Science Snippets: Habitat, Again and Civilization is STILL a Heat Engine

The video embedded below will Premiere on YouTube Monday, 19 December 2022 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. An online conversation will ensue slightly before, during, and shortly after the video plays.

 

AVID Audio Course Description (Conservation Biology)

 

 

Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Article:

McPherson, Guy R., Beril Sirmack, and Ricardo Vinuesa. March 2022. Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events. Results in Engineering (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2022.100342.

 

Draft script:

We have defined and described the concept of habitat a few hundred times in this space, most recently in a comprehensive fashion on January 24th, 2022 with a short video titled, Science Snippets: Habitat. That was nearly a year ago. Yet I read almost every day that I do not provide adequate explanation regarding our loss of habitat and the ensuing extinction of Homo sapiens. In a society comprised of people with attention spans of fewer than 10 seconds, I’m not surprised I need to repeat myself. Here goes, again.

From the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin’s Spring 1997 issue comes a paper titled, The habitat concept and a plea for standard terminology. In this paper, Linnea Hall and two other scholars defined habitat, “as the resources and conditions present in an area that produce occupancy—including survival and reproduction—by a given organism. Habitat is organism-specific.” Of course, habitat is organism-specific. Every organism requires a different set of environmental conditions for survival and reproduction. Among other factors, this is what defines the niche of an organism.

Let me read that again. Habitat is defined, “as the resources and conditions present in an area that produce occupancy—including survival and reproduction—by a given organism.” In other words, habitat is defined quite simply as everything an organism needs to survive and reproduce. Without the presence of every necessary item, the organism will not survive. In the case of humans, imagine how long we would last—imagine how long youwould last—without access to clean air, potable water, or food. And yet, I’m informed every day that some humans simply will not die merely because they lose habitat. As I’ve pointed out time after time in this space, loss of habitat is already happening around the world. It is leading to, and will continue to lead to, considerable human suffering. Ultimately, an overheated planet will lose stratospheric ozone as a result of nuclear facilities melting down, as I’ve indicated before in this space. Nobody survives that event. No humans. Probably no life at all, if the ultraconservative peer-reviewed literature is to be trusted … which, of course, it is.

Let’s turn to an example I’ve mentioned previously in this space, the San Benedicto rock wren. This bird was found on the San Benedicto Island, off the Pacific coast of Mexico. The volcanic island was home to the Bárcena volcano, which erupted on August 1st, 1952. Within a few minutes, the San Benedicto rock wren was functionally extinct because it lost all habitat. Individual rock wrens undoubtedly flew to nearby islands and even mainland Mexico, albeit to no avail. Without habitat, no individuals of the San Benedicto rock wren survived. It was extinct within a few days, or perhaps as long as a couple of weeks. More than 70 years later, it’s obvious we will never see another San Benedicto rock wren. Extinction is forever.

In addition to reading and hearing ignorant and stupid things about habitat and what it means, I am assaulted with stunningly ludicrous information about a multitude of topics. This video indicates a few facts relevant to the loss of habitat for humans on Earth. These include tidbits such as civilization is a heat engine, Earth is in the midst of abrupt, irreversible climate change, and humans are in the midst of population overshoot. I’ll start with civilization as a heat engine, something I’ve mentioned a few hundred times in this space, apparently to little or no avail.

Professor Tim Garrett, at the University of Utah, single-authored five peer-reviewed papers between 2011 and 2015 indicating that civilization is a heat engine. His work also pointed out a few of the details regarding how much planetary heating is produced by the presence of civilization, regardless how civilization is sustained. In short, wind turbines and solar panels not superior to burning fossil fuels when it comes to sustaining this set of living arrangements. Imagine my dismay in coming across this information only afterI’d created a million-dollar homestead in the wilds of New Mexico. Tack on the best-kept secret in climate science, the aerosol masking effect, and the error of my ways becomes stunningly obvious.

It was in 2010, more than a dozen years ago, when based on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that we learned climate change is virtually irreversible for at least the next 1,000 years. This tidbit comes from a peer-reviewed paper in the authoritative Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper was authored by Susan Solomon and six other scholars and published on October 11th, 2010. Titled, Persistence of climate changes due to a range of greenhouse gases, the abstract includes this information: “Carbon dioxide displays exceptional persistence that renders its warming nearly irreversible for more than 1,000 y. Here we show that the warming due to non-CO₂ greenhouse gases, although not irreversible, persists notably longer than the anthropogenic changes in the greenhouse gas concentrations themselves…. Approaches to climate change mitigation options through reduction of greenhouse gas or aerosol emissions therefore should not be expected to decrease climate change impacts as rapidly as the gas or aerosol lifetime, even for short-lived species; such actions can have their greatest effect if undertaken soon enough to avoid transfer of heat to the deep ocean.” As we now know, the overheating of the ocean has proceeded long enough to have even the politically motivated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclude that the overheated ocean is responsible for irreversible climate change. The IPCC reached this conclusion, finally, in its September 24th, 2019 IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. This report cited five peer-reviewed papers in reaching this conclusion: “Ocean acidification and deoxygenation, ice sheet and glacier mass loss, and permafrost degradation are expected to be irreversible on time scales relevant to human societies and ecosystems.” This report from September 2019 followed the October 8th, 2018 IPCC report that climate change is abrupt. Stunningly abrupt, according the report titled Global Warming of 1.5^o. Specifically, the report includes these lines, citing two peer-reviewed papers: “These global-level rates of human-driven change far exceed the rates of change driven by geophysical or biosphere forces that have altered the Earth System trajectory in the past; even abrupt geophysical events do not approach current rates of human-driven change.”

William Catton’s renowned book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, was published by the University of Illinois Press in October 1980. In taking an ecological approach, Catton unflinchingly demonstrates that we must confront the limits to growth we were clearly facing in 1980. Familiar with the Club of Rome’s 1972 Limits to Growth, Catton wrote: “We must learn to relate personally to what may be called ‘the ecological facts of life.’ We must see that those facts are affecting our lives far more importantly and permanently than the events that make the headlines.”

On a related note, I keep hearing that nuclear fusion is going to save us. Three comments are worthy here: (1) civilization is a heat engine, regardless how it is maintained, (2) nuclear fusion is still many years away from being operational, and (3) inexpensive energy, in the form of fossil fuels, have brought us to the edge of extinction. More cheap energy is the fastest path to disaster.

What if, with full knowledge regarding loss of habitat for our species on Earth, the end of our species plays out like Ray Bradbury’s 1951 short story, “The Last Night of the World”? In Bradbury’s short story, which you can find online, acceptance was the prevailing attitude during literally the last night of the world for humans. Nobody jumped on a plane to fly west and therefore extend their lives by a few hours. Sadness was experienced as people kissed their loved ones, said goodnight, and went to sleep. They actually accepted their near-term deaths and acted accordingly. They did not lie, not to themselves, and not to others.

I have been promoting acceptance of evidence, including the fact that all living organisms die, for many years. This message is contrary to the prevailing narrative in our culture, the message that death is for otherpeople. Contrarily, I am certain death will greet us all, and soon. After all, we are losing habitat for Homo sapiens throughout the world. If you’re not saddened by this situation, one could argue you’re not paying attention.

Allowing your emotional discomfort to completely disrupt your life is not a healthy response. Again, I encourage studying and pursuing recovery from grief, as described in the 20thAnniversary Edition of the Grief Recovery Handbook by John James and Russell Friedman. Again, I encourage acceptance of the near-term extinction of our species, as pointed out by abundant literature to which I have referred often in this space.

Dr. Gabor Maté, speaking within the context of hospice and palliative care, provides a two-word response. It applies here, too: “Accepting inevitability.”

With this dire situation in mind, I am offering an audio course in Conservation Biology. A link to the description is posted below. If you’re interested, you can register for the course at the same link.

https://avid.fm/guy/conservation-biology?section=course

We will be producing only one video each week for this week and next week. This video is all for this week. Next week’s video will provide an end-of-year overview of what we accomplished this year. It will be released at the same time as this one on Thursday, December 29th, 2022.

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