Posthuman Blues

Sewerage and fertilisers 'are killing the seas'

(Yes, you read "sewerage" correctly. This is a British 'zine.)

"'Humankind is engaged in a gigantic, global, experiment as a result of the inefficient and often over-use of fertilisers, the discharge of untreated sewage and the ever rising emissions from vehicles and factories,' said Klaus Toepfer, the UN environment programme (UNEP) director. 'The nitrogen and phosphorous from these sources are being discharged into rivers and the coastal environment or being deposited from the atmosphere, triggering these alarming and sometimes irreversible effects.'"

Maybe I'll start flipping off Hummers after all . . .

But wait! It gets better:

Nanotech buckyballs kill fish

"Scientists today announced research suggesting buckyball molecules can trigger organ damage in fish, raising fears over the safety of the technology. When added to aquarium water, the particles also devastated the population of Daphnia, the tiny water-fleas near the bottom of the food chain."

If we can hasten the demise of our biosphere using primitive industrial technology, just imagine what poorly understood stuff like nanotech is likely to do if stupidly unleashed into the environment.

The upshot is that we can eventually design nanobots programmed to seek out pollutants and render them harmless. But by the time we develop a technological immune system for our oceans and atmosphere, the ecological bedrock may have crumbled beneath us. It will be too late; our only option will be to terraform our own planet, just as some optimists hope to "revive" Mars (which, ironically, doesn't appear to be quite as dead as everyone's assumed).

In any case, a massive human dieback is inevitable. Millions -- perhaps billions -- will probably die in the next few hundred years. Those "dead zones" out in the oceans may seem comfortably distant now, but wait until the United States finds itself situated in the middle of one. Wait until Europe is one big ecological Chernobyl, drenched in greenhouse heat. And do you really think everyone's going to peacefully wait for high-tech deliverance? No, there will be wars.

We are bounding blindly in the twilight.