The Earth today stands in imminent peril'...and nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the environmental cataclysm of dangerous climate change. Those are not the words of eco-warriors but the considered opinion of a group of eminent scientists writing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.'
It's fairly clear-cut. And not too encouraging, really.
So why are we all not popping down to B&Q to get our self-assembly ark kit?
There could be many reasons. Climate fatigue, maybe? A bit like charity fatigue, only we're no longer up for saving ourselves.
Or a few too many headlines like this, that go on to copy like this: 'Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States...'. And an awful lot of ''might may be right".
I don't know. So I still wonder. And that... may be the problem.
4 comments:
I saw this same front page in the newsagents and thought exactly the same. If all in this particular piece IS true, humanity is already hurtling down the helter-skelter to extinction .... probably. Not a peep from the other broadsheets or the tabloids.
Does bad news not sell copy? Or is ignoring something as potentially critical as this might be to mankind now the norm? Has humanity evolved to a point where the ostrich response has become best practice?
That word 'probably' is perhaps the problem - there are so many factors, effects, counter-effects, feedback mechansims and even [the rather gymnastically sounding] 'albedo-flips' now, to take into account that no-one can be certain of anything.
The general conclusion of this report seems to be that the IPCC has watered down the warnings somewhat. The IPCC report really worried me at the time, so if this is also true, then, to quote Fraser from Dad's Army, 'we're all doomed!'
Just a thought, but if the report had come out with 'H5N1A mutates - World Health Organisation says 30% to 40% WILL die from bird flu', I reckon every newspaper on the planet would be leading on it. There's something about climate change that a lot of people seem to find ungraspable - it's not a tenable, seeable thing, it happens slowly (relatively speaking to humans, albeit astonishingly fast in geological terms) so immediacy of action does not seem to be required. And that ignores the damage that items such as C4's program did - the number of people now who say to me "it's all bull, because it said so on the telly" is scary.
Does the press not realise the potential consequences? Massive geo-political upheaval, mass migration, water and food wars, mass starvation. Maybe Lovelock is correct, Gaia will self regulate, but the cost to humanity may be enourmous.
I don't know what the real scenario is either - I just know that I am extremely worried for the future of this planet - the actual data and signals we are getting now all point to the earlier scientific warnings being correct.
Anyone else out there fancy joining us in starting 'Arks R Us'? It might, may, possibly, probably, be a good idea.
Further to your Avian Flu comment, this is possibly the best place to share this PR, which won't have a timely home until I can reactivate the news and events sections on site:
INVITATION - BIRD FLU: A VIRUS OF OUR OWN HATCHING (may need a ? here, for our purposes)*
Meeting at the House of Commons, Committee Room 6, June 26th, 6-8pm
Chaired by Erica Martlew MP, All Party Animal Welfare Group
I am pleased to invite you to this meeting marking the UK visit of Dr Michael Greger MD, author of Bird Flu: A Virus Of Our Own Hatching, a renowned US physician, expert on international health issues and current Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. See http://www.drgreger.org/ for further information.
Dr Greger convincingly challenges the dominant theory that migratory birds are to blame for H5N1 outbreaks and details the underlying conditions that have led to the emergence and spread of the virus. He questions the common idea that an avian flu pandemic is an uncontrollable force of nature, explaining instead why it is 'an unnatural disaster of our own design'. In particular, he singles out the role of intensified industrial poultry production - including the use of farm growth promoters and antibiotics, the global trade in poultry products and confining ever greater numbers of animals in ever decreasing amounts of space. It has given us cheap chicken, but at a massive cost. Most importantly, Dr Greger illustrates how the choices made by policy makers have played a pivotal role in the spread of
H5N1 so far, and what needs to be done if we are to prevent the further spread and mutation of this potentially lethal disease.
There are three essential conditions necessary to create a pandemic and so far the first two conditions have been met - evolution from an animal reservoir, so there is no natural human immunity to it, and being capable of killing human beings effectively. The third condition, the ability to jump from one human to the next, has till not been met but Dr Greger predicts it will be, with devastating effect. 'If the virus triggers a human pandemic, it will not be peasant farmers in Vietnam dying after handling dead birds or raw poultry-it will be New Yorkers, Parisians, Londoners, and people in every city, township, and village in the world dying after shaking someone's hand, touching a doorknob, or simply inhaling in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
My own work in the European Parliament has drawn significantly on Dr Greger's research, both from an animal welfare perspective and in terms of its implications for the future of animal agriculture practice. In 2006 I published my own report detailing the links between avian flu and intensive farming, which outlined the urgent action that needs taking at EU level.
Here in the UK, the BSE crisis has already given us warning of one of the potential dangers of intensive farming. Furthermore, the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 showed me first hand, as Vice President of the European Parliament's Temporary Committee of Inquiry, the devastation wrought on the British countryside as a result of inadequate government policies. We must learn from these experiences and I hope you will join me on June 26th to do just that.
Access to Committee Room 6 is via the St Stephen's Gate Entrance. You are advised to bring this invite with you and allow time to pass through security.
Best wishes,
Caroline Lucas - Green Party MEP for South East England.
Sadly, due to time, distance.. and hence money constraints, I had to decline.
*Let me also add here how much I appreciate your engaging with the Junkk.com spirit of searching, sharing and asking... but not telling. Too much... waaaaay too much... these days can be lain at the door of subjectivity wrapped up as fact. When we don't know, we should say so, no matter how unsatisfying that may at first seem.
This would have been something very interesting to attend. Dr. Greger's arguments about intensive industrial poultry production make serious sense.
Three Steps to Heaven?
Step 1: It develops outside of humans so that we have no resistance.
Step 2: It kills humans effectively.
Step 3: It jumps from one person to another.
Result: Pandemic.
Now I'm worried about Avian Flu again!
I didn't mean to add to your woes. But as they say, 'knowledge is power', and 'forewarned is forearmed'!
Mind you, 'they' who said it are long gone, and have been replaced by a selection of short-term, index-linked buffoons who can hardly see past the next headline or vote.
Atishoo, atishoo... we all fall down.
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