brunt of global-warming for decades, but dying corals, extreme weather, and plummeting fish stocks are signs that it can handle no more. And people are already experiencing direct consequences, such as more extreme weather events, says a new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature….
Read More about The oceans can’t protect us anymore—here’s whyBookshelf
From The Guardian: The chief reason that we’re waking up to our entanglement with the world we’ve been destroying, Timothy Morton says, is our encounter with the reality of hyperobjects –the term he coined to describe things such as ecosystems and black holes, which are “massively distributed in time and space” compared to individual humans….
Read More about ‘A reckoning for our species’: the philosopher prophet of the AnthropoceneEducation/Awareness
Currently, 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year – the equivalent of a dump truck of plastic rubbish every minute. At current rates, by 2050 there will be as much plastic in the oceans as fish. A closer look at the plastic tsunami menacing the world, and particularly, our oceans….
Read More about How plastic took over the world in 50 years
Paresh Nath/The Khaleej Times
Culture/Cognition
Kenn Orphan writes: Earth Day has morphed into an opportunity for corporations and politicians to tout empty gestures at “saving the planet” while they mercilessly plunder it. It neutralises public outrage at the world’s dire state and spreads an all-pervasive “feel goodism” to a situation that’s truly existential, for countless other species, and our own….
Read More about Earth Day and the phantoms of a pathological culture
SvitalskyBros
ALTERNATIVES
Editor’s Note: Last week, Ecologise carried the well-known Marxist scholar John Bellamy Foster’s foreword to a new book, Facing the Anthropocene. In response, noted eco-socialist writer Saral Sarkar posted a comment questioning the usefulness of Marxist analysis in understanding the global ecological crisis. This short piece, first published on Ecologise, is Foster’s reply to Sarkar….
Read More about Marxism, ecology and the Anthropocene: A debate
ALTERNATIVES
John Bellamy Foster writes in the foreword: It’s capitalism and the alienated global environment it has produced that constitutes our “burning house” today. Mainstream environmentalists have generally chosen to do little more than contemplate it, while flames lick the roof and the entire structure threatens to collapse around them. The point, rather, is to change it….
Read More about Bookshelf: Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System
CLIMATE CRISIS
The Great Acceleration marks the phenomenal growth of the global socio-economic system, the human part of the Earth System. It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In little over two generations –or a single lifetime –humanity (or until very recently a small fraction of it) has become a planetary-scale geological force….
Read More about The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration
ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION
Andreas Malm writes: Mainstream climate discourse is positively drenched in references to humanity as such, human nature, the human enterprise, humankind as one big villain driving the train. Enter Naomi Klein, who in ‘This Changes Everything’ lays bare the myriad ways in which capital accumulation pour fuel on the fire now consuming the earth system….
Read More about The Anthropocene myth: Blaming all of humanity for climate change lets capitalism off the hook
Bramble Cay melomys’ is the first recorded extinction of a mammal due to human-caused climate change
Conserve/Resist
Growing numbers of scientists have asserted that our planet might soon see a sixth massive extinction— driven by the escalating impacts of humanity. Others, such as the Swedish economist Bjørn Lomborg, have characterised such claims as ill-informed. We argue that the jury is in and the debate is over: Earth’s sixth great extinction has arrived….
Read More about Paul Ehrlich: Radical overhaul needed to halt earth’s sixth great extinction
Education/Awareness
I think the label “Anthropocene” does not represent reality. Not because I doubt that human beings are having a major impact on geology, far from it. My reasons are somewhat complex, and will require a glance back over the history of geology— specifically, the evolution of the labels we use to talk about the past….
Read More about John Michael Greer: The myth of the Anthropocene
The White Rhino - one of many endangered large animals
Conserve/Resist
The Guardian reports: The number of wild animals on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, which a new report attributes to an ongoing mass extinction. The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020….
Read More about Report: World on track to lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020
The Bramble Cay melomys is the first mammal recorded extinct due to climate change.
Conserve/Resist
Aaron M. Ellison writes in Nature: Better data will not save elephants, rhinos or any other species. Countless individuals, institutions, governments, and multinational and non-governmental organizations have been collecting, assimilating and organizing such data for decades, essentially fiddling while our biological heritage burns… I suggest three crucial actions that scientists can take, beginning right now….
Read More about Ecologists are fiddling while our natural heritage burns, says Harvard scientist
CLIMATE CRISIS
The Guardian reports: Planet Earth has entered a new geological epoch dubbed the Anthropocene because of the extent of humanity’s impact on the planet, according to a group of scientists. An international working group set up to consider the question voted by 30 to three, with two abstentions, that the Anthropocene was real in a geological sense….
Read More about The Anthropocene is here: Scientists declare dawn of human-influenced era
