World scientists recommend urgent actions for survival of civilization
News provided by Stable Planet Alliance and Scientists Warning Europe - Oct 27, 2021, 04:00 PT
The nonprofits Stable Planet Alliance (Stable Planet) and Scientists Warning Europe (SWE) today announced the launch of the “World Scientists’ Warning into Action” paper, a solutions-oriented follow-up to the 2019 “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” paper.
The new paper goes beyond the reach of traditional scientific papers, and even existing “scientists’ warnings” in that it recaps impending climate and biodiversity-loss risks, but mainly articulates what we need to do to avoid them. It recommends specific, urgent, large-scale transformative actions and solutions to the multi-faceted planetary overshoot emergencies faced by humanity.
Addressed to leaders around the world at multiple scales, from householders and community leaders to heads of state and the UN Secretary-General, the paper is a collaboration of top world scientists, economists, and other specialists, identifying a framework for action to protect the planet and society for future generations.
"This paper shows the main ways that we can bend the needle on the climate and biodiversity crises, by systemic reforms at different levels,” said co-lead author, Professor Phoebe Barnard of the University of Washington and Stable Planet Alliance. “Six areas were originally identified for urgent action in the World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency paper in 2019 – Energy, Atmospheric Pollutants, Nature, Food Systems, Population Stabilization, and the Economy. Not all are equally amenable to action by individuals or households. In this new paper, we look at six scales of action, from individual and household levels through communities, cities, districts, nations and global levels. And while much of the solution to our planetary overshoot needs systemic change, individual households can play strong roles in several of these areas, including nature, food systems and population stabilization.”
The paper will be circulated at the upcoming COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow, accompanied by a film currently in production by director-producer Jonathan Clay, known for the 2021 Netflix film “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of our Planet” with Sir David Attenborough and Prof Johan Rockström.
Scientists Warning Europe, of which several of “World Scientists’ Warming Into Action” authors are board members and scientific advisors, is supporting the paper and the upcoming film by working to obtain endorsements by the end of COP26 from scientists (including social and political scientists), economists, legal and policy experts, and other influencers around the world.
“This film and this paper will be telling the leaders and officials at COP26 what we need them to do in order to save us, and to save our planet,” says Managing Director of Scientists Warning Europe, British lawyer and local politician Edmund Gemmell. “They offer essential guidance for a wiser, more sustainable civilization which steps away from its extractive economies and destructive social structures and mindsets.”
The paper recommends time-sensitive actions in the next decade and before 2050 to world leaders and communities. “But there is an extremely steep hill to climb,” says co-lead author, Professor Emeritus William Moomaw of Tufts University, puts it. “Because we have delayed this essential action for decades, we have now dramatically reduced the comfort and timeframe within which we can make changes.”
Barnard and co-authors Professor Gina Ziervogel of the University of Cape Town, Professor Lorenzo Fioramonti of the Italian Parliament and University of Pretoria, and Dr Mahmoud Ibrahim Mahmoud of Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency write about the structural impediments of governance which need reform, to enable transformative change on short timescales. But, they point out, time is now so short that we cannot wait for reforms to be complete before we act, and must enable temporary measures for planning, policymaking and management, including corruption prevention, while this is done.
The “World Scientists’ Warning Into Action” makes such recommendations, and focuses on the moral imperatives of fast action. In language highly unusual for a scientific paper, it concludes:
“Our challenges are less technical than social – taking the necessary actions quickly enough, in all nations and governance regimes – particularly democratic ones - while maintaining adequate social, economic and political stability to steer the ship of humanity safely into a wiser, more sustainable world order. This will require unprecedented global collaboration, social learning, and public awareness and pressure. This will profoundly challenge us all, and our systems of planning, cooperation and governance. Over the next decade, we have a stark choice: to demonstrate the very best of our natures as Homo sapiens - cooperative, innovative, wise, and ethical, to learn from mistakes and create better societies - or to go down with both a bang of conflict and a whimper of bickering, entitlement and self interest. That choice is ours. The actions or inactions of individual leaders in government, communities and businesses in this decade will be remembered darkly, or hopefully kindly. Everything we know and love is at stake.”
About the Stable Planet Alliance
The Stable Planet Alliance is a new nonprofit global coalition of respected organizations collaborating to ‘bend the curve on population and hyperconsumption,’ Its members work through bottom-up public narrative shifts and top-down public policy shifts to stabilize both population and consumption in collaborative, planetary- and women’s-justice-centered ways. For more information visit www.stableplanetalliance.org.
About Scientists Warning Europe
Scientists Warning Europe’s mission is to protect the future of our planet, our children, and other creatures that share our world, through presenting and promoting science endorsed solutions which will lead to a just transition for our world to a sustainable and equitable future. It represents scientists who warn the world about the rapidly increasing dangers of climate change and destruction of the biosphere - specifically those scientists who issued and endorsed the 1992, 2017 and 2019 warnings to the world. Its mission is to bring about a great change in humanity’s stewardship of the Earth in order to prevent irretrievable mutilation of our global home.
Related Links:
https://www.stableplanetalliance.org/news
https://www.scientistswarningeurope.org.uk/
https://www.uwb.edu/ias/faculty-and-staff/phoebe-barnard
https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/william-moomaw
http://www.egs.uct.ac.za/egs/staff/academic/ziervogel/
https://africanscientists.africa/business-directory/ibrahim-mahmoud/