CURRENT PLUTO PERIHELION:

Renaissance or Perish

by Bill Hansen

Page 4

Frogs, like canaries in a tunnel, are a “first alert” to environmental problems. Amphibians are environmental sponges, absorbing gases and liquids through their moist skin and shell-less eggs. From the rain forests of Central America and Australia to the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains of the United States, amphibians – frogs, toads, salamanders – have been disappearing. If not completely killed off in spots, deformed frogs have been showing up since the 1970s. The problem has become much worst in the 1990s. Scientists point to four major suspects: climate change, pollution, disease, and increased ultraviolet radiation due to thinning of the ozone layer. Amphibian die-offs are normal but evidence shows this to be a global catastrophe completely out-of-proportion with any cyclical trends. Unpolluted ecosystems such as parks and reserves are not immune – three of seven native frog and toad species in the Yosemite National Park have disappeared, and the other four are declining in number. The frogs are telling us that something is terribly wrong with our environment.

One of the greatest threats to our civilization is over population. Overcrowded cities are the main cause of water shortages and electricity brownouts today. But overcrowding in centuries past contributed to the fall of Rome, Babylon, and the Mayan empire. The Mayas, who dominated Central America in the 9th Century, built sophisticated irrigation systems to supply fresh water to their booming population. The Mayans survived periods of war and disease. They created a society of great wealth, rich in culture and complex bureaucracies, especially in the capital city of Tikal. But their unsustainable population explosion was handed a knockout punch by a long drought beginning about 840 A.D.

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