Techism (and you thought totalitarianism was scary): part 5

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James Cameron's film Avatar is an icon for the theme of industry over nature, and James Cameron joined my old friend Chief Francois Paulette in his fight against the environmental damage caused by Alberta's tar sands development  An oil slump followed by the Fort McMurray wildfire demonstrates that both economic cycles and nature can bring the Alberta tar sands project to its knees far more dramatically than any protest.


The Gaia hypothesis of the seventies has been criticized in its entire picture, yet aspects of it such as its holistic approach and being aware of certain natural systems gives credit to its existence.


Keeping to my local theme, the Canadian Rocky Mountain limestone plays an important role in the earth's CO2 balance and rain in our Rockies contributes to the ecology of the oceans. This, too, was noted in the Gaia hypothesis, and you can read about the chemical process in The great chemical reaction: life and death of Gaia. With global warming, this area is becoming wetter, yet the recent, strong, El Niño effect has reversed this, temporarily, and has been instrumental in the early start of Alberta's wildfire season and its devastating huge fires. Once again, we return to the Alberta Tar sands with its end product of bring even more CO2 into the atmosphere. It would almost seem as if Mother Nature is wagging her finger at us, but all of this are purely automatic ecological processes.

Evolution, too, is an automatic and natural process that grants no favour to any species, not even Man. We are currently in the midst of the world's sixth extinction event in its history. It is called the Holocene Extinction but it is also called the Anthropocene Extinction because it is man-made.

Yet nature has evolved to counteract anything that threatens its sovereignty: The Monsanto Corporation, in playing up to human greed and disregard for its offspring attempts to increase food production by building genetically modified organisms that are both food seeds and herbicides and pesticides. It uses unethical business methods, highly questionable scientific testing procedures and political/economic sway in order to ensure that the soil will eventually produce nothing more than giant dustbowls and that our children's children will starve, be less likely to be able to reproduce, and be far more subject to cancers, all for the sake of profit to us now. Read the following:

Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality in Hamsters

New Study Links GMOs To Cancer, Liver/Kidney Damage & Severe Hormonal Disruption

Claims that GMO seed reduce the amount of herbicides and pesticides used has been proven to be false. Evolution has produced resistant superweeds and superbugs:

 Another Strike Against GMOs – The Creation of Superbugs and Superweeds

And yet, the domestic honey-bee and its wild cousins have been unable to achieve "super" status:

EPA Finally Admits What Has Been Killing Bees For Decades

Perhaps the evolutionary process is starting to include Homo Sapiens in the Holocene Extinction process. But don't worry, life will persist. Have an active weekend.


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