In a report published today in the journal BioScience, over 11,000 of the world’s leading climate scientists have added their names to a declaration calling the planet’s current warming trends a “climate emergency.”
Titled “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” the paper takes an urgent tone, detailing a dire situation that will require extreme responses to avert disaster. Scientists, the report says, have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.”
“As a scientist, I feel that I must speak out about climate change, since it is such a severe threat to humanity,” says Bill Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author of the new report. In addition to a warning about the future, Ripple, his co-authors and the 11,258 other people who attached their names to the paper suggest a set of tools to make sense of our changing world.
With a focus on future action to reduce climate-change-related harm, the article describes graphical indicators, which they describe as "vital signs," related to climate change and areas requiring immediate global action.
The authors explain that while some indicators related to human activities are broadly positive -such as declining birth rates and increased uptake of renewable fuels - most are not. Rather, they point to "profoundly troubling signs from human activities," such as growing livestock populations, global tree cover loss and higher carbon dioxide emissions. It is the authors hope that these "vital signs" may be used by policymakers, the private sector, and public to "understand the magnitude of this crisis, track progress, and realign priorities for alleviating climate change."
Accomplishing such aims will require "major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems," say the authors, and they focus on six key objectives: energy sector reform, reduction of short-lived pollutants, ecosystem restoration, food system optimisation, the establishment of a carbon-free economy, and a stable human population. The food system optimisation objective is of particular interest, with the report noting that:
"...Eating mostly plant-based foods while reducing the global consumption of animal products, especially ruminant livestock can improve human health and significantly lower GHG emissions...moreover, this will free up croplands for growing much-needed human plant food instead of livestock feed, while releasing some grazing land to support natural climate solutions."
Despite major concerns and significant work to come, Ripple and colleagues see some room for optimism:
"...We believe that the prospects will be greatest if decision-makers and all of humanity promptly respond to this warning and declaration of a climate emergency and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home."
Full report available here
Related information: Grow Green
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