What Current Policies Are Accomplishing

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It may already be too late, but we must do what we can.

 

 

Seabird Catastrophe in Scotland

 

A natural catastrophe has struck vast seabird populations off the Scottish

coast. This disaster should stand as a stark warning to the world of a

tremendous danger that is likely to spread rapidly to other areas.

 

A rise in sea temperature has led to the mysterious disappearance of

plankton in the area, an important part of the marine food chain. Plankton

is the basis of the marine food chain. Without it, all marine life will

die.

 

The result of the die-off near Scotland has been that the next step in the

chain, fish and eels, have become scarce. This, in turn, has caused

hundreds of thousands of seabirds in Scotland to fail to breed this summer

due to hunger. The birds will eventually all die off.

 

" This is an incredible event, " says Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth.

" The catastrophe [of these] seabirds is just a foretaste of what lies

ahead. "

 

At the close of the Permian 250 million years ago, over 90 percent of all

species on earth were destroyed. Schools of fish literally died where they

swam, ending up fossilized en masse. A major reason for this extinction

involved the so-called ‘planktonic event,’ the worldwide die-off of

plankton and the subsequent starvation of the world’s then-teeming oceans.

This was the worst extinction event in geologic history and nearly

sterilized this planet of all life. A die-off of plankton remains the most

dangerous possible environmental catastrophe, because it leads not only to

the starvation of marine life, but to the end of carbon-dioxide exchange

between air and water, an exchange that is essential for continued life on

earth.

 

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not

depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

-R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)