Earth is home to millions of species. Just one dominates it. Us. Our cleverness and our activities have modified almost every part of our planet. In fact, we are having a profound impact on it. Indeed, our cleverness and our activities are now the drivers of every global problem we face. In fact, I believe we call the situation we’re in right now an emergency
There are now more than 7 billion of us on Earth. As our numbers continue to grow, we continue to increase our need for far more water, far more food, far more land, far more transport and far more energy. As a result, we are accelerating the rate at which we’re changing our climate. In fact, our activities are not only completely interconnected with but now also interact with, the complex system we live on is Earth. It is important to understand how all this is connected
The only solution left to us is to change our behaviour, radically and globally, on every level. In short, we urgently need to consume less. A lot less. And we need to conserve more. A lot more. To accomplish such a radical change in behaviour would also need good government action.
The behavioural changes that are required of us are so fundamental that no one wants to make them. What are they? We need to consume less. A lot less. Less food, less energy, less stuff. Fewer cars, electric cars, cotton T-shirts, laptops, mobile phone upgrades. Far fewer.And here it is worth pointing out that “we” refers to the people who live in the west and the north of the globe. There are currently almost 3 billion people in the world who urgently need to consume more: more water, more food, more energy.
If population levels continue to rise at the current rate, our grandchildren will see the Earth plunged into an unprecedented environmental crisis
-BENITA ROSHINI