I am a 69 year old highly educated science and news junkie. I studied geology, weather and climate, glaciers, natural resources, and populations. My studies were 45 years ago and the projections for population growth, immigration, and the potential for climate change related damage were prophetic. Climate change wasn’t yet an issue but we studied the greenhouse effect that made our planet livable. We projected what happened in past when the atmosphere had less CO2.

Our studies said we should be concerned about deforestation because that is how CO2 is pulled out of the air. Now we know the major factor is the oceans. Today’s conditions are that about half the trees then are gone and the ocean’s acidity levels are the highest in tens of thousands of years.

When people say climate change happened before and this time is no different is dead wrong. This disaster has started in the last few decades. Forty-five years ago we called global warming runaway greenhouse effect. We knew then if it started the result might be human extinction. However we never put together how it would happen.

At the time, Earth had about three billion people, lots of fish in the oceans, fifty percent more trees, and deserts and jungles where they had been for centuries. It was cold in winter and hot in summer. Occasional floods and droughts seldom lasted for more than a season. Today, we are eating fancy name fish we used to use as fertilizer or bait because the former food fish are too scarce. Fertile areas are becoming deserts. Each year world temperatures are hotter than the previous year. Long term droughts in many areas are common. Occasional droughts are now multi-season followed by short wet ones before the next drought.

The then three billion population is now 7.3 billion rising to 9 billion before 2040 and 12 billion by 2100. That’s over 85 million more each year. We are already building on prime farmland reducing land for food production. The U.S. Western drought has caused the farmers in the Imperial Valley to drill wells deeper and deeper. Some are already at the aquifer’s bottom. The Ogallala Aquifer, under the Plains states, is rapidly being emptied. It takes thousands of years to refill them. Aquifers around the world are being drained.

The Blue Marble is being stressed and that stress will become worse. The planet will continue to heat up. The oceans will continue to rise flooding the cities of billions, millions of acres of farmland, and many fresh water lakes. Types of food will have to change. Meat is not an efficient use of land and water. Everything will need to be grain based or chemical. Wars will be fought for what is left.

Just as millions are already fleeing wars in the Mid-East and Libya or famine and economic conditions, billions will need to move to survive. This pressure will mean wars to get or to protect what countries want or have. Social fabric around the world will unravel. Many of the most reliable programs say we have already reached the point of no return. This may truly be the eve of destruction.
coj 1-20-2016