Further, the realisation that after water, concrete is the most widely used substance on Earth is beyond comprehension. The massive geoengineering process initiated by humans took an accelerated upswing when materials like concrete and aggregates became widely available. These two materials make up a major component of the growth in anthropogenic mass. Even the relatively recent human adventures of space exploration, which began about 60 years ago, is triggering a disastrous space junk problem.
Alongside this we haphazardly observe polar cap melts, permafrost thaws, and global temperatures getting hotter. So, why has this happened? Are humans genetically inclined to be materialistic to the point of our own destruction? Is the accumulation of anthropogenic matter merely a measure of humans' annihilation rate?
Or will nature equip humans to cope with this problem? These are highly unsettled questions. Although there is evidence that materialism is learned and shaped by culture , there are some who argue that natural selection may have predisposed our species with a desire to accumulate stuff. Our belongings can offer us a sense of security and status that doubtless played a more important role earlier in human history. Somehow, creating new stuff has become a divine word in the collective human psyche.
It's obnoxiously seated in all our endeavours from ancient stories to modern research and development rooms. Humans have been conditioned to believe that creating something new is a meaningful purpose of life and is the only way to advance their ambitions. Yet we forget to put a cap on the use. The limits of science have never been more glaringly apparent when trying to solve this conundrum.
Reliance upon green technological solutions alone is flawed because the focus is still based on new stuff and more use — not to alter lifestyles or business models that handed us this problem in the first place. Even if we can replace all fossil fuel-based vehicles with electric ones, for example, cities are already struggling to take road space from cars and electric vehicles have their own footprint on the world's resources due to the materials needed to build them.
Every step in this direction will have a positive effect. Look at the carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and the systems supporting. It accounts for about 3.
Without plants there would be no oxygen and without bees to pollinate there would be no fruit or nuts. The extinction rate of species is now thought to be about 1, times higher than before humans dominated the planet, which may be even faster than the losses after a giant meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago. The sixth mass extinction in geological history has already begun , according to some scientists, with billions of individual populations being lost.
Changes to the climate are reversible, even if that takes centuries or millennia, and conservation efforts can work. But once species become extinct, there is no going back. It frustrates me and upsets me. We sit at our desks and compile these statistics but they have real-life implications. Reptiles, fish and amphibians in the region were most negatively affected, driven by the overexploitation of ecosystems, habitat fragmentation and disease.
The growing physical distance between supply and demand means people don't see the destruction caused by their consumption. But we are insulated from these impacts, so they are abstract to us. Overseas trading also creates and increases inequality. The pressure for material goods comes mostly from middle and high-income countries and is often met by low to middle-income countries.
High income countries have their own fisheries but most of these have collapsed. Fishing now takes place in previously unexploited or underexploited fisheries, most of which belong to low-income countries. Combating the loss of ecosystems is going to be complex and will require a nexus approach.
This means thinking about how different components of the problem such as nature, politics and socioeconomics all interact with one another.
An example of a nexus approach would be to reduce biodiversity loss by changing how we farm, while at the same time making sure people have enough food, their livelihoods are not undermined, and social conflicts are not aggravated.
The way to avoid some of these issues may be to focus on regenerating and restoring high-carbon ecosystems such as forests and wetlands. Similarly the need for food could be met by changing dietary choices and reducing waste. Switching to clean energy is an important step which would allow other changes to happen more easily.
Obtaining coal and gas involves destroying vast amounts of land and seascapes as well as polluting the environment beyond extraction. But in order to achieve this fully, the world needs to revaluate current political structures and societal norms, which tend not to value nature. One way of doing that is by improving existing environmental policies and regulations, as well as removing and reforming harmful policies.
The Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity CBD have decided that the IPBES Global Assessment Report will form the scientific and technical evidence base for the intergovernmental negotiations in , to agree on a global biodiversity framework for the next decade and to replace the Aichi Biodiversity Targets that expire next year. IPBES Chair Anna Maria Hernandez concludes, 'This new article makes it even more clear that we need profound, system-wide change and that this requires urgent action from policymakers, business, communities and every individual.
There is literally no time to waste. Get email updates about our news, science, exhibitions, events, products, services and fundraising activities. You must be over the age of Privacy notice. We humans have already significantly altered three-quarters of all land and two-thirds of the oceans.
More than a third of land and three-quarters of freshwater resources are devoted to crops or livestock. Around vertebrates have gone extinct in the past few centuries.
Forty per cent of amphibians and a third of coral species, sharks and marine mammals look set to follow. Preventing this is vital to save ourselves, the report says.
The main reason is simple. Our expanding farms and cities are leaving less room for wildlife. The other major causes are the direct exploitation of wildlife such as hunting, climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species. Climate change is set to become ever more destructive.
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