99 Nobel Laureates Can’t All Be Wrong

~ Martha Branson

 

“…Whether industrialized or not, we all have but one lifeboat. No nation can escape from injury when global biological systems are damaged.” -Union of Concerned Scientists World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity (1992)

“Warning
We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it, is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.”

In 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists published, “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity,” which was signed by 1,575 of the world’s most prominent scientists (including 99 of the 196 living Nobel laureates) and was sent to governmental leaders all over the world.

“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know…
“Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries or permanent…Increasing levels of gasses in the atmosphere from human activities, including carbon dioxide released from fossil fuel burning and from deforestation, may alter climate on a global scale. Predictions of global warming are still uncertain – with projected effects ranging from tolerable to very severe –but potential risks are very great…. Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threats.
“No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.”

The document spells out exactly what the scientists believed was at stake in all areas including: the atmosphere, water resources, oceans, soil, forests, living species, and human population growth. Five specific, inextricably linked areas were determined to need addressing simultaneously. Those areas were as follows:

1. We must bring environmentally damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity of the earth’s systems we depend on.
2. We must manage resources crucial to human welfare more effectively.
3. We must stabilize population. This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it requires improved social and economic conditions and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning.
4. We must reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.
5. We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.

“The developed nations are the largest polluters in the world today. They must greatly reduce their overconsumption, if we are to reduce pressures on resources and the global environment. The developed nations have the obligation to provide aid and support to developing nations, because only the developed nations have the financial resources and the technical skills for these tasks.”

In conclusion, these brilliant minds made this statement: “Acting on this recognition is not altruism, but enlightened self-interest: whether industrialized or not, we all have but one lifeboat. No nation can escape from injury when global biological systems are damaged. No nation can escape from conflicts over increasingly sparce resources. In addition, environmental and economic instabilities will cause mass migrations with incalculable consequences for developed and undeveloped nations alike.”

“Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory and time is running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home.”-World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice (2017)

Originally this document had 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries. The number of signatories has grown to almost 20,000.

In the 2017 article titled, “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice” the scientists revisited the predictions made in 1992 and had this to say:

“…Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse. Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic climate change due to rising GHG’s from burning fossil fuels…Moreover we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.
“We are jeopardizing our future…Humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperiled biosphere.
“As most political leaders respond to pressure, scientists, media influencers, and lay citizens must insist that their governments take immediate action as a moral imperative to current and future generations of human and other life.
“To prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual. This prescription was well articulated by the world’s leading scientists 25 years ago, but in most respects, we have not heeded their warning. Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory and time is running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home.”

The entire articles can be found at https://aademic.oup.com/bioscience