1,575 scientists signed the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity in 1992, including more than half of all living scientists awarded the Nobel Prize. More and more add their names to this momentous document. We must all broadcast this alarm. The imminent ecological collapse facing the natural world cries out for immediate global action. Only concerted cooperation of world governments offers hope of reversing this ominous trend. The United States alone has the means and stature to become the leader among nations for humanity's rescue. Vice President Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, offers practical solutions that would not only reverse these trends, but eliminate poverty and generate the greatest economic prosperity humanity ever experienced. Henry Kendall, Nobel laureate, Physics, and Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), organized the magisterial work that produced this warning. No other issue today is more important than this one because without restoring balance and insuring survival of life on this planet, all other issues cease to exist.
World Scientists' Warning to Humanity
Introduction
Human beings and the natural world
are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often
irreversible damage to 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. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to
avoid the collision our present course will bring about.
The Environment
The environment is suffering critical stress:
The Atmosphere
Stratospheric ozone depletion threatens us with enhanced ultraviolet
radiation at the earth's surface, which can be damaging or lethal to
many life forms. Air pollution near ground level, and acid
precipitation, are already causing widespread injury to humans, forests,
and crops.
Water Resources
Heedless exploitation of depletable groundwater supplies endangers
food production and other essential human systems. Heavy demands on the
world's surface waters have resulted in serious shortages in some 80
countries, containing 40 percent of the world's population. Pollution of
rivers, lakes, and groundwater further limits the supply.
Oceans
Destructive pressure on the oceans is severe, particularly in the
coastal regions, which produce most of the world's food fish. The total
marine catch is now at or above the estimated maximum sustainable yield.
Some fisheries have already show signs of collapse. Rivers carrying
heavy burdens of eroded soil into the seas also carry industrial,
municipal, agricultural, and livestock waste--some of it toxic.
Tropical rain forests, as well as tropical and temperate dry
forests, are being destroyed rapidly. At present rates, some critical
forest types will be gone in a few years, and most of the tropical rain
forest will be gone before the end of the next century. With them will
go large numbers of plant and animal species.
Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries or permanent. Other processes appear to pose additional threats. Increasing levels of gases on 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 the potential risks are very great.
Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life--coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change--could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand.
Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threats.
Population
The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive
effluent is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite.
Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we
are fast approaching many of the earth's limits. Current economic
practices that damage the environment, in both developed and
underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital
global systems will be damaged beyond repair.
Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth. A World Bank estimate indicates that world population will not stabilize at less than 12.4 billion, while the United Nations concludes that the eventual total could reach 14 billion, a near tripling of today's 5.4 billion. But, even at this moment, one person in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten suffers serious malnutrition.
No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospect of humanity immeasurably diminished.
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.
What We Must Do
Five inextricably linked areas must be addressed simultaneously:
1. We must bring environmentally damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity of the earth's systems we depend on. We must, for example, move away from fossil fuels to more benign, inexhaustible energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the pollution of our air and water. Priority must be given to the development of energy sources matched to Third World needs--small-scale and relatively easy to implement.
We must halt deforestation, injury to and loss of agricultural land, and the loss of terrestrial and marine plant and animal species.
2. We must manage resources crucial to human welfare more effectively. We must give high priority to efficient use of energy, water, and other materials, including expansion of conservation and recycling.
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 equalityl, 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.
Action 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 scarce resources. In addition, environmental and economic instabilities will cause mass migrations with incalculable consequences for developed and undeveloped nations alike.
Developing nations must realize that environmental damage is one of the gravest threats they face and that attempts to blunt it will be overwhelmed if their populations go unchecked. The greatest peril is to become trapped in spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic, and environmental collapse.
Success in this global endeavor will require a great reduction in violence and war. Resources now devoted to the preparation and conduct of war--amounting to over $1 trillion annually--will be badly needed in the new tasks and should be diverted to the new challenges.
A new ethic is required--a new attitude toward discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recognize the earth's limited capacity to provide for us. We must recognize its fragility. We must no longer allow it to be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement, convincing reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to effect the needed changes. The scientists issuing this warning hope that our message will reach and affect people everywhere. We need the help of many.
We require the help of the world community of scientists--natural, social, economic, political;
We require the help of the world's business and industrial leaders;
We require the help of the world's religious leaders; and
We require the help of the world's peoples.
We call on all to join us in this task.
For information regarding additional signatories, please contact Union of Concerned Scientists, 2 Brattle Square, Cambridge MA 02238-9105, (617) 547-5552.