The video embedded below, along with the draft script and supporting links, can be freely…
Science Snippets: “No Soup for You!”
Journal of Industrial Ecology 25(3):614-626, 3 November 2020: Update to limits to growth: Comparing the World3 model with empirical data
The Economic Collapse Blog, 5 September 2022: A List Of 33 Things We Know About The Coming Food Shortages
High Country News, 29 September 2022: New bird flue strain threatens North American wildlife (includes quote from Rebecca Poulson, University of Georgia research scientist)
UK National Health Service, 6 January 2022: Bird flu
Latest peer-reviewed journal article appears in the prestigious Elsevier series of journals:
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.
Full text:
I have frequently spoken about loss of habitat for human animals in this space. Such an event can occur rapidly, contrary to what you hear from engineers, corporate media personalities, and paid climate scientists. I’ll discuss yet another example with this short video.
I have inadvertently fasted a few times while on speaking tours. It was never my idea. In the transition from one host to another, I simply did not get fed for more than 36 hours.
These days, the bathroom scale reminds me that I could stand to miss a meal or two, although I’d rather make that decision on my own. On my own, that is, with a nod to my virtual absence of free will, as with other organisms here on Earth.
Apparently, writing about hunger is analogous to buying a red Dodge Charger. One rarely notices such a car until buying one. After that, they seem to be everywhere. In this case, my mentioning hunger in a recent Weekly Hubris essay has caused stories about hunger to appear daily in my newsfeed. As usual, the evidence points to a dire outcome for your favorite species, Homo sapiens.
From the peer-reviewed Journal of Industrial Ecology on 3 November 2020 comes an update to the renowned Limits to Growth. The original version of Limits to Growth was famously published by the Club of Rome in 1972, shortly after this nonprofit collection of scientists and business leaders was created in 1968 at one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, Accademia dei Lincei. Subsequent updates to the original version of Limits to Growthwere written by Dennis Meadows and colleagues, as indicated in the References section of the latest update, written by Gaya Herrington. I have included a link to the peer-reviewed paper by Herrington in the description of this video and also in the attendant blog post at guymcpherson dot com. In fact, I’ve included the entire script of this video in the attendant blog post so that you can easily find all the data referenced here. Figure 1 of the paper by Herrington indicates that business-as-usual, the path we are currently following, leads to the rapid reduction of global food production in 2028.
If you believe you can overcome the impending collapse of global food production, welcome to the Club of Naiveté. I, too, used to believe I simply needed to grow and store my own food to insure my continued survival. Upon realizing it was the monetary system driving us to extinction, I exited the monetary system. I lived off-grid for more than a decade, initially in southern, rural New Mexico, USA and later in western Belize, Central America. I later discovered the aerosol masking effect, as described in many essays at guymcpherson.com and also in this space. Never mind the extreme inconvenience associated with unattended nuclear facilities imploding, thus leading to loss of stratospheric ozone and therefore extremely rapid planetary heating, as I’ve also described in this space. Only loss of aerosol masking, which would be complete in about five days according to professor James Hansen in many presentations and interviews, will cause a sufficiently rapid rate of environmental change to cause the demise of our species and most—if not all—others on Earth. The rapid rate of environmental change in the wake of our own extinction or the extremely rapid rate of environmental change as Earth loses stratospheric ozone will bring about the loss of most or all life on Earth, including human life. These factors indicate, yet again, that we are all connected. Believing otherwise has brought us to the edge of extinction. There seems little doubt it’ll take us over the edge, and far sooner than I’d like.
If you need more evidence that we are all inextricably connected, consider the new strain of bird flu threatening wildlife in North America. According to University of Georgia research scientist Rebecca Poulson, who has studied bird flus for 15 years, “We are in the midst of a completely unprecedented wildlife disease outbreak in North America. We’ve never seen anything like this.” According to the UK National Health Service, bird flu can, in rare cases, spread to humans.
The peer-reviewed contribution from Gaya Herrington supports my long-time prediction regarding near-term human extinction. However, subsequent information published nearly two years after Herrington’s paper provides additional, direr support. Specifically, a blog post by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse blog indicates the collapse of global food production lies not in the near future of 2028. Rather, it’s happening now. I rarely use blog posts to support my evidence-rich work, in part because the peer-reviewed literature is conservative. As a scientist, I tend toward conservatism with respect to accepting and promulgating information. However, the essay at the Economic Collapse blog is stunningly well-supported with links that indicate collapse of the global food supply is already underway. Specifically, he writes, “the food that isn’t being grown in 2022 won’t be on our store shelves in 2023. We are facing an absolutely unprecedented worldwide food crisis next year.”
Consider the first of 33 points in Snyder’s essay, indicating the near-term collapse of global food production: “The hard red winter wheat crop in the United States this year ‘was the smallest since 1963.’ But in 1963, there were only 182 million people living in this nation. Today, our population has grown to 329 million.” The embedded link referencing 1963 leads to a 5 September 2022 article in the Washington Post. The essay at the Economic Collapse blog goes on to describe reduced productivity of rice, corn, and many other food items throughout the world. I’ve included a link to the relevant paper in the Economic Collapse blog in the description below and also at guymcpherson.com. The final of 33 points from Snyder leads to a quote from United Nations Secretary General António Guterres on 18 July 2022: “We face a real risk of multiple famines this year. And next year could be even worse.”
The ability to grow, store, and distribute grains at a large scale has defined each civilization, including the current one. The inability to grow, store, and distribute grains such as rice and corn has led to the collapse of previous civilizations. Will the impending disasters in food production cause the collapse of the current version of civilization, and therefore the extinction of all life on Earth? As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, a dose of rationality indicates the worst-case situation is on the horizon.
An insect apocalypse has gripped the world for several years, as reported in the peer-reviewed Biological Conservation in April 2019. Subsequent peer-reviewed confirmation for this idea came from the 30 October 2019 issue of Nature. Links to all the papers I mention here can be found with ease at guymcpherson.com.
How important are those invertebrates? Invertebrate organisms pollinate much of the food we eat, and they also decompose plant material into soil, thereby creating soil. They aerate existing soil and spread seeds from mature plants into other locations. Unfortunately, heat waves are destroying pollen even before invertebrates can get to it, according to Yale University’s School of the Environment. In total, invertebrates are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars each year by the American Museum of Natural History.
Nearly a billion people were hungry in 2021. Earth continues to overheat beyond the ability of our species, and many others, to adapt. Earth is already in the midst of a Mass Extinction Event, with no end in sight. Again, I suggest Planetary Hospice as a positive way forward.