Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
Without immediate and drastic intervention, humans face a "frightening future," including declining health, climate devastation, tens of millions of environmental migrants and more pandemics, in the coming decades, according to an international team of 17 leading scientists.
According to an article published in January in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science, researchers cite more than 150 scientific studies and conclude that "we are already on the path to a sixth major extinction, which is now scientifically undeniable."
Because too many people have underestimated the severity of the climate crisis and ignored the warnings of experts, scientists must continue to speak out, said Daniel Blumstein, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Berkeley. UCLA and a member of the UCLA Institute for Environment and Sustainability.
The author of the book "The Nature of Fear: Lessons in Survival from Nature," also noted that experts should avoid "sugarcoating" overwhelming challenges or inducing feelings of despair.
"Without fully appreciating and publicizing the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will not be able to achieve even the most modest sustainability goals, and catastrophe will surely follow," he said.
"What we are saying is frightening, but we must be honest and vocal if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face in creating a sustainable future," he added.
The paper details that the Earth has experienced five mass extinctions, each representing a loss of more than 70 percent of all species on the planet. The most recent was 66 million years ago.
Currently, the study notes, projected temperature increases and other human attacks on the environment mean that approximately 1 million of the planet's 7 million to 10 million species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades.
Blumstein said the level of damage could occur in the next few decades; an extinction affecting up to 70 percent of all species could potentially occur in the next few centuries.
There are now 7.8 billion people, more than double the population of the Earth just 50 years ago, and by 2050, the number is likely to reach 10 billion, scientists write, which would cause or aggravate numerous serious problems.
In view of this, they said that more than 700 million people die of hunger and more than a billion are already undernourished, so it is likely that both figures will increase as the population grows.
In that sense, they noted that population growth also greatly increases the risk of pandemics, because most new infectious diseases are the result of human-animal interactions, "humans live closer than ever to wild animals and the wildlife trade continues to increase significantly".
Thus, "population growth also contributes to rising unemployment and, when combined with a warmer Earth, leads to more frequent and intense floods and fires, poorer water and air quality, and worsening human health," they said.
The authors write that there is a "near certainty that these problems will worsen in the coming decades, with negative impacts for centuries to come" and that adverse global trends are obvious.
"Humanity is running an ecological Ponzi scheme in which society robs nature and future generations to pay today for short-term economic improvement," said Paul Ehrlich, professor emeritus of population studies at Stanford University and co-author of the study.
He added that "while it is welcome news that President-elect Biden intends to re-engage the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement within his first 100 days in office, it is a minuscule gesture given the scale of the challenge."
In the face of the situation, experts said that completely and quickly ending the use of fossil fuels, strictly regulating markets and property acquisition, reining in corporate lobbying and empowering women could help avert catastrophe.
However, they detailed that humans' innate "optimistic bias" has led some to ignore warnings about the future of our planet.
"By the time we fully understand the impact of ecological decline, it will be too late," Blumstein said.
The study can be read in its entirety at the following link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
