Renewable energy is unsustainable

The attention of the world is focused on one thing these days: climate change. From local governments to international governing bodies, all policies and projects are measured through the lens of climate change and reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG).

Here in Our Fair County, county government has a Climate Action Strategy and a Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. The incorporated cities have their own Climate Action Plans. All government policies and projects are assessed as to their relative GHG emissions and carbon sequestration potentials. Every aspect of our lives is viewed as a function of GHG emissions and adaptation to the projected consequences of Global Warming as a result of Climate Change.

Burning of fossil fuels, mainly coal and petroleum, is seen as the ultimate source of GHG and climate change, fostering the belief that reducing human caused GHG emissions will lessen or even stop Climate Change.

The solution proposed is to replace fossil fuels with so-called renewable resources, such as solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, wave and tidal energy sources, those that do not, it is said, produce CO2 at the point of use. This solution has never been tested, since we have only the one Earth on which to conduct this experiment, so we don’t know if reducing GHG will have the desired result.

Quantification of impacts is our normal cultural response to complex problems and their solutions. It’s the science based approach that has led to the technocratic civilization that we now enjoy, tolerate, or decry. Unfortunately, quantification only works if all variables are accounted for. In the case of climate change causes and effects, this turns out not to be the case.

For example, the City of Santa Cruz and the County of Santa Cruz, in company with the County Regional Transportation Commission have issued a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the Coastal Rail Trail Project to build a 1.6 mile bicycle/pedestrian trail alongside the unused railroad tracks traversing the county, which will involve the cutting and removing of ~400 trees along the rail right-of-way, along with the understory, and the paving of the soil beside the tracks. The DEIR claims that the loss of carbon sequestration and lessened removal of CO2 from the atmosphere resulting from the loss of vegetation will be mitigated by planting new trees somewhere else unspecified, plus the reduction in Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) on local roads and highways, as commuters leaves their cars at home and walk, bicycle or take a commuter train to and from work.

When the readily quantifiable climate change impacts are preferentially compared for a potential project, there is a danger that the project will be approved regardless of other significant and unavoidable environmental affects. In the case of the coastal rail trail, the environmental effects of the removal of trees and understory on natural habitats, wildlife corridors, shading, soil biological integrity and aesthetic qualities are are analyzed as significant, unavoidable and unmitigatable, yet the project will ultimately be approved and constructed.

It comes back to the old saw: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like nail.” Climate change activism has overshadowed environmentalism, especially among Big Green organizations, focusing on replacing fossil fuels with “renewable energy” resources. Even energy luminaries such as Richard Heinberg in his recent article: Can Civilization Survive? considers only the energy costs of transition to renewables, and ignores the environmental impacts of developing solar and wind infrastructure.

Part of the problem is the terminology: “renewable,” and “sustainable.”

Renewable means: “able to be renewed when depleted.” “Renewable” in terms of energy resources, has come to mean: “capable of being replaced by natural ecological cycles or sound management practices.” In Climate Change terms, “renewable” implies that finite resources such as petroleum and coal are capable of being replaced by solar, wind, gravity, tides and hydro dams as “renewable resources.”

There are two problems with this approach. Replacing fossil fuels with “renewables” means replacing a highly dense, reliably available, relatively inexpensive energy source with a dispersed, unreliable energy resource that requires reliable nonrenewable backups and extensive battery storage capability. Different is not the same.

In addition, “renewable” resources require complex and costly infrastructure to transform the dispersed unreliable energy sources into reliable energy useful to our complex and ever growing civilization. This infrastructure is built with finite resources such as metals, rare earth minerals, lubricating oils, polycarbonate plastics, silicon cells, exotic chemicals and cement, all of which require mining, processing, manufacture, transportation, distribution, dismantlement and recycling.

By this analysis, “renewables” are not renewable at all, nor are they sustainable, any more than are non-renewable resources. In addition solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, off-shore wind, wave and tide energy require the destruction of natural habitats and extensive impacts on the species that live there. We are seeing vast acreages of fragile desert ecosystems slathered with solar panels, access roads and support facilities, hills and plains dotted with wind generators and piles of dead raptors and other birds and bats.

This hardly qualifies as “natural ecological cycles or sound management practices.”

“Sustainable” means “able to be continued indefinitely.” In Climate Change parlance, sustainable means: “the integration of environmental health, social equity and economic vitality in order to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient communities for this generation and generations to come.”

Notice the glaring absence of other than human species?

As Richard Heinberg points out, global energy systems cannot replace fossil fuels with so-called “renewable energy” sources within the existing political/economic/social system of perpetual economic and population growth at current levels of per capita consumption.

What does this mean for us locally?

Life here in Our Fair County, all life, not just human life, is unsustainable in our current political, economic and social systems. Unsustainable means it can’t go on forever.

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” said Herbert Stein (1916 – 1999), chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

If we wish to continue a meaningful existence for all life here in Our Fair County, we must achieve four goals:

1. Limit population and economic growth
2. Limit per capita consumption
3. Limit travel hither and yon
4. Limit natural habitat destruction

We must extend equity and inclusiveness to all life in our plans and policies for human life, in a truly renewable and sustainable society.

The Center Cannot Hold

By sigit pribadi – Spotted kestrel CC BY 2.0

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

From The Second Coming, William Butler Yates

Yes, much truth there, reflective of our times today, though written by Yeats in 1919.

Would that “mere anarchy” could be loosed upon the world. No rulers, rule by all of the people, would be far preferable to the chaos we experience now at the hands of the corporate oligarchy that rules the world today. Things are indeed falling apart, as the human world totters toward inevitable collapse, at the expense of the natural world, the centre that cannot hold.

Humans, as a social species, have forgotten that we are, first and foremost, an animal species, living in a natural universe. The outward trappings of what we optimistically call civilization, from our clothing to our massive technological systems that substitute fossil fuels for animal energy (and intelligence), insulate us from knowledge and understanding of the natural world. We know not what we do, to the detriment of all of the rest of the world we depend upon.

I read we are eight billion humans being now, an unfathomable number, akin to the number of stars in the night sky, for those few who can still see the stars to count them. The vast majority of the febrile billions believe in supreme beings that pull the strings of the masses below, thus abrogating mere humans from responsibility for their destructive activities, wallowing in ignorance of the inextricable interdependence of all life on this planet and all of the resources shared by every living thing.

Our dominant cultural stories tell us to subdue the earth, or, at best, to be good stewards of the lowly plants and animals that we depend on, yet that we abuse and destroy with assumed impunity, not realizing that our well deserved punity lies in wait just around the evolutionary corner. Fortunately for all life, Mother Nature bats last. There’s no escaping our fate, natural laws and processes are unrelenting and unforgiving.

The center that must be held is our own human community in our own bioregion, where we can be intimately familiar with and take ultimate responsibility for our direct impacts on the natural world that enfolds us. We must employ our energy and time here, where it is most effective and where we can directly experience the results of our work.

We must engage in direct democracy, working with local government on a daily basis, not relying on periodic elections of representatives, who may or may not represent us. We must engage with our friends and neighbors, work together to realize our vision of a human society based on embracing the natural world and protecting local habitats and other than human species from encroachment by human population and economic growth.

No civilization has ever escaped the natural cycle of growth and collapse. Our presently dominant social system is no exception to the rule. The future will be less, not more. It’s time we come to terms with this basic fact of our animal citizenship and work to ease the transition already in progress toward a sane and responsible presence among the many co-inhabitants of the natural world.

Santa Cruz Bioregion

A land dominated by water

We live in a bioregion defined by water, with a mountain divide to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the south, and numerous streams and a substantial river dividing up the land in between.

If we jump up real high, Santa Cruz County looks like this:

Pretty green, huh? Lots of forest, grassy plains on the coast. Not many signs of humans down there, just a couple of grey areas on the coast and one in the interior.

But where is the water?

If we take away the obscuring vegetation and the human roads and urban blotches, the Santa Cruz Bioregion looks like this:

The blue lines running throughout the topography are the streams, rivers and a few lakes, referred to as surface water.

The surface waters in the bioregion flow to the coast and the ocean, organized in drainages that flow to a common destination, called basins, like this:

Some of the basins include more than one stream that flows to the ocean independently of the others, draining unconnected areas called watersheds and flowing ultimately to a particular watercourse or body of water.

The blue cross-hatched areas below are the streams and their surrounding drainages that supply water for human consumption, in addition to the rest of life, in the Santa Cruz Bioregion.

In addition, some human water consumption is taken from ground water in underground aquifers that are recharged through streams and local precipitation in areas appropriately shown below in aquamarine. Since the bioregion borders on the ocean, these aquifers are singularly susceptible to salt water intrusion, when they are drawn down below sea level by overpumping.

Water for all living things in the Santa Cruz Bioregion is local. There is no source of water from outside the bioregion. We all must live, here, with the water that is available naturally, in precipitation that fluctuates from season to season and year to year in natural cycles, as it has for millions of years.

The Santa Cruz Bioregion has a Mediterranean climate, with rains from October to May and little to no rain from June to September. Over the years, decades, centuries and millennia, the amount and timing of winter rains have fluctuated, in tune with decadal Pacific Ocean cycles that dominate our weather and climate patterns.

The dark upper line in the graph above shows yearly average precipitation from 1960 to 2011, from a high of 59 inches in 1983 to a low of 15 inches in 1989. The multi-colored spaghetti lying at the bottom of the graph are monthly precipitation totals for the same 50 year time period. It’s easy to see that the wildly fluctuating totals and timing of precipitation in our bioregion make the mathematical calculation of average or mean precipitation less than helpful when assessing concepts of climate variability.

In addition to varying chronological precipitation patterns, rainfall across the bioregion varies geographically. At times it will be cloudy and spitty on the coast, while in the mountains to the north its raining cats and dogs. Rainfall totals can vary 10 to 20 inches across the bioregion.

In recent years, our bioregion has experienced less rain than what we humans consider “normal,” or more correctly, what we have come to expect. We define this condition as “drought.”

But drought doesn’t mean there isn’t enough water. Drought is a human term that means there is too much demand for water for human use, above that required for all of the rest of the life that has evolved in this bioregion. Plants, birds, fish, mammals and myriads of micro-organisms in the living soil don’t do drought. They’ve evolved here with long term patterns of variable precipitation amounts and timing.

What is to be done?

The most obvious and logical response would be for us to plan for a human population level in this bioregion that does not demand more water than is naturally available, beyond that required by non-human species, during the most severe local drought. That way, there will always be enough water for all life, including humans, and in years when there’s more precipitation, we can stock up for the lean times.

Local water agencies are working on just this idea, pumping water down into the local aquifers in the winter rainy season to further replenish aquifers drawn down during the dry summer months.

That’s a good idea, but it is only temporary in a human world of unchecked population growth. As long as our local human economy is based on continuous growth, there will never be enough resources, most especially water, to go around. We must not only reduce our demand for water and other limited local resources, we must also learn to live in an economy that does not demand continuous growth.

A Viable, Sustainable Human Future

The Ecotopian Solution – R. Crumb

    A viable, sustainable human future will, of necessity, be a world in which humans cooperate with natural biospheric processes, not work against them.

    A viable, sustainable human future will, of necessity, be a future in which humans do not consume natural resources faster than they are naturally replenished, and do not produce wastes faster than they can be naturally dispersed and assimilated.

    A viable, sustainable human future will have no more humans than can be sustained through natural biospheric processes. My guess is about 2 billion humans would be the optimum maximum global population level to allow recovery and continued viability of the biosphere.

    A viable, sustainable human future will have a reduced energy demand per capita, produced locally, and used at the site of production. Energy production will be by life-cycle renewable, passive sources. Heating and cooling of homes and businesses, where necessary, with be limited to local resources and locally manufactured and maintained technologies.

    A viable, sustainable human future will require far less human transportation. Humans will work where they live, live where they work. Local transportation will be on foot and by human powered vehicles. Regional transportation will be by solar charged electric vehicles and sail craft; long distance transportation, where necessary, will be by solar-charged electric vehicles and sail craft.

    A viable, sustainable human future will have a steady state economy, based on local production for local consumption, with limited trade for materials not available locally. Local population and economic growth will be limited by local resource availability. Local food production will require less energy, less irrigation and will be distributed locally through farmers markets and cooperatives.

After the fires, how do we choose to live?

We’re at the cusp of historic change in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco and north of Santa Cruz. For over a century two historic trends have merged to create the CZU August Lightning fires, destroying many homes and properties.

For the past one hundred years, residents of the Bay Area and elsewhere have built summer homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains, there to enjoy cool temperatures and vast panoramic vistas. Over the years, many of those summer cabins have been upgraded to year round residences, most of them on narrow winding roads through the forest, subject to washouts, landslides, and fire.

Over the same period, fire suppression, largely to protect the increasing number of homes, has increased fuel loads in the forest, as small, patchy fires that have historically removed undergrowth and grasses have been curtailed and largely eliminated.

The August 15 thunderstorm set hundreds of small fires throughout the area, that caught hold in the abundant fuels accumulated over decades. They rapidly merged into the large fire area now being brought under control by 1600+ firefighters and their large and complex agency administrations.

We’ve come to this point over a century of thoughtless, unplanned growth and development, spreading fragile homes and businesses into wild areas without considering the natural processes at work in the non-human world. It’s a hard lesson to learn, and at this point a lesson not to be ignored.

Nevertheless, thoughts and plans are turning to “repopulation,” allowing home and business owners to return to assess the damage to their properties, including in many cases complete loss. Local government officials are already reassuring property owners that assistance for rebuilding will be readily available and the skids will be amply greased to ease the permitting process.

This is the point where a pause and a good rethink would be in order, before the rush to return to the status quo. Is it smart government policy to encourage property owners to rebuild their destroyed buildings in areas that will remain fire prone and would require extensive clearing, road building and fire protection into the future?

Isn’t this a good opportunity to reassess the effects of historic human population growth and infrastructure development in wild lands?

Isn’t now the perfect time to look to the future and consider the human world that we have built and the effects the way we live have on the natural world that surrounds us and on which we ultimately depend?

Wouldn’t it be better, for all life, for humans to live cooperatively, humbly and respectfully with natural processes, such as drought, precipitation, temperature… and fire, that govern the non-human world, and increasingly, as we have recently learned, the human world as well?

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” ― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Coronavirus is the voice of the Earth

This article by Satish Kumar on the Schumacher College website is so well written, I can do no better than quote from it. Emphasis is my own.

“Human desire to conquer nature comes from the belief that humans are separate from nature and have superior powers. This dualistic thinking is at the root of our inability to deal with many of the natural upheavals, such as forest fires, floods and, in particular, climate change, global heating and pandemics like Covid-19.  We seem to believe that one way or the other we will find technological solutions to subjugate nature and make her subservient of human dominance.

“Rather than looking at the root causes of Coronavirus, the government’s, industrialists and scientists are looking for vaccines to suppress the symptoms. Vaccines may be a temporary solution, but we need to think and act more intelligently and more wisely. Rather than treating the symptoms we need to address the causes of this crisis.

“If we were to address the causes of Coronavirus, rather than simply the symptoms, we will need to return to ecologically regenerative agriculture; to human-scale, local, low carbon and organic methods of farming.

“In order to address the causes of the Covid crisis we will need to learn to live in harmony with nature and within the laws of nature. Humans are as much a part of nature as any other form of life. Therefore, living in harmony with nature is the urgent imperative of our time and the very first lesson we, humans, collectively, need to learn from the crisis of Coronavirus. 

“Through the Coronavirus crisis nature is trying to send a strong message. It is a wake-up call, a call to remind us that we cannot go on producing pollution and waste for ever thinking that there are no consequences of our activities.

“The modern human civilisation has inflicted untold suffering and damage on nature. Now we are harvesting the consequences. We must accept the consequences of our actions and change. We must move on to build a new paradigm. If we wish to restore health to people then we have to restore health to our precious planet Earth. Healing people and healing nature is one and the same thing. So, we need to do everything for healing the Earth. only the positive actions will bring positive outcomes.”

Perceptions of Separation

The civilization that now dominates all life on this planet is based on the perception that the human species, Homo sapiens, is separated from the Natural World and operates independently of the natural processes and limitations on all other species.

Those regarded as “uncivilized,” are considered lower than real humans, closer to animals, lacking the advantages of civilized human life.

Seems questionable taste.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

                                           ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In reality, all life is of a piece, all part of the grand Mulitiverse that surrounds and enfolds us all. All living things have virtue. All lives matter.

If there is one thing we’ve learned from modern science, it’s that at the basic level of quantum physics, which undergirds everything, there is no separation, there are no separate particles, no things distinct from one another. All things are accumulations of atoms. All atoms are accumulations of sub atomic “particles.” All subatomic particles are statistical tendencies to be in one place rather than everywhere else.

More than ‘When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.’

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it is indistinguishable from the rest of the Multiverse.

The separation of humans from nature is a human mental construct.

This perception of separation can be changed.

We Live in the Natural World

Gary Patton, a local lawyer, teacher, proponent of local limits to growth and past County Supervisor, publishes a blog called “We Live in a Political World,” which once was called  “We Live in Two Worlds.” His underlying theme is that humans live in the human created world, which is separate from the Natural World, even though humans depend on the Natural World for our survival.

My understanding is that we don’t live in two worlds, that there is only one world, the Natural World, in which humans are not only dependent, but are intricately intertwined.

Yes, humans do build an artificial world, both materially and culturally, that humans attempt to manage as if it were separate from the Natural World. But that material world is subject to all of the natural processes and principles of the Natural World, such as gravity, entropy, thermodynamics, geomorphology, plate tectonics, Cartesian and quantum physics, cycles of weather and climate, atmospheric and oceanic dynamics, evolution, population dynamics and disease.

This cultural separation of the two worlds has resulted in management of the human world on the basis of two underlying assumptions: the myth of control and the myth of unlimited growth.

At the University of Wyoming the Engineering building has the following inscription carved into its facade: “The control of Nature is not given, it is won.” I’ve written about this several times on Searching for Balance, for example, HERE, HERE,and HERE.

Recent events have brought the myth of control into sharp focus, as the Covid-19 pandemic has questioned the assumption that centralized control of the world we live in is possible or even desirable.

It seems that the harder we try to control the spread of of the coronavirus around the world, the faster it spreads and the more humans are affected by it. Government responses to the virus have caused more havoc in the lives of people around the world than the virus itself. One wonders if this pandemic had been treated as we treat yearly influenza pandemics, the disruptions to the human world would have been less severe. Humans have evolved with viruses, even to the point of incorporating viral RNA into our body cells, to the point that we are viruses almost as much as the viruses themselves. Perhaps accommodation to the reality of inevitable virus outbreaks would be a more effective and less costly alternative.

One of the contributing factors to the current pandemic is the increasing incursion of humans and their built environments into the natural world where we have come into close contact with new viruses and other diseases that have been present in non-human species unnoticed by humans, who, as a result, have no natural immunity. The myth of unlimited growth is basic to the dominant human culture, such that it is unacceptable for government officials to even consider limits to population or economic growth. Lack of constant economic growth is seen as failure, and reductions in population threaten government funding based on increasing individual consumption and increasing taxes on economic activities.

Observant humans might put 2 and 2 together and come to the conclusion that there is a better way to organize and maintain human societies. Rather than viewing humans as separate from the Natural World and natural processes, why not view humans as part of the world’s natural ecosystems, in which the human built world functions as a critical component of ecosystems that include animals, plants, mountains, plains, watersheds, rivers and streams, oceans and one continuous atmosphere that supports all life on this planet.

Why not recognize that All Lives Matter, human and not human. Why not recognize that cutting down a tree troubles the forest and all that therein lives. Why not recognize that humans are connected with every other living thing through ancient evolutionary processes through which we share the ultimate fate of all life.

Why not recognize that human health and well-being is intimately interconnected with the health and well-being of all life on this the only home for every living thing in the known Universe.

This could be the basis for an ecological human society, in which all other species have a voice in the affairs of the one species that impacts them all.

Learning What Doesn’t Work

Years ago my father told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “The secret to happiness in life is to find out what doesn’t work for you, and don’t do that.”

In recent months, we’ve learned a big lesson on what doesn’t work. Looking at statistics for the incidence of Covid-19 around the world, two conclusions leap out with crystal clarity:

1. Viruses thrive in areas of high human population density
2. Viruses are deadly in humans who have existing health problems

These are two things that obviously don’t work well for humans, so according to Dad’s aphorism, we shouldn’t do dense human populations and poor health.

So, why is it then, in our local community of Santa Cruz County (as well as most of the rest of the world), local government encourages increased population density, and our culture encourages poor public health?

Population Density

The County of Santa Cruz and the incorporated municipalities in our county: Santa Cruz, Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville, all have Economic Development Departments (EDDs), Planning Departments (PDs) and Public Works Departments (PWs), all of which are busily engaged in increasing population densities in our county and communities.

… we’re passionate about supporting a flourishing and expansive local economy. Santa Cruz City EDD

One of the greatest challenges of living in Santa Cruz County is the cost of housing, one of the highest in the nation. Because Santa Cruz is a desirable coastal destination, our economy is based on tourism, and our housing stock is largely dedicated to second homes, vacation rentals, B&Bs, hotels and motels. During the Covid-19 shelter in place, many of our homes stand empty, while many of our residents lack sufficient housing. There is no lack of housing in the county, but there is a lack of affordable homes for the people who live here.

Local government responds to this condition by falling back on the age-old economic principle of supply & demand, that is, build more housing to lower the per unit cost. But in a tourist destination, this principle doesn’t work. There are millions of people just over the hill who want a house here to either come to on vacations or to use as an investment to make more money so they can afford to vacation in exotic places.

Since Santa Cruz is largely built out, there is little undeveloped space available to build more single family housing, so the answer is always to build up. This, of course, greatly increases population density in developed areas, thus creating an ideal breeding ground for the transmission of viruses.

In the face of what we’ve learned about spreading viruses, after months of (ineptly named) “social distancing” and mask-wearing, do the people of Santa County really want to risk our health by creating even more high population density? What would it take to not do that?

Human Health

Global Covid-19 statistics clearly show that humans with existing health problems have compromised immune systems that make them more susceptible to the virus and its resultant disease. The majority of deaths of individuals tested positive for the virus have underlying unhealth conditions, such as cardio-pulmonary disease, obesity, and diabetes all of which add to the lethality of the virus-born disease. Whether or not death is caused by the virus, or by other causes exacerbated by the virus, underlying ill health has contributed to the Covid-19 death rate throughout the world.

It obviously doesn’t work to have a large percentage of the population at risk due to general ill health. So, what would it take to not do that?

Lessons to be Learned

As we begin to contemplate an end to the Covid-19 pandemic, and lifting of government edicts on how we live our lives, now would be a good time to pause, contemplate the lessons to be learned from the pandemic, and think about how we want to live from here on out.

• Would it be wise to continue to increase local population density?
• Would it be wise to encourage local population growth beyond what can be sustained with local resources (think, water)?
• Would it be wise to return to “nonessential” business and activities?
• Would it be wise to continue to live far away from where we work and drive personal automobiles there and back every day?
• Would it be wise to continue to encourage unhealthy diets, sedentary live styles and frenetic daily activities that interfere with sleep.
• Wouldn’t it be wiser to encourage eating good, nutritious locally grown food, more local exercise, less travel and more engagement in local, meaningful work that supports the community?

Wouldn’t it be wiser to learn what doesn’t work and don’t do that?

The Real Environmental Crisis

This Guest Commentary in the Santa Cruz Sentinel thoroughly and eloquently explores the real environmental crisis and what we each can do about it:

Santa Cruz Sentinel | Guest Commentary
https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2020/02/09/guest-commentary-theres-an-urgent-need-for-action/

There’s an Urgent Need for Action
By Craig R. Wilson

Absent a pandemic, nuclear war or an asteroid strike, human beings are the least endangered animal on the planet. Only fish and birds exceed our numbers, though Cornell University just reported that nearly a third of all birds have disappeared in the last 50 years and the fisheries that have not crashed are threatened. Business as usual has worked very well for humans, but it is destroying our planet and killing off nearly everything else we find no use for. We are creating a world where we will be all alone but for domesticated animals and commercial crops…

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We know what we need to do as individuals:

• Drive and fly less.
• Reduce waste.
• Stop single-use plastics.
• Eat less meat.
• Ensure women retain reproductive choices and options.
• Wear natural fibers.
• Shop local to reduce packaging and transportation.
• Find alternatives to poisons and pesticides.
• Be an advocate for the environment
• Reject unnecessary purchases and consumerism.

Click HERE for the full article.