Other Kinds Of Breakdowns Caused By Economic/Societal Decline Or Collapse

This is one I've thought of for a long time.  Plutonium 239, the stuff they use in civilian reactors, has a half-life of 24,000 years.  That means that the most toxic substance known to mankind will only be half as toxic 24,000 years from now.  That's more than three times the entire written history of humankind.  How delusional do you have to be to think you can keep spent fuel rods safe for that length of time and who knows how many multiples of that for it to be "safe"?

http://swiftspeech.blogspot.com/2011/03/plutoniums-half-life-is-24000-years.html

Doug

Say goodbye to what was once a life-sustaining planet.

Coral reefs 'will be gone by end of the century' - Nature, Environment ...

9-12-2011

Coral reefs are on course to become the first ecosystem that human activity will eliminate entirely from the Earth, a leading United Nations scientist claims. He says this event will occur before the end of the present century, which means that there are children already born who will live to see a world without coral.

Click HERE to upload graphic (192k jpg)

The claim is made in a book published tomorrow, which says coral reef ecosystems are very likely to disappear this century in what would be "a new first for mankind – the 'extinction' of an entire ecosystem". Its author, Professor Peter Sale, studied the Great Barrier Reef for 20 years at the University of Sydney. He currently leads a team at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

The predicted decline is mainly down to climate change and ocean acidification, though local activities such as overfishing, pollution and coastal development have also harmed the reefs. The book, Our Dying Planet, published by University of California Press, contains further alarming predictions, such as the prospect that "we risk having no reefs that resemble those of today in as little as 30 or 40 more years".

"We're creating a situation where the organisms that make coral reefs are becoming so compromised by what we're doing that many of them are going to be extinct, and the others are going to be very, very rare," Professor Sale says. "Because of that, they aren't going to be able to do the construction which leads to the phenomenon we call a reef. We've wiped out a lot of species over the years. This will be the first time we've actually eliminated an entire ecosystem."

Coral reefs are important for the immense biodiversity of their ecosystems. They contain a quarter of all marine species, despite covering only 0.1 per cent of the world's oceans by area, and are more diverse even than the rainforests in terms of diversity per acre, or types of different phyla present.

read the rest...

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/coral-reefs-will-be-gone-by-end-of-the-century-2352742.html

One of the best times of my life was college 28 years ago- every August I would get in my car and drive off to university excited for new classes, new friends, a great life in front of me.  A road trip across the US with the windows down and my favorite music.  There were no clouds on the horizon and so much to look forward to.

Five years ago I had this vague idea we were in trouble and the more I read and the deeper I looked I realized we were headed for a cliff. 

The last two years have taught me that we are way over the cliff-  $100-200 trillion in debt, an environment well beyond a recoverable limit, and a political/social order that will not be be able to deal with it.  Will we hit the wall tomorrow or next year?  I hope not.  But we will hit the wall in my lifetime and my children will have a different life experience than I will.

I won't get in to global warming discussions any more- 1 deg vs 3 deg temp rises in a hundred years, carbon sequestraion technologies, Kyoto agreements... we will burn coal as oil runs out, crappy brown high sulfur coal.  And then wood and peat and what ever is the lowest hanging fruit at the time. It will not be pretty.

I take my religion and alcohol in moderation but I've taped the popular alcoholics anonymous prayer to the wall behind my desk-

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Its not so much about looking forward now.  Its about enjoying my great family every day, the break of the surf on the local beach, the momma duck and ducklings crossing the street in front of the car this morning in my little town. Life is good, every day...but there are clouds on the horizon now.

Chip

Pathogens are often brilliant products of evolution. Another virus (rabies) invades mammals' salivary glands and reproduces there. The virus affects the brain, making the victim crazy and want to bite anything around, plus it makes the victim afraid of water, I guess because it doesn't "want" to dilute the saliva that it uses to spread itself!

But a funny possibility for what's making us humans behave cuturally suicidally is Toxoplasma gondii, a single-celled microbe. It spends part of its life cycle in cats and part in another mammal.  Usually, that's a mouse or a rat, who when infected by the parasite lose their fear of cats and actually become attracted to cat scent!  The rodent approaches the nearest available cat and is promptly eaten, continuing the T. gondii life cycle. Humans can get  the parasite too (fetus development is damaged if the mom is infected, that's why pregnant women shouldn't change litter boxes)... maybe that's why we like cats so much now when historically they were more like functional livestock than pets.

first of all....time doesn't just go from now to 100 years from now....it takes 100 years to happen. but yes what we do today affects the following days....it's what we did today that makes the difference. or did we continue the trend to pollute and destroy the earth.while our sustainable life sits ready to go once we go over some cliff?

alot of us are old enough to know that these are not new topics....40 years ago these topics were being looked at.....when was soylent green published. or mad max for that matter? planet of the apes?

how many of us are awaiting a "collapse" before we tap into our stores, our " survival mode".....our new way?.how many of us used a gallon of gasoline today, or several....that are gone forever and what did the gasoline do for us.??? how did we waste it or use it?

how many of us said today , i'm going to ride this party til it collapses since it's here right now? then since  i'm ready , i will  change only when i have to.?

how many of us used brown energy(coal burnin electricity) today to do what? and then wonder what the air will be like tomorrow?

how many of us bought a bike which sits in the garage , while we use our cars and trucks to move about?

what are we waiting for?

if we can see what is happening and what is coming and still live like the rest...what's the point?

every year i plant some trees. someone said to me, you'll never live long enough to see them mature......to which i responded....you are right, but i am not just planting them for my enjoyment....my hope is that someone else will be thankful that someone had the foresight to plant them. that someone will stumble onto my homestead and pick the ball up from where i left it.

i challenge all to stop and observe how they do things, what 3 e's are they wasting/destroying.what are peoples rational to continue to use the current wasteful, polluting, destructive lifestyle. look to see how are you saying i'm ok, what i am doing is ok and not harmful or not contributing to the coming pain?

how much more polluting do we have to do, before we finally say, ok i am going to live differently....going to live with the earth, not against it?

i challenge all to take a weekend and turn off the electriclty, the cell phone, the computer, the gasoline....two days....how many of you can live 2 days without these?....and then....why not now?  if not now? when?

then i'd like to hear how and what every one did during those 2 days