The reason I am getting very frustrated about this, is that this is the single biggest danger facing humanity. That there is a complete failure to understand how no one has ever investigated how biodiversity and natural ecosystems, sustain our society.
1/🧵
Everyone, including most senior scientists, just seem to assume:
1) That science, and experts understand how natural systems sustain our societies/civilization.
2) How stable and resilient our societies/civilization, will be to the collapse of these natural systems.
2/
This is because of an entirely false assumption, in modern Western culture, that our societies/civilization, somehow exist, independent of natural systems (biodiversity, ecosystems, the climate).
3/
Where it is falsely perceived, that if these natural systems "collapsed", that somehow our societies/civilizations, would somehow just carry on, albeit with a bit of inconvenience. Where the most likely outcome, is our civilization would just implode, and collapse.
4/
This is simply because our societies/civilizations, and everything connected to them like the economy, financial system, and everything else, are themselves systems, inexorably linked to natural systems. One can't collapse, and the other not be effected by this.
5/
It is very important to understand what the "collapse" of biodiversity and ecosystems means, because there is almost no real understanding of this, amongst climate scientists, most other scientists, and those concerned about the environment.
6/
They all talk about this collapse, without apparently having any understanding of what this actually means. By collapse, it doesn't mean they would cease to exist, because if they did, we'd have disappeared long before.
7/
No matter what we do to biodiversity, and natural ecosystems, no matter how badly we damage them, they won't cease to exist. By collapse, we mean change state, so they'd no longer support and sustain, what they did before.
8/
Primarily, what this means for us, is that they would no longer sustain, our societies and civilization, which actually could just totally disappear. Although this is not likely to happen all at once.
9/
Life, biodiversity, and ecosystems have existed on Earth for over 3.5 billion years, in an unbroken chain, and it'd be very difficult to completely destroy them, as even if the planet was blown apart, then extremophiles would likely persist in the fragments of the planet.
10/
Whereas modern humans have only been around for about 2-300,000 years, and civilizations, cities, for maybe less than 6,000 years. Therefore, there is no good reason but hubris, to suppose they will always be around.
11/
I mean, industrial civilization is only about 250 years old, and the world as we know it now, for less than 100 years. It is only hubris, which makes us assume that it will always be there. It would hardly be the first civilization to collapse.
12/
The assumption people make, is that somehow, somewhere, there are experts and science, that understand, how this biodiversity and ecosystems, sustain our society. There really aren't.
13/
The only science that studies how the diversity of organisms, sustain each other through their relationships, is ecology. Yet it doesn't study how that network of organisms, supports humanity and our civilization.
14/
I should know this, because I'm a graduate in scientific ecology, and I know very well, that humanity and our civilization, is treated as if it is somehow apart, and not reliant on natural systems, which is just bullshit, and a cultural delusion.
15/
So anyone who just assumes, that this is understood, is making a baseless assumption. I have looked very hard to find what is known about this, talked to leading scientists and ecologists, and most never seem to have even thought about it.
16/
Currently, we have environmentalists and green politicians complaining that the "National security assessment on global ecosystems", has been redacted. I can't say if it has, but what I can say with 100% certainty, is not much more is known about it.
17/gov.uk/government/pub…
Everything you need to know is already there, and if you want to know more about what this actually means for our societies, then there are no experts, no scientific assessments to tell you more, because no one is studying it.
18/
This is what I am desperately trying to get across to people, is that yes we do need to know far more about this. However, this could only be achieved, with massive funding, and bringing all the disparate experts on parts of the problem together, to evaluate it.
19/
There is currently no research project, or field of science, trying to understand it. It is not being hidden from the public.
Rather, governments have failed to fund research into it, because they don't want to know how bad it is.
20/
@threadreaderapp unroll
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.