Opinion: The Global Warming Hoax

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that global warming is a hoax and humans are not to blame for climate change.Forgetting global warming then, what is the human impact upon the planet?Half of the world’s forests are gone, and their disappearance is a direct result of human exploitation.Tropical forests are being depleted at a rate of one acre per second. These forests house one-half of the world’s plant and animal species, which are needed to keep the biosphere in balance with itself. Half of the earth’s wetlands and a third of the mangroves are gone, again as a direct result of human exploitation. The U.S. loses 6,000 acres of open space per day to “development.” Human actions regularly consume or destroy 40 percent of nature’s photosynthetic output, which means humans take an unfair share of the energy that the biosphere needs to maintain ecological balance.Scientists estimate that 150-200 species go extinct each day, mostly because of  habitat destruction caused by humans. Species are disappearing at about 1,000 times the normal rate. One-fifth of animals with backbones face extinction. Ninety percent of large predator fish are gone; 75 percent of fisheries are fished to capacity; and 20 percent of corals, which are essential to maintaining the health of aquatic environments, are gone. These dramatic figures have led scientists to conclude that we are living in an era of mass extinction more fierce than that which killed the dinosaurs.In the United States alone there are over 70,000 commercial chemicals in use. In roughly the past 80 years, the use of synthetic chemicals increased from one million to 400 million tons each year. U.S. chemical companies release 7.1 billion pounds of 650 pollutants into the water and atmosphere annually. One study sampled the blood of nine, ordinary volunteers and found a total of 167 industrial compounds, pollutants and chemicals - 76 of which cause cancer, 94 of which damage the brain or nervous system and 79 of which cause birth defects or abnormal development.Dioxin, a synthetic chemical known to cause cancer, birth defects and impair immune systems, pervades the biosphere and laces every link of the food chain. Traces of dioxin have been found in many paper products, including diapers, tampons, and bath tissue, which is partly why the toxin is found in everybody’s body. More alarming is the fact that dioxin has been discovered in breast milk worldwide, along with pesticides, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs).PFOA, also called C8, is a synthetic, carcinogenic toxin that contaminates the blood of 98 percent of the U.S. population and 100 percent of newborns. PFOAs are known to cause developmental problems and heart disease. This chemical is particularly dangerous because it doesn’t biodegrade, which means that once it is created it will remain in the environment – and in bodies - indefinitely.It is estimated that 30 million Americans are at risk of early death because of lead poisoning. The symptoms typically associated with aging might actually be symptoms of lead poisoning, such as memory loss, hearing loss, heart attacks and strokes, loss of libido, tooth decay and loss of balance. High lead concentration causes children to be less successful in school and more aggressive later in life.Another harmful contaminate that pervades the ecosystem is mercury. Thirty-three states have issued warnings regarding fish-consumption as a result of mercury pollution. According to current estimates, human activities have tripled mercury levels in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. Like many other toxins, mercury bioaccumulates, which means that organisms absorb the toxin faster than they can rid themselves of that toxin. Further compounding the danger is the phenomenon of biomagnification, which occurs when one organism consumes another organism, and thus ingests the toxins that have bioaccumulated within the consumed organism.Even if these chemicals weren’t individually dangerous when concentrated in our bodies, we can’t predict the ways in which these chemicals will interact inside the human body. No study has ever – or could ever - test the effects of these toxins in their infinite combinations.According to the World Health Organization, 2.4 million people die annually from air pollution. Another study found that air pollution, in general, increases people’s risk of death by six percent. The world currently releases about 100 million tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere each day, which is why carbon dioxide has reached its highest levels in the past 650,000 years. Natural carbon sinks, which absorb and contain CO₂, are quickly disappearing. This depletion triggers a feedback loop that causes more depletion, and thus higher and higher levels of CO₂.Several other human-made toxins pollute the air. Sulfur oxides, which cause acid rain, are largely a product of industrial production, and are known to cause respiratory malfunction and death. Carbon monoxide, which impairs the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to vital organs, can quickly cause flu-like symptoms and death. The main sources of carbon monoxide are automobiles and industrial facilities.Perhaps the worst problem of all is the disappearance of topsoil - the uppermost layer of fertile dirt, about six inches in depth - that is essential to sustaining terrestrial life. The planet is losing about a percent of topsoil per year, mostly because of large-scale agriculture. This figure might seem small, but topsoil worldwide is being depleted at least ten times faster than it can be replaced, because it takes hundreds of years to replace a couple inches of topsoil. Current projections estimate that the U.S. has about 60 years of topsoil left. Furthermore, the topsoil that remains is 40 percent degraded - which means that its ability to grow plants is significantly decreased. This resulting infertility spurs farmers to apply more chemical fertilizers to rejuvenate the soil. One recent study estimated that farmers collectively use about five billion pounds of pesticides per year.Farmers also use increasingly heavy machinery to till, spray, plant and harvest their fields. The weight of this heavy machinery compacts the soil and thereby reduces aeration, making it harder for soil to breathe. When soil is compacted roots must exert tremendous pressure to penetrate the compressed layer. The high density of compact soil prevents it from easily absorbing water, which leads to floods and runoff that cause more erosion and flush farm chemicals into nearby water systems.Water systems themselves are increasingly imperiled. Two million tons of agricultural waste, municipal sewage and industrial discharge are dumped into the world’s water supply every single day. As a result,   one-fifth of humans lack access to clean drinking water and 1.6 million kids die each year from drinking dirty water.The list could go on to include aerosols, oils spills, nuclear waste, radioactive leaks, landfill seepage, contamination from natural gas extraction, factory farming waste and the like.Even if global warming was a hoax and humans were not responsible for climate change, we’d still be left to face the fact that humans have ruined the environment. Stephen Meyer, a professor at MIT, wrote, “Over the next 100 years or so as many as half of the earth’s species, representing a quarter of the planet’s genetic stock, will functionally if not completely disappear ... Nothing – not national or international laws, global bioreserves, local sustainability schemes, or even ‘wildlands’ fantasies – can change the current course. The broad path for biological evolution is now set for the next several million years. And in this sense the extinction crisis – the race to save the composition, structure, and organization of biodiversity as it exists today – is over, and we have lost.”The main force behind this ecological chaos is the large-scale, industrial, fossil fuel economy. And it’s equally at home in both ‘capitalist’ and ‘communist’ countries.