(This is Part 2 of a 2-part series. Go back to Part 1.)
As just one example, as average global temperatures increase the viability of growing plants can come into question.
Humanity's food supply now largely depends on a few cereal crops—rice, wheat, corn—which have been bred and domesticated through thousands of years from an original menagerie of hundreds and perhaps thousands of hardy wild grasses.
This high degree of refinement has, in part, led to dramatically larger yields than would otherwise have been possible, but it has also led to much greater vulnerability. Our current cereal grains, grown under factory-farm conditions, are highly dependent on a fairly narrow range of conditions to survive and thrive.
But excessive heat attacks the very energy-making structure of a plant, and at an average temperature only a relatively few degrees above current averages the highly refined and vulnerable human food chain could break down.
Other examples:
••Increasing toxification of the planet could lead to much more virulent micro-pathogens and much decreased resistance in humans.
••The frozen tundra in Siberia contains hundreds of times more carbon (in the form of methane) than is currently released by human activities. Beyond a certain degree of warming this warming tundra could lead to a tipping point where carbon release into the atmosphere becomes an uncontrollable self-amplifying process.
••Glaciers reflect more sunlight than water does. Melting glaciers at the North and South Poles and in Greenland, etc. could also lead to a self-amplifying process where melting ice leads to more melting ice and a runaway warming situation.
These are just a few examples of potential tipping points. If humanity is not careful we could see scenarios by mid-century that bring to mind the Black Plague of the 14th century when one-third of the human population died in Europe.
A number of good policy implementations could be undertaken, such as widespread carbon cap-and-trade schemes which could use the power of the marketplace to drastically reduce carbon emissions. What is missing, for the most part, is political will. So it looks as if the rescuing of humanity from ourselves may need to be a largescale grassroots movement driving government policy rather than the other way around.
From Gaia's viewpoint, human beings have become a dangerous toxin-creating cancer upon the earth, and she may need to cleanse herself of this toxin-creating species in order to survive. It would be wise of us not to let things get that far.
A state of sustainability, living within Nature rather than trying to dominate her, is called for, since ultimately all human economic activity depends upon the resources and benefits that Nature provides.
Even in this technological age we still can't command the waves of the sea, and in a larger sense, considering the vast oceans of the universe, we never will. A sense of humility towards Nature and the biosphere is quite appropriate, as King Canute tried to show us, in his vivid image, so many centuries ago.
—jim sloman, 9.19.06
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