The World Human B-ings Depend On

From Intro to Environmental Studies 2021

As the human population grows at an exponential rate daily, resource usage and carbon production have already seen their max affordable limit for the planet to recover from while all nations, humans, animals, plants, and the state of the environment are suffering the consequences as we speak.

After the era of industrialization and a mass ideological shift to favor a neoliberal mindset within the global political economy, the level of damage we inflict on the environment has multiplied to a disturbing degree in a few short decades. Time is of the essence, to say the least. Scientists have been warning for years and science has proven through studies, facts, and statistics, but there are other forces preventing the sharing of this information. We need to understand why the global system functions in this particular way using harmful, exploitative practices and beliefs to aid the existing world economy.

According to information and statistics gathered by The World Counts, all forests will be completely depleted in less than 78 years, the main contributor of CO2 elimination. Only 46% of all coral reef systems remain in our oceans, food will run out in 28 years while fresh water is ticking at 18 years. In less than 26 years it’s predicted we will have fishless oceans due to overfishing and the garbage island in the ocean that covers an area larger than India, Europe, and Mexico combined. Currently, using data from ecotricity from Stacey Budd, we are experiencing dozens of species extinctions per day with the extinction rate at 10,000 times the normal rate. Even worse is that the present rate at which humans extract resources and emit carbon for our habitual lifestyles means we require 1.7 planets to support this demand of consumption.

People have started to wake up and realize the effects of our everyday lives but not fast enough. Hopefully more people begin to understand the powers influencing our decisions, including how much we impact the environment, as well as seek truth and knowledge. Once people manage to properly become educated, then collectively, communities, organizations, and individuals can congregate to plan ideas and embody change. Together, the masses will force the global political, economic, and cultural structures to be compatible with ecological prosperity, benefitting humans in the long run.

From David Attenborough’s view on the global economy, he believes countries should follow along New Zealand’s path where they measure the health of people, planet, and profits where the rest of the globe measures their country’s success in gross domestic product, which ignores all other important qualities of a nation.

From the perspective of one author, Rainer Zitelmann, by Forbes believes the driving force of global capitalism is empathy as opposed to greed. Throughout history, we have seen instances of greed, oppression, and exploitation exhibited not only on the natural world, but other “lesser” humans as well. Since the emergence of capitalism and its growth in popularity, the destruction and domination of environmental and non-human entities has skyrocketed. This isn’t a coincidence. The definition of capitalism emphasizes profit where its success is measured by the amount of profit which is directly taken from the environment. The ultimate goal of capitalism is to see an increase in profits at the expense of all. Money cannot be our only purpose in life.

We require global radical change now collaboratively among nations and political economic structures. We need to embrace the idea that nature and humans must happily coexist and work together for the wellbeing of all life. The existence of non-human species, planet earth, and consequently, the human species depends on these adaptations to new, true global demands. The world changes, therefore how we see it and maneuver it must change too.

References:

1. Anon. n.d. “Planet Earth.” The World Counts. Retrieved April 25, 2021 (https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth).

2. Attenborough, David and Jonnie Hughes. 2020. “David Attenborough: To Save The Earth, Rethink The Economy.” Science Friday. Retrieved April 25, 2021 (https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/david-attenborough-book/).

3. Budd, Stacey. 2017. “Six Scary Facts about Climate Change.” Ecotricity. Retrieved April 25, 2021 (https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-news/2017/six-scary-facts-about-climate-change).

4. Zitelmann, Rainer. 2019. “The Driving Force Of Capitalism Is Empathy, Not Greed.” Forbes. Retrieved April 25, 2021 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2019/09/02/the-driving-force-of-capitalism-is-empathy-not-greed/?sh=1cf3805367aa).