 |
| Is the party over ? |
A prophetic ‘Warning to Humanity’ giving notice of perils facing the
Earth has been issued by more than 15,000 scientists from around the
world.
The message, posted online, updates an original Warning from the
Union of Concerned Scientists and around 1,700 signatories delivered in
1992.
Today, the global scientific community’s view of the future is even more bleak.
Apart from the hole in the ozone layer, which has now been stabilised,
every one of the major threats identified in 1992 has worsened.
Runaway consumption of precious resources by an exploding population
remains the biggest danger facing humankind, say the scientists.
They urge ‘scientists, media influencers and lay citizens’ to put pressure on governments to reverse the trend.
A host of environmental calamities are highlighted in the warning
notice, including catastrophic climate change, deforestation, mass
species extinction, ocean ‘dead zones’, and lack of access to fresh
water.
Writing in the online international journal BioScience, the scientists
led by top US ecologist Professor William Ripple, from Oregon State
University, said: ‘Humanity is now being given a second notice …
We are jeopardising our future by not reining in our intense but
geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by
not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver
behind many ecological and even societal threats.
‘By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of
an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivise
renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution,
halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not
taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.’
In their original warning, scientists including most of the world’s
Nobel Laureates argued that human impacts on the natural world were
likely to lead to ‘vast human misery’.
The new notice, written as an open-letter ‘viewpoint’ article, won the
support of 15,364 scientists from 184 countries who agreed to offer
their names as signatories.
The authors drew on data from government agencies, non-profit
organisations and individual researchers to set out their case that
environmental impacts were likely to inflict ‘substantial and
irreversible harm’ to the Earth.
Prof Ripple said: ‘Those who signed this second warning aren’t just
raising a false alarm. They are acknowledging the obvious signs that we
are heading down an unsustainable path.
‘We are hoping that our paper will ignite a widespread public debate about the global environment and climate.’
Progress had been made in some areas – such as cutting ozone-depleting
chemicals, and increasing energy generated from renewable sources – but
this was far outweighed by the damaging trends, said the scientists.
They pointed out that in the past 25 years:
- The amount of fresh water available per head of population worldwide has reduced by 26%.
- The number of ocean ‘dead zones’ – places where little can live
because of pollution and oxygen starvation – has increased by 75%.
- Nearly 300 million acres of forest have been lost, mostly to make way for agricultural land.
- Global carbon emissions and average temperatures have shown continued significant increases.
- Human population has risen by 35 per cent.
- Collectively the number of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish in the world has fallen by 29 per cent.
Prof Ripple and his colleagues have formed a new independent
organisation called the Alliance of World Scientists to voice concerns
about environmental sustainability and the fate of humanity.
Source: : Scientists say the future for Earth is even more bleak than originally thought | Metro News
