Killing Ourselves Slowly

There are 7.7 billion humans living today. Experts predict the earth will have 11-12 billion people by 2100. Maybe. Unless we fall prey to the exhaustion of resources and mass extinction that we have already caused and which continues to accelerate. A United Nation comprehensive report on biodiversity, released on May 6^th, the first of its kind, presents a somber view of man’s severe crush on nature… a horrible but not irreversible dynamic.

Over 500 expert scientists worked on this study: “Three years in the making, this global assessment of nature draws on 15,000 reference materials, and has been compiled by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It runs to 1,800 pages… The brief, 40-page ‘summary for policymakers,’ published today [5/6] at a meeting in Paris, is perhaps the most powerful indictment of how humans have treated their only home.” BBC.com, May 6^th.

“Nature is in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over 1 million species of plants and animals… It’s all because of humans, but it’s not too late to fix the problem, according to the United Nations’ first comprehensive report on biodiversity.

“‘We have reconfigured dramatically life on the planet,’ report co-chairman Eduardo Brondizio of Indiana University said at a news conference…. Species loss is accelerating to a rate tens or hundreds of times faster than in the past, the report said. More than half a million species on land ‘have insufficient habitat for long-term survival’ and will probably go extinct, many within decades, unless their habitats are restored. The oceans are not any better off.

“‘Humanity unwittingly is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity’s own future,’ said George Mason University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research. He was not part of the report… ‘The biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that,’ Lovejoy said.” Los Angeles Times, May 7^th.

We eat too much, waste too much, pollute too much and grow too much. Indeed, there is a core question that humanity must face. Is economic growth a positive human value? Can there be growth without expanded consumption of resources? Adjust that sentence a bit, and ask, if there can be growth with the expanded consumption of non-renewable resources? More importantly, can we actually survive as a species at the current increasing rate of resource consumption? Do plants stop generating enough oxygen for us to breathe? Does reasonably accessible potable water remain in sufficient quantities to sustain human life? Do portions of the earth become so hot that they no longer support life? Or at least the higher forms of life? What exactly does the human species add to the planet? Does artificial intelligence suggest a less intrusive replacement for human beings anyway?

“More than a third of marine mammals and more than 40% of amphibian species are threatened, according to the report, compiled over three years by hundreds of experts for the UN’s leading research body on nature, who drew on over 15,000 other studies and sources to compile the report. Human activity has significantly altered three-quarters of the Earth’s land and around two-thirds of the marine environment. The changes aren’t just a loss for wildlife. They pose a significant risk for our own life-support systems. Hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of crops are at risk from the loss of bees and other pollinators. As many as 300 million people face a higher risk of floods and hurricanes because of the loss of coastal ecosystems. And as forests disappear, we’re losing one of the best tools we have to combat climate change.

“‘This is a wake-up call to the world that we need to address the biodiversity crisis,’ says Andrew Deutz, director of international government relations for the nonprofit The Nature Conservancy. ‘We are depleting nature faster than we ever have as a human species, and faster than nature is regenerating itself. So we’re running down our natural capital at a time when the world’s population is expanding and economic development is expanding. We need to actually reverse the trend and help restore nature if it’s going to provide the goods and services that we count on for our health and prosperity.’

“There are a few key drivers of biodiversity loss, including changing land use and, over a slightly longer time frame, climate change. Companies, which are responsible for many of these impacts, will need to fundamentally change to solve the problem. The report looked at the impacts to nature over the last five decades and several scenarios going forward; only transformational change, it says, can shift the negative trends. The food sector will have to make some of the biggest changes. More than a third of the world’s land is now devoted to crops or livestock production. From 1980 to 2000 alone, 100 million hectares [one hectare = about 2.5 acres] of tropical forests were lost to cattle ranching and growing crops like palm oil.” FastCompany.com, May 6^th.

Reading the report, discussing the exhausted forests, the overfished seas, the annihilation of species, the explosive devastation of climate change… you might think all is lost. But. There is hope. There are choices we still can make, as a society and as individuals. We may not be able to stem all the devastation, but we can begin to reverse our profligate ways.

“There are some small signs of progress. Many of the largest food companies have committed to ending deforestation in their supply chains–though they’re still struggling to fully eliminate it. Hershey, for example, is working to protect forests near its cocoa plantations in Africa, in part because it recognizes that forests play a crucial role in fighting climate change, which threatens cocoa and other ingredients crucial to its operations. Companies like Impossible Foods are working on realistic meat alternatives in part because of meat’s particular connection to deforestation. Some other companies, like Apple, are investing in forests outside of their own supply chains. That type of funding can help fill a critical gap; a Credit Suisse report found that the world needs around $300 billion to $400 billion of conservation funding each year, but the actual number allocated is only around $50 billion. ‘To close that gap, most of the money’s going to come from the private sector,’ says Deutz.

“Some businesses are beginning to recognize and even quantify the value of nature. Dow, for example, worked with The Nature Conservancy to restore a wetland near one of its manufacturing plants by the Gulf of Mexico when it realized that the wetland could help protect the factory from flooding (previously, it had planned to pave over the wetland). The project helped the company save on insurance costs, because it was able to show its insurer how much the wetland helped reduce risk.” FastCompany.com. We can and we must stop killing ourselves. What we see in nature today is a reflection of our own inevitable tomorrow.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and think about what you might change in your own life to make even a small but positive difference.