A WORLD ON THE BRINK
Acknowledgments I would like to thank all the following who have given me the inspiration to write this book: All those who work for the World Wildlife Fund For Nature (WWF), The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Greenpeace Sir David Attenborough Bono Deborah and Neil My mother, father, brother, sister and grandma Bertha Most of all, my daughter Madeleine and my son Jacob
Contents Foreword Chapter I
Ancient Forest
Chapter II
Species
Chapter III
Climate Change
Chapter IV
Oil Wars – Democracy or the New Imperialism?
Chapter V
Planet Earth – The Multinational Corporation
Chapter VI
A Climate of Injustice
Chapter VII
The Future – What Does it Hold?
Foreword Why is it that we largely ignore the destruction of the environment of which we are a part, and on which our future depends? Food, clean water, medicines and protection from hazards, both natural and those related to human conflict are important ingredients in maintaining our security and quality of life – yet their continued availability is increasingly under threat as a result of the unsustainable lifestyle of those people who predominantly live in the developed world. As individuals and family units we are in many ways a loving and caring society, exemplified by how we nurture our children. When looked at en masse the same cannot be said of the human race ‐ if we look beyond our own doorstep, the way in which we in the developed world choose to live is having a devastating impact on the rest of the world, with mass suffering of both humans and wildlife. At the extreme the behaviour of the human race can be likened to that of the Schistocerca Gregaria, commonly known as the Desert Locust. During quiet periods called recessions, Desert Locusts live in harmony with their surrounding environment and take only what they need. But under optimal ecological and climatic conditions they enter the gregarious phase during which time locusts congregate into thick, mobile, ravenous swarms devastating crops and cause major agricultural damage and attendant human misery ‐ famine and starvation. Is my statement that likens human behaviour to that of locust unfair? That is for you to decide but parallels can easy be drawn with our financial markets, which move us between periods of recession and gregarious phases, which we call economic growth. During recessions the consumers, you and me, become more self‐sufficient and spend less money, which is good for the environment. But during periods of economic growth we become gregarious, taking far more than we need and causing untold damage to the environment.
The statement is also easy to quantify. The Living Planet Index (LPI) uses population trends in species from around the world to assess the state of global diversity and tracks nearly 4000 populations. Between 1970 and 2005 the LPI declined by 27%, and thirty‐five species become extinct every day in the tropical rainforests, extinct meaning forever. In terms of forest coverage, the equivalent area of thirty seven‐football pitches is lost every minute. Another measure of human activity is the Ecological Footprint, which measures human demands on the biosphere to produce resources and absorb carbon dioxide. In 2003, the most recent year for which there are data, humanity’s total footprint exceeded the productive capacity of the biosphere by 25%. In other words we are using up earth’s natural resources a lot quicker than they can be replaced. Unfortunately once harvested many of the resources cannot be replaced, it is not possible to simply cut down rainforests and replace them like for like. Unchecked, our behaviour is going to have an adverse impact on all of us. Food supplies will be affected, even in the developed world ‐ more than 50 % of global fish stocks are already fully exploited and 25 % overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion. According to some scientists, commercial fishing will be no longer viable by 2048. As many as 50 % of our prescription drugs are based on a molecule that occurs naturally in a plant – our search for new medical cures continues to diminish as we destroy increasing amounts of our rainforests. Travel will become more expensive and less enjoyable as the natural world continues to disappear. Of course the impact of deforestation and climate change is going to be felt more so in the developing world. Presently a child dies every twenty seconds in the developing world as a result of water‐related disease, by 2050 it is expected that 2.8 billion people will live in water‐ stressed areas. Perhaps most disturbing though is our reliance on oil. We live in an era where the world’s demand for oil will soon outstrip the supply, and as such it is hard to believe that the focus of
our military campaigns in regions rich in fossil fuels is a coincidence. If this were the case then why is it we choose to turn a blind eye to the needless suffering of those living in regions relatively devoid of natural resources such as the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, the murder of 657,000 civilians in Rwanda in 1994, and the slaughter of 40,000 Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka in 2009? As a doctor of medicine I like to think I am doing good for others, but when I step outside of my own world I know I am as much to blame as the other 700 million ‘middle class’ citizens of the developed world who are responsible for more than half the worlds CO2 emissions and depletion of much of the natural world. Even in the field of medicine the National Health Service (NHS) is responsible for more than 25% of the UK’s industrial CO2 production, and we welcome medical staff from developing countries, hence, further taking away from their capacity to deliver healthcare. The behaviour of the human species has changed. We used to cherish family from young to old age, be content with what we needed to live on and go to war only to protect our country. Now we live beyond our means, more often than not expect society to look after the elderly, and go to war to protect our energy supplies so that we can go on living an unsustainable way of living. Unless we change our ways the human race will fail itself and all the other species in the one and only world we have. I love life and have no intention to give up those things that I have a passion for, such as skiing and travel, but I am prepared to give enough back to the environment to afford me life’s luxuries, the question is ‐ are you?
Dr Tim Cunliffe, 1st January 2011