The Earth Hearing

by Daniel Plonix

  “They remove copious quantities of biomass and water from circulation. They cover ever-more surface area with farms and asphalt. The process of fulfilling the needs and wants of over seven billion humans is stripping Earth of its capacity to maintain complex ecosystems. They are burning through the reserves of the planet, drawing down on its capital.

  “And as long as the human population here swells its ranks by over two hundred thousand consumers each day, any conservation measures are little more than makeshift dikes. At best, lower-­impact, higher-­efficiency technologies slow down the bankruptcy of the biosphere and delay the shortfall in natural resources. At worst, they free up financial assets and make it possible to direct purchasing power elsewhere, with a net increase in economic activities and ecological footprint.

  “Sand and clay, metal ores, coal and peat, crops and fiber, trees and animals—currently, the Terraneans process and consume on average twelve tons of materials per person per year. It adds up. And it goes beyond that. The extraction of 1 kg of gypsum causes the disturbance of 1.83 kg of earth. For 1 kg of lead 15.6 kg of earth needs to be disturbed. The extraction of 1 kg of tin requires 8,500 kg of earth disturbance. And to end up with 1 kg of gold necessitates 540,000 kg of earth disturbance.

  “There is no endgame, Your Graces. It is growth as an end in itself: an infinite economic growth on a finite planet.”

  One of the commissioners said, “We have here noted that the Earth people have harnessed electricity in recent generations.”

  “Yes, Madam Commissioner.”

  “How do they go about it?”

  “Your Graces, I don’t know if you thought of it, but when you’ve got coiled copper wires rotating within a magnetic field, electricity is generated.”

  “Well,” one of the commissioners finally said, “how do they get to spin it for years and decades on end?”

  “In the majority of cases, it’s steam pressure applied for turning a propeller-­like device that in turn rotates the coil of wires.”

  “Do they use the sun to heat up water for the generation of steam?”

  “They mostly burn things to produce the needed heat.”

  “Burn? You said burn?”

  “This is what I was getting at.”

  Disapproval gleamed in the presiding chair’s eyes. “What happens when the fuel is consumed?”

  “Well, Your Grace, they take more organic stock and burn that too.”

  The robed figure waved his hand impatiently. “I don’t care how big of a pile you have; you will eventually burn it. And it doesn’t take that long, either. This doesn’t go anywhere.”

  “It has been going—for over a century now. In fact, millennia, if you count the trees too. They just keep burning things nonstop. Massive amounts.”

  The commissioners were stunned into silence, as the statement sunk in.

  “How much—what are we talking about here?” asked one of them.

  “The Terraneans located most of the petroleum, coal, and natural gas deposits. And they are burning the entire planetary reserve. They burn coal to generate electricity; they burn petroleum to drive vehicles; they burn natural gas to heat homes.”

  The Chief Examiner rested his hands on the lectern. “On Earth, fossil fuel makes possible maritime transport, aviation, and mechanized agriculture. In addition to heating, it also provides night-and-day, rain-or-shine electricity—powering data centers, air conditioners, and lighting. It goes beyond these things, yet.

  “Natural gas is a major feedstock in the manufacture of ammonia for use in fertilizer production, on which a substantial portion of the population indirectly depends. Petrochemicals are the primary constituents of nylon, polyester, formaldehyde, polystyrene, and synthetic rubber. Petrochemicals are in inks and dyes, bottles and packages, adhesives and sealants. They are in computers and cell phones, in tires and asphalt.

  “Your Graces, their society as it exists is predicated on burning off and otherwise utilizing around the equivalent of two hundred million oil barrels a day. Had it all been comprised of petroleum, the annual volume would have been roughly equal to the volume of water in Lake Superior.

  “Most of the low-hanging fruits have been picked, and they are moving in some regions to tar sands and inferior coal deposits, remote offshore drilling, and blasting oil and gas out of rocks.

  “Needless to say, there are finite number of energy-sensible deposits to extract and use up. It was always a matter of time until the energy yielded from them in relation to the energy invested in excavating and refining them will gradually stop making sense, resulting in a lower supply of fossil fuel. With current energy ratios of around 6:1 for finished fuels and around 3:1 for produced electricity, fossil fuels are already far less appealing and far more taxing on the economy than they were back in their heyday. It has always been a question of when. In a time scale of their election cycles or annual reports, these deposits might as well be infinite. In a time scale of centuries, they are not.

  “Earth people have gone out on an energy limb propped by the gargantuan injection of fossil fuels, allowing the existence of billions of people who arguably could not have existed otherwise. The obvious question is, what happens to the many billion humans perched and multiplying on a tree branch, a fossil-fuel branch, that is continuously being whittled away? It is debatable what is worse: that the coffers of fossil fuel will dwindle all too soon, or that they will not dwindle soon enough. Bolstered by the power of petrochemicals, the people here eat the Earth raw.”

  “Speaking of which…”

  “Indeed, Your Grace. If I may, I will touch upon matters of food production.” Rafirre bowed.

  “Aside from the vast deserts, ice sheets, and tundra, the Terraneans have commandeered the bulk of the Earth’s surface to produce food, fodder, and fiber.

  “Your Graces, we estimate global demand for food will increase by half in the next few decades owing to population growth coupled with a shift toward a more meat-heavy diet among the poorer populations.

  “Then there is the matter of supply. Arable land per capita is shrinking in nearly all regions as a result of soil erosion, salinification, and soil compaction.

  “Under the current climate-change trajectory, temperate and sub-­tropical agricultural areas are anticipated to bear substantial crop yield losses due to extreme heat episodes. By the end of the century, such episodes may reduce global spring wheat yields by half, and soybean yields by a quarter.

  “Some regions are expected to experience megadroughts in the decades to come. I understand you’ve been briefed on the geo­political divisions on Earth. So, let me say that this may occur foremost in the Mediterranean Basin, western United States, and southern Africa. Extreme droughts are predicted to increase ten­fold by the end of this century, augmented by the loss of rain-­producing forests. In some regions, this will coincide with the disappearance of glaciers and ground­water depletion.

  “Your Graces, groundwater meets the domestic needs of much of the population of India, which constitutes a significant segment of humanity here. Close to half of India’s agricultural output comes from lands irrigated by groundwater. There will come a time when water reserves will be exhausted in Pakistan, southern India, northeast China, central United States, and western Iran.

  “This is mostly due to irrigation. It accounts for over 90 percent of the water consumption in the world. And often it is done by flooding or through open channels, that is to say, an indiscriminate and wasteful use of water.” Rafirre gave a slight shrug. “They are fully aware of the minute volume they would have used up had they switched wholesale to drip lines buried underground, which release small amounts of water into the plant root zone. Not that irrigation would have been needed in most cases had they managed the land in a regenerative fashion.”

  “I understand the Himalayas are losing some of their ice,” said one of the commiss
ioners, holding up a sheaf of papers.

  “Yes, Your Grace—a result of an increase in soot that settles on the ice coupled with rising temperatures. It’s mostly happening in the lower altitudes, where the loss is up to five meters of vertical ice each year. In total, the Himalayas lose about eight billion tons of water annually. Not a happy prospect for the eight-hundred million people who rely on the seasonal snowmelt for irrigation, drinking, and the generation of electricity. On the other side of the world, a similar thing is taking place in Peru, which lost over a quarter of its glacier cover in the past fifteen years. Drinking water, large-scale irrigation and hydroelectric power—all depend on these glaciers.”

  “Well then, water, food supply, and fuel,” summed up one of the commissioners. “What do you reckon will happen if the Earth people bump hard against any of those ceilings?”

  “Your Grace, our paramount concern, of course, is the planetary ecosystem. On their own, those people struggling for survival have little to moderate impact. Our fear is possible sharp flares of anxiety among the broader population, fueled by the prospects of shortages. The reactions can easily be out of all proportion to the actual extent of shortage and spell riots and looting, upheavals in the financial systems, migrations on a large scale, geopolitical conflicts, and supply chain shutdowns.

  “In effect, what we have here is over seven billion omnivores spread over a pint-sized planet. They are fed and clothed and have access to water only due to very sophisticated supply lines. If things go off kilter, it may translate to localized spikes of destruction and no-holds-barred decimation of wildlife and the natural environment.”

  The commissioners conferred among themselves. Once again, the sound of snapping fabric dominated the large clearing.

  “You have alluded to the prospect of an inhospitable climate.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “What are we looking at?”

  “With the permission of the commission, I will let the director of the Nature Survey Group speak to this.”

  Rafirre stepped down and silently acknowledged the willowy woman who took his place. She adjusted her sari-like dress then rested her arms on the lectern. “May it please the commission,” she said. “In recent millennia, widespread deforestation, followed by soil degradation, has severely altered and degraded the hydrology of this planet. Extensive areas of land retain little moisture and are devoid of living plant cover, hence, diminishing the Earth’s capacity to modulate the weather.

  “Under the present industrialization trends and population-growth trajectory, fossil-fuel utilization and burning are most likely to intensify for many decades to come, that is, provided the remaining economically-­recoverable deposits hold.

  “Under such a scenario, within one human lifetime the population may come to experience occasional extreme heat episodes that, coupled with existing humidity levels, will be lethal in parts of southern Asia and North America. People are liable to experience wildfires and water restrictions in Europe; crop failures in South America; vector and waterborne disease outbreaks in Africa and Central America.

  “The planet will have harsher and more frequent tropical storms, landslides, droughts, and flooding. Due to sea level rise, Earth will have coastal erosions as well as saltwater contaminations. Saint-Louis, Senegal, and the Sundarbans, India, are only the start. Ocean water will become more acidic, its temperature will go up, and mid-water regions of low oxygen are expected to expand with possible detrimental effects on zooplankton and by implication on the ocean’s food web—essentially, a repeat of what transpired about 420 million years ago.”

  One of the commissioners asked, “Has the change of climate already affected things?”

  “Your Grace, it is hard to isolate climate change from the other stressors afflicting Earth, or to ascertain if some weather episodes are a result of a changing climate regime.

  “All the same, lakes have been drying or outright disappearing in western Greenland. Millions of acres of land have burned in Canada and Australia and the United States. We observed high-intensity, short-­duration droughts in southern Africa; extreme heat episodes in southern India and Thailand; extreme rainfall in some parts of China. In a tropical rainforest in Puerto Rico and the dry forests of Mexico, the insect population has died off almost entirely, along, of course, with that of birds and frogs.

  “We found out that about half of the coral reefs have been lost in the last few decades. The once-luxuriant giant kelp forests covering much of the coastal areas of eastern Australia and Tasmania have wilted in intolerably warm and nutrient-poor water. A warm-water sea urchin species moved in and mowed down much of the remaining vegetation. Same thing is happening in northern California and Oregon. Lush kelp forests have been devoured in recent years and replaced with vast areas of denuded seafloor brimming with nothing but purple sea urchins.

  “Mild temperatures have allowed more insect larvae to survive the North­west winters in the United States. They have attacked trees, bur­rowed in, and laid their eggs. A great number of trees have died. Mean­while, in south­eastern Alaska, the yellow cedar died in big numbers as the shallow roots freeze in the absence of protective snow cover in the late winter and early spring. In fact, we have been noting some tree die-offs through­out the world.

  “In Zimbabwe, mountain acacias are dying; in Namibia, centuries-old, quiver trees are dying. And across the reaches of southern Africa, they have lost eight of the thirteen oldest and five of the six largest baobab trees, one of whom was the eldest of the elders—having been already an old tree when the Roman Empire came into being. The baobabs have all died inexplicably in the last twelve years.” She took a deep breath. “At the same time, in the last couple of years, twenty-eight of the giant sequoia trees have died in California, some of them have been two-thousand-years old. All died prematurely.”

  “Your Graces, under a business-as-usual scenario, where fossil-fuel reserves meet demand, global temperatures may correspond by the end of the century to those Earth last had over three million years ago. However, there is no comparison. It is one thing to have the climate change over hundreds of thousands of years or even over thousands of years, allowing most species to either evolve or work their way to new, suitable habitats. It is entirely different to turn the temperature dial a handful of degrees over a period of two lifetimes—along with violent weather patterns—for a planetary ecosystem that is largely bankrupt with only isolated, hemmed-in pockets of intact nature.”

  “Are the Earth people aware of the prospects of a relatively rapid climate change?”

  “Most assuredly, Madam Commissioner. Unlike other environmental stressors to which they’re generally indifferent to, a vocal segment of the public pushes to have something done about the prospect of climate change. You see, unlike the other issues that merely affect the natural world, many Terraneans are convinced that an inhospitable climate may prove deadly to them. Or more to the point, to those in the first-class cabin.”

  “Would it?”

  The director shrugged noncommittally. “Undoubtedly it will afflict the comfortable and inconvenient the better off.”

  “What about the vulnerable segment of the population?” asked one of the commissioner.

  “Your Grace, indirectly, a sizable number of people on Earth will suffer due to the climate change. But then again, a sizable number of people on Earth has always suffered. Yet, life such as it is just goes on. A change is seemingly impossible.”

  “Point taken,” stated the presiding chair. “But I doubt we would be sitting here considering a fast track had inhospitable climate been the only stressor afflicting this planetary ecosystem.”

  “That is correct, presiding chairman.” The head of the Nature Survey Group shuffled some papers. “This planet has been subjected to a wide range of toxic chemicals. They come from consumer products, pharmaceutical byproducts, and herbicides. They are byproducts of
power generation, incineration, and industrial processes. More than eighty thousand compounds are used commercially, and hundreds of new ones are added each year. Pesticides, prescription drugs, industrial solvents, mine wastes, and plastics have become ubiquitous throughout the nature world.

  “Each year, the Terraneans release billions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment. There are cancer-causing chemicals, such as benzene and ethylene oxide; there are chemicals linked to developmental problems, such as toluene and nitrous oxide; there are chemicals that cause reproductive disorders, like carbon disulfide; or those that are respiratory toxicants, such as acid aerosols of hydrochloric acid. Many of these toxic chemicals persist in the environment, circulating between air, water, and soil. They are coming in contact with wildlife everywhere. A slew of chemical compounds the humans here generate—from insect repellents to jet fuel to various plastics—not only affect animals but determine gene expression of their descendants. All of these stressors take a punishing toll on the biosphere.

  “There has been a steady decline in the distribution of wild species’ populations. Pressures on biodiversity continue to mount. The key stressors driving biodiversity loss have been overexploitation of species, invasive alien species, pollution, rapid climate change, and foremost the degradation, fragmentation, and destruction of natural habitats. On top of which, the possible decimation of certain soil microbes, due to climate change, will have unknown repercussions on soil fertility, the bedrock of life.

  “Your Graces, this planet is currently amidst a mass extinction wave. It has been comprised by a series of pulses across various regions commencing about forty-five thousand years ago in Australia. First to exit the scene were many of the giant animals and top predators. Extinctions proceeded with the massive clearing of land and its conversion to human habitats and croplands. Why, in the last fifty years, North America lost close to three billion birds. You can regard this as the canary in the coal mine. Nearly three billion canaries at that. And then there are the insects. Largely due to the local destructive agricultural practices, we project that in the next few decades almost half of the world’s insect species will become extinct.” She let this sink in, and then she unloaded the rest of it. “This is likely to have catastrophic cascade effects on birds, reptiles, fish, and amphibians that live on insects. We are talking about the possible collapse of entire ecosystems.”