An Urgent Message from
the Living Earth

A stark warning from many thousands of climate scientists over the years tells us that in order to secure a sustainable future, we must change how we think and live and interact with the Earth’s natural ecosystems. There is no time to lose. The climate crisis is now and is accelerating faster than most of them expected, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.

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As a result of human activities there are especially disturbing trends of increasing global temperatures and extreme weather events. Yet despite over 40 years of global climate negotiations we have largely failed to address the issues of potential irreversible climate tipping points.

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Transformational change with social and economic justice for all promises greater human well-being than does much of today’s business as usual paragon. Meanwhile the recent surge in environmental concern across much of the world is encouraging. However, as far back as1992 ‘The Union of Concerned Scientists’ and more than 1700 independent scientists penned the “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity”. We have a duty to ask ourselves: What has happened to the Earth’s bio-diversity and global warming in the years since? A worrying thought.

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The ‘Warning to Humanity’ called on humankind to curtail environmental destruction and cautioned that “a great change in our understanding and stewardship of the Living Earth including Humanity is urgently required if disasters are to be avoided. 

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For the scientist William J. Ripple scientists have a moral obligation to issue warnings of catastrophic threats: “It is more important than ever that we, as scientists, speak out. It is time to go beyond just research and publishing, and to go directly to the public, as well policymakers.”

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In the last International Geological Congress it was agreed that the impact of human activity in recent years in relation to the Living Earth has been so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared.

The current epoch, the Holocene, give us 12,000 years of stable climate during which modern human civilisation developed. But the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions and the global mass extinction of species has profoundly changed the natural world, and certainly not for the better. The significance of the change to the Earth’s ecosystems as a result of human actions sets a different trajectory for the Earth’s living systems, of which we of course are part. Meanwhile, there is little doubt we are moving away from the Holocene to the Anthropocene Age.

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Sadly, we are increasingly messing about with the natural world mostly with a lack of understanding, knowledge and wisdom.

Other candidates to be considered as evidence of the Anthropocene Age are plastic pollution, aluminium and concrete particles, along with high levels of nitrogen and phosphate in soils, and rivers and seas derived from artificial fertilisers etc.

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