corrode

\kuh-ROHD\

verb

1 : to eat away by degrees as if by gnawing; especially : to wear away gradually usually by chemical action

2 : to weaken or destroy gradually : undermine

3 : to undergo corrosion

In my search to discover more about CORROSION, I found myself at the gates of corrosion-doctors.org, a website dedicated to improving the "general awareness of what corrosion is all about."

According to the doctors, lay people like myself often associate CORROSION with rust, but the phenomenon is far more diverse and threatening. I would normally list for you here all the things CORROSION affects, but the website is incredibly difficult to navigate (it looks as though it hasn't been updated since 1999).

I can, however, mention the doctors link CORROSION directly to "doomsday scenarios." Just visit their Doomsday Information Center to find out about how CORROSION leads to: carbon cycle feedbacks, climate tipping points, environmental pollution, global dimming, global warming, polluted planet Earth, toxic elements, and voltage effects on humans (there's the list I was looking for). The doctors refer to this as a list of tipping points "beyond which only Doom seems to be imaginable" (their emphasis). This Doom is due to the fact that Homo Sapiens are a "spectacularly destructive" species. Fair enough.