A GUEST ENTRY...

... by my friend Gary at CHISPHERE.  

Mass Extinction or Evolution


Upright humans began c. 4 million years ago...  Human history made a Great Leap Forward c. 50,000 years ago when standardized stone tools and cave paintings etc. appeared.  This was  approximately synchronous with a major extension of the range of humans to Australia and New Guinea using watercraft c. 40-30,000 years ago.  Mass extinctions of large mammals occurred simultaneously.  The Americas were colonized by the Clovis culture c. 11,000 BC--this corresponded to the end of the Pleistocene Era, the recession of the last Ice Age, and the beginning of the Recent Era, and was also associated with mass extinctions according to Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel.  Although his excess of political correctness and almost oblivious recognition to the role of cultural differences and individuals in the shaping of history mars his theory of human development, Diamond is 90% spot on.

I feel that because we HAVE reached the tipping point in humankind's presence within the ecosphere/biota, it is time to do more than note the event.  Sustainability of life different than we know it will inevitably be the next frontier of behavior required in order to survive in the NEW WORLD!

Data tools, not stone tools, are carving the path.  Paintings will not appear on cave walls but on virtual screens and nanobots will deliver RNA interference with cancer cells to shut down their protein production, starving the cancer from its source of survival, as Andrew Fire and Craig Mello proved in 1998.  For this work they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006.  

What am I doing in my life to react to the tipping point that is significantly different in terms of my earlier behavior?  To begin with, I have one car.  I have painted my roof white, buy only what I need to wear, no extras, shop locally, walk to where I buy food, bike to where I can't walk unless it's just impractical, vote for and write to my political representatives and engage several blogs daily.

The Mountain Yellow Legged Frog was the most plentiful creature in Yosemite's eco system 10 years ago.  Today is 94% depleted in all the California Sierra Range.  It is temperature related.  The glacier that supplied the water is in high retreat and water from it does not reach its destination in the meadowland below before it goes underground.  Humankind is very like its ancestor, the frog.  With all the science and money in the world, the truth is invisible to the very group that can make a difference, the 99%.  

If you knew your home was going to be demolished in 10 years would you sit tight and wait?

I know that habitat imbalance is as rampant as the lack of political resolve regarding the changes that must be embraced to overcome it.  I can self-immolateon on the steps of the EPA--with carefully organized media coverage, and a momentary spike of false concern will come and go.  Perhaps a visit to the stock market floor with an endangered human from the Adamanese tribe who would be willing to self immolate?  Of course these are only powerful, nightmarish images and horrific, frightening science fiction scenarios.  They won't be performed.  

A compelling request from the Delai Lama at the 2009 Climate Change Conference Nations to alert peaceful minds in positions of power has not brought climate change to the surface in any significant current political or economic national or international government debate.  The MIC in each country represses and obfuscates the evidence for their own self-interest.  Will the solution to overcoming the senseless waste of the amazing world we live in come and go without a fundamental paradigm shift?  No, it won't.  How to shift the paradigm in a very short time is the question. Will it take a meteorological event or "The Big One" to drive the point home?  Our small, frail species with the big brain holds the keys but can't seem to reach out and open the door to the future.

O Spiritus Mundi, please come forth to awaken the still blind beast!


Love and hope, Gary