The most serious environmental-health issues affecting both local constituencies and the entire planet are discussed in a policy briefing paper released May 23, 2013 by the Millennium Alliance for Humanity & the Biosphere, and signed by 520 of the world’s leading environmental science experts from 44 countries. Humanity’s life support systems are seriously threatened by human impacts on the earth’s ecosystems, as elaborated in the scientific consensus document. If the current path of ecosystem damage is continued, a substantial degradation of human life quality is feared by the year 2050 across the globe.
The statement offers solutions to all 5 major disruptive trends:
- Climate Disruption: Reduce effects of climate disruption by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and by implementing adaptation strategies to deal with the consequences of climate change already underway
- Pollution: Curb the manufacture and release of toxic substances into the environment
- Extinctions: Slow the very high extinction rates that are leading to a global loss of biodiversity
- Ecosystem Transformation: Minimize transformation of Earth’s remaining natural ecosystems into farms, suburbs, and other human constructs
- Population Growth and Consumption: Bring world population growth to an end as early as possible and begin a gradual decline, and decrease per-capita resource use, particularly in developed countries
Read more:
Maintaining Humanity’s Life Support Systems in the 21st Century. Millennium Alliance for Humanity & the Biosphere. May 23, 2013.
Opinion: Stop the decay of our planet’s life-support systems. By Paul Ehrlich for The Daily Climate. May 23, 2013.
