=====================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #428
—February 9, 1995—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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WORLD SCIENTISTS’ WARNING TO HUMANITY
[The U.S. Congress is presently re-thinking all U.S.
environmental laws, regulations, programs, and ideas. One theme
keeps echoing throughout the debates: current environmental laws
and programs are based on “bad science” and many of the nation’s
and the world’s so-called environmental problems have been
exaggerated. This theme has been amplified by a handful of news
reporters and writers; David Shaw of the LOS ANGELES
TIMES describes a “the sky-is-NOT-falling movement” in U.S.
journalism. [1] Shaw, himself a member of this “movement,”
identifies other members: Boyce Rensberger of the WASHINGTON
POST, John Stossel of ABC News, Gregg Easterbrook of NEWSWEEK,
Michael Fumento (author of the book, SCIENCE UNDER SEIGE), and
Keith Scheider of the NEW YORK TIMES, among others. Shaw says
these writers are “part of a backlash, a revisionist contrarian
movement among a growing number of journalists who believe that
the media have needlessly alarmed the American public…” Shaw
omitted mention of perhaps the best-known member of the
movement–Rush Limbaugh.
Congressional leaders, the anti-environment “wise use” movement,
and a handfull of influential writers and publicists are claiming
that the public has become needlessly worried about
environmental problems. The environmental community is saying
the opposite. Who should we believe?
Perhaps we might listen to prominent members of the world
scientific community. In mid-1993, with little fanfare, 1680
scientists from 49 countries signed and published a “World
Scientists’ Warning to Humanity.” Of these 1680 scientists, 104
were Nobel prize winners. Below, we print the text of their
warning verbatim. Publication of the original statement was
organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. [2]]
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity
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 groundwater
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
percent 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 by-product of our current practices
in agriculture and animal husbandry. Since 1945, 11 percent 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 threats.
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 overconsumption, 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
underdeveloped 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, convincing
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 world’s religious leaders; and we
require the help of the world’s peoples. We call on all to join
us in this task.
[Here we omitted the 1680 individual signatures.]
                
                
                
                
    
Descriptor terms: global environmental problems; journalism;
backlash; ucs; union of concerned scientists; atmosphere; ozone
depletion; oceans; water pollution; soil; agriculture; food
supply; developing world; forests; species loss; poverty; women’s
rights; war; violence; religion;