More and more often we are being told of the collapse of the natural world.
Of course, no-one can tell you why, for instance, North America has lost almost one third of it’s bee population. Is it because of subtle changes in heat? The spread and level of pesticide spraying, perhaps. Whatever the reason, it is happening, so the time for blame is over. By that, I mean that the time where we find out exactly why, and who is to blame, then mete out the appropriate punishment is a waste of time that just holds back what we need to do – replace that population. Without the pollination that this area of the food chain gives us, we can kiss goodbye to most of our crops – not only to sell overseas, but to eat ourselves. Perhaps this is part of the global food shortage, another facet of the increasingly bleak mosaic we are facing in the Third World today, that will affect the Western world sooner than we think – about a week next Wednesday, probably.
Butterflies are in a similar precarious position. This important, fragile creature has seen it’s usual habitats under threat. Not only due to a warming climate, but also to the man-made disaster of woodland thinning and the planting of only profitable crops in vast swathes of North America. There are over 43 species of butterfly now extinct, or getting there, and the rate of the collapse of this creature globally is exponentially increasing year over year. If you think about it, haven’t you noticed the amount of butterflies you are used to seeing have at least thinned out over the last five years? Many experts believe that butterflies aren’t dying off, they are simply moving to new areas to better their chances of survival. Of course, in the next few years this is exactly what human beings will do – they will follow the cooler climates North. In 2007, it was announced that the change to the climate in the 40 degree North and South area of the globe would be a rise of about 1 degree. You could almost hear the sigh of relief: “One Degree? Hell, that’s nothing.” Unfortunately, it isn’t these areas of a warming globe that is the problem, but it is the refuge area that lots of humans will try to get to in a hurry in the next Decade or so.
You can forget 40 degrees South, because the only habitable areas down there is the South Island of New Zealand, and Southern Australia, with a tiny mountainous sliver of South America. It is the areas of North America and Western Europe that will feel the brunt of this exodus: Time to get out your atlas.
There is a band of deserts and ‘too hot to live’ areas North and South of the equator. Either side of this is a desert zone that takes up most of the Southern Hemisphere. No-one lives in a desert in any great numbers, and the Rain Forest area is going toward a desert-like temperature. You can forget anyone living in any great comfort there very soon. This means that anywhere South of Denver, Kansas City, Charleston and Newport News Virginia will be too hot to live. While cities like Las Vegas has shown that you can import water and make an oasis livable, a choice will have to be made between feeding H2O to Vegas, or Los Angeles. There WILL be riots.
In South America and Africa, you can say goodbye to vast metropolises like Buenos Aries, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, et al. Where will these people go? They will all head North to survive: That’s Billions of people, pople. How about Africa and Asia? All of the North African coast, Israel, Arab nations, and the major hubs of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Kampala, etc. Asia? India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and the rest of S. E. Asia. All will empty and come North. How far North? Using the same latitude marker as we did with North America, that mans goodbye to Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, and the majority of the Muslim and Islamic republics. In other words almost two-thirds of the population of the planet will try to fit into one third of it, while their citizens are getting older, unable to move.
It is these very areas that right now use labour from the Southern hemisphere, latin America, and beyond as it’s cheap labour. We have to get ready for this gigantic shift. Very soon, there won’t be a chance to patrol a border, the very crush of the poor will be too great. With our birth rates almost at a standstill, the face of the entire planet is about to change, and wars wil be for water, food and shelter, nothing more. Of course, there will be less of these three items, too.
The idea of butterflies and bees disappearing may be a tiny detail in your life,. but they are – literally – the canary in the coal mine. It’s past the time to find out who is to blame. It’s time to face the new global paradigm, and start making changes. In a future with less pollination, the God your neighbour prays to becomes a tiny detail. Get used to changes, and start doing something about it, now.
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