Scientists ask to save the planet
Scientists from various specialties and countries warn about the risks of the climate crisis and the need to take action to avoid the suffering that global warming will bring, in an article published in the journal BioScience. Nominated by nine experts from six nations, the document reflects the importance of bringing science closer to political decisions, assuming a new global environmental ethic and changing the economic model.
The report has as background a call signed in November 2017 by some 20 thousand researchers from 184 countries and that went viral on social networks. The new article emphasizes that evidence-based reasoning can play an important role in creating a healthy relationship between human beings and the biosphere. Scientists insist on the need to abandon the pursuit of economic growth as the guide of public policies and reach a new paradigm of development that respects social and planetary borders.
In the past 25 years, trends in nine environmental issues "suggest that humanity still risking their future", though there are some exceptions such as the stabilization of the ozone layer. This "rapid global decrease in ozone depleting substances shows that we can make positive changes when we act decisively", they underline. But human well-being remains "seriously threatened" by negative trends such as climate change, deforestation, the lack of access to fresh water, the extinction of species and the growth of the human population, the experts write.
However, "Humanity is not taking the necessary urgent measures to protect our biosphere in danger," according to the signatories of the article, since "the overwhelming majority" of the threats that have already been described persist and, "alarmingly, most are getting worse. " Therefore, scientists suggest 13 areas in which to act and call for a stream of public pressure to convince political leaders to take corrective measures. Create more terrestrial and marine reserves, strengthen enforcement of anti-poaching laws and restrictions on wildlife trade, expand family planning and education programs for women, promote a diet change based on plants and "widespread" adoption of renewable energies and "green" technologies are some of their proposals.
Among other ideas, the signatories propose that the Nobel Prize winners value the works that relate the environment to the economy and highlight the economic factors that cause environmental degradation. The first notice of this kind was in 1992, when more than 1,700 scientists signed the first appeal to all humanity with the intention of raising awareness about the urgency of taking drastic measures to prevent the mutilation of the planet. The announcement of November was the second, 25 years later, and the new one is the third scientific alert.
