Western Morning News (Saturday)
Saving the planet is down to all of us
Covid may be the current concern – but, says Mario Du Preez, there is a bigger one
SEVERE pangs of doubt accompanied the writing of this piece. The cause? Well, why shovel more dirt onto the Covid-19 pandemic and economic hardshipladen dirt pile? In the end, I reasoned that being ‘voluntarily’ incarcerated and less distracted by everyday life would force us to confront the reality of our precarious existence – the past year, 2020, shares the dubious statistical honour with 2016 as being the hottest year on record. (The Earth is approximately 1.2°C hotter than it was during the 19th Century.)
What’s more a new study published last week, and authored by an international team of distinguished scientists from Stanford University, UCLA, and Flinders University, amongst others, warned that “humanity is hurtling into a ghastly future it doesn’t comprehend”. The study argues that the “scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms is so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts”.
And at this stage, dear reader, you may feel compelled to accuse these experts of insensitivity, hyperbolic climate change alarmism, even eco-fascism, especially under our current predicament. But I am afraid their message cannot be discredited or ignored as it is couched in proper scientific method and protocol. The authors performed a meta-analysis of 150 previously published studies on various elements of the deteriorating state of the biosphere and its inhabitants, and they defend their apocalyptic message as follows: “While there have been more recent calls for the scientific community in particular to be more vocal about their warnings to humanity, these have been insufficiently foreboding to match the scale of the crisis.”
The overarching finding of the study was that human consumption and population growth levels, which are underpinned by accommodating and indulging political and economic systems, are unsustainable. In short, our consumption and procreation desires trump all else, even the health of our natural life support systems, and our inertia, ignorance, inaction, short-termism, and self-interest, are making things worse.
Our insatiable appetites, coupled with corporations’ desire to meet our demands, have obliterated much of our natural ecosystems around the world, which will inevitably culminate in the now scientifically undeniable sixth mass extinction. And most countries around the world regard economic growth, employment creation, price, and exchange rate stability, inter alia, far more important goals to pursue when compared to the cessation of biodiversity loss. Deforestation in Brazil’s Pantanal wetland, for example, is continuing unabated, and at the current rate all its native vegetation will disappear by 2050.
The accelerated propagation of the human species over the last 50 years has worsened the situation. The global human population has doubled since 1970, and although fertility and birth rates are falling in the so-called West, those in the global south are not. The world’s human population is set to peak at about 10 billion people by the end of this century, which will exacerbate the ill effects of climate change, increase the possibility of widespread famine (due to soil erosion and degradation, and drought), perpetuate biodiversity destruction, increase levels of air and water pollution, worsen inequity among nations, and lead to more frequent regional, and perhaps global, conflicts. Ethiopia’s construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Nile River, and the diplomatic tensions it has caused with Egypt and Sudan may portend other global resource conflicts.
The authors of the study argue that both the explosion of humanity’s consumption levels and global population growth were facilitated by the discovery and increasing use of fossil fuels. “These convenient fuels have allowed us to decouple human demand from biological regeneration; 85% of commercial energy, 65% of fibres, and most plastics are now produced from fossil fuels.” Despite the scientifically proven link between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels, we carry on regardless. The scientists say: “Humanity is running an ecological Ponzi scheme in which society robs nature and future generations to pay for shortterm economic enhancement today.” Ghastly indeed.
But even if the delivery of this message may seem untimely, even in bad taste, it is my sincere hope that it will serve as a call to action, instead of a call to surrender. What gives me hope are our government’s heightened urgency in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, continued agitation by activists, increasing pre-occupation of board rooms with corporatedriven climate change solutions, China’s progress on arresting and reversing its climate change contributing actions, and the potential reversal of Trump’s environmentally destructive policies by the incoming Biden administration, as well as its adoption of a Green New Deal. But it is also incumbent on us, as consumers, to force change via our consumption and electoral choices.
Mario Du Preez is an environmental writer from Exeter
Monday: Judi Spiers is working on her body and her brain to stay healthy in the age of coronavirus