The world doesn't get any better

The world doesn't get any better

The life of people may improve, but what about everything else that shares our planet?

In difficult times, social media users tend to share food for thought, diagrams and graphics that prove that humanity has never been so good.

These graphics focus on growth in beautiful things such as basic education, literacy, democracy and vaccinations and the decline in terrible things such as extreme poverty and child mortality.

The diagrams are often accompanied by concise signatures such as "great proof that humanity has not really screwed it up".

alt = “People's living conditions improve (picture: our world in data)“> Our world in data The living conditions of people improve

What the caps ignore is that people are not the only species that counts. The world may be a better place for us, but what about the millions of species that also call the earth at home?

Even the most moderate debates about climate change relate to our lives, our children, our future. Perhaps this solipsism is necessary; Maybe most people just don't care about a problem unless it sneaks into their own shadows or knocks on their own door. There are children and bills and everyday errands - who has the ability to worry about gigantic problems such as climate change?

While we pursue our daily business, our dedication is gradually being devastated on the whole planet.

loss of the wilderness

revealed scientists that people have destroyed a tenth of the world's wilderness in the past 25 years alone. The study published in Current Biology reveals alarming knowledge about the wilderness of the world (defined by the authors as "biologically and ecologically largely intact landscapes that are largely free of human interventions").

alt = “climate change: Amazon”> Dream time The Amazon is what has been 30 % of the wilderness that has been lost in the past 25 years

The study shows that an estimated 3.3 million km2 wilderness has been lost since the early 1990s, 30 % of them in the Amazon area and 14 % in Central Africa.

In addition, three of the 14 terrestrial biomes of the earth no longer have globally significant wilderness areas. Another five biomes now have less than 10 % wilderness.

If the current trends continue, there could be no significant wild areas worldwide in less than a century.

the sixth mass extort

human activities have heralded what some scientists call the anthropocene, which dates from time, began to have a significant global influence on geology and ecosystems of the earth as human activities.

The anthropocene could culminate in an irreversible mass extinction that would be catastrophic for life on Earth.

alt = “Human activities could trigger the sixth mass extinction, say scientists”> Dream time human activities could trigger the sixth mass extinction, say scientists

The sixth mass extinction differs from the five previous mass extinction because it was caused by human action.

The causes include: the global distribution of non -domestic species; Human dominance about the primary production of the world; Human actions in the steering of evolution; and the unstable appetite of modern society on road construction (despite its destructive effect on nature) and new technologies (despite its toxic effect on the environment).

rising temperatures

The past year has been the hottest since the beginning of the records in 1880.

The average surface temperature of the earth has increased by 1.1 ° C (2 ° F) since the late 19th century. Most of the warming has occurred in the past 35 years, with 16 of the 17 warmest years since 2001.

2016 was not only the warmest year since the beginning of the records, but eight of the 12 months that the year exists - from January to September, with the exception of June - the warmest has been for these months since the beginning of the records. October, November and December 2016 have been the second warmest of these months since the beginning of the records - in all three cases behind the records of 2015.

In the same year, Outside online published an obituary for the Great Barrier Reef. It begins:

“The Great Barrier Reef in Australia died in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old.

During most of his life, the reef was the largest living structure of the world and the only one that was visible from space. It was 1,400 miles long, with 2,900 individual reefs and 1,050 islands. Overall, it was larger than the United Kingdom and contained more biodiversity than all of Europe. It housed 1,625 fish species, 3,000 molluscs, 450 coral species, 220 species of birds and 30 types of whales and dolphins. In addition to many other achievements, the reef was home to one of the world's largest populations of sea cows and the largest brood site of green sea turtles. ”

The article is undoubtedly alarming, but maybe stunts like this are necessary to direct the world's attention to important but unsexy environmental problems. After all, glaciers melt in glacier pace and nobody has so long attention tension. Perhaps brave stunts can succeed where statistics and studies fail.

need for action

widespread apathy, paired with political cowardice, brought us on the way to the environmental disaster - and it gets worse.

The new President of the USA, Donald Trump, considers climate change to be a joke and his cabinet is full of skeptics and denying. In addition, references to climate change after Trump's inauguration were removed from the US government's website. It is clear that things are ready to get much, much worse.

alt = "According to the US National Park Service after its anti-trump retweets, the tweeting was prohibited"> Dream time reported to the US national park service after its anti-Trump retweets, the twitter was prohibited

at a time when even the keepers of our most valuable places are asked to remain apolitical, we all have to do more at an individual level.

The darkest deeds of mankind - genocide, colonization, slavery - usually happen over the course of decades, hidden under the guise of normality. There are no flashing danger or blood -red warning flags, but a gradual conquest of the public opinion. Climate change takes place in an even longer time frame and it is clear to us to take care of the next century.

There are seven billion people on earth. Human life is expensive for us - and it is expensive - but the planet and its preservation are more important. Biodiversity is greater than us and we have the obligation to preserve reference points for pre -human environments.

basic formation, literacy, democracy and vaccinations may improve, and for humans this could be the best of all time, but it could be the worst for anything else.

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Mission statement: Dreamstime

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