When you hear the word nature, what comes to mind? For me, it’s the lakes of southern Ontario, where I spent my childhood summers among its pink and gray granite boulders and shady pine forests. I imagine sunfish darting through the rays of the sun in the water and I hear the buzz of cicadas in the trees.
I grew up in the 1970s, and even then nature was far from untouched. Acid rain and water pollution were already making headlines. by Rachel Carson silent spring had gave the alert in 1962. Seven years later, the Cuyahoga River was on fire for the 12th time. In 1970, the United States Clean Air Act was signed.
However, I still saw these issues as somehow separate from our ordinary lives. These were concerns for and on behalf of fish or plants or bees, I thought, not us. I took for granted clean air, plenty of water and plenty of food, and a home safe from fire or flood.
Fast forward to today, and those early alarms have turned into a deafening siren. While air pollution in the United States declined, its worldwide impacts exploded. Today more than one in six deaths worldwide is caused by the pollution of our air, water and soil.
Then there is climate change: an invisible but devastating force wreaking havoc on a planetary scale. The Industrial Revolution ignited our unhealthy addiction to fossil fuels; but what we often don’t realize is that nearly 80% of the CO2 emissions from burning coal, gas and oil, and almost 60% of all heat-trapping gas emissions, were released Since 1970. Choices made in my own lifetime are the main reason temperatures are now rising to a unprecedented rateloading weather dice against us. Every day now we are witnessing the impactsrecord heat waves straining power grids and health systems, supersized cyclones ravaging cities and refugee camps, smoke from wildfires smothering continents, and floods displacing millions of people.
The urgency and injustice of the climate crisis compelled me to become an atmospheric scientist. I am convinced that this is the most immediate threat to our civilization and many of the countless species with which we share this planet. But just after climate change, there is another equally threatening crisis: the loss of biodiversity, which threatens all life on Earth.
The biodiversity crisis is not new either. Over the past four centuries, humans have driven at least 680 endangered species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish; but as with climate change, the rate of impact has accelerated. Since 1970, WWF has documented a nearly 70 percent decline in existing wildlife populations; and through the more than eight million animal and plant species on earth, the human-induced rate of extinction is estimated at tens to hundreds of times higher than natural rates. With so many species still undiscovered, these numbers vary widely; Enough is known about the impacts of human activities on biodiversity, however, for conservationists to call the era we currently find ourselves in a the “sixth extinction”.
Too often, however, many of us still think and act like I did when I was young: mistakenly assuming that if our planet’s ecosystems collapsed, we could miraculously persist without air, water and the essential resources they provide. This prospect puts us all at risk. Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss have reached crisis levels that threaten not only flora and fauna, but humanity itself. Our collective survival is at stake.
Our ultimate goal is not simply to resolve these crises, but to secure a better future: for ourselves, for our children, and for everyone and everything we love here on this Earth. However, this better future can only be achieved by overcoming our own crises. Our ecosystems are, quite literally, our life support systems. Without them, we cannot ensure the stability of global food systems and economies, much less provide clean air and unpolluted water for the eight billion people who inhabit this planet. Our well-being and that of all life on Earth are fundamentally linked.
Unlike other species, however, we have a choice. We can see what is happening; we know we are responsible; and we can still prevent the catastrophe. But we don’t have much time. We cannot afford to deal with these crises with piecemeal solutions. We need comprehensive, multi-pronged strategies, from clean energy to educating women in low-income countries, that address climate, pollution, biodiversity – and health, poverty and other inequalities – and we need them NOW.
The stakes are high: in 2015 Paris Agreementthe world agreed to limit warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, a threshold now set at 1.5 degrees C after quantified scientists the risks of further warming. More recently, in December 2022, countries agreed on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It tackles the main drivers of biodiversity loss and calls for the protection of 30% of land, oceans and freshwaters by 2030.
Policies implemented since the Paris Agreement have already reduced projected warming by the end of the century from about 4.5 degrees C to 2.8 degrees C. That’s a lot: but it’s still not enough. For these audacious plans to succeed, there is it’s not possible any new fossil fuel development. Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced and eventually eliminated through efficiency, improved land use and agricultural practices, and transition to clean energy. We need to invest in nature, which has the potential to absorb up to a third of our carbon emissions. And we need countries to write and implement their own National Biodiversity Action Plans, and funds allocated for climate change mitigation, climate resilience and biodiversity in low-income countries. income and the main conservation areas of the world, in particular the most vulnerable and representative of the planet. ecosystems.
Nature offers a powerful ally in the fight against the catastrophic effects of human-induced climate change and ecosystem disruption, and the path to a net-zero, nature-positive world is not unknown. THE latest IPCC report show how many climate change solutions are already there, from halting deforestation to accelerating electrification. Organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and Project Drawdown offer resources such as Biodiversity Action Guide and the Withdrawal roadmapillustrating how we can launch actions that tackle multiple crises at once.
Implementing efficient and nature-friendly solutions is crucial in our fight against climate change. Greening low-income neighborhoods in major urban centers keeps them cool during heat waves, reducing socioeconomic inequalities in health risks. But this action also filters air pollution; and absorbs precipitation to prevent flooding, making neighborhoods more climate resilient. It provides places where people can be in nature, improving both our physical and mental health; it increases habitats for biodiversity; and it even absorbs carbon. That’s at least six wins. Other solutions, ranging from investing in public transport to climate-smart agriculture, have similar benefits for health and well-being, as well as for pollution, biodiversity and climate.
Tackling the pollution, climate and biodiversity crises that stand between us and a better future is the biggest and most complex challenge we have ever faced. It demands an equally ambitious response from all of us: from the world’s largest countries and companies to each of us as individuals able to raise our voices to advocate for the changes we need.
Events such as Earth Day in April and world biodiversity day in May will serve as powerful reminders that the crises we face are just different sides of the same coin. This is why I constantly strive to move beyond the artificial silos we impose on ourselves and others and focus on the end goal: to save ourselves and all who share our House. Our future is in our hands and together, I know, we can turn the tide.
This is an opinion and analytical article, and the opinions expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of American scientist.