The Sixth Threat

The last of the Three Local Threats we can call Biologic; by predation from microbes to monsters, life is the eater of life. And we’re the monsters. Having hunted and clear cut our way to the top of the food chain, we’re killing off other species at some thousand times the rate of natural selection.

http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/

But when you reach the top of the ladder, the threat doesn’t come from above.  The big can be toppled by the smallest of creatures below. The world around us provides many examples: microorganisms are killing off fauna from Brown Bats to Honey Bees. And we just have to look to our own history to see that we are not immune.

More than five hundred years ago, the Bubonic Plague (caused by bacteria) killed about 1/3 of Europeans  … in crowded cities, up to 2/3 of the population died faster than they could be burned.  http://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Man/Your-health/Bubonic-Plague-15-facts-20130318

 

In a perverse feedback loop, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics because we've overused them. Now, drug companies aren’t even making many antibiotics these days; there’s not enough money in it! Makes you wonder who they think will buy their products when the next killer bug bites and we have no defense?

Then of course, there's viruses. Just a hundred years ago or so the Spanish flu killed 50-100 million people, nearly  1/3 of those infected died. Believe it or not, the worst hit was the 20-40 age group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

Today, pandemics still threaten us.  The kill rate for H7N9 is some 33%. And there's no vaccine. It's just a matter of time before this mutates into an easily spreadable form. http://healthland.time.com/2013/06/24/most-recent-h7n9-flu-deadlier-than-h1n1/

We’re killing the planet and leaving ourselves open to Mother Nature’s revenge all for a few bucks. And do we really think we can prosper as a sole survivor when most of the animals and plants are gone. Biodiversity is a symbiotic feedback loop that sustains itself. Like the climate, it has a tipping point beyond which our house of cards will fall. We know this is true, we just won’t know how much killing is too much until it's too late.

In truth, greed is willfully short-sighted. And Capitalism feeds off greed. The mantra of the blissful blind has become “Market forces will fix everything.” Yet consumerism is driving us like lemmings to the cliff. We better wake up; the Market has no conscience. It makes a better servant than master.

But such predators aren't our worst problem. Next, the ‘Latent Threats’  7-9 where we willfully prey upon ourselves.