Every Minute 138 Acres Looted

*Nature is irrefutably exhibiting the unavoidable effects from extracting and combusting fossil fuels: Death. The latest shocking reminder is the record number of fatalities from last week’s northern California firestorms.

Extinction - California's Camp Fire
California’s Camp Fire was the deadliest firestorm in state history. As of November 16, 2018, there are 63 fatalities and 631 unaccounted people. Image credit: The Weather Channel

In the meantime, the Paris-based International Energy Agency recently projected that by 2025 the U.S. will produce half the global oil and gas from its water-poisoning fracking bonanza.

Here’s what we know: Burning fossil fuels has caused atmospheric oxygen to plummet.

Image credit: Scripps Oxygen Program

Fossil fuel heat in the oceans has prevented the cold currents from upwelling and carrying iron and nitrogen to fertilize phytoplankton (the basis of the entire marine food-web). Phytoplankton and blue green bacteria also account for almost two of every three breaths of oxygen. 40 percent of oceanic phytoplankton is currently missing.

That’s why we need all cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) alive and farming the sea with their flocculent fecal plumes rich in iron and nitrogen. The cetaceans are helping to replenish phytoplankton and atmospheric oxygen.

Last year, my colleagues reported that elevated temperature from burning fossil fuels in conjunction with pillaging 72.6 million acres of ancient forests annually resulted in the tropical forests emitting more CO2 (from decomposing and soils breathing “heavier”) than oxygen.

Man’s insatiable destruction of masterpiece ancient forests hath no bounds. Image credit: T.J. Watts

The Amazon rainforests, or, the lungs of the planet, have slowed down breathing by one third. Houston, we have a problem.

The Amazon rainforests, or, the lungs of the planet, have slowed down breathing by one third. Houston, we have a problem.”

Each year, Earth is losing an area of ancient forests the size of Italy. Those forest graveyards are annually bleeding the equivalent climate destroying greenhouse gases of the U.S., or, approximately 6.5 billion tons. It’s hideous.

Caption: A massive area of the eastern Amazon rainforests is tinderbox dry from relentless droughts. Firestorms are raging five weeks before Christmas (2018). Unprecedented. Image credit: NASA

About a decade ago, researchers from the Worldwatch Institute calculated that animal agriculture was responsible for 51 percent of the climate destroying greenhouse gases. They included the whopping tropical deforestation in order to plant animal feed crops of soybean and corn.

Earth’s ancient forests provide all life with more than one of every three breaths of oxygen. So now both the plush mats of phytoplankton and the ancient forests are releasing significantly less oxygen. No oxygen. No life.

This is a clarion wake-up call.

Earth’s life support systems are under siege. Earlier this year, it prompted the United Nations (U.N.) to issue a grim warning: The destruction of Nature is as dangerous as the Man-made climate crisis.

Extinction - Orca grieves carrying dead calf
Critically endangered Southern Resident orca Tahlequah grieved for 17 days whilst carrying her dead calf in her mouth for a record 1,000 miles. Heartbreaking. Image credit: Ken Balcomb/Center for Whale Research

Since 1970, 83 percent of all mammals are gone. 60% of all animals have vanished. Insect populations globally have disappeared1.5 billion North American birds are missing. Bird populations in France are racing to extinction. Nature’s golden-haired pollinators, the bees, are in terrible strife.

Sharkfin poachers have decimated reef and mid-ocean shark species by 90 percent. Image credit: Shawn Heinrichs/Pew Environment Group

100 million sharks annually are indiscriminately snared and poached. Since 1950, 70 percent of all sea birds have vanished. The Sixth Mass Extinction is accelerating as fast as 10,000 times the previous five others.

Elephantsrhinostigerspangolinsdingoeswolves,
salmonorcascoral reefs and so many more species are all facing imminent extinction. Extinction means forever.

Rising temperatures, colossal tree graveyards on all forested continents, pernicious Man-made poisons and the loss of all pollinators means that global food security is now in dire jeopardy.

With a lack of political leadership and the climate crisis colliding with an accelerating Sixth Mass Extinction, it’s incumbent upon each citizen to do the heavy lifting and protect our only home.

Ladies and gentlemen, each one of us is a powerful force. When we link-up, we are an unstoppable force for goodness.

  • Join the resistance.
  • Consume less.
  • Refuse plastics.
  • Refuse to support corporations that are killing Earth.
  • Get involved in local, state and federal politics.
  • Plant food-bearing trees, encircling the soils surround them with water-saving wood chips.
  • Drive less, ride a bicycle and walk more.
  • Become a vegan.
  • Partake in peaceful demonstrations.
  • Start and blog or an Instagram account and promote conservation.
  • Support the direct action conservation movement of Sea Shepherd because they protect the whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Be the change that the planet and Nature demands. Remember that change is opportunity in disguise.

Please disconnect from electronic devices for 15 minutes each day. Stand under a large tree and breathe its potent free medicinals, which boost the body’s autoimmune system by up to 40 percent!

#FightForThePlanet

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Dr. Reese Halter

Dr Reese Halter is an award-winning broadcaster, distinguished conservation biologist and author.

Dr Reese Halter’s latest book is
Love! Nature

Tweet @RelentlessReese

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