Among the several critical issues on the November ballot in the U.S., the future of Planet Earth has to be high on the list.
For decades, scientists have warned of the apocalyptic consequences of global ecological collapse. We know the causes, consequences, and solutions to this existential crisis, but as governments have remained captured by short-term financial interests, they have largely ignored the warnings and resisted taking substantive action to solve the crisis.
This decade, 2020-2030, is widely thought to be our last best chance to make the changes urgently needed to secure a livable future for all life on Earth.
Here is what the science says—we ignore it at our collective peril.
The global environment is in far worse shape than it was in 1970 (the first Earth Day), and is nearing a point-of-no-return. Human activities have caused the loss of half the world’s forests, coral reefs, wetlands, grasslands, and mangroves; annual use of 75% more resources than Earth can sustain; runaway climate change; air and water pollution in every corner of the world; and most of the Earth’s surface significantly impacted by just one species: Homo sapiens.
The global environment is in far worse shape than it was in 1970... and is nearing a point-of-no-return.
By some estimates, we have already caused the extinction of more than one million species, with another million expected to go extinct in coming years. Beyond species extinctions, wildlife population numbers have plummeted in recent decades: overall global wildlife numbers declined by 60%, large oceanic fish by 66%, seabirds by 70%, and insects declined by 40% in the last decade alone.
In addition, the socioeconomic condition of civilization has continued to decline, with 700 million people now living in extreme poverty and hunger; 16,000 children under the age of five dying every day due to preventable causes; 19,000 people dying every day from breathing polluted air; billions living in water-stressed regions; more people enslaved than at any time in history; thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert; and growing global insecurity.
Scientists have been warning of global ecological collapse for decades.
The 1992 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” from the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted the “ever-increasing environmental degradation that threatens global life support systems on this planet,” warning that: “A great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.”
Twenty-five years later, the 2017 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,” issued by over 15,000 scientists from 184 countries, noted that this “great change” in environmental stewardship had not occurred, and that most trends had become alarmingly worse, warning that: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.”
The 2019 “Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” concluded that: “Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, with few exceptions, we have generally conducted business as usual and are largely failing to address this predicament.” A U.N. report concluded that for critical ecological systems - atmosphere, land, water, oceans, and biodiversity - environmental degradation now ranges from “serious to irreversible.”
The only chance that human civilization can unite to solve these existential imperatives in time is if the Democrats retain the White House.
Science is clear that if present trends continue, the planet will be virtually uninhabitable for humans and perhaps half of all other species by the end of this century. In fact, for many people and species, in many places, it already is. U.N. officials admit that to solve this crisis, we need “an exponential increase in ambition.”
Fortunately, we know exactly what we need to do to solve this crisis. As British naturalist David Attenborough recently said: “Never before have we been so aware of what we are doing to the planet—and never before have we had such power to do something about it.”
If humanity wants to be part of a sustainable future, we know exactly what we need to do by 2030: reduce global carbon emissions by 50%; stabilize human population; halt destruction of forests and other ecological habitat; place half of the Earth’s lands and waters in fully-protected status; reduce extinction rates to the pre-human background level; shift to a zero-waste, circular economy focused on stability and equity rather than growth; transform agriculture into a sustainable, low-impact food system; electrify global transportation; reduce wealth disparity and poverty; provide education, health care, and economic opportunity for all; and eliminate all nuclear weapons.
In discussing “the fierce urgency of now,” Martin Luther King warned that “there is such a thing as being too late.” For the global environment, we are almost at that point.
Simply put, the only chance that human civilization can unite to solve these existential imperatives in time is if the Democrats retain the White House. Hopefully Americans will vote this November like the future of the world depends on it. It does.
