From food and water scarcity to growing evidence of climate-related risks faced by individuals, businesses and countries, the evidence has never been clearer. A planet being pushed to the edge will eventually turn on us.
Our planet is at breaking point. But it’s not too late to save it | World Economic Forum
We are already seeing an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events disrupting lives and livelihoods across the region. Unprecedented droughts in southern Africa have forced companies to shut down production and cities to impose daily blackouts as hydroelectricity supplies fail. Factories in Beijing are repeatedly being ordered to slow down production to mitigate the thick poisonous smog blanketing the city.
The equation is a simple one: Protecting the environment alongside economic and social development is critical for our well-being and it also makes business sense. Increasingly companies are expected to address, not to worsen, environmental degradation — it is becoming part of their social licence to operate.
The great acceleration
For companies the risks and the opportunities are significant. Businesses can lead the way with a long-term responsible approach that values natural capital and helps avoid the cost implications of resource scarcity and environmental damage. A good example would be the palm oil industry.
Every year, illegal forest clearing practices cause devastating fires and haze that make headlines around the world and have an impact on forest ecosystems, as well as the lives and welfare of millions across South-East Asia. Right now the state of the planet is getting worse and the pressures on natural systems are deepening but, for the first time perhaps, we are also seeing an increase in response. We have undoubtedly begun a great transition towards sustainable living. Now, we need to focus on the scale and speed of this transition if we are going to decouple economic development from environmental degradation.
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- When Ships Meet-A really handy book to revise the collsion regulations (Really handy books to revise the collision regulations 2);
- The Food Police: A Well-Fed Manifesto About the Politics of Your Plate;
The momentum is building and businesses must be at the forefront of change. More than ever the planet needs responsive and responsible leadership with a deep commitment to inclusive development and equitable growth, both nationally and globally. There is no time to waste. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Accelerating climate action
People tend to like cities, and have been congregating in them ever since the invention of agriculture, 10, or so years ago. This origin story underlines how agriculture made cities possible, by providing enough food to feed a settled crowd on a regular basis. So as central as cities are to modern civilisation, they are only one aspect of a system. Right now we are not succeeding. The Global Footprint Network estimates that we use up our annual supply of renewable resources by August every year, after which we are cutting into non-renewable supplies — in effect stealing from future generations.
Eating the seed corn, they used to call it. The future is radically unknowable: The sheer breadth of possibility is disorienting and even stunning. But one thing can be said for sure: Since the current situation is unsustainable, things are certain to change. Cities emerge from the confusion of possibilities as beacons of hope. By definition they house a lot of people on small patches of land, which makes them hugely better than suburbia. In ecological terms, suburbs are disastrous, while cities can perhaps work. The tendency of people to move to cities, either out of desire or perceived necessity, creates a great opportunity.
- Marejada en el Estrecho (Spanish Edition).
- The 100 million city: is 21st century urbanisation out of control?!
- Empty half the Earth of its humans. It's the only way to save the planet.
- Gender and Economics: A European Perspective.
- best Planets images on Pinterest in | Outer space, Universe and Cosmos.
- Student Self-Esteem: Integrating the Self.
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His book of the same title is provocative in all the best ways, and I think it has been under-discussed because the central idea seems so extreme. But since people are leaving the land anyway and streaming into cities, the Half Earth concept can help us to orient that process, and dodge the sixth great mass extinction event that we are now starting, and which will hammer humans too.
The idea is right there in the name: Same with the oceans, by the way; about a third of our food comes from the sea, so the seas have to be healthy too.
- Voices of the Future;
- Delawares Covered Bridges!
- Yuko-chan and the Daruma Doll: The Adventures of a Blind Japanese Girl Who saves Her Village?
- Love Story.
At a time when there are far more people alive than ever before, this plan might sound strange, even impossible. With people already leaving countrysides all over the world to move to the cities, big regions are emptier of humans than they were a century ago, and getting emptier still. Many villages now have populations of under a thousand, and continue to shrink as most of the young people leave. If these places were redefined and repriced as becoming usefully empty, there would be caretaker work for some, gamekeeper work for others, and the rest could go to the cities and get into the main swing of things.
Our planet is at breaking point. But it’s not too late to save it
It would be more a matter of managing how we made the move, and what kind of arrangement we left behind. One important factor here would be to avoid extremes and absolutes of definition and practice, and any sense of idealistic purity. We are mongrel creatures on a mongrel planet, and we have to be flexible to survive.
So these emptied landscapes should not be called wilderness.