The Footprint of Man
For a long time I have been a concerned citizen of the world watching, wondering, and learning about how the impact of humans is changing Earth.
There are the obvious ones like: Pollution, Land degradation, Water over-use, Destruction of Land and Sea habitats and more.
But there are some non-obvious ones that are now being discussed, and these need attention, since these problems are systems and controls of how the Earth works to support biological life on it.
The Atlantic Heat Pump
This is a system of water movement around the world that moves warmer water to colder water, and vice versa. The “Atlantic Heat Pump”, also known as the Gulf Stream and its northern branches is a key system that ensures the UK and Ireland are not frozen solid - the heat coming up the Gulf Stream brings warm to the waters where aquatic life, and air temperatures allow for a much larger variety of animals (including humans) to live without the pressures of Arctic tempertures and winds.
In recent years, it has been researched that there is likely a threshold in global warming that can greatly reduce the amount of thermal energy and how far the Gulf Stream can extend northwards.
University of Heigelberg - Climate Change: The Past of the Atlantic Heat Pump
The concern is that with a reduction in the movement of these key systems, there is a possible long term biological impact on places like the UK and Ireland in the future.
Many of these systems fluctuate over time in anycase. However, with the imapct of humans on the planet, in the last 200yrs the Atlantic Heat Pump is starting to show signs of our precesnce.
The New York Times - Europes Heat Wave Has the ‘Fingerprints of Climate Change All Over It’
We also need to remember, these are closed systems. These systems, to remain consistent cannot have extra energy added or removed, because the system will logarithmically change as the inputs do.
There is a great deal of debate about climate change, but there is no debate on humans impacting Earth. We know it. We see it, and it has happened. When you account for the scales of impact we are having, then we are bound to get to a point where systems like the Atlantic Heat Pump will be affected.
Water Tables over-use
Our continual use of another system, the precipitation cycle, and the extreme over-use of the water locked in the Earths water tables is leading to unprecedented water shortages around the world:
UN - World Enters “Era of Global Water Bankruptcy”
National Geographic - Mind the water gap
The Water gap is a measure of the extra used water over the normally replenished water in an area. As can be seen by the world map, this is quite a global issue.
As more humans live in areas that were not really able to support the numbers we now have, these resources are being put under extreme pressue and the system itself is starting to suffer.
In many places around the world, the destruction of deep aquifiers has resulted in the land collapsing:
Richmond Hill, Ontario Canada - Sinking Earth, Vanishing Water
The Water Diplomat - Overexploitation of groundwater causes widespread urban subsidence in China
Wired - The Ongoing Collapse of the World’s Aquifers
Half of Chinas cities are sinking, putting most of the countrys urban population at risk
As populations put more strain on water resources, a large amount of effort and money will need to be spent to resolve how to support this volume of people. Our water footprint is large… possibly too large.
The Atmosphere
No. This will not be a CO2 discussion. We know that is a problem, along with Methane and the huge and rapid increase in particulates:
NASA - Aerosols: Small Particles with Big Climate Effects
What I want to look at is the nature of Air movement around our Atmosphere and how its also changing with the impacts we are having on the environment.
Generally the Earth has a series of cells (Hadley, Ferrel and Polar) that transfer heat and air around the Earth (North/South).
Global Atmosphere Circulations
Due to various activities with humans: CO2, Heat generation, and pollution (esp particulates) there is now a number of research papers asking the question of whether we are modifying the Weather cycle itself.
We tend to take for granted our weather cycles for a location or region. Humans impacting these cycles can have dramatic results on food production, water supply, pollution (polluted air slows or stops moving) and more.
As humans also pollute the atmosphere with Air Travel and with Industries, Mining and other transport activities we seem to lack the awareness of the long term ramifications of making the one source of human existence less and less habitable.
The Land
The Land is where we live. Its only 1/3rd of the world’s surface and the vast majority of humans on Earth live on the coast where Land and Sea meet. Our over indulgence in the modification of Land, and controlling nature is breaking many core biological systems all at once.
The water cycle, as touched on above, is being heavily impacted with dams and drainage systems that divert water away from its normal course - which, often, had been doing so for thousands and sometimes millions of years.
Changing Rivers, moving Mountains and Clearing Land are activities humans have been doing for thousands of years, but we are now doing it on such a large scale it is one of the most obvious destruction actions we take. And the systems we break simply stop functioning entirely especially when it involves habitats:
Earth.org - The Environmental Problems Caused by Mining
UK GBC - Iron Ore Mining Impacts
ALGA - Urban Sprawl ‘destroying habitats and accelerating extinction crisis’
Almost any way you look at it, our land use whether it be residential, mining, industrialm, farming or transport is outright destructive and as a human race we seem to have lost our ability to even recognise the deep impacts this is having on ourselves as well as all the systems around us.
The Shadow of the Foot
Humanitys footprint on Earth is now so large that we are the source of the majority of change happening on Earth. Not biology or natural systems, its us.
If we want a future at all, then this fundamental acknoledgement has to be made clear. The scale isnt one faceted (like Climate Change) side that needs addressing with a single “Electrification” solution - in fact, there is far too much ignorance that the impacts of throwaway “mobile phone” styled EV cars is good for us or the Earth at all?
We have to first acknowledge that our footprint as a whole is now too big for the Earth itself and it needs to be reigned in - on all sides at once. If we dont, we face a bleak future where our Mother Earth will simply not support our existence and we will have ruined our once beautiful home for the sake of progress, money and power.