Life on this little planet has evolved in leaps and bounds, via crashes and extinctions. 

We could suggest here that un-sustainability is the driving force of this evolution through adaptation to its reactivity and/to mostly local and cosmic changes. 

According to seriously comprehensive scientific studies there are evidence of warm, cold, hot, full of life, nearly barren, oxygenated, sulfur-dioxided, eras, eons, periods and seasons past.

Changes and variations, adaptation and evolution are facts of life. Life is a derivative of the surface construct and sidereal position of this little planet.

We can’t escape this disorganised ad-hoc system that follows some powerfully set assemblages of elements into molecules that make us whom we are. 

Forget the paradise lost theory. We are born from the planet’s own accidental birth.

Our present position is set in a fluid situation that we call “the environment”.

We share this environment with other species such as trees, grasses and animals — from the smallest virus to the biggest whale and our friendly pets — and laughing jackasses (pictured).

And we know that we are changing this environment. We are changing it by various ways, from increasing our populations, by building gigantic cites, by cultivating fields, by decimating the wildlife and polluting the air and the waters which we need for our own comforts — if not critical for our own now well-organised safe survival, though this is not yet universal for all of humanity, but we are working on it.

And we still carry the genes of needs which as humans we have stylistically modified as wants and greed. We know. 

We still go to war with various deceptive excuses to justify our actions. We still want what the others have. We have codified this desire by inventing economic systems built on values that have no scientific intrinsicness. 

PRESENTLY, THERE IS A CONFUSION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET, IN REGARD TO OUR BURNING OF FOSSIL FUELS.

Why is this so?

As explained many times on this site, the atmosphere is a very thin protective and nurturing layer with specific characteristics and reactivity in the surface equation of an element which we call carbon. For example, daily, the natural process of photosynthesis is about six times the energy process of all our human activities combined.

Photosynthesis, birth and death of all life form have impacted the carbon equation of the surface of the planet, including the atmosphere. There is a dynamic relationship between what dies and the composition of the atmosphere. Mass extinctions have occurred in the past eons, for various reasons from Milankovitch Cycles to sun spots and reactivity, from meteorite cataclysms to the gaseous mix of the atmosphere until changes occur — some brutal, some gradual.

So what has died in the past, impacted the balance of the geo-life at the time and set subsequent momentum of changes.

So, where are we up to now? WHAT’S THE PROGNOSIS, DOC?

Should we coast along and carry on our industrial evolution without paying attention to :

POLLUTION OF ALL KINDS?

CHANGING THE ATMOSPHERE GASEOUS MIX?

OUR DESIRE TO DOMINATE OTHER HUMANS AND NATURE.

This article is called “The evolution of un-sustainability” because at no stage of life, as established by our foray into extinctions and evolution on this planet, was there sustainability. in order to have evolution, there needs to be changes in the thrust of life. 

SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH SUSTAINABILITY?

We are playing with fire. 

We are burning the ancestors who died 150 million years ago. 

Oil is the result of mass extinction of animal life.

Coal is the result of mass extinction of plant life.

By burning them, we return to the surface carbon-equation, extra carbon that had been absent for these 150 million years or so… 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Simple. We are returning the ghosts (natural un-sustainability) of what killed these animals and plants in mass extinctions (the processes are scientifically catalogued, but too complex to expose here).

What the serious scientific observations tell us is that these ghosts are simple logistics between atmospheric/oceanic/earthly dynamics that KILLED THEM OFF. 

What happened?

for the last 500 million years, the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat is generated on the surface of the planet. Variations in this content are mostly produced by “life on earth” in a life and death cycle. and this is produced by un-sustainable condition over millions of years. We have waived good bye to trilobites and to the dinosaurs... Some of the earliest life forms are still with us, such as stromatolites.

Adaptation to change, adaptation to un-sustainability is mostly the key to survival. The dinosaurs did not die by being hit on the head by a huge meteorite, but the meteorite impact changed the surface parameters that were necessary to the survival of the dinosaurs. They vanished over a million years after that.

So we know that some changes can impact survival.

We know that for the last million years (how time flies), the dynamic changes on the planet have NATURALLY oscillated between Warm and Cool periods. We have placed the blame of the wobbles of the planet, the so-called Milankovitch Cycles — which in turn influence the carbon cycle on the planet: — 180 ppm for cool periods and 300 ppm for warm period. these variations of CO2 are the driver of temperature changes.

SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

According to the Milankovitch Cycles, we are on the way to a cool period, that is to say we should see the natural 300 ppm of CO2 drop slowly towards 180 ppm of CO2, as the planet cools off.  

BUT! Buttttttt!!!!!!

Rigorous measurements of atmospheric CO2 tell us that instead of dropping from 300 ppm, CO2 concentration is now 420 ppm.

SHOULD WE WORRY?

According to Svante Arrhenius, who did extraordinary calculation in the late nineteenth century, by 1900, there was enough EXTRA CO2 (due to the industrial revolution) to raise the planet temperature by 2 degrees Celsius. Was he correct?

YES.

Simply yes.

BUT…………

We know something of elasticity. Due to the amount of complexity in the process that involves a great number of feedback mechanisms, including the recapture of CO2 by plant life and the oceans, the timing of cause and effect in this process is out of kilter by about 100 to 200 years. 

Some of these feedback mechanisms included the Albedo effect and the melting of glaciers and polar ice, which like an ice-block in a glass of whisky is going to cool the whisky WHILE MELTING. Enjoy.

And since 1900, we have added enough CO2, to warm the planet by an extra 9 degrees Celsius by 2200 — once all polar ice has melted. Back to just before the time when there was no ice caps and the seas turned into toxic soup — and the dead plants animals and plants became oil and coal over another few million years afterwards. 

We have added more un-sustainability into the system.

What do we do? 

NO MORE OIL? It’s a big call when all our economic system of profiteering is based on coal and gas and oil….

I leave it with you, the young generations….

And by the way, as we carry on, EVEN IF WE DO NOTHING OR EVERYTHING TO REDUCE OUR EMISSIONS OF CO2 (METHANE AND NOXs) there could be some “turning points”… My own estimate as proposed on this site has been 2032. Be prepared.

Gus Leonisky

Cartoonist since 1951 and rabid atheist since time un-remembered….

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Image at top by Gus Leonisky.....