We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 13, 2012

Study Links Massive Oyster Die-offs in Northwest to Ocean Acidification

Click here to access article from Center for Biological Diversity.
Each day the oceans absorb 22 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution from cars and industry, setting off an unprecedented chemical reaction that, since the Industrial Revolution, has made the world’s oceans 30 percent more acidic.
This is just the latest and one more piece of evidence that humans are creating positive feedback loops that likely will accelerate global warming in the decades ahead leading to more extreme weather events. (See also this and this.) 

The ocean is the major carbon sink and there is a lot of evidence that it is unable to absorb as much carbon from the atmosphere as in earlier decades; we continue to burn more fossil fuels which results in more acidic oceans and further lessens its ability as a carbon sink which leaves more carbon in our atmosphere which promotes more global warming causing more extreme weather events and rising oceans, and all sorts of disasters that I don't even want to think about.

If we fail to replace the system of capitalism and its growth imperative with a sustainable system, we humans will surely perish from the Earth along with many other species.