Environmental policies will doom us

Democracy is dead. Regardless of who wins November’s elections the super rich and the largest corporations will continue to determine all major policies. They have bought and paid for enough elected officials from both major parties that they have no effective opposition on the national or state level.

Civilization is doomed. In his 2006 book “The Revenge of Gaia,” James Lovelock explained we were dangerously close to a tipping point beyond which the environment could repair itself. Recent studies have convinced me that we have passed that tipping point. Statistically in a six-year period we can now expect one cool year, one normal, and four hotter than normal. This year, 2012, is the new normal.

For raising corn Minnesota is the new Kansas. Maple syruping is moving from New England to Canada. Lovelock projected that 100 years after the tipping point the only place left on earth to raise food would be the Arctic. That couldn’t support a world population of more than 1 billion people, leading to violence, war and massive starvation.

Much food production depends on waters from streams that depend on mountain snow runoffs, which are drastically reduced or have disappeared. In Africa three-fourths of the rivers and streams have gone dry, leading to widespread famine and drought. Most of the world’s fresh water is frozen in glaciers that are rapidly melting and running into the salty ocean. Scientists recently concluded that we passed a tipping point and that the oceans will rise for the next 500 years. Most seashores are dead zones and coral reefs are disappearing.

Eventually the environment will repair itself but that may take 4,000 years. Meanwhile, the civilization we have known will be dead. Have a nice day.

R. Kent Kirkwood

Mount Prospect