Since the agricultural revolution, 10 000 years ago, humans have been operating under an extractive mindset.
It is time to change our mindset.
Taking resources from the earth without giving anything in exchange has led to the progressive depletion of our planet’s resources. In the last 200 years this process has been accelerated by the industrial revolution, the discovery and consequent extraction and burning of fossil fuels and the exponential population growth. All these factors have left us in a dire situation.
Unchecked emissions.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is currently at nearly 412 parts per million (ppm) and rising. This is the highest concentration at least in the past 800,000 any point in at least the past 800,000 years, and represents a 47 percent increase since the beginning of the Industrial Age, when the concentration was near 280 ppm (NASA, NOAA).
Topsoil degradation.
A third of the planet’s land is severely degraded (UN). We are losing the equivalent of 30 soccer fields of soil every minute, mostly due to intensive farming. This means that the world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years. 95% of current global food production is dependent on our topsoil.
Deforestation.
Between 1990 and 2016, the world lost 1.3 million square kilometres of forest (World Bank), an area larger than that of Germany, France and the UK combined. But not all forests are created equal. Rainforests, home to half of the Earth's wildlife and at least two-thirds of its plant species, are disappearing more rapidly. In the past 50 years, about 17 % of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed.
Biodiversity loss.
Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined on average by 68% since 1970 (WWF). At the same time the world has failed to hit any of its 20 biodiversity targets for the decade (UN).
There is a solution.
Our economies have been designed under the same extractive principles that have led growth for millennia. But if we are to halt climate change and ensure that this planet continues to be a place where life can thrive, we must make environmental regeneration our primary collective goal.