Entropy Wins: Civilisations Decline

Peak Civilisation is in the rear view mirror for most humans on the planet. Economies, lifestyles & environment are declining almost everywhere. Overpopulation, resource depletion, pollution & energy decline continue to exacerbate the problems. Available net energy is the determinant of the quality & complexity of civilisation. As the inexpensive, easy to get energy sources decline, disorder in human systems & the biosphere will increase.. Entropy (disorder, randomness) increases. Entropy Wins

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In 1992 scientists warned of global ecosystem collapse. In 2017, conditions are worse.

This second warning is even more urgent about changes needing to be made because conditions have worsened since 1992 significantly.

“Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that the Earth with all its life is our only home.”

Among the negative trends are:

Declining Freshwater availability: Per capita freshwater availability is less than half of levels of the early 1960s with many people around the world suffering from a lack of fresh clean water. Much of this decrease in available water is due to an accelerated pace of human population growth and increases in agricultural water use. It is likely that climate change will have an overwhelming impact on the freshwater availability through alteration of the hydrologic cycle and water availability. Future water shortages will be detrimental to humans, affecting everything from drinking water, human heath, sanitation, and the production of crops for food.

Unsustainable marine fisheries: In 1992, the total marine catch was at or above the maximum sustainable yield and fisheries were on the verge of collapse, peaking in 1996 at 130 million tons in 1996 and has been declining ever since , despite an increase in fishing effort

A 75 % increase in the number of ocean dead zones. Coastal dead zones which are mainly caused by fertilizer runoff and fossil-fuel use, are killing large swaths of marine life. Dead zones with hypoxic, oxygen-depleted waters, are a significant stressor on marine systems and identified locations have dramatically increased since the 1960s, with more than 600 systems affected by 2010.

Deforestation. A loss of nearly 300 million acres of forestland, much of it converted for agricultural uses. Between 1990 and 2015, total forest area decreased from 4,128 to 3,999 million hectares, a net loss of 129 million hectares, approximately the size of South Africa.

Dwindling biodiversity. The world’s biodiversity is vanishing at an alarming rate and populations of vertebrate species are rapidly collapsing. Global ly,fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012.  Freshwater, marine, and terrestrial populations declined by 81%, 36%, and 35% respectively.

Continuing significant increases in global carbon emissions and average temperatures

Overpopulation. Over 2 billion people have been born since 1992 – a 35 % rise in human population. From; http://energyskeptic.com/2017/world-scientists-warning-to-humanity-a-second-notice/

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GLOBAL WARMING. RISING TEMPERATURES. American leaders should read their officialclimate science report American leaders should read their officialclimate science reportPosted on 27 November 2017 by John Abraham The United States Global Change Research Program recently released a report on the science of climate change and its causes. The report is available for anyone to read; it was prepared by top scientists, and it gives an overview of the most up to date science.  If you want to understand climate change and a single document that summarizes what we know, this is your chance. This report is complete, readily understandable, and accessible. It discusses what we know, how we know it, how confident we are, and how likely certain events are to happen if we continue on our business-as-usual path.  To summarize, our Earth has warmed nearly 2°F (1°C) since the beginning of the 20th century. Today’s Earth is the warmest it has ever been in the history of modern civilization. From; https://www.skepticalscience.com/american-leaders-should-read-official-climate-report.html

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KILLING THE PLANET AND ITS BEAUTIFUL LIFE FORMS. Vaquita, a small porpoise is the world's most rare marine mammal, and is on the edge of extinction. ... Vaquita are often caught and drowned in gillnets used by illegal fishing operations in marine protected areas within Mexico's Gulf of California. The population has dropped drastically in the last few years.

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Antarctica Is Melting 3 Ways. 1. Global Warming of the atmosphere is melting the ice with higher summertime temperatures. 2. Warming ocean temperatures are melting the ice below the waterline. And 3. Now a huge volcanic plume of hot magma has been discovered below the bedrock of the Antarctic continent. Antarctica is being rapidly melted from below say NASA. There is something mysterious and hot lurking beneath the surface of the Antarctic ice. Now Nasa says that it might have found the source of that strange heating – a “mantle plume” – or upwelling of abnormally hot rock, that lies deep beneath the surface. The heat is causing the surface of the ice to melt and crack, resulting in rivers and other disruption to Antarctic ice sheet. From; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/antarctica-nasa-mantle-plume-arctic-melting-warm-bedrock-study-latest-a8046661.html

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A Volcanic Rift Valley below Antarctic Ice Sheet with 91 active volcanoes. The volcanoes range in height from 100 meters to 3,850 meters tall (12,600 feet) and are all hidden beneath up to 4 kilometers ice. The Antarctic rift system stretches 3,500 kilometers from the Ross ice shelf to the Antarctic peninsula, which now realize is one of the most volcanic areas in the world From; https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/08/14/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-lying-beneath-antarctic-ice-sheet/?s=trending#2bb2eb9124d1

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Trump administration denies 25 animal species endangered protection – “This is a truly dark day for America’s imperiled wildlife” From; http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/10/trump-administration-denies-25-animal.html?m=1

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Weather extremes, fossil fuel pollution cost US $240 billion – “The evidence is undeniable: the more fossil fuels we burn, the faster the climate continues to change” From; http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/10/weather-extremes-fossil-fuel-pollution.html?m=1

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ARCTIC FORESTS BURNING AT FASTEST RATE IN 10,000 YEARS In a sign of how swiftly and extensively climate change is reshaping the Arctic environment, a new study has found that the region’s mighty boreal forests — stands of mighty spruce, fir, and larch trees that serve as the gateway to the Arctic Circle — have been burning at an unprecedented rate during the past few decades. The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the boreal forests have not burned at today’s high rates for at least the past 10,000 years, and climate change projections show even more wildfire activity may be to come.

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DECAY CONTINUES. Just wait until you see the things in store for us in 2020 Our economic model is broken. We are in the middle of the longest stagnation in earnings for 150 years. Young people today are set to be poorer than their parents. We have the richest region in Europe – inner London – but most British regions are now poorer than the European average. From trade shifting to emerging markets in the East; joblessness as a result of automation; ageing populations; and the breaching of local and global environmental thresholds, we are in for a rocky ride 

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PESTICIDES IN HONEY. Gee. That's a surprise. .....NOT! EnvironmentPesticides that pose threat to humans and bees found in honey Experts call the findings 'alarming', 'sobering' and a 'serious environmental concern' From; http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/pesticides-bees-human-threat-found-in-honey-threat-danger-a7985281.html

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AIR POLLUTION: Even in one of the world's wealthiest cities. Every Londoner is breathing air that contains toxic levels of pollutants, study finds Air exceeds WHO toxicity guidelines by more than half for vast majority of Londoners From; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-air-pollution-breathing-toxic-levels-pollutants-particles-world-health-organisation-a7984371.html

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Sea Level Rise is Accelerating Ice is melting Seas are rising. All from Global Warming From; https://tamino.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/sea-level-rise-is-accelerating/

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LET'S FACE IT. MANY HUMANS HATE WILD ANIMALS. ANIMAL MURDER. Illegal massacre of polar bears by trophy hunters on remote (Russian) Arctic island. Criminal probe is continuing. 4 August 2017 (The Siberian Times) – The gruesome evidence of illegal hunting was found on uninhabited Vilkitsky Island in the Kara Sea. The carcasses and used gun cartridges were found by members of an ecological clean-up team sent to the remote territory. Summer thawing meant the polar bear remains became visible. There are claims that local police initially sought to cover up the crime - possibly suggesting an elite hunting group was involved in the bloody massacre. But the prosecutor's office subsequently opened a criminal probe. Andrey Baryshnikov, head of the Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration, said: 'When they spotted the carcasses they immediately got in touch with me via satellite connection because this is a very serious case. “We passed the information to the police.” A case was opened once law enforcement received the gruesome pictures of the polar bear remains From ; http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/08/massacre-of-polar-bears-by-trophy.html?m=1

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BURN BABY BURN 19 wildfires have merged to create the largest wildfire ever recorded in British Columbia – Single blaze is estimated to be more than 467,000 hectares. From; http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/08/19-wildfires-have-merged-to-create.html?m=1 Not to ignore European heat wave fires such as, 1. Apandriti Kalamos, 50km north of Athens. 2. Trebizat near Capljina, Bosnia 3. Croatia along the Adriatic Coast. 4. Natural Park, Serra de Aire e Candeeiros, in central Portugal. 5.  A rare wildfire in eastern Greenland in early August. 6. Serra Dura, Galicia, Spain. 7. Carnoux-en-Provence, southeastern France. From; http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/08/wildfires-globe-170823075735254

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CIVIL WAR II IN THE USA

Yes, there is a civil war looming in the United States.   But it will not look like the orderly pattern of descent which characterized the conflict of 1861-65. It will appear more like the Yugoslavia break-up, or the Russian and Chinese civil wars of the 20th Century.   It will appear as an evolving chaos…   …It is significant that the gathering crisis in the United States was not precipitated by the November 7, 2016, election of Pres. Donald Trump, and neither was the growing polarization of the United Kingdom’s society caused by the Brexit vote of 2016.   In both instances, the election of Mr Trump and the decision by UK voters for Britain to exit the European Union were late reactions — perhaps too late — by the regional populations of both countries to what they perceived as the destruction of their nation-states by “urban super-oligarchies”.   The last-ditch reactions by those who voted in the US for Donald Trump and those who voted in the UK for Brexit were against an urban-based globalism which has been building for some seven decades, with the deliberate or accidental intent of destroying nations and nationalism. It is now crystallizing into this: urban globalism sees nations and nationalism as the enemy, and vice-versa.   The battle lines have been drawn. From; http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-24/what-americans-think-civil-war-20-would-look

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It's raining over the Arctic Ocean and the rain is devastating the sea ice. What are the conditions that led to this? As has been known for a long time, energy is added to Earth due to emissions by people and this translates into a warmer troposphere with more water vapor, warmer oceans and stronger winds. Warming is hitting the Arctic particularly hard, due to numerous feedbacks, as illustrated by the sea surface temperature anomalies On July 7, 2017, high air temperatures were recorded over land and over the water. The image below shows temperatures recorded at two locations over the Mackenzie River, one of 32.6°C or 90.8°F at the mouth of the Mackenzie River and another one of 34.7°C or 94.5°F further inland. Warm water from rivers can substantially warm up the sea surface and thus melt the sea ice. Temperature of the surface of the water was 10°C or 50.1°F where the water was pushed into the Bering Strait, while temperatures as high as 46.9°C or 116.3°F were recorded over California. From; http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/rain-over-arctic-ocean.html?m=1

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FOOD PRODUCTION CRASHES WITHOUT OIL. NORTH KOREA.

Many challenges exist when there aren’t enough oil supplies. For example, consider North Korea. After the Korean War, the USSR helped North Korea develop modern agriculture. When the USSR collapsed, the flow of cheap oil suddenly dried up. Agricultural machines had to be put out of service. A return to traditional cultivation methods was aggravated by over-fertilized land, and the proportion of people employed in agriculture was increased from 25% to 35% to compensate for the loss of 80% of the agricultural machines. Despite this, harvests dropped by 60% between 1989 and 1998. From; http://energyskeptic.com/2017/german-military-peak-oil-summary/