As of mid-2009, nearly all the world’s major aquifers were being overpumped. We have more irrigation water than before the overpumping began, in true Ponzi fashion. We get the feeling that we’re doing very well in agriculture—but the reality is that an estimated 400 million people are today being fed by overpumping, a process that is by definition short-term. With aquifers being depleted, this water-based food bubble is about to burst.
A similar situation exists with the melting of mountain glaciers. When glaciers first start to melt, flows in the rivers and the irrigation canals they feed are larger than before the melting started. But after a point, as smaller glaciers disappear and larger ones shrink, the amount of ice melt declines and the river flow diminishes. Thus we have two water-based Ponzi schemes running in parallel in agriculture.
And there are more such schemes. As human and livestock populations grow more or less apace, the rising demand for forage eventually exceeds the sustainable yield of grasslands. As a result, the grass deteriorates, leaving the land bare, allowing it to turn to desert. In this Ponzi scheme, herders are forced to rely on food aid or they migrate to cities.
Three-fourths of oceanic fisheries are now being fished at or beyond capacity or are recovering from overexploitation. If we continue with business as usual, many of these fisheries will collapse. Overfishing, simply defined, means we are taking fish from the oceans faster than they can reproduce. The cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada is a prime example of what can happen. Long one of the world’s most productive fisheries, it collapsed in the early 1990s and may never recover.
This article is an excellent read.
#35 – Hmeyers,
You’re correct, of course, that the water is not going away. However, water in the oceans is not drinking water without a lot of power input.
Further, what can happen (and what we must try to avoid) from global warming is that the seas become devoid of most multicellular life, as happened during the Permian/Triassic extinction. The ocean becomes too acidic for pteropods (a.k.a. sea butterfly) which form the basis of much of the oceanic food chain.
Also, the ocean conveyor stops (already 30% slower than it was) and the ocean does not get properly oxygenated. As the ocean becomes anoxic, sulfur producing bacteria take over. Eventually, they reach the surface and release Hydrogen Sulfide gas in toxic quantities thus spreading the ocean’s death onto land.
The P/T extinction 250 million years ago is the worst in the fossil record. It was caused by global warming (non-human caused, of course).
http://tinyurl.com/yhdf5d8
The article is fairly short and also throws in other information about medical uses of the knowledge of our planet’s H2S filled past. If it piques your interest in the subject of mass extinctions, check out a book called Under A Green Sky.
I do know the oceans have a higher plastic content than they should, for starters.
It doesn’t degrade very quickly so the oceans have nearly ubiquitous microparticles of plastic everywhere.
#41, Mr. Scott,
However, water in the oceans is not drinking water without a lot of power input.
Nor is ground water contaminated with trichloroethylene or chlorofluorocarbons. Or land contaminated with coal fly ash. Or native plant species pushed out by man made, invasive species that require man to plant every year.
#42 – Hmeyers,
I do know the oceans have a higher plastic content than they should, for starters.
It doesn’t degrade very quickly so the oceans have nearly ubiquitous microparticles of plastic everywhere.
Excellent deadpan humor on that … “doesn’t degrade very quickly” … ROFLMAO!! I love it.
Yes. It may not actually degrade in less time than it takes for the sun to engulf this once-beautiful, insignificant little spec on which we live. I’ve heard numbers on the order of hundreds of millions of years or possibly more (source: The World Without Us)
On the upside, like cellulose, another polymer formerly considered indigestible, a life form may evolve that can actually digest plastic. That’s really the one hope for getting rid of the stuff before the sun goes Chevy Nova on our asses. There is a lot of energy to be had for a species that evolves to digest the foul crap.
#43 – Mr. Fusion,
> However, water in the oceans is not drinking
> water without a lot of power input.
Nor is ground water contaminated with trichloroethylene or chlorofluorocarbons. Or land contaminated with coal fly ash. Or native plant species pushed out by man made, invasive species that require man to plant every year.
Excellent point. There is an upside to that as well though. At least we no longer need health insurance to get our pharmaceuticals. They’re all there for free … in our drinking water.
As for the invasive species, you mean the one that tied itself so closely to humanity that it can’t reproduce without us? The one that physically cannot pollinate itself without our help? I thought so. No worries. When we go away, so does all of the corn in the world.
@ Misanthropic Scott
“a life form may evolve that can actually digest plastic. That’s really the one hope for getting rid of the stuff before the sun goes Chevy Nova on our asses. There is a lot of energy to be had for a species that evolves to digest the foul crap.”
Actually, in 100 years plastic will be the new “black gold”.
See in 100 years after all the oil is gone and we’ve burnt down all the trees, we’ll need something to keep us warm.
A smart caveman will catch a fish, pull the plastic bag it ate out of it and use it to start a campfire to cook the fish.
They will refer to these convenient fish + plastic bag combos as “Happy Meals”.
#46 – Hmeyers,
Stop it. That sounds way too plausible. You’re scaring me … or would be if I or any of my decedents (all 0 of them) had any chance of being around then.
Too many, too stupid, too late. Pretty much sums up the coming extinction event.
@GetSmart-as i’d been saying way back in post #27.