In 1988, over 300 scientists and policy-makers from 46 different countries and organizations came together to discuss the crisis of climate change in Toronto. It was called “The Toronto Conference,” and their final statement began with the following sentence.
Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment, whose ultimate consequence could be second only to a global nuclear war.
This week, thousands of birds fell from the sky in Australia, dead. As of now, we don’t yet know why.
In Green politics, there’s something called the precautionary principal. Basically, it states that if there’s a chance that a series of actions could, for example, shut down our life support systems, we should maybe not take those actions until we’re sure they’re safe (as opposed to conducting business as usual until there’s absolute proof that business as usual is destructive). In other words, even if things ain’t exactly clear, it’s still worth stopping, listening, and looking around.
Bird deaths can’t help but remind me of the proverbial canary in the mineshaft. Problem is, unlike miners, we don’t have anywhere to run to once we notice the canary has stopped breathing.
For what it’s worth.
I notice that this story link is now inactive. Any news on what the cause was found to be?
Hey Jason,
The only new news is that we still don’t know what caused it, and that the problem may be spreading. The original story can be found here, with an update here, and the most recent story I could find is here.
Check out this article regarding the deaths of the aforementioned birds in Australia:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article2422658.ece
The article claims that the birds were exposed to very high levels of Lead & Nickel in the air, which were also found in the town’s water supply. The investigation went on to find high levels in many town residents’ blood.
There may come a day when I will actually miss those disease-ridden flying rats we call pigeons in Toronto.