Or will nature equip humans to cope with this problem? These are highly unsettled questions. Although there is evidence that materialism is learned and shaped by culture , there are some who argue that natural selection may have predisposed our species with a desire to accumulate stuff. Our belongings can offer us a sense of security and status that doubtless played a more important role earlier in human history.
Somehow, creating new stuff has become a divine word in the collective human psyche. It's obnoxiously seated in all our endeavours from ancient stories to modern research and development rooms. Humans have been conditioned to believe that creating something new is a meaningful purpose of life and is the only way to advance their ambitions. Yet we forget to put a cap on the use.
The limits of science have never been more glaringly apparent when trying to solve this conundrum. Reliance upon green technological solutions alone is flawed because the focus is still based on new stuff and more use — not to alter lifestyles or business models that handed us this problem in the first place.
Even if we can replace all fossil fuel-based vehicles with electric ones, for example, cities are already struggling to take road space from cars and electric vehicles have their own footprint on the world's resources due to the materials needed to build them. Every step in this direction will have a positive effect. Look at the carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and the systems supporting. It accounts for about 3. It's possible to cut down emissions with one less email or avoiding an unnecessary photo sharing on social media — it may seem like an insignificant reduction from one individual but then add billions of such small actions together.
Read more about the impact of our internet activity on the climate. Big technology companies claim they are going green or set goals for carbon neutrality but they rarely encourage people to spend less time on social media or order fewer products.
Rather advertising and marketing models convey powerful messages that reinforce the motto: create and consume more. This irrational savage materialism is ingrained so deeply with traditions and cultural symbols as well. During this ritual, long lines of customers hit the malls and often get injured or trampled — but people are convinced that it's an effort worth the trouble. In the age of Anthropocene, humans may feel entitled to pin hope on technology to fix any problems so that they can continue to do what they are doing.
Faced with the accumulation of long-lived plastic in the environment, for example, a spurt of innovation led to biodegradable coffee cups, bags for life and reusable straws. Two weeks ago, I looked at the question of the anxiety that the climate crisis is causing our psyches. What kind of thinking goes into adopting a tobacco-industry strategy to protect a business model as you wreck the climate system? No one, of course, can peer inside the heads of oil-company executives or those of their enablers in the legal, financial, and political worlds.
In , Raj Patel, a research professor at the University of Texas, went to Malawi with a film crew to follow the farmer and activist Anita Chitaya and document her work in ending hunger and gender inequality.
She asked whether she should come over to America, to school us on what climate change was doing to her community. We fund-raised, travelled in , and documented the impact she had on communities from Iowa to Detroit to Oakland to Washington, D. They translated the answers from her native Tumbuka, and the interview has been edited. What message were you most trying to get across to Americans when you travelled here?
The atmosphere has been damaged because of gas and smoke coming from America. We came to spread the news about how climate change affects us in Malawi, and what we are doing to change how we live to address the problems.
We needed to tell them about the struggles that we were facing because it seems they did not know and, if they did not know about us, how could they care about us? I also want to say that it was an honor for us to meet them.
They agreed that the weather was different, but disagreed that it was something that was the result of humans. But we are insulated from these impacts, so they are abstract to us. Overseas trading also creates and increases inequality.
The pressure for material goods comes mostly from middle and high-income countries and is often met by low to middle-income countries. High income countries have their own fisheries but most of these have collapsed. Fishing now takes place in previously unexploited or underexploited fisheries, most of which belong to low-income countries. Combating the loss of ecosystems is going to be complex and will require a nexus approach. This means thinking about how different components of the problem such as nature, politics and socioeconomics all interact with one another.
An example of a nexus approach would be to reduce biodiversity loss by changing how we farm, while at the same time making sure people have enough food, their livelihoods are not undermined, and social conflicts are not aggravated. The way to avoid some of these issues may be to focus on regenerating and restoring high-carbon ecosystems such as forests and wetlands. Similarly the need for food could be met by changing dietary choices and reducing waste.
Switching to clean energy is an important step which would allow other changes to happen more easily. Obtaining coal and gas involves destroying vast amounts of land and seascapes as well as polluting the environment beyond extraction. But in order to achieve this fully, the world needs to revaluate current political structures and societal norms, which tend not to value nature. One way of doing that is by improving existing environmental policies and regulations, as well as removing and reforming harmful policies.
The Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity CBD have decided that the IPBES Global Assessment Report will form the scientific and technical evidence base for the intergovernmental negotiations in , to agree on a global biodiversity framework for the next decade and to replace the Aichi Biodiversity Targets that expire next year. IPBES Chair Anna Maria Hernandez concludes, 'This new article makes it even more clear that we need profound, system-wide change and that this requires urgent action from policymakers, business, communities and every individual.
There is literally no time to waste. Get email updates about our news, science, exhibitions, events, products, services and fundraising activities. You must be over the age of Privacy notice. Smart cookie preferences. A policy failure in dealing with a threat that could cause human extinction would thus have hugely negative consequences.
Behold the face of Death, Destroyer of Worlds. The first 11 items on the list are risks we can identify as potential threats worth tackling. There are almost certainly other dangers out there with grave potential impacts that we can't predict. It's hard to even think about how to tackle this problem, but more research into global catastrophic risks could be helpful. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. These are the 12 things most likely to destroy the world. Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: These are the 12 things most likely to destroy the world. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. An artist's concept of an asteroid impact hitting the early Earth. Just one of many ways we could all die! So the report's authors conducted a scientific literature review and identified 12 plausible ways it could happen: 1 Catastrophic climate change Now imagine this Delivered Fridays.
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