World Scientists' Warnings into Action, Local to Global

By Christopher J. Rhodes

Human civilization stares out over a cliff edge. As a species in ecological overshoot, our journey is impossible to continue on its present pathway. Six priority areas for global action were underlined in the World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency paper, published in 2019, which has now been endorsed by a total of 14,594 scientists from 158 countries. However, two follow up studies each confirmed that all climate indicators had only continued to deteriorate dramatically. In this “SCIENTISTS’ WARNINGS INTO ACTION” (SWIA) paper, we offer practical means for steering away from the abyss, and toward a new territory where human demands are in harmony with the biocapacity of the Earth.

It is not a single threat that confronts us: we do not “merely” need to stop the planet from heating (by excess energy reined in by greenhouse gases), which drives climate change. Daunting enough though this is, our real problem is systemic, since human overconsumption of resources transgresses several vital, but interwoven, planetary boundaries. Any true solution must also be systemic in nature, and bring about a consolidated amelioration of climate change, biodiversity loss, and progressive degradation of the ecosphere.

There is no time to be wasted – massive action must be well underway during the five-year planning cycle, 2022-2026, providing a foundation to build upon, out to 2030, and onward to 2050. The process is cumulative: without taking immediate action, we will miss the trajectory and momentum necessary to turn the current situation around.

The SWIA paper focuses on six principal areas where action must be taken: Energy, Atmospheric Pollutants, Nature, Food Systems, Population Stabilisation, and Economic Reforms, from which we may highlight the following key points.

Energy

• A course must be charted for a rapid decrease in global energy demand, including the inculcation of citizens to adapt to a less energy-intensive future, while a low-carbon energy supply is aggressively pursued.

• Regional economies and commerce must be re-established so that populations are provided for as much as possible by regional resources, thus reducing reliance on carbon-intensive traded goods.

• Retrofitting buildings to curb energy demand, and small-scale energy generation must be accelerated.

• Heavy taxes must be imposed on “luxury” travel and trade, especially flights, inefficient vehicles and imported luxury goods.

Atmospheric Pollutants

• The tipping point of Arctic sea ice loss has already been reached, and now another one threatens, as a result of dramatic Arctic warming, with potentially catastrophic impacts from the rapid and massive atmospheric release of substantial reservoirs of methane trapped in permafrost.

• Curbing emissions of methane at source must be achieved, primarily from agriculture, and oil and gas production.

• Technologies and nature-based practices must be implemented for the safe and effective reduction of atmospheric methane levels.

Nature

• Human activities have severely damaged interdependent ecosystem processes - pollination, natural flood control and water purification. Some of the Earth’s major tropical and temperate forests have become carbon sources, rather than sinks.

• In order to help natural habitats recover sufficient resilience to support the survival of humanity, widespread conservation, restoration and rewilding are necessary.

• The wholesale destruction and degradation of critical carbon-accumulating ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and grasslands must be halted immediately. •Proforestation practices must be implemented, to protect mature forest ecosystems, while allowing secondary forests to continue growing; thus maximizing carbon storage, preserving and restoring biodiversity, and curbing emissions from harvested forests.

Food Systems

• The current food system is not only unsustainable for feeding 8 billion people, it generates >25% of greenhouse gas emissions, consumes 70% of freshwater, and is responsible for the majority of deforestation and nutrient runoff, resulting in freshwater contamination and coastal dead zones.

• To avoid widespread famines within the present century, leaders must take rapid action at local, regional, national, and global levels in regard to food production, land use, and farming practice. Diets must also be rapidly shifted from animal products to low impact, more plant based, foods, thus increasing the efficiency of land and water use.

• More regenerative and less environmentally degenerative farming methods must be introduced rapidly, particularly to protect and restore soil and other natural habitats.

Population Stabilisation

• Numbering 8 billion, the human animal is in ecological overshoot, and the Earth cannot sustain us. Any efforts to alleviate climate instability, ecological destruction, famine, social and political instability and insecurity, are undermined by the addition of an additional 80 million people, year on year.

• On all social scales, leaders must acknowledge population and consumption as the two fundamental ‘multiplier threats’ to a sustainable civilization, and take bold, equitable, and just action by 2026 to bend the curve.

• Wealthy families must be supported to have fewer children as the single most effective way to individually reduce their future greenhouse gas emissions, while aiding poorer families to advance both economically and educationally.

Economic Reforms

• The current human enterprise, whose magnitude drives climate change, biodiversity loss, and overall converging crises of the ecosphere, is underpinned and driven by a system of growth economics. Thus, we need to rapidly implement a new economic model that operates within planetary boundaries. Market failures must be corrected by introducing or increasing carbon and environmental taxes on polluting production and services, while subsidies to industries that harm planetary systems are abolished.

• Economic frameworks must be introduced urgently, that support and prioritise the protection and restoration of natural capital and ecosystem services (including carbon sequestration, flood control, water purification, pollination, disease control).

• Reforms must be instigated to ensure that farm and forestry lands, like the oceans, rivers and wetlands, are managed for the long-term benefit of nature and humanity, rather than short-term profits.

We call on all scientists to sign this paper, and act in a united effort to avoid a catastrophic collapse of civilisation. https://www.scientistswarningeurope.org.uk/signature

The time is now or never. Cooperation is fundamental to our success, and only by uniting as a human family, on all levels from local to global, can we hope to achieve an equitable and concordant future on our Mother Planet.

Article details

World scientists’ warnings into action, local to global

Phoebe Barnard, William R Moomaw, Lorenzo Fioramonti, William F Laurance, Mahmoud I Mahmoud, Jane O’Sullivan, Christopher G Rapley, William E Rees, Christopher J Rhodes, William J Ripple, Igor P Semiletov, John Talberth, Christopher Tucker, Daphne Wysham, Gina Ziervogel

First Published November 11, 2021, Letter

https://doi.org/10.1177/00368504211056290

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