WHICH IS THE BIGGEST ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER?

This article examines a number of the major environmental issues which have erupted in popular politics over the last couple of decades. The intention is to ascertain the most dangerous geophysiological threat and create a hierarchy of the threats facing the Earth.

Over the last four decades perceptions about what poses the biggest human-induced environmental threat have changed a number of times. In the 1950s it was the smog produced by the burning of domestic coal. In the early 1960s there were alarms about the poisoning of the food chain by the use of pesticides and the dumping of chemicals into the environment. In the early 1970s it was the depletion of non-renewable resources. In the 1980s it was holes in the Earth’s ozone layer. In the early 1990s it was the threat of climatic disasters. These changes of concern have usually occurred as a result of the sudden emergence of a new environmental danger rather than a re-evaluation of well-known ecological phenomena.

At present so much pollution is being dumped into the environment and so much damage is being inflicted on the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity, that the Earth’s life support system faces a number of threats. Unfortunately, there are considerable scientific uncertainties about the significance of each of these threats. Although this makes it difficult to compare the relative importance of these threats there are a number of reasons for attempting to establish a hierarchy of geophysiological threats. Firstly, there is no point in wasting huge amounts of time, effort and resources campaigning against one geophysiological disaster if other, more serious, disasters are being overlooked. Secondly, it is possible that implementing policies to combat one geophysiological threat might exacerbate another, more dangerous, calamity. Thirdly, the rise to prominence of a new threat each decade not only confuses the public but leads them to conclude that previous threats are no longer important and that there had been nothing to worry about at that time so, ipso facto, why should they worry about the latest green nightmare? It would be a mistake for greens to concentrate on a ‘flavour of the decade’ environmental threat (no matter how electorally popular such an approach may be) because permitting earlier threats to drift into political oblivion might allow them to get worse. Finally, looking back at some of the prominent environmental issues of the last three decades it is obvious that greens got some of their analyses wrong and, even worse, some of their suggested solutions would have caused even more damage to the Planet than the original threat.

i) Acid Rain.

The rain which once used to produce life now promotes death. Acid rain damages, and kills, terrestrial, and marine, Vegetation and Animals. Whilst it bleaches lakes until they are crystal clear it blackens stone buildings and eats away at the fabric of many buildings. It also has an indirect impact on the health of terrestrial Wildlife and oomans.[1] The cost of the damage to crops and buildings is extensive. According to james lovelock, however, “Acid rain is, at present, a comparatively minor affliction for Gaia.”[2]

ii) The Poisoning of the Food Chain.

The poisoning of the food chain is caused by industries polluting the environment, the accidental release of chemicals, and the deliberate use of toxic chemicals in agriculture, factory pharming and forestry. The number and quantities of chemicals being manufactured is increasing all the time.[3] The poisoning of the food chain has caused the deaths of millions of Wild animals and contaminated vast areas of land, as well as lakes and underground water systems. It is surprising, however, that the death and damage inflicted on humans by the dumping of toxic chemicals into the environment has been so slight. More humans seem to have been adversely affected by the deliberate poisoning of the food chain whether by pharmers using a variety of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, etc., or by factory pharmers using drugs, hormones, anti-biotics, etc., on pharm Animals, rather than the accidental contamination of the food chain beyond the food production system. It is highly unlikely, however, that any chemical could endanger all life on Earth - many bacteria are extremely good at countering the effects of toxic chemicals.

iii) The Exhaustion of Non Renewable Resources.

In the early 1970s, opec’s huge oil price rise sparked off popular fears about the exhaustion of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources, “The OPEC price rise brought into being the phrase ‘energy crisis’.”[4] Today, however, such fears have receded into the background. Many commentators hold that, “No essential mineral resource will run out.”[5]

iv) A Nuclear Winter.

The fear of nuclear weapons has been around ever since the creation of the first atomic bomb and yet for decades this issue rarely appeared on the environmental agenda. People were so concerned about how nuclear bombs would affect them they overlooked the threat posed to the Earth. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the environmental aspect was conceptualized in the notion of a nuclear winter. Even more disappointingly, no research has yet been done on the climatic impact of atmospheric nuclear tests. In spite of the considerable increase in Carbon pollution and deforestation which has taken place since the start of the industrial revolution, global average temperatures declined between the 1940s and the 1970s.[6] Unfortunately, there is no estimate of the effect which nuclear tests had on this decline.

A nuclear holocaust would create a nuclear winter by injecting huge quantities of dust and debris into the atmosphere thereby blocking out the sun in many parts of the world. This would cause a drop in global temperatures and, much more importantly, reduce the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity. Once the debris had cleared, however, the climate would probably resume its previous trend. The greater the nuclear holocaust, the longer and more extensive the nuclear winter, the greater the possibility that a nuclear winter might trigger off a climatic disaster. There are, however, no known mechanisms by which this could happen.[7] Humans have already experienced something like a nuclear winter after the eruption of Tambora in indonesia in april 1815 which created a ‘year without a summer’ in many places around the world. The climate resumed its previous course after the debris had been washed out of the atmosphere.[8] It would probably need a nuclear winter of five to ten years’ duration before there was the possibility of changing the climate.[9]

v) Stratospheric Ozone Depletion.

The depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer is allowing more and more of the sun’s life-threatening ultra-violet radiation to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. Ultra-violet radiation damages, and kills, terrestrial and aquatic Vegetation.[10] It causes eye cataracts and malignant melanomas in oomans and Animals.[11] The Earth is basically being warmed in a micro-wave oven. Despite various montreal protocols there is no global agreement to phase out ozone-damaging chemicals and thus no end in sight of this problem.

vi) Tropospheric Ozone Poisoning.

Tropospheric ozone poisons and kills terrestrial and aquatic Vegetation.[12] It damages the health of Animals and humans. Most tropospheric ozone is created from vehicle exhaust fumes and thus the more vehicles there are the greater the problem becomes. One of the main advantages of ground level ozone is that it prevents some of the increased levels of ultra-violet radiation (caused by stratospheric ozone depletion) from reaching the Earth’s surface.

vii) The Greenhouse Effect.

In 1990 the scientific working party of the inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc) published its report, 'Climate Change', in which it predicted that the greenhouse effect would cause an increase in global temperatures of between 1-4C by the middle of the next century and recommended immediate, draconian cuts in Carbon dioxide emissions of 60-80%. The ipcc’s dire warnings about increasing global temperatures led many environmentalists to elevate the greenhouse effect into the biggest environmental threat.

The sudden rise to prominence of the greenhouse effect was the first threat to provoke a re-evaluation of earlier environmental threats. It quickly began to be appreciated that if the Planet’s non-renewable resources were consumed too rapidly then the greenhouse effect would cause an environmental catastrophe a long time before the  exhaustion of these resources. The real danger of fossil fuels was not so much a world bereft of energy (let alone one that suffered from the acid rain, smog, and atmospheric pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels) but the greenhouse effect. The problem was not, as so many environmentalists had been proclaiming for two decades, resource scarcity but an over-abundance of resources. There is so much coal, oil, and gas that the rapid consumption of these resources would cause a geophysiological disaster.[13]

Environmentalists’ response to the ‘energy crisis’ in the early 1970s was to demand the introduction of ‘alternative’ forms of energy - solar, wind, wave, hydro-electric, etc.. Even today the world’s leading supergreens continue to restate these demands despite the fact that none of them have assessed the geophysiological costs of these forms of energy. Virtually all of them mention in passing that the introduction of solar power would entail the destruction of the world’s deserts (as if this would be an acceptable price to pay) but fail to recognize that this is only one example of the geophysiological devastation which would be caused by these forms of energy. Even more paradoxically, supergreens demand that the world recognizes the existence of ecological limitations and thus the necessity for a frugal existence, and then promote alternative energy because it is a virtually unlimited form of energy. The ecological destruction caused by the use of alternative energy could easily be greater than that caused by fossil fuels.[14]

viii) Global Warming.

The ‘greenhouse effect’, as defined by the ipcc and environmental organizations, concerns the way in which increasing quantities of atmospheric pollution increase global average temperatures. The fact is, however, that the Earth’s average temperature is influenced not merely by atmospheric Carbon emissions (what could be called the supply side of the Earth’s Carbon cycle), but by the Photosynthetic effect (the demand side of the Carbon cycle) and, the albedo effect (the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth’s surface). These three phenomena are defined here as ‘global warming’. A number of commentators are beginning to make a distinction between the greenhouse effect and global warming because the ipcc’s model of the greenhouse effect does not take into account either the Photosynthetic effect or the albedo effect of forests.[15]

This is not a mere quibble over definitions. The ipcc’s focus on atmospheric pollution (the greenhouse effect) is a dangerous error.

Firstly, it is not possible to reduce the level of atmospheric Carbon solely by relying on measures to limit Carbon emissions. Even if Carbon emissions were curbed dramatically, global average temperatures could continue to rise if more and more of the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity was destroyed.

Secondly, the concentration upon Carbon emissions has allowed politicians to get away with the continued frenzied mining of the world’s Forests.

Thirdly, the destruction of the Planet’s terrestrial Vegetation will boost global temperatures far more, and far more quickly, than any increase in atmospheric Carbon emissions.

It can be concluded therefore that the geophysiological threat posed by global warming is much greater than that posed by the greenhouse effect. The ipcc’s analysis of the greenhouse effect seriously underestimates the possible rise in global average temperatures.

Just as the theory of the greenhouse effect required a re-evaluation of environmentalists’ concern about the scarcity of non-renewable resources, so the theory of global warming necessitates a reassessment of other long held, highly cherished, environmental concerns. Firstly, it has been pointed out above that pollution, poisoning of the food chain, stratospheric ozone depletion, and tropospheric ozone poisoning, cause a wide range of damage. It is possible though that the biggest threat they pose is not to buildings, crops, economics or human health but to the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity because of the boost they give to global warming. They are not an important threat in themselves only their contribution to global warming.

Acid rain damages the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity and thus boosts global warming.

CFCs act as a greenhouse gas. CFCs also destroy the ozone layer and this too boosts global warming. The ipcc argued in their 1992 report that when cfcs destroy the ozone layer this allows heat to escape from the Earth and that this global cooling offsets the global warming effect of cfcs.[16] Unfortunately the ipcc did not take into account that the increase in ultra-violet radiation caused by ozone depletion also damages the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity which thereby provides another boost to global warming.

Toxic chemicals dumped into the environment have not been a serious threat to human health but they are damaging the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity and thus boosting global warming.

Secondly, there needs to be yet another reevaluation of the danger posed by the use of fossil fuels. The real danger which arises from the use of fossil fuels is not their exhaustion nor the release of atmospheric Carbon emissions which boosts the greenhouse effect but the use of fossil fuels to damage the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity and thereby boost global warming. The mining/processing/use/disposal of fossil fuels is destroying large parts of the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity e.g.

* the suffocation of land and marine Plants by oil spills from oil wells, oil pipelines and oil supertankers;

* the suffocation of land with roads;

* the use of chainsaws to hack down Forests - it takes a fraction of a pint of petrol to chop down huge Trees extracting large quantities of Carbon out of the atmosphere;

* the use of off-road vehicles damaging fragile habitats;

* the vast quantities of ash from coal burning fire stations being dumped on sea floors, etc. etc..

It is arguable that the atmospheric pollution from fossil fuels makes a smaller contribution to global average temperatures than the reduction of the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity caused by the mining/processing/use/disposal of fossil fuels. In other words, the exploitation of fossil fuels makes a bigger contribution to global warming than to the greenhouse effect.

ix) The Destruction of Renewable Resources.

The Earth’s renewable resources consist of a staggering range of different Plants - the most predominant of which are Forests, Coral Reefs, (which are a symbiosis of Plants and Animals) the Flora of continental off-shore shelves, Phytoplankton, Mangroves, and Savannah Grasslands. Globally all of these renewable resources are under substantial, if not terminal, threat.[17]

The burning of terrestrial renewable resources generates atmospheric pollution which boosts the greenhouse effect. The burning of these resources also destroys their Photosynthetic capacity and decreases the Planet’s albedo - both of which boost global warming. It can be argued that the destruction of these resources makes a bigger contribution to global warming than to the greenhouse effect. The real threat posed by the destruction of renewable resources is not their contribution to the greenhouse effect but to global warming - just as is the case with non-renewable resources.

Assuming that the ooman race wants to survive in perpetuity,[18] then oomans have no other choice but to learn how to live on renewable resources. No matter how huge the desposits of non-renewable resources, no matter how extensive the mining of these resources; and no matter how ingenious the conservation, and recycling, of these resources, they aren't going to last millenia. Unfortunately, though, oomans are destroying renewable resources just as recklessly as they are consuming non-renewable resources. Even worse is that, as has been noted above, oomans are using non-renewable resources to destroy the renewable resources they need to survive in perpetuity. The vast quantities of fossil fuels being produced and used today are destroying, in one way or another, an increasingly significant part of the Planet’s renewable resources and thus reducing the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity. If environmentalists need to worry about a shortage of resources it is the shortage of renewable resources that is critical not the shortage of non renewable resources.

As far as the Earth is concerned, the destruction of terrestrial renewable resources would probably not lead to the collapse of the Planet’s Carbon cycle. There would still be sea based renewable resources - although these are also being destroyed and it is far from clear whether terrestrial or aquatic based renewable resources will be the first to disappear. But, even if all renewable resources on Earth were destroyed this may not be decisive. There are other sources of Photosynthesis (see below) which could maintain the global Carbon cycle - although in what form and for how long is not known. In addition, the destruction of renewable resources is unlikely to lead to the collapse of the Planet’s water cycle. The damage to both the Carbon, and water, cycles would, however, be serious. From a geophysiological perspective, it is suspected that the destruction of renewable resources would be a bigger disaster than the greenhouse and global warming but what form this disaster would take is not known. What would happen to the Earth’s most important life sustaining processes without renewable resources is difficult to imagine.[19]

x) The Destruction of Self-Sustaining Resources: Protista and Topsoil.

There are two types of self sustaining resource - Protista[20] and Topsoil. There is a close connection between the two. There are huge quantities of Bacteria in Topsoil and without Bacteria there would be no Topsoil. However, Topsoil is also composed of a huge range of Animals which are just as indispensable to its survival as Protista. For this reason Topsoil is treated separately from Bacteria.

Very little scientific research has been done on Bacteria and few commentators have expressed an opinion about what would happen to the Earth following the destruction of these organisms. Only one theorist has stressed the essential role of Bacteria in the Planet’s life-sustaining processes.[21] Without Bacteria life would not exist on Earth. It is highly unlikely, however, that humans would ever be able to exterminate all Bacteria in the environment. On the contrary, it is far more likely that they would destroy themselves a long time before they ever became a threat to Bacteria. Many types of Bacteria have already developed resistance to ooman onslaughts. Whilst Trees have no defences against ooman stupidity and whilst Wildlife have defences which are insufficient to deter attacks by oomans, Bacteria are successfully resisting oomans’ war against the Earth. Increasing numbers of Bacteria have developed resistance to pesticides, vaccinations and antibiotics.

The exact opposite is true as regards Topsoil. Topsoil cannot fight back and, as a consequence, is in global retreat. All over the world, huge amounts of Topsoil are being lost or destroyed by a wide range of different ooman activities e.g. bad farming practices such as mono-cultural cultivation dependent on the extensive use of pesticides; prairie pharming leaving the land vulnerable to wind erosion; poor irrigation leading to waterlogging and salinization; as well as a host of non-pharming threats such pollution, urbanization, deforestation, mining, etc..[22] Even where the land is carefully protected against the elements and bad pharming practices have been avoided, Topsoil is still being lost because crops are being consumed by people thousands of miles away who dump the Soil’s nutrients into their local sewer system rather than returning them to the place from where they were extracted. The biggest danger to the Earth’s Topsoil may not be contamination, erosion or salinization but the extraction of nutrients from the Soil into the sewers of the over-industrialized nations. Humans are treating Topsoil as a throw away commodity. There have always been food shortages and famines in various parts of the world at various times throughout ooman history but there has never been until the arrival of so many obscenely wealthy and ecologically stupid societies around the world, the prospect of the total destruction of the Planet’s Topsoil.

In many ways the Soil as a living entity has become irrelevant to modern pharming. It could function just as easily if the Soil was replaced with sand to which the right nutrients could be added to ensure Phytomass productivity. However, this usurpation of the Soil would quickly come to a halt after the depletion of fossil fuels.

The destruction of the Earth’s Topsoil would mean the eradication of all natural, terrestrial renewable resources. It would entail the permanent loss of natural Photosynthesis carried out by Plants and Bacteria in the Soil. However, Photosynthesis might continue in the world’s rivers, lakes and oceans. It is not known what effect the destruction of the world’s Topsoil would have on the Earth. It is not known what effect it would have on the Planet’s Carbon, or water, cycles. It can be suggested that the destruction of Topsoil could be a bigger geophysiological threat than the greenhouse effect, global warming, and the destruction of renewable resources for the simple reason that if Vegetation is cut down it will eventually regrow, but if the Soil has gone there is no chance of terrestrial renewable resources reappearing. But, the destruction of the Earth’s Topsoil would not have as devastating effect on the Earth as the destruction of Bacteria.[23]

xi) The Extermination of Wildlife.

Although its a commonplace that the extermination of Wildlife species causes considerable damage to local ecological conditions, analyses of the threats to the Earth’s life-sustaining processes rarely include considerations about the total eradication of Wildlfe. It is almost as if Wildlife issues are totally separate from environmental issues.[24]

Wildlife helped to create the Earth’s habitability and Animals still play a significant part in the Planet’s life sustaining processes. Wildlife not merely created the conditions under which oomans could survive and flourish they created the ooman race. It was not airey-fairy, transcendental gods who created oomans but Wildlife.[25]

Some commentators believe the destruction of the Planet’s Wildlife poses no threat whatsoever to the Earth’s geophysiology.[26] Others believe that all Wildlife species are critical to the Planet’s life sustaining processes because all creatures belong to the ‘web of life’, in which everything is dependent upon everything else.[27]

Although Wildlife continue to play important roles in sustaining and protecting the Planet’s geophysiology, over the last couple of millenia a large number of species, primarily the charismatic mega-fauna, have been exterminated without causing a geophysiological collapse. The extermination of these species have brought about widespread ecological changes but not, as yet, a geophysiological collapse. In the long distant past, the extermination of Wildlife species may have led to a geophysiological collapse but, unfortunately, this is something which is never likely to be known.[28] The fact is that there is no known case where the extermination of a species has caused an immediate geophysiological collapse. Even more pertinently is that even if the destruction of a species posed a major threat to the Planet’s geophysiology this need not matter as long as oomans were capable of protecting the Earth themselves. It is one of those great Planetary tragedies, that oomans could exterminate a Wildlife species and prevent a geophysiological collapse - as long as they knew what geophysiological functions this species was carring out and were willing to take over its functions. Putting aside the moral issues, the question is how many Wildlife species are geophysiologically replaceable?

The general rule seems to be that the higher up the food chain a species is, the easier it would be for oomans to take over its ecological roles. Conversely, the smaller the body size of a species the more difficult it would be to replace that species. Where this general rule becomes almost incontrovertible is the role of Wildlife in protecting the Soil. The Soil contains a vast array of Wildlife species, “The organic content of soil consists of decomposing plant and animal matter, micro-organisms and various animals, including millipedes, mites, insects, nematodes, earthworms, and burrowing animals.”[29] Micro-fauna such as Ants, Worms and a vast range of other 'creey crawlies' are indispensable to the preservation of the health and vitality of the Soil. Wildlife does such a huge amount of work fertilizing, areating, and watering, the world’s Topsoil that oomans could never fulfill all of these functions, “With the help of termites, ants account for most of the turning of the Earth's topsoil far more than either earthworms or human farmers.”[30] Even with the help of tractors to rake-over, turn-over, and apply fertilizer, to the Soil oomans still could not do the job as thoroughly and as extensively as Wildlife. If this is the case at present, when the over-industrialized nations are exploiting the Planet’s resources so extravagantly that both tractors and fuel are plentiful, it would be even more true in the future when both of these resources will be scarcer.

There may be a large number of Wildlife species whose ecological services could be replaced by humans. The question which then arises is whether it is possible for humans to reproduce all the ecological services which it could replicate? Given that there is a limit to human time and effort there must also be a limit to the number of species which humans could replace. A species could be replaced but if humans are busy replicating the ecological functions of other Wildlife species they simply may not have the time to take over any more.

The majority of the world’s estimated 30 million species are Insects many of which are either subterranean or carry out ecological services for the Soil. The argument that it would be possible to exterminate “99.9% of our fellow species” is preposterous. Such an argument would be feasible only if humans could prop up, in perpetuity, an entirely synthetic, oil based, pharming system. Rather than replicating Wildlife’s ecological services to the Soil humans might decide to replace Topsoil with an artificial media in which to grow food. Nutrients could be added to the media, e.g. sand, to grow crops. This approach to agriculture, ‘pharming without nature’ would be heavily dependent on supplies of fossil fuels. Given the finite nature of fossil fuels, this could not be deemed to be sustainable. The majority of Wildlife species carry out such a vast array of ecological functions it would be impossible to replace them.

xii) Conclusions.

It has been argued above that the destruction of Bacteria would be the biggest threat to the Earth’s life support system. However, given that such destruction is not possible, it is a merely theoretical threat.

It has also been shown that the destruction of Topsoil is a bigger threat to the Earth than the destruction of the greenhouse effect, global warming, and renewable resources. It is the biggest threat to the Earth. And yet given that Topsoil contains more Animals and more species than any other habitat on Earth whether in Trees, the air, or the sea, then, in effect, to say that the destruction of Topsoil is the biggest geophysiological threat is virtually the same as saying that the extermination of Wildlife is the biggest threat to the Earth. This danger posed by the extermination of Wildlife should not be surprising considering that the industry which is currently causing the greatest geophysiological destruction is the Animal exploitation industry. There is then a convergence of conclusions centering around Wildlife. Correspondingly, the destruction of Wildlife also poses the biggest threat to human survival.