Climatewatch

The time is right for bold decisions to tackle the climate crisis argues Marco Magrini

The International Union of Geological Sciences has not yet approved it officially. But, once and for all, the time may just be right to baptise the geological epoch we are living in as the Anthropocene. Humankind has altered the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere to such a degree that, as suggested by 2000 Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, it constitutes a new geological period.

This is not just about burning fossil fuels on a gigantic scale, thus triggering the relentless warming trend we call climate change. Anthropos, or ‘humans’ in ancient Greek, have been meddling with the planet’s biology, chemistry, physics and geography since the birth of agriculture, many millennia ago. It was with the Industrial Revolution however, that the exponential growth of this interference with nature began to break too many milestones.

The time is right for change. For at least thirty years virologists have been warning about zoonotic diseases – those jumping from animals to humans – fostered by the unstoppable destruction of wildlife habitats. The IPCC, in its latest Assessment Report, included new infections among the long list of predictable instabilities induced by the climate crisis. In truth, the world’s biggest assembly of climatologists didn’t consider coronaviruses then.

They were more worried about borreliosis, tick-borne encephalitis, leptosporosis, tularaemia, cryptosporidiosis, anthrax, brucellosis and Q-fever. They now say that zoonotic diseases will get an updated section in the next report, due to be published in 2021.

The ongoing pandemic has been altering the world as we know it. Some wildlife has gained more space and we have seen a drastic reduction in air pollution and in fossil fuel usage – emissions are projected to fall eight per cent this year. It will likely turn out to be just a short interlude. But there is a chance that humanity will learn a lesson from the first true global crisis, and decide to prevent the next one.

It is the right time for bold decisions, argues Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Programme:

‘You have an opportunity to either invest in returning to yesterday’s economy, or to invest into tomorrow’s economy.’

This is not about becoming a poorer, gloomier, struggling species. It is about changing ideas and biases, promoting technologies and investments, and about preventing the preventable. If we act now, the Anthropocene may yet escape the fate of becoming the epoch that marks a poorer world.