15,000 Scientists From 184 Countries Warn Humanity of Environmental Catastrophe
The plea, published Monday in the international journal BioScience, is likely the largest-ever formal support by scientists for a journal article with 15,372 total signatories, Motherboard noted. The scientists represent 184 countries and have a range of scientific backgrounds. Prominent signatories include Jane Goodall, E.O. Wilson and James Hansen.
….According to the AP, the researchers document a number of alarming trends from 1992 to 2016, such as a 28.9 percent reduction of vertebrate wildlife, a 62.1 percent increase in CO2 emissions, a 167.6 percent rise in global average annual temperature change and a 35.5 percent increase in the global population (about 2 billion people).
One of the few positive trends over the past 25 years is the recovery of the ozone layer thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which sharply cut the use of chlorofluorocarbons. Reductions in extreme poverty and hunger, a slowdown in deforestation in some parts of the world, the rapid growth of the renewable energy sector and a sharp drop in birth rates in certain regions due to women and girls having greater access to education were also identified as positive trends, the AP reported.
The authors conclude that urgent measures are necessary to avoid disaster. They call upon everyday citizens to urge their leaders to “take immediate action as a moral imperative to current and future generations of human and other life.”
The root cause of this grave environmental degradation is human greed & not understanding the thin line difference between need & greed. One classic example of this is aquiring more than one property & automobiles by the so called educated lot of the society.Only if we were satisfied with one property then obviously the demand for new buildings will go down & automatically the construction of concrete jungle would stop which is the major reason for loss of habitat of wide no. Of species.Also the increasing no. Of vehicles on roads & increasing demand for electricity generation is leading to huge carbon emissions.