The rates at which this phenomenon is occurring are through the roof

Jun 11, 2012 08:49 GMT  ·  By

A reiteration of the United Nations' 1992 Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro is scheduled to occur on June 20. Ahead of Rio+20, Stanford University biologists publish a worrying paper about the current state of affairs.

They say that humanity never before moved so far away from sustainability at such a fast pace than it does now. In biophysical terms, as a species, we are wreaking havoc on the very environment we depend on for our very survival.

“In biophysical terms, humanity has never been moving faster nor further from sustainability than it is now,” Stanford biology professors Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily write in the top journal Nature's new Rio+20 issue. Nature Conservancy expert Peter Kareiva also collaborated on the paper.

The conference will provide the world with an opportunity to assess its current bearing and course of development, with respect to the rest of the world around us. The fact that, at this current rate, we will burn out soon is no longer a secret to anyone.

For starters, the world's population is estimated to reach 9.5 billion within 38 years. That's 2.5 billion extra people that will need to be fed, provided with potable water and other resources. Cultural changes are absolutely necessary to reduce birth rates, the team explains.

Another direction we need to work towards is reducing consumption. The developed world – the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia – is currently consuming resources at an alarming rate, and these levels will have to be scaled back significantly.

These countries are also responsible for unbelievably high waste rates. People here throw away more than half of the food they are buying, while billions of others around the globe are starving.

As far as the environment goes, biodiversity loss is at an all-time high, and this is painfully obvious in the number of ecosystems that are about to collapse, or have already done so. Policy changes need to be enacted in spite of fierce opposition from special interest groups.

“Just telling the people what the science says hasn't brought about the changes we need. Even with people going hungry and living in ways that Americans aren't used to, we'd need another half an Earth to maintain just today's population indefinitely,” Ehrlich argues.

Unfortunately, these are statistical facts, and not open to interpretation. The drive among special interest groups – such as the oil industry – is to distract people from this idea, and to cast doubt on scientific data by financing detractors who know they are wrong, but persist in dividing the public opinion.

Earth's estimated 2050 population could be reduced by as much as 1 billion by simply educating women in the developing world and third world, and by providing them with access to contraception.

However, consumption and energy usage patterns remain the most severe problems our civilization is faced with. “If we don't get off the fossil fuel standard, it hardly matters how many people there are,” Ehrlich says.

Another factor to consider is that biodiversity loss does not simply mean that fewer species will be around in the future. Biological diversity is critical to ecosystems' ability to provide humans with everything we need to survive.

A recent paper has demonstrated that biodiversity loss has an equally negative impact on environments as global warming, which is saying a lot. Our economic prosperity is heavily dependent on ecosystemic health, and this should be plain obvious to all.

“We need to scale back destructive human impacts – but in terms of good ideas and models of success, we need to scale up,” Daily explains.

“And it's not incremental over the next 40 years. It's right now that we need to move,” Ehrlich concludes.