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Opinions of Monday, 24 July 2023

Columnist: Cameron Duodu

We are burning the earth and ourselves with it!

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Imagine your brain has been “expropriated” by the manufacturers of the new version of “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) that has got the whole world worried.

Worried because this new “AI’ can think for itself and independently proffer solutions to problems it is tasked to solve, and even implement the solutions, without needing to obtain human approval first.

And a psychopathic computer programmer asks this “machinised” version of your brain to write a “psychological profile’ describing a creature on earth which:

Commissions the best scientists in the world to make projections of what will happen to Planet Earth, if the humans who dwell on it, continue to pollute the Earth’s atmosphere with carbons and other emissions that will cause temperatures on Earth to rise to levels that will ensure that all living creatures on the Planet could become extinct within the next fifty years;

As told by the scientists, in great detail, their findings are not “negotiable” as there are no disputed “variable factors” in it.

But who ignores daily news reports that “summers`` (especially, the months of June, July and August) are becoming more dangerous for the Earth’s inhabitants (in line with the scientists’ projections) through the outbreak of fires, floods and avalanches.

And that, by some quirk of electronics, your brain remembers the good times it had had on Earth before you were “machinised” and therefore invents a secret way of communicating to you, its conclusion in the psychological profile it writes!

It tells you secretly that it has concluded that “Humans are an abomination who is bent on burning down their place of birth. All other creatures on Earth – the birds, the animals and the insects (for example) – take great care to protect their dwelling places. Humans, on the other hand, take cigarettes and other fire-causing materials into forests, where they even engage in what they consider to be “fun” activities, including drinking alcohol and “barbecuing” meat on “campfires.”

BACKGROUNDER: NEWS REPORT ATTACHED TO PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE:

QUOTE: Climate change is triggering a series of cascading ecological changes that humans can neither fully predict nor fully stop.

Climate change is the Planet’s greatest existential threat. If greenhouse gas emissions that result from the burning of fossil fuels continue, the consequences include a massive crop and fishery collapse, the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of species, and uninhabitable dwelling places for entire communities.

Even though climate change will affect everyone, those living in the world’s poorest countries—which have contributed LEAST to the problem—are the most climate-vulnerable. …But not every place will experience the same effects: Climate change may cause severe drought in one region while making floods more likely in another.

Already, the planet has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since the preindustrial era began 250 years ago. And it could reach a worst-case scenario of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) IN ABOUT 80 YEARS if humans fail to tackle the causes of climate change—namely, the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas).

Hotter temperatures increase the rate at which water evaporates from the air, leading to more severe and pervasive droughts. Already, climate change has pushed America’s ‘West’ into a severe “megadrought”—the driest 22-year stretch recorded in at least 1,200 years.

Some areas have seen shrinking drinking water supplies and withering crops, making forests more susceptible to insect infestations. In California alone, the annual area burned by wildfires increased 500 percent between 1972 and 2018

The reason is that drier, hotter climate also creates conditions that fuel more vicious wildfire seasons—with fires that spread faster and burn longer—putting millions of additional lives and homes at risk. As this report was being compiled, parts of Greece and Spain were in great peril.

Melting sea ice and glaciers and warmer water expands in volume could cause sea levels to rise as much as 3.61 feet by the end of the century. The extent (and pace) of this change would devastate low-lying regions, including island nations and densely populated coastal cities.

Sea level rise also harms the environment, as encroaching seawater can both erode coastal ecosystems and invade freshwater inland aquifers, which we rely on for agriculture and drinking water.

The elevated absorption of carbon dioxide by the ocean leads to its gradual acidification, which alters the fundamental chemical makeup of the water and threatens marine life. Corals, oysters, and mussels will feel these effects first, as acidification disrupts the calcification process required to build their shells.

Land-based ecosystems—from old-growth forests to savannahs to tropical rainforests—are faring no better. Climate change will likely increase pest outbreaks, invasive species, and pathogen infections in forests. It’s changing the kinds of vegetation that can thrive in a given region and disrupting the life cycles of wildlife. More repercussions will follow as temperatures rise.

AI’S VERDICT: If humans know all these things and yet continue to feed CLIMATE CHANGE, then they are not worthy of a Planet like Earth, which has unique gifts not seen anywhere else in the trillions of galaxies and planetary systems that exist in the observable UNIVERSE. So, in the words of the “Daleks” [GOOGLE Daleks]:

EXTERMINATE!…EXTERMINATE!!…EXTERMINATE!!!