Human consumption is now 23% larger than nature’s capacity to regenerate or to absorb our “ecological footprint.” The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported that 60% of nature’s life-support systems are being degraded or used unsustainably. Devastating natural disasters are increasingly exposing humanity’s vulnerability to environmental change. Recent changes in the thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic have been measured.

The year 2005 was the hottest year ever recorded, and six of the past eight years were the hottest on record. The timing of seasons has been altered. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment draft text, which will be released next year, forecasts a 2–4.5 ºC warming by 2050—a faster change from their 2001 forecast of 1.4–5.8 ºC warming by 2100. Just a 3 ºC increase would change coastlines and cause famines for 400 million people. Large reinsurance companies estimate the annual economic loss due to climate change could reach $150–300 billion per year within a decade.

Glaciers are receding worldwide and Arctic ice is melting faster than expected, leading some to warn that climate change has reached the point of no return. Half the world’s forests are gone, and 13 million hectares more are lost yearly. The current absorption capacity of carbon by oceans and forests is about 3–3.5 billion tons per year; human activity adds 7 billion tons annually. About 13 million hectares of forest are lost annually; the rate of net forest loss is slowing, yet 95% of tropical forests are unprotected or not being managed sustainably. And 20% of the world’s coral reefs are already destroyed. More than 16,000 species of animals, birds, fish, and plants are registered as under serious threat of becoming extinct. The value of intact ecosystem far outweighs the cost of protecting them.

IPCC estimates that fossil fuel usage has to be cut by 70% to stabilize climate change. Carbon sequestration systems could change this, but no significant progress is being made. As matters get worse, the environmental movement may aggressively turn on the fossil fuel industries. The legal foundations are being laid to sue for damages caused by greenhouse gases. What will it take for effective leadership to emerge? The synergy between economic growth and technological innovation has been the most significant engine of change for the last 200 years, but unless we improve our economic, environmental, and social behavior, the next 200 years could be difficult.

Next to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, unsustainable growth may well be the greatest threat to the future of humanity. Yet without sustainable growth, billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilization will collapse. Massive urbanization’s concentrated livestock production could trigger new global pandemics. Systems to prevent genetically modified crops from affecting wild relatives or becoming mixed with unmodified food are failing.

Challenge 1 will be addressed seriously when the average calories per capita per day exceed 2,000, when the number of hungry people diminishes by half, when the global acreage in forests increases for five years, and when GDP increases while greenhouse gas emissions decrease for five years in a row.

Switch government subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy (it is estimated that industrial countries subsidize fossil fuels with $200 billion a year). The carbon trading system has been questioned this year—alternatives should be sought. One study suggested raising fuel efficiency standards 5% a year relative to GDP, another proposed an environmental footprint tax for using more than 1.8 global hectares per person, and still another recommends a 1% tax on the $1.5–2 trillion of international financial transactions per day. Taxes on international travel, carbon, and urban congestion should be considered. Such tax income could support an international public/private funding mechanism for high-impact technologies such as carbon sequestration or acquiring the rights to innovate “green” technologies. Massive public educational efforts via film, television, music, games, and contests should stress the quality of human beings in harmony with nature along with what individuals and groups can do.

We should establish an international environmental crimes intelligence and police unit; bring environmental security to the UN Security Council; create definitions and measurements for commonly applied tax incentives and labels for more environmentally friendly products; include environmental costs in the pricing of natural resources and products; spread the environmental standards ISO 14000 and 14001 and use guides like the Natural Step and Equator Principles; publicize “sustainability report cards” on company practices; encourage developing countries to leapfrog unsustainable practices to more sustainable ones; declare key habitats off-limits for human development; consider the establishment of a World Environment Organization with powers like the WTO; and encourage synergy between environmental movements and human rights groups to make clean air, water, and land a human right.

Graph: Global Surface Temperature Anomalies (0C)

Source: Source: NOAA National Climatic Data Center, 2006 data series

You are invited to participate in updating and improving this challenge. Please click here for the online suvey form.

Millennium Project Homepage