Professor Paul Ehrlich returns to Nature Bats Last

The February episode of Nature Bats Last featuring Professor Paul Ehrlich is embedded here:

The Strona and Bradshaw paper we discussed is titled ; Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change

Further information on the risks face by the Insurance Industry is embedded here;The Insurance Industry, soon to be the first pillar of Capitalism to succumb to Abrupt Climate Change

The paper on the “Aerosol Masking Effect” I sent professor Ehrlich is titled Cleaning Up Air Pollution May Strengthen Global Warming. Professor McPherson’s work on the subject can be found here; The Aerosol Masking Effect: A Brief Overview

“The Department for Environment and Water estimates that 75 per cent of South Australia’s endangered glossy black-cockatoo population, found solely on Kangaroo Island, lived within the 210,000 hectares burned.”
“An estimated 370 are believed to live on the island and congregate in seven main flocks.” Kangaroo Island’s glossy black cockatoo population feared decimated by fires

Paul attributed his croaky voice to his recent visit to Australia and the appalling air quality.
“Sydneysiders experienced 81 days of hazardous, very poor or poor air quality last year, more than the combined total for the previous 10 years”. If you can’t see non-linearity then you won’t understand how quickly the biosphere is unraveling.
‘New situation’: record 81 days of bad air quality in Sydney

One of the many things being exposed in our daily, worsening predicament is the pathology of the arsonists behind the incineration of the biosphere.
All of the fires in Australia have been lit by corporate arsonists who have put profits before a habitable planet.They didn’t light the fires with a match or a blowtorch they fired them up with the capitalist infinite growth paradigm.
It’s people like Rupert Murdoch who controlled the public narrative for decades and ensured that whatever window of opportunity we had many years ago to head off armageddon was slammed shut in our faces.
Murdoch could well go down, in our soon to end history, as being complicit in the greatest mass murderer of all time, surpassing the cumulative slaughters of all previous despots. Some of those despots killed millions of people. Murdoch and his ilk have signed the death warrant on seven and three quarter billion sapiens and millions of other species whilst at the same time blaming people who threw a burning cigarette from their car windows for the fires.The Murdoch press even lied about the fires being a result of arson not climate change.
“The Australian” the Murdoch-owned newspaper falsely stated 183 arsonists had been arrested since the start of the bushfire season. The figure went viral after being picked up by conservative news outlets and shared on Twitter by Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, and other popular far-right figures. In actuality, only 24 people have been charged with deliberately lighting bushfires. Australia’s Bushfires Are the Worst Ever. So Is the Disinformation Campaign

The Murdoch press falsely stated 183 arsonists had been arrested since the start of the bushfire season. The figure went viral after being picked up by conservative news outlets and shared on Twitter by Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, and other popular far-right figures. In actuality, only 24 people have been charged with deliberately lighting bushfires.

“It’s lies and it’s bullshit. The obfuscation, the deliberate and willful misleading of the Australian public, the climate denialism, all of these features of the current government are putting Australian lives, the economy, and Australia’s future at risk,”
The cognitive dissonance surrounding our predicament is a case study in itself.
All my life the “World Population Clock” has been racing upward, it’s about to race off in reverse, infinitely faster than it climbed.

“Researchers say platypus numbers may have halved or more since Europeans arrived in Australia, predicting local extinctions may have occurred across 40 per cent of the species’ range due to dam building, land clearing and other disruptions, according to a study published in the scientific journal Biological Conservation. ” ‘Brink of extinction’: Steep drop in platypus numbers as drought bites

Leaked report lays bare environmental devastation of Victorian fires:“It says more than 40 per cent of the Victorian habitats of the sooty owl, diamond python, long-footed potoroo, long-nosed bandicoot and brush-tailed rock-wallaby have already been wiped out. An estimated 25 per cent of the sooty owl population has been killed.”

Least anyone think that Aotearoa NZ is being spared :
“Northland farmers are being told to leave out shallow dishes of water for thirsty kiwi as the region sizzles in a hot, dry summer.” Thirsty kiwi dying of dehydration while struggling through hot, dry summer in Northland. 

Professor Ehrlich posted this article on his Twitter feed on 24th of January 2020;
“The loss of biodiversity that has occurred over the course of our species’ time on Earth is staggering. This loss is now truly planetary in scale and caused by human actions, albeit the severity of which is unequally distributed across the globe”.
The state of global biodiversity — it’s worse than you probably think Lesser-known endangered species in Bhutan may be facing extinction.

“Even after centuries of effort, some 86 percent of Earth‘s species have yet to be fully described, according to new study that predicts our planet is home to 8.7 million species. 86 Percent of Earth’s Species Still Unknown?
What ever happened to that old scientific rigour of the“Precautionary Principle”?

“A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich. Paul Ehrlich: ‘Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades’

“Though Australia is in the midst of a massive drought, when the rain inevitably returns—as it already has in some regions—this organic matter will rush into rivers and flow into coastal lakes, estuaries, and seagrass and seaweed beds.” Australia’s Marine Animals Are the Fires’ Unseen Victims

Fires burning in Australia have created “Firenados” that have registered temperatures of 2000 F or 1090 C !!! Check out the “Firenado” in this link  Stunning video shows ‘firenado’ burn across Australia

About Kevin Hester

I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.