Loss of Tropical Forests a Quarter Billion Years Ago Helped Atmospheric Greenhouse Last 5 million Years

Recent scientific research found that global warming lasted five million years during the period of the Permian-Triassic Mass extinction. There have been five mass extinctions in the history of the 4 billion year old Earth, and some of those were caused by massive volcanic flows such as one called the Siberian traps and the Deccan flow in India 66 million years ago in the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

https://www.nsf.gov/news/volcanic-coal-burning-siberia-led-climate-change

https://earthsky.org/earth/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-caused-indias-deccan-traps/

During the lava outpouring from the Siberian Traps tropical forests were lost. Thus there wasn't sufficient sequestration of Carbon dioxide to mitigate green house gassing and the greenhouse effect continued five million years. It is possible that human economic activities in the present configuration could induce a comparable effect upon the planet.

https://theconversation.com/around-250-million-years-ago-earth-was-near-lifeless-and-locked-in-a-hothouse-state-now-scientists-know-why-260203

That is, a only a third of the original tropical forests remain intact while human exhaust of CO2 into the atmosphere is fueling a greenhouse effect and global atmospheric heating. Additionally the world’s oceans are growing warmer and their capacity for sequestering carbon dioxide is uncertain while the ocean water becomes more acidic.

The photosynthesis of phytoplankton in the oceans absorbs a lot of CO2. Oceans absorb 30% of human gas emissions. If ocean health and life decreases the CO2 would remain, and not sink to the seafloor when phytoplankton die. Carbon sequestration of phytoplankton is regarded as equal to that of land plants. If tropical forests are reduced as well as phytoplankton the 10 billion tons annually of carbon released into the atmosphere by human could move humanity closer to that 5 million year castastrophe atmospheric flip to become a hothouse Earth.

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2023/june/oceans-absorb-emissions

Politicians regard protracted war in Ukraine as of such vital importance that hundreds of thousands of lives may be lost and millions may become casualties.  They demonstrate the lack of reasoning and/or intelligence in the political order at the highest level as they are effectively incompetent at transitioning the global economy, or even national economies to sustainable ecological economic principles. Of course the politicians are puppets of the rich most heavily invested in the present maladaptive economic world order.

A paradox is the juxtaposition of the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics at the same time as humans are incapable of changing the basic economic form of the world to sustainability. Once robot and artificial intelligence replace most human occupational economic activity the people will become reliant on basic universal guaranteed income for a livelihood. It is critically important that the economic infrastructure supporting human life on Earth operated by robots and artificial intelligence is found upon complete ecological economics sustainability rather than an environmentally destructive approach of unsustainability. The saturation of the globe with microplastics itself needs to be significantly reversed with different modes of production and materials for production. Robots may not mind plastic pollution yet it is very damaging to biological life and ends up in the brain. As has been said often enough; every human on Earth generally has a teaspoon of microplastics in their brain already. Not even plastic hippies will be exempt from the consequence of increasing content of microplastics in brains, although they may be too doped to notice.

https://theconversation.com/around-250-million-years-ago-earth-was-near-lifeless-and-locked-in-a-hothouse-state-now-scientists-know-why-260203

America does have in effect a one-party system dedicated to enriching politicians while concentrating wealth. One party- the Democrats have traditionally sought environmental voters with environmental tokenism that usually is entirely reversible executive actions. They sometime talk a lot about environment during election cycles, yet never really mean it and usually fail produce competent plans for ecological economic reform at all. Such plans as they do produce would generally fail to have any political way forward. They capitalize on blaming someone or something disingenuously since what they really actualize are lawless borders, sexual license, illegal drugs, de facto censorship, social engineering and vast public deficits. Republicans just enrich the rich and concentrate wealth while not giving a rats ass about the environment. President Trump lately has joined the war monger international camp that profits from protracting the Ukraine war instead of settling with Russia on realistic, lasting peace.

A Revolution for Ukraine

Ukraine’s infrastructure destruction could be a blessing if political leadership makes it so. Usually a revolution is required to destroy the old economic infrastructure and rebuild it on new principles. The people of the world need a new political economy founded on principles of ecological economic sustainability. Usually revolution is required for such change and that often brings the devastation of physical infrastructure through civil war. Europe and western leadership have already accomplished devastating Ukraine and destroying the economic infrastructure because they would not share Ukraine with Russia. Maybe given another try at complete economic change in Ukraine they can do better.

Revolution sometimes is the only way to accomplish political change. Revolutions over history have been generally vague about what would be accomplished following a successful political revolt. Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital are a case in point of failing to provide a realistic template for what the new theoretical state would be like. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 Presidential primary platform of  Green and Blue New Deals was estimated to cost 70 trillion dollars to actualize by the broadcast media, and the public had little or no awareness of what it entailed; it was another blank check approach to governance.

Unlike revolutions of the past a revolution to bring about sustainable economics would require a completely comprehensive plan to actualize after the revolt brought new leadership into power. With the complexity of ecological economics exceeding the present knowledge of this generation of politicians and most of the public, the prospects for bring a successful revolution to ripen are vanishingly rare. Not only would the military element be nearly impossible to accomplish in the modern era of surveillance state with omnipresent observation of the citizens and their communication since revolutionaries would be extirpated a priori, the requirements for a comprehensive ecological economic makeover of the political economy mean that the construction of the plan would require a large number of  experts and could not be done in secret. Overt revolutionary planning in public social media would be a novel revolutionary criterion. 

Usually following a revolution in the devastated landscape that may exist humans would self-organize reconstruction in accordance with their prior knowledge and history of political economy. In other words they would be clueless about ecological economic principles and would rebuild the old maladapted political economy.

Since 2014 the United States has spent more than 250 billion dollars to prop up Kiev with military support. There was additional spending that wasn’t directly military. That is a lot of money and all that is has accomplished has been bringing Ukraine to a state of ruin with trillions required for a complete rebuild. That raises the possibility of rebuilding Ukraine with an entirely new economic infrastructure founded on ecological economic scientific principles in order to accomplish a sustainable economy.  Ukraine is a wonderful, representative devastated nation suitable for rebuilding with a completely new ecological economic criterion of sustainability yet unfortunately even European politicians are entirely devoid of ideas on the topic or of a desire to accomplish it.

President Zelensky has said Ukraine only received $100 from the U.S.A. The missing billions highlights the problem with corruption globally accentuated by the low quality of media reporting and spin that is ordinary. In that caustic social environment money and economic perfidy are the rule rather than the exception. The media has tended toward normalizing political snafu to benefit themselves.

Ukraine has achieved the prefect post-revolutionary devastation useful for starting a new economic infrastructure. Usually anarchy immediately follows revolutions if there isn’t a very strong, authoritarian power taking control. Ukraine existing in a somewhat mildly pretentious independence might be amenable to experimenting for the globe as a region with a new political economy of ecological sustainability. The Eu should be planning for that kind of state and perhaps share with Russia an ecological economic modality that could encompass the Easter Ukraine that is effectively Russia. Conventional trade could pass through Ukraine and vital mining operations exist yet there should be a radical makeover innovating and insinuating complete ecosphere sustainability into the next economic infrastructure.

https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/#:~:text=Congress%20appropriated%20%24174.2%20billion%20through,other%2C%20primarily%20humanitarian%2C%20purposes

"Congress appropriated $174.2 billion through the five Ukraine supplemental appropriation acts enacted FY 2022 through FY 2024, of which $163.6 billion was allocated for OAR and the Ukraine response, and $10.6 billion was allocated for other, primarily humanitarian, purposes."-quote from Ukraine Oversight

A Sustainable Political Economy Isn't Stopped By Selfish Genes

I wouldn't blame the trashing of the ecosphere on politically incorrect genes. That's a way of shifting responsibility for political ineptitude. The problem is in evolution of history and the emergent differentials of education and political economy globally.

Especially with specialization occupationally and individual alienation from a simple relationship to the environment in urban life mankind has a no one is in charge problem in addition to the majority not being generalist and scientifically informed. The inertia of technology in economics drives everything forward at a frenetic pace; the whole phenomenon is greater than the individual parts. Individually almost no one has the power or knowledge of how to change the whole human economic structure toward an ecological economic refoundation of sustainability. Even more challenging is the task of discovering how to implement a new political economy without harming anyone.

The pace of technical progress is itself disruptive. Reality imposes it's own demands. One must be wary of corruption that would repress philosophical development of understanding actual problems challenging the political economy.

 AI took another great leap forward today as a Chinese company named Deep Seek said it can produce for 6 million dollars deep learning models that investors are spending billions on. That sent AI stocks downward 300 points. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/tech-stocks-react-chinas-deepseek-sparks-us-worries-ai-race-rcna189394