The Coming Extinction: Anthropocene
I’ll be posting a few articles on this subject in the coming days. As with most horrific truths, it’s unpleasant. So if you want to be happy, stop reading.
There are truths whose weight may be beyond comprehension. Beyond the scope of what we as humans can imagine. Numbers beyond the billions, distances between galaxies, the pattern that holds pi together. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that a species unable to grasp its own origin, it’s own true history or even the foundations of its economic system, that such a species would be unable to comprehend it’s extinction.
The truth of climate change and its devastating effects on the planet have been known for decades. But how can an eschatology like this be understood, or even more difficult, how could it be acted upon? When you’re told that the very foundation of the planet, its climate, is changing in magnificent and horrible ways, what can a single individual do about it?
And maybe that’s the answer. An individual can do nothing aside preparations for a disaster. Hence, the right-wing streak within the ‘prepper’ phenomenon. Is the inability to change the course of an entire society symptomatic of the brain’s incapacity to grasp the coming extinction? Or is it the other way around: is our fatal obstinacy in the face of environmental collapse not a neurological deficiency, but a social one?
Foundational Collapse
The foundation of capitalist value is stolen labor. Labor is the process of transforming nature into products. In capitalism, that product is a commodity. Nature is the foundation of this process; it’s the reservoir from which labor draws its raw material. Let’s look at the current state of that reservoir.
- Land degradation costs 10% of the world’s annual gross product source
- We’ve lost 87% of Earth’s wetland areas source
- Less than 25% of Earth’s available land has been untouched by development source
- By 2050, the combination of land degradation and climate change is predicted to reduce global crop yields by an average of 10% This may be up to 50% in some regions. source
- At the same time, the UN suspects the population will increase from 7.3 to 9.7 billion people by 2050, an increase of roughly 30%. source
- Land decay, due to unsustainable farming through ever increasing levels of pesticides and fertilizers, mining, city expansion and pollution threatens 40% of the population. source
- This decay may cause migrations of upwards of 50 million people by 2050 source
- We’re currently experiencing what is know as a nutrient collapse in our foods. We’re able to make more and more using fertilizers and genetic modification (which I’m not against) but this food is less and less nutritious. All nutrients, from protein to calcium to vitamins, have dropped significantly since 1950. Not because of over fertilization but because of the changes in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. More CO2 in the air means plants grow faster, storing more glucose instead of the nutrients we desire. Scientists are alarmed and uncertain as to how this will play out in the longterm. source
- Half of all animal life on planet Earth has died in the past forty years. source
These are just a few points. It’s difficult to list them all, as it seems everyday things get worse. As a general statement, there is enough evidence to argue that the natural foundation of society is at risk and that the environment is collapsing. This is directly tied to the social relations of production. That is, capitalism. It requires constant growth to maintain profit. It is a sociopathic system. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, capitalism has been at the center of environmental collapse.
Unless capitalism is destroyed through world revolution, the environment, and therefore all life, will face extinction.
Article #2:Plastic As Fecal Matter
Article #3:Land Submergence
Article #4:Humanity As Devil