http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3161462/Human-civilisation-unsustainable-unless-begin-protecting-Earth-s-plant-life-researchers-warn.html
Human Civilization is "UNsustainable" Unless We Begin Protecting Earth's Plant Life, Researchers Warn!
- Report claims humans have "depleted the Earth's battery"
- Earth contained 1,000 BILLION tons of carbon in living biomass 2,000+
- years ago
- Estimated 10% was destroyed in just the last century
- Previous reports have warned sixth mass extinction has begun!
Researchers have issued a chilling warning that life on Earth is unsustainable for
humans unless there are major changes.
Unless we slow the destruction of Earth's declining supply of plant life, civilization
like it is now may become completely unsustainable, according to a new paper. It
claim's that humans have "depleted the Earth's battery."
A broken Earth: Researchers say a new study shows "without any significant doubt" that we are
entering the sixth great mass extinction on earth.
"You can think of the Earth like a battery that has been charged very slowly over billions
of years," said the study's lead author, John Schramski, an associate professor in UGA's
College of Engineering. "The sun's energy is stored in plants and fossil fuels, but
humans are draining energy much faster than it can be replenished."
Earth was once a barren landscape devoid of life, he explained, and it was only after
billions of years that simple organisms evolved the ability to transform the sun's light
into energy. This eventually led to an explosion of plant and animal life that bathed the
planet with lush forests and extraordinarily diverse ecosystems.
The study's calculations, published by University of Georgia researchers in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are grounded in the fundamental
principles of thermodynamics, a branch of physics concerned with the relationship
between heat and mechanical energy.
Chemical energy is stored in plants, or biomass, which is used for food and fuel, but
which is also destroyed to make room for agriculture and expanding cities. Scientists
estimate that the Earth contained approximately 1,000 billion tons of carbon in living
biomass 2,000 years ago.
just over 10% of that biomass was destroyed in just the last century.
"If we don't reverse this trend, we'll eventually reach a point where the biomass battery
discharges to a level at which Earth can no longer sustain us," Schramski said.
Working with James H. Brown from the University of New Mexico, Schramski and
UGA's David Gattie, an associate professor in the College of Engineering, show that
the vast majority of losses come from deforestation, hastened by the advent of
large-scale mechanized farming and the need to feed a rapidly growing population.
As more biomass is destroyed, the planet has less stored energy, which it needs to
maintain Earth's complex food webs and biogeochemical balances.
The 5 GREAT EXTINCTION EVENTS!
Five (5) times, a vast majority of the world's life has been snuffed out in what have
been called mass extinctions, often associated with giant meteor strikes.
End-Ordovician Mass Extinction
The first of the traditional big five extinction events, around 440 million years ago,
was probably the second most severe. Virtually all life was in the sea at the time
and around 85% of these species vanished.
Late Devonian Mass Extinction
About 375-359 million years ago, major environmental changes caused a drawn-out
extinction event that wiped out major fish groups and stopped new coral reefs forming
for 100 million years.
End-Permian Mass Extinction (The Great Dying)
The largest extinction event and the one that affected the Earth's ecology most
profoundly took place 252 million years ago. As much as 97% of species that leave
a fossil record disappeared forever.
End-Triassic Mass Extinction
Dinosaurs first appeared in the Early Triassic, but large amphibians and mammal-like
reptiles were the dominant land animals. The rapid mass extinction that occurred 201
million years ago changed that.
End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction
An asteroid slammed down on Earth 66 million years ago, and is often blamed for
ending the reign of the dinosaurs.
"As the planet becomes less hospitable and more people depend on fewer available
energy options, their standard of living and very survival will become increasingly
vulnerable to fluctuations, such as droughts, disease epidemics and social unrest,"
Schramski said.
If human beings do not go extinct, and biomass drops below sustainable thresholds,
the population will decline drastically, and people will be forced to return to life as
hunter-gatherers or simple horticulturalists, according to the paper.
"I'm not an ardent environmentalist; my training and my scientific work are rooted
in thermodynamics," Schramski said. "These laws are absolute and incontrovertible;
we have a limited amount of biomass energy available on the planet, and once it's
exhausted, there is absolutely nothing to replace it."
Schramski and his collaborators are hopeful that recognition of the importance of
biomass, elimination of its destruction and increased reliance on renewable energy
will slow the steady march toward an uncertain future, but the measures required to
stop that progression may have to be drastic.
"I call myself a realistic optimist," Schramski said. "I've gone through these numbers
countless times looking for some kind of mitigating factor that suggests we're wrong,
but I haven't found it."
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