| Human beings and the natural
world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often
irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not
checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that
we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so
alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner
that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision
our present course will bring about.
The Environment
The environment is suffering critical stress:
The Atmosphere
Stratospheric ozone depletion threatens us with enhanced ultraviolet radiation
at the earth's surface, which can be damaging or lethal to many life forms.
Air pollution near ground level, and acid precipitation, are already causing
widespread injury to humans, forests and crops.
Water Resources
Heedless exploitation of depletable ground water supplies endangers food
production and other essential human systems. Heavy demands on the world's
surface waters have resulted in serious shortages in some 80 countries,
containing 40% of the world's population. Pollution of rivers, lakes and
ground water further limits the supply.
Oceans
Destructive pressure on the oceans is severe, particularly in the coastal
regions which produce most of the world's food fish. The total marine
catch is now at or above the estimated maximum sustainable yield. Some
fisheries have already shown signs of collapse. Rivers carrying heavy
burdens of eroded soil into the seas also carry industrial, municipal,
agricultural, and livestock waste -- some of it toxic.
Soil
Loss of soil productivity, which is causing extensive Land abandonment,
is a widespread byproduct of current practices in agriculture and animal
husbandry. Since 1945, 11% of the earth's vegetated surface has been degraded
-- an area larger than India and China combined -- and per capita food
production in many parts of the world is decreasing.
Forests
Tropical rain forests, as well as tropical and temperate dry forests,
are being destroyed rapidly. At present rates, some critical forest types
will be gone in a few years and most of the tropical rain forest will
be gone before the end of the next century. With them will go large numbers
of plant and animal species.
Living Species
The irreversible loss of species, which by 2100 may reach one third of
all species now living, is especially serious. We are losing the potential
they hold for providing medicinal and other benefits, and the contribution
that genetic diversity of life forms gives to the robustness of the world's
biological systems and to the astonishing beauty of the earth itself.
Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries or permanent.
Other processes appear to pose additional threats. Increasing levels of
gases in the atmosphere from human activities, including carbon dioxide
released from fossil fuel burning and from deforestation, may alter climate
on a global scale. Predictions of global warming are still uncertain --
with projected effects ranging from tolerable to very severe -- but the
potential risks are very great.
Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life -- coupled
with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss,
and climate change -- could trigger widespread adverse effects, including
unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions
and dynamics we only imperfectly understand. Uncertainty over the extent
of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threat.
Population
The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent
is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability
to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching
many of the earth's limits. Current economic practices which damage the
environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued
without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair.
Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on
the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable
future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must
accept limits to that growth. A World Bank estimate indicates that world
population will not stabilize at less than 12.4 billion, while the United
Nations concludes that the eventual total could reach 14 billion, a near
tripling of today's 5.4 billion. But, even at this moment, one person
in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten
suffers serious malnutrition. No more than one or a few decades remain
before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and
the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.
Warning
We the
undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby
warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship
of the earth and the life on it, is required, if vast human misery is
to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably
mutilated.
What We Must Do
Five inextricably linked areas
must be addressed simultaneously:
1. We must bring environmentally
damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity
of the earth's systems we depend on. We must, for example, move away from
fossil fuels to more benign, inexhaustible energy sources to cut greenhouse
gas emissions and the pollution of our air and water. Priority must be
given to the development of energy sources matched to third world needs
-- small scale and relatively easy to implement. We must halt deforestation,
injury to and loss of agricultural land, and the loss of terrestrial and
marine plant and animal species.
2. We must manage resources
crucial to human welfare more effectively. We must give high priority
to efficient use of energy, water, and other materials, including expansion
of conservation and recycling.
3. We must stabilize
population. This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it
requires improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of
effective, voluntary family planning.
4. We must reduce and
eventually eliminate poverty.
5. We must ensure sexual
equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.
The developed nations are the largest polluters in the world today. They
must greatly reduce their over-consumption, if we are to reduce pressures
on resources and the global environment. The developed nations have the
obligation to provide aid and support to developing nations, because only
the developed nations have the financial resources and the technical skills
for these tasks.
Acting on this recognition
is not altruism, but enlightened self-interest: whether industrialized
or not, we all have but one lifeboat. No nation can escape from injury
when global biological systems are damaged. No nation can escape from
conflicts over increasingly scarce resources. In addition, environmental
and economic instabilities will cause mass migrations with incalculable
consequences for developed and undeveloped nations alike.
Developing nations must realize
that environmental damage is one of the gravest threats they face, and
that attempts to blunt it will be overwhelmed if their populations go
unchecked. The greatest peril is to become trapped in spirals of environmental
decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental
collapse.
Success in this global endeavor
will require a great reduction in violence and war. Resources now devoted
to the preparation and conduct of war -- amounting to over $1 trillion
annually -- will be badly needed in the new tasks and should be diverted
to the new challenges.
A new ethic is required --
a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves
and for the earth. We must recognize the earth's limited capacity to provide
for us. We must recognize its fragility. We must no longer allow it to
be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement, convince reluctant
leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to
effect the needed changes.
The scientists issuing this
warning hope that our message will reach and affect people everywhere.
We need the help of many.
We require the help of the
world community of scientists -- natural, social, economic, political;
We require the help of the world's business and industrial leaders; We
require the help of the worlds religious leaders; and We require the help
of the world's peoples.
We call
on all to join us in this task.
Over 1,500 members of national, regional, and inter-national science academies
have signed the Warning. Sixty-nine nations from all parts of Earth are
represented, including each of the twelve most populous nations and the
nineteen largest economic powers. The full list includes a majority of
the Nobel laureates in the sciences. Awards and institutional affiliations
are listed for the purpose of identification only. The Nobel Prize in
medicine is for physiology or medicine.
A WORLD SCIENTISTS' WARNING
BRIEFING BOOK is available from the Union of Concerned Scientists. It
provides the citations to support their WARNING.
Union of Concerned Scientists
96 Church Street
Cambridge, Mass 02238-9105, USA
VOX: 617-547-5552
FAX: 617-864-9405
http://www.ucsusa.org/
ucs@igc.apc.org
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