Canaries in a Coal Mine

1
Canaries in a Coal Mine
2
Here is how a canary looks and sounds like

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v03tsyw8_-Icfeature
  related

3
Canary 1 Colony Collapse Disorder

• We begin with bees, for they provide a natural
  link between the subject weve just
  coveredgenetic engineering, and our new
  subjectFrankensteins Monsters

4
Bees are an aesthetic and natural wonder

• Queen, female workers, drone
• Dance language
• Altruismone dies for all
• Thermoregulation
• Fascinating behaviors, e.g., removal of dead bees
  from hives
• Many other unsolved mysteries

5
Bees are also ecologically important Honey,
pollination
6
Bees, nowadays, are in the news!

• e.g., an article in the Palm Beach Post, Monday,
  March 24, 2008
• In the following slide we see a commercial
  beekeeper at work

7
Using smoke to calm his bees, Dave Hackenberg,
examines a beehive March 30, 1999 near Dade City,
Fla. He has about 2,600 of the boxy beehives, and
his bees produce thousands of pounds of honey and
pollinate tens of thousands of acres of
blueberries, pumpkins, oranges, apples, and
clover.
8
seemingly healthy adult worker bees suddenly
abandon their hives, never to return

• A 2008 survey suggests 37 percent of a sample of
  230,500 from ten US states have been lost

9
Causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

• Several roadblocks to unraveling this mystery
• Powerful interests cover up their involvement?
  Pesticide, insecticide, GMO profiteers?
• Problem is complex
• Human beings are not very good in long-term
  planning

10
Some possibilities
Varroa mites? These mites infest a colony,
eclose, attach themselves to an adult bee, and
suck her internal liquids, thus wounding and
weakening her.

• varroa mites
• These mites infest a colony, attach to the
  larvae, and suck the life out of them

11
The varroa explanation is favored by money
changers, but

• Varroa mites are not new How did they become so
  mighty?
• Organically-grown bees do not get CCD
• The problem could be intestinal, and mites do not
  affect internal organs

12
Toxic Overload

• Heavy reliance on pesticides and herbicides could
  poison bees, just like it poisons us?
• Supporting evidence Organically-grown bees do
  not have CCD

13
cell phones may adversely affect the navigational
abilities of bees?

• It would be pretty simple to rule this
  explanation out (but if this is the case, would
  you give up your cell phone?)

14
Genetically Modified Organisms?

• Arguments for
• Organically-grown bees do not die
• In some cases, e.g., Frankenstein Corn, the corn
  is engineered to produce an INSECT TOXIN. The
  plants are built to kill insectsand they
  succeed. The Sierra Club feels that this
  explanation deserves considerable attention.

15
But by now you know the rules

• Our politicians do not work for us, but for
  Monsanto, Dow Chemical, other corporations. So,
  our bees might well be on their last leg (wing?)
• But doesnt the head of Monsanto like honey too?
  And almonds? And blueberries? I dont know the
  answer to this question except the suspicion that
  they are morons.

16
Immediate Practical Applications

• There is one practical conclusion to all this,
  which is also a moral imperative
• Whenever you can, eat
• ORGANICALLY GROWN FOOD
• And, Dont drink THEIR water!

17
Canary 2 Bats Perish, and No One Knows
Why New York Times, March 25, 2008
18

• A description of an abandoned mine in New York
  State, where bats hibernate. Many are flying out
  and die, even though, in the words of one
  researcher
• Bats dont fly in the daytime, and bats dont
  fly in the winter

19

• In one NY cave,
• 2006 1,329 bats
• This winter 38 bats

20
Bats

• fascinating (e.g., first discovery of
  echolocation)
• pollinate crops
• consume harmful insects
• Paraphrasing Hopkins
• What would the world be, once bereft
• of bees and of bats?

21
Lets visit canary 3

• This part of the lecture is based on the
  following required reading
• Jared Diamond (1995). Adaptive Failure Easters
  End

22
The Environmental History of Easter Island

• http//youtube.com/watch?vlmZqW_xh_eA (230-700)

23
Easter Island

• 64 square miles, far away from everything
• Belongs to the country of Chile, but its 2,000
  miles away
• Mild climate, excellent soil
• Inhabited originally by a mixture of Polynesians
  (as in Hawaii) and Europeans
• So, all the ingredients of a paradise, no?

24
A Surprisingly Impoverished Island

• First brought to worlds attention by the Dutch
  explorer Jacob Roggeveen, on Easter of 1722.
• Appeared to him barren, only small trees
• Only native animals insects
• Domestic animals Only chickens

25

• Only 2,000 people in the 18th century (now 4,000)
• Lousy canoessurprising for the sea-faring
  Polynesians!

26
Huge stone Statues up to 65 feet and 250 tons!
On huge platforms
27

• Statues were pulled down in the 19th century, by
  the islanders themselves?
• How did they build and transport the statues,
  without big trees, rope materials, draft animals?
  Did extraterrestrials built the statues?

28
Science to the Rescue

• Linguists can estimate how long they have been
  separated from other Polynesianssince about 400
  AD.
• Archeologists, carbon dating, again, same
  approximate date
• Population once 7,000-20,000 people
• Statues built up to year 1,500

29
Pollen analysis

• Can dig the earth, examine for pollen as you go
  down, look at it under the microscope
• When people first came, in about 400 AD, the
  island was forested with huge trees that could be
  used for food, ropes, firewood, canoes, rolling
  the statues

30

• Excavations show that the islanders captured
  dolphins at sea with sturdy canoes, and feasted
  on a variety of local birds (all gone by first
  contact with Europeans)
• So they did come to a paradise? How did it
  become a wasteland?

31
Population grew, so

• By about 1,500 AD Extinction of almost all
• shellfish
• birds
• trees
• sono more good canoes, no more dolphins to eat
• No treesless streams and springs, more soil
  erosion

32

• Starvation and cannibalism set in
• Warfare became the norm
• Population crashed to less than a ¼ of former
  levels
• Statues were destroyed

33
Diamond asks What were they thinking when they
cut down the last palm tree?

• Not so hard for us, who know about the demise of
  bees (and also bats, and birds in our backyards,
  and passenger pigeons, and bison, and . . . ) to
  answer this question, for we are repeating the
  Islanders mistakesnow on a biospheric scale!

34

• Diamond believes the process was too slow for
  anyone to notice, and also, that there was the
  opposition of vested intereststhe loggers, the
  priests, etc.

35
Diamond Easter Island is Earth writ small

• Diamond does not give up in despair, because
• My main hope for my sons generation is that we
  may now choose to learn from the fates of
  societies like Easters
• Do you share Diamonds cautious optimism?

36
Canary 4 Overpopulation and Rapid Population
Growth

• Would the Easter Islanders run into problems had
  they passed a two-child per family law, or
  decided to limit the islands population to
  1,000?

37
The answer is NO. With a few people on a big,
fertile, forested island, they would have indeed
been living in a sustainable paradise!

• of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting
  or using a resource so that the resource is not
  depleted or permanently damaged ltsustainable
  techniquesgt ltsustainable agriculturegt b of or
  relating to a lifestyle involving the use of
  sustainable methods ltsustainable societygt

38
Consider this chess board
39
An Ancient Iranian Tale

• A king once wished to reward one of his subjects,
  agreeing to reward any reasonable request. The
  man wanted 1 grain of rice for the first square
  of a chess board, 2 grains for the second, 4 for
  the 3rd, and thus doubling all the way to the
  64th square. The king thought this was
  reasonable, and agreed. What would you do, if you
  were king?

40

• It starts small enough 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64,
  128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384,
  32768, 65536, 131072, 262144, 524288, 1048576

41
Exponential Growth

• But at a certain point, things start to get ugly
• 20 squares yield about a million grains,
• 30 squares yield a billion,
• 40 squares a trillion,
• 50 squares a thousand trillion,
• 60 squares a million trillion

42
Its totally unlike adding FIXED amounts

• 10005
• 10055
• 10105
• This is a slow process, posing little problems.
  It will take 200 steps to just double.

43

• Rather in the chess case, we add percentage.
  Lets examine another puzzle
• I place a single bacterium in a dish right now,
  11 a.m., Wed., April 2, 2008. It splits into 2
  in 20 minutes, into 4 bacteria in the next 20
  minutes . . . Lets say the dish can only hold 1
  million bacteria, and that this point will be
  reach by 6 p.m. today. At what time will the
  dish be half-full?

Answer 640 Moral Crisis, when it comes, comes
fast!
44
This raises a question about earth Are we
repeating the Easter Islanders mistake?

• The answer here is clearer than it was in their
  case. Scientists have been hollering from
  rooftops about this, but no one listens. It
  takes just one graph to capture the human
  predicament!
• Relevant information EB, pp. 393-6

45
The History of Global Population Growth

• Human population Has been growing almost
  exponentially for centuries.
• Please examine the next frightening graph

46
Figure 18.24
47
Figure 18.25
48

• Another way of putting it By 12/31/08 there
  will be 70,000,000 more people on earth than
  there were in 12/31/07!!!
• Increases in the human population result in more
  people consuming resources and dumping pollutants
  into the biosphere.

49
Figure 18.27
50

• There is a wonderful book called Lies My Teacher
  Told Me. Here is one example of why most of us
  are sleepwalkersa widely used textbook (yours!)
  has only this to say about this catastrophe, this
  cataclysm, of exploding human populations
• A unique feature of human population growth is
  that we can control it with voluntary
  contraception and government-sponsored family
  planning. Leaders in almost every country
  disagree as to how much support should be
  provided for family planning.

51

• One thing we can surely agree on is that
  textbooks, like schools and the media in general,
  are not passionately committed to the truth.
• The truth is Were walking in the footsteps of
  the Easter Islanders! The truth is because more
  people mean more power for popes, and rabbis, and
  presidents, these leaders actively promote
  population growth. They care not for the
  biospheres future!

52
These popes, imams, rabbis, and Congressmen do
not want you to know this

• Warning issued on November 18, 1992
• World Scientists' Warning To Humanity

53

• Human beings and the natural world are on a
  collision course. . . . Fundamental changes are
  urgent if we are to avoid the collision our
  present course will bring about
• Questions Have there been any fundamental
  changes?

• Answer Of course there have
• for the worse!

54
There are many, many more, canaries from whence
the above 4 came, e.g.,

• Massive species extinctions (and dying frogs,
  bees, bats, birds)
• Damaged ozone layer
• Destruction of oceans, topsoils, lakes
• Synthetic chemicals everywhere
• Nuclear power and nuclear bombs

55

• Growing space pollution
• Space warfare
• Increased global genocidal activities
• Resource scarcity
• Deforestation
• Lower sperm counts and higher rates of cancer,
  asthma, autism . . .

56
Are we Sane?

• Now, the entire point of having a canary in a
  coal mine is YOU BETTER WATCH OUT When the
  canary died the miners knew they had to GET OUT
  of the minefast.
• Alas, we
• Cant get out of our mine (Earth)
• Pay no attention to the deaths of our canaries!

57
Canary 5 But in our next two lectures, well
limit ourselves to just one more tipping point
Climate Change

• Our main source for this A lecture given by Al
  Gore, a former U.S. V.P., and the man who won the
  2000 Presidential elections in the U.S.