New Topic; Message of BR: How can we act against ignorance?
ch....@t-online.de
Dear Anastassia, dear group-members,
up to now we discussed within this group different scientific/functional questions on Biotic Regulation (BR). The contributions were very interesting and surely will be also in the future. Nevertheless I‘d like to make you aware of another important question: Although BR certainly still comprises a broad field of necessary research in detail, the outcome of the scientific work on this subject over many years gives us already today a clear message which means: If humankind will not reduce energy consumption and population at least tenfold and will not stop further destruction of the biota, a prevention of the looming climate collapse with all foreseeable collateral damages will be impossible. I think, everybody being aware of this threat has the moral duty to warn people of this danger.
This was done by Anastassia and Victor more than once in their books (1995 and 2000) and a series of scientific publications. I did it in my book about immorality, which Anastassia mentioned some weeks ago in one of her postings to this group. But the resonance up to now seems to be literally ZERO. I issued my book for free to a number of organizations and institutions responsible for Environment and Nature Conservation such as BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany) or FFF (Fridays for Future) and others, also to the BMU (Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety) and some newspapers in Germany , but there was no response at all; it is simply unbelievable!
The „scientific” mainstream seems still to be fixed to the narrative: „For saving the world you only have to displace the fossil energies by renewable energies“. This view is supported by most scientists in the Western world. (May be everybody is waiting for a great investment program for industry where science could participate. This would bring more money than conservation of Nature!)
Dear colleagues, not knowing to handle this situation I would like to discuss the question how to act against this ignorance. I think it is high time because the slot for saving a stable climate for our civilization is obviously shrinking. Otherwise, the next generations will have to suffer terribly because of the consequences.
I would be grateful for your comments.
Best regards,
Christian Klee
Anastassia Makarieva
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Biotic Regulation of the Environment" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to biotic-regulat...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/biotic-regulation/000001d70947%248febc400%24afc34c00%24%40t-online.de.
ch....@t-online.de
Dear Anastassia,
thank you for your response and trying to draw a more optimistic picture of the world’s future. Nevertheless this could not calm down my concern. I’ll shortly tell why:
First: World Population is still expected to grow up to roughly 10 billion by 2050, thereafter further growing more slowly.
Second: Demand for primary energy (PE) will also grow by about 40% (IEA) in relation to 2020 within this time frame. The Paris climate agreement requires to switch over from fossil energy to renewable energies (RE), which, because of the worse conversion efficiency from RE to usable energy, will claim for even more PE, also because of the need of energy storage.
Because of the very small energy density of RE compared to fossil energy, RE have a much greater need for free space (about tenfold for Wind, Solar, Water) and more than hundred- to thousandfold for biomass. It’s not clear, where this additional space can be found without doing harm to the natural biota. A concentration of energy extraction in deserts e.g. by installing solar panels, seems to be a questionable intervention into the earth’s energy system (similar to the methods of geo-engineering).
Third: Mankind’s consumption of the productivity of the biota (NPP) is more than 10% , the ecological limit for all large vertebrates being less than 1%. That’s why we can perceive “first mild signs” of the climate change. A growing world population will doubtless aggravate this situation because of the need to cultivate more natural area.
Fourth: Up to now humankind ravaged about 70% of the natural land biota (nearly 50% of its biotic regulation power). Higher population density and energy consumption will both certainly destroy the remaining virgin areas and the rest of the land biota’s regulation power. Artificial restoring of destroyed ecosystems e.g. planting trillion trees surely will be helpful for CO2 -sequestration as well as providing food and materials for mankind, but the theory of biotic regulation tells us, it is a “wrong” biota, meaning it is worse than leaving it being destroyed.
In summary: If the concept of biotic regulation (BR) is correct and biota is constitutive for the earth’s climate (and not biota is adapting to the climate), humankind primarily has to preserve the biota and respect the natural limits. After all I learned about the BR-concept, it is a solid, comprehensible theory resulting from research in different scientific areas and proven by different methods. Although specific research has still to be done, the available results provide clear and robust postulations. However, perceiving the signals of climate change, mankind seems not to be willing to perform the necessary actions, while thinking to be able to solve the problem by only using scientific and technological knowledge. This seems to me like arrogance in the minds of policy- makers, but regrettably also in those of some established scientists not thinking outside the box. So, a lot of investments will take place in the field of RE and perhaps also in further cultivation of virgin nature – and climate change will continue and speed up. I think I’s a shame, that none of the so called “Environment and Nature Conservation Associations” is willing or able to look beyond the horizon (like did the Club of Rome in the timeframe from 1972-2004).
Best regards,
Christian
Von: Anastassia Makarieva <ammak...@gmail.com>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 25. Februar 2021 06:25
An: Christian Klee <ch....@t-online.de>
Cc: Biotic Regulation of the Environment biotic-r...@googlegroups.com
Betreff: Re: [Biotic regulation] New Topic; Message of BR: How can we act against ignorance?
Dear Christian,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. The population numbers problem is indeed the number one problem, and Victor recognized it as such. I recall that when I was a young student first reading his 1995 book, I was so ignorant that I did not even conceive to count people on Earth and of course I knew nothing about what the global population number was, per capita consumption etc. It was not just an eye-opener (it was), but an enormous intellectual shock for me to understand how the number of people and life's stability are connected.
While it is distressing to see so much focus on carbon and less on population numbers, let me share with you my somewhat unexpectedly more optimistic perspective. (I recall we discuss some aspects of this problem with Mats).
This is global per capita energy consumption in kg of oil equivalent (which has been, and remains, mostly fossil fuels):
The blue line is the Earth, yellow is China and green is India, WorldBank data as provided to me by Google.
And this is the global birth rate
Anastassia Makarieva
ch....@t-online.de
Dear Anastassia,
thank you for clarifying your understanding of “restoration” in this special case of planting “trillions of trees”. Thank you also for making me aware of the interesting papers of ”One Earth” about ecosystem-restoration. Especially the article about “Rewilding” (“Rewilding should be central to global restoration efforts”; by Jens-Christian Svenning) provides very interesting information, although the conclusion seems to me far too optimistic. In this context I remember the work of Tony Rinaudo, an Australian agronomist, who revolutionized reforestation in Africa using the so called “Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)”. His method is based on pruning and protecting the regrowth sprouting from tree stumps and roots even in degraded landscapes. The land is thus revitalized on the basis of the original tree population. Meanwhile the method is implemented in a number of African countries. Since 1983 more than 200 million trees have grown over 5 million hectares of degraded farmland. In 2018 Rinaudo was one of the prize winners of the “Right Livelihood Award”. Presumably you are already aware of this issue. If not, there exists a book introducing himself and his idea, also in English (152 pp):
If you are interested but have no access to this book I could procure it for you.
Best wishes,
