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Chapter 1.

The End is just beginning, or is it?

March 19th 2049;

The haze never leaves the air. I thought that this might have been some sort of catastrophe that was the proverbial icing on the cake, something extra that was a by product of the anarchy of a few years ago, but it turns out that it is part of the neural illusion that is afflicting my eyes just as it does the rest of the few people that I still find alive. The burning in my lungs is a great labored burn. It has a pressure behind it like being up at a high elevation. But I am not very high above sea level. My eyes feel dry all the time and yet I am hydrated well enough. I remember how back in the last decade the animals up high began to die off. Birds forced into lower migratory flights thanks to the thinning air. Many succumb to the carbon dioxide that had been increasing steadily and making the atmosphere dangerous. Of course soon jets began having flight problems. Partially due to new migration routes of these birds and partially due to engine stalls and cut outs. Seemingly inexplicable at first.

But the FAA had been testing these crashes and running analysis after analysis of the problems and soon discovered that a lack of oxygen had been killing the jet engines. This was going on globally and people were more and more afraid to fly. Of course scientist were pressed by governments and the atmosphere became a huge concern. Perhaps they could have done something? Hard to say back then. The debates had raged and everyone had a theory as to what was happening and why. But the best scientists around the globe were not arguing. They were investigating and testing their findings to be absolutely sure that what they had found was correct. They were in agreement and the great industrial nations seemed baffled and stunned. Planet earth it seemed was on the threshold of a new mass extinction event. The cause seemed to strike these nations blindly out of the blue. Scientists were calling it the beginning of the Elasmobranchii-Cetacea Extinction Event.

They reported that in the history of life on this planet the world had undergone five major mass extinctions. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction, the Late Devonian extinction, the Permian-Triassic extinction, the End Triassic extinction, and the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. The Permian-Triassic extinction about 251 million years ago had been the worst. It had killed 95% of all species.

But this new extinction was not from an ice age, or a mass volcanic eruption, or an asteroid impact. It had not come from a war, or a virus, or changing weather and global warming. It had come from humanity breaking one of nature’s prime laws. A law which states that you must never destroy any key elements in the chain of life for doing this to any of the foundation blocks will destroy the chain. A chain critical to life.

But we had done just that, broken the chain. What on all earth could have caused us to do it? How had we done it? Nature is resilient and rebounds, even from the likes of humanity doesn’t it? But she had not and could not stop the onslaught. We had stolen from her two of her oldest keys to life. And in turn she had done what nature always does, flows through the paths of least resistance to the inevitable.

As I lay here looking around me I cannot hear much wheezing or coughing any more. Movement is painful and there is a burn in my muscles that I understand comes from lactic acid and a lack of oxygen. The area reeks with death. Insects are still thriving. So gross seeing them all over. They have been unchecked for about four years now, maybe more. They are having a feast and breeding without animals to stop them. I saw a snake a few days ago. Not a big snake, a little ring neck snake. So small and still thriving. I heard that alligators and crocodilians are still doing okay. But I am doubtful that even the big crocodilians can breath in such a thin atmosphere. Hard to say, they do have a lower respiration rate.

About 6 years ago everyone tried to go “green”. People went plant happy. They thought if we could plant enough plants and trees that we could supplement the failing oxygen levels. But it was not enough. What few folks wrote or reported about the chaos of those years called it the Green Wars. Fools scrambled to get plants and seeds. Reports that certain plants produced more oxygen made people frantic to get their hands on those types of plants. They actually fought over plants of all things! It was like some weird post apocalyptic science fiction movie. Some plants were more valued than gold or currency. It was a futile effort. Many governments experimented with O2 separation plants. Big industrial plants where distilled water in huge vats were given a catalyst and then electronically stimulated to separate the hydrogen molecules from the oxygen molecules. But at full capacity they could not product enough to change the balance. Perhaps it might have worked if they had started it soon enough. But it had all happened too late.

As my head grows heavy and the painful migraines continue to wrack me with an almost insanely torturous pain, I can barely think straight. My lungs burn! I feel so weak and tired. I wonder how many are left? Can’t be too many. The world is dying, and my last breaths are faint and weak. The light is fading. Is it getting dark? No it is still too early in the day for that. The darkness is mine. The darkness is closing its fist on all of us. The end of most life. I wonder how long the insects will last? I wonder…

Sounds like some sort of Science fiction story doesn’t it? One of those melodramatic whoa is me, Armageddon tales right? But it is not science fiction. Oh yes, I added some artistic license with regard to the date and the reflections, but it is not science fiction and this is not a far-fetched idea. It is a science fact and it is an event that threatens us all. I wanted to get the reader’s attention because I need you to understand what the problem is and how we can prevent it now while there is still time and hope for us all. I am not an alarmist type person either so please do not mistake this for a religious viewpoint, or some chronic alarmist idea. This is a real event. It is beginning to take place right now, and it is in full swing under our noses. The alarms have not yet sounded out in full. People are distracted by some of the symptoms without yet noticing the big picture. I am here to help put that picture into focus. I will let you decide what to do after that.

So lets discus the beginning of the Elasmobranchii-Cetacea Extinction event shall we? First of all what the heck does that even mean? The event is named after the two key groups of creatures that will trigger it. Elasmobranchii is the sub-class of fish better known as sharks and rays, and Cetacea is the order of mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Two groups of animals that share several common traits and factors.

While these two groups are far apart from each other physiologically and even in their mental capacity, both are very alike in their history and their role in the ocean eco-systems. Sharks are one of the oldest living animal groups and have ruled the oceans and helped shape the evolution of their prey species for over 430 million years. During that time they have remained virtually unchanged. They are a success story in evolution and a highly efficient predatory species. Most sharks and rays are fish and crustacean eaters and have very specialized roles to play in controlling fish populations. Contrary to the accounts of human legends and folk tales sharks are not the avowed man-eaters that myth likes to play them up to be. Only a few types of sharks even prey on marine mammals and reptiles and these are specialized in the prey species that they take.

While sharks have killed and eaten man it is a rare occurrence and very few of the reported shark bites each year result in fatality. Most shark attacks are actually shark bites. A mistaken Identity in cloudy water and a shark making an exploratory bite to see if it has a prey item in it’s mouth. For it is with the mouth that sharks explore their world. Most of these so-called “attacks” happen in water less than 3 feet deep and most of the victims suffer minor damage from the bite. As terrifying as it may seem, they are still simply a case of mistaken identity. And given the number of bathers and swimmers that are increasingly in the water near shark feeding and hunting grounds it is quite remarkable how few “attacks” there are worldwide. If only one could say the same for mankind toward the shark. We are hunting them down and fishing them out. The shark populations around the world are plummeting. They are down by 90% and we are killing over 100 million a year. Shark populations cannot sustain this onslaught. As the sharks vanish their prey species begin to boom. The population explosions of these creatures are a nightmare waiting to happen.

Humans it seems cannot figure out the reality without having it pointed out. The prey of sharks and cetaceans are the predators of phytoplankton, algae, and green plants that control dangerous carbon gasses and release oxygen. Almost 70% of the world’s oxygen comes from the planets oceans. Over 80% of carbon gasses are controlled by the oceans.

Nature balances herself out if allowed to function as she always had throughout history of the life on earth. But now mankind has changed all that. A new exploitation is going on and it is an exploitation that affects all living things. It is an exploitation that is already triggering the inception of the newest mass extinction event. It is no accident that sharks have survived and ruled 2/3rds of the planet for the last 430 million years. Like the cetaceans, they are there for a reason. It is a reason that we cannot afford to ignore.

You might think of it as a cake. The world at large and its various life forms. The cake has a certain taste and a lot of ingredients. Much like a baking recipe one can alter or remove a few of the ingredients and it will not dramatically affect the taste and consistency of the cake. But if you remove the flour and the liquid, be it water or milk, then the cake would not work. The cake will in fact fail without these primary ingredients! So the same holds true of nature, if we remove any of it’s primary ingredients, it too will fail!

TEASER

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION