Ecocide - killing nature

"The human race will not destroy itself from lack of information. The human race will destroy itself through lack of appreciation." — Mathew Fox

There are approximately 10³⁰ viruses in the Pacific Ocean [R] [R] Counted by folks completing their MBAs, since obtaining that certificate does not require any time commitment an image - please see terms of use

. A virus is about 100nm (10^− 7m) in length. This gives us a distance of about 10²³m, or 10²⁰Km if we lay the virus more-or-less end to end. A light year is about 10¹³Km, so a little arithmetic shows that the viruses in the Pacific would reach about 10⁷light years from earth. This is a greater distance than the entire diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. Viruses will outlast us all.

It might be useful to keep this at the back of your mind as you read on...

“We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?” –Lee Iacocca

People

As of June 1999 for the first time in human history, the population level has reached six billion. This exceeds the capability of current food supply and distribution channels to sustain most of humanity.
Three people are born every second, or one million every four days. That’s 95 million people per year. That is the current population of Mexico. Hence each year the equivalent of a large country is added to the world’s population. Currently more than 1/3 of the world’s population are either starving or have insufficient nourishment. UPDATE: Since I wrote this, the number is approaching 40%, in large part thanks to wealthy countries preferring war (the U.S. spends more than $50 million per hour on its military) over humanitarian aid.
A species is eliminated from this planet every 40 minutes. This is the greatest mass extinction in the last 65 million years. It has become increasingly apparent that humans may be next.

Trees

In the United States, an acre of trees is lost every 8 seconds. This is creating a mass carbon sink catastrophe.
In British Columbia, Canada, one acre of forest is clear cut (nothing left standing) every minute. Another catastrophe in the making. Companies do not have to bid competitively to log public forests. The majority of logging in British Columbia is in old growth (i.e. ancient) forest and the Canadian government estimates that the province is over cutting its forest by 20 percent. Clear-cutting makes up 80 percent of all logging there - the results are environmentally catastrophic. Pulp mills there are destroying the health of entire populations. Further, there is no endangered species legislation to protect wildlife from logging despite the fact that the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada now lists 387 species of plants and animals at risk of extinction. The forestry Ministers in the government of that province have usually been former executives in multinational forestry companies.
In China 25,000,000 trees are cut down every year... to make chopsticks.
Brazil’s correntoes (a type of tractor/chain combination) is capable of destroying huge tracks of forest in a single year. In Mato Grosso state alone, the practice of using correntoes has essentially destroyed the original forest ecosystem - all within a single year. Between March and April, 593 Km²were destroyed to make way for soy-bean farms.
Trees create oxygen and clean the air of pollution. Cut them down, and breathing may be a thing of the past.

Bees

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) refers the the fact that honey bees have been dying around the world by the millions. Entire colonies have died. The dead bees are seldom found.
Since bees are at this time essential to pollination of many species of flora, if CCD continues unabated, the world’s agriculture will likely collapse and billions may die of starvation. Including you.
Everything from hive beetles (currently on the upswing in many regions) to fungus have been blamed. But few people (difficult to get funding) are concentrating on neonicotinoids such as the commercially distributed Imidacloprid. These are nerve toxins used by farmers as insecticides. But they have an important difference from other insecticides. Unlike others they enter directly into the pollen and nectar of a plant, rather than merely the leaves. Bees which encounter neoicotinoids in flowers become disoriented almost immediately. Some cannot fly, or fly into things. It has been alleged that neonicotinoids affect the bees’ ability to navigate back to the hive. If they cannot return, they die, and the colony dies. As will most human agriculture.

Oceans

Vast pools of dead zones filled with human pollution and larger than Britain, exist in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Nothing can survive there. That means plankton, which produce oxygen, cannot survive there. Yet deeps sea vessels, including the navies of several powerful nations, continue to dump their sludge over the side. As on land concerning trees, killing plankton may shortly make breathing problematic.
Acidification of the worlds oceans is proceeding at an alarming rate, primarily due to chemical run-off from factory farming and industrial pollution. The acid is eating the coral reefs which sustain a plethora of species; it is destroying the plankton upon which all life on the planet depends. And yet essentially nothing is being done to curb ocean acidification. At the current exponentially rising rate, the oceans will not be able to sustain any life within a mere century. A dead ocean is a dead planet. Meanwhile malignant narcissism at the seat of power in most of the world’s governments result in business as usual.
The biomass of North Atlantic tuna, cod, haddock, hake, halibut, herring, mackerel, salmon, bass, etc., all food fish for humans, has changed. In 1900 stocks of these and other food fish were abundant. Christensen et al have shown that mere 100 years later, all were close to extinction. There are few fish left in the sea. Coastal eagles are dying because there are not enough fish upon which to feed. Hutchings et al published work indicating that the decline of cod in Canadian waters to essentially zero, was in large part due to political machinations which ignored scientific evidence. The Canadian Minister of Fisheries at the time: “I will never trust stock assessment scientists”. This fine individual allowed massive overfishing of cod, to the point of extinction. The same level of ignorance of science, and wilful ignoring of massive ecocide is typical of most governments dealing with ocean destruction.

“In make and break harbour, the boats are so few, too many are pulled up and rotten, most houses stand empty, old nets hung to dry are blown away, lost and forgotten” — Stan Rogers

Species destruction

Many species are as intelligent as human children. Many species love to explore and learn.
Some corvids for example are brighter than bonobos which in turn are at the level of a five-six year old human infant. Humanity is killing these intelligent creatures very quickly. Take a look at the research of Dr. Irene M. Pepperberg, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona into thinking in African Grey parrots, or look into some of the latest large corvid research - you might be amazed, even as we destroy their remaining habitat.
A race that believes itself superior to all others is in my opinion, a doomed race.

Destruction and contamination of food sources

"We... settled out of court. The way the system appeared to work to me was... Lady Justice had the scales, and you piled cash on the scales. And the one that piled the most cash on the scales and hired the most experts and the ones most willing to tell the biggest lies... that was the winner. ... that seems to be how our justice system functions now. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. How can a farmer defend himself against a multinational corporation like Monsanto?" --Troy Roush, Vice President of a farmers group [cited here]

Monsanto and other (mainly U.S. based) corporations have introduced genetically modified foods.
As of this writing, over 2/3 of US foods have now been contaminated by wind and other drift of genetically modified seeds. Testing has found that at “the most conservative expression”, half the maize and soy-beans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape in the USA are contaminated with GM genes - just a few years after the modified varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US. Because of the contamination, farmers unwittingly plant billions of GM seeds a year thereby spreading genetic modification throughout US agriculture. A recent report to the British government has indicated that this “would be likely to lead to danger to health with the next generation of GM crops, bred to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals - delivering “drug-laced cornflakes” to the breakfast table”.
From the Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement contract:
- "Grower’s exclusive limited remedy: the exclusive remedy of the grower and the limit of the liability of Monsanto or any seller for any and all losses, injury or damages resulting from the use or handling of seed (including claims based in contract, negligence, product liability, strict liability, tort, or otherwise) shall be the price paid by the grower for the quantity of the seed involved or, at the election of Monsanto or the seed seller, the replacement of the seed. In no event shall Monsanto or any seller be liable for any incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages." Hence Monsanto’s Technology Stewardship Agreement allegedly places responsibility for any and all losses, injury, or damages resulting from use of Monsanto seeds onto the grower. The contract contains no expiration date and whilst terminable by the grower, does not allegedly obviate the grower from these responsibilities, "Grower’s responsibilities and the other terms herein shall survive...", even if neighbouring farms are contaminated decades later, or if contaminated crops cannot be recalled from the environment (most cannot). This allegedly included liability even if the grow sells his farm: GROWER AGREES: To accept and continue the obligations of this Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement on any new land purchased or leased by Grower that has Seed planted on it by a previous owner or possessor of the land; and to notify in writing purchasers or lessees of land owned by Grower that has Seed planted on it that the Monsanto Technology is subject to this Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement and they must have or obtain their own Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement."
See here and here and here for an introduction to how certain corporations use laws which they themselves allegedly wrote (and had passed by their allegedly bought and paid for politicians) to sue farmers and prevent them from saving their own seeds for next year’s harvest, requiring them instead to use sterile and genetically modified seeds for which they must pay every time they sow.
While some government leaders (e.g. Peru’s President Ollanta Humala) have banned genetically modified crops completely, other leaders in more backward countries (e.g. the United States) have announced that unlimited planting of a genetically modified corn can be sown. You are invited to consider the implications of genetically engineered ’foods’, the contracts farmers sign in order to grow them, the kickbacks received by scientifically illiterate legislators, and the future of both food and the human right of choice.

Summary

tamper with nature, and nature tampers right back. Ecocide is not the mark of an intelligent species. Ecocide is what humans are currently perpetrating. Ergo...

“Humanity is killing itself because humans never look beyond their own front door” — D. Suzuki