Climate change poses tremendous threat to water resources, as there is inconsistency in the rains.
— Johan Rockstrom
We've moved from a small world on a big planet to a big world on a small planet.
The number of children in the world is not growing, and so we eventually have a chance to stabilize the population at around 10 billion. We have the technology and wherewithal to feed and provide energy for this many people.
Even the wealth of the U.S. cannot protect against the levels of environmental destruction that we are unleashing.
There is an old belief that solving environmental problems can only be achieved by first building enough economic wealth so we can 'afford to save the environment.' This 'Kuznets Curve' thinking has never been correct and must be abandoned once and for all if we are serious about economic development for a thriving humanity on Earth.
It is essential to ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a sustainable one for people and planet. It could even drive greater innovation, not only for short-term benefits and solutions for human wealth but also long-term solutions that benefit all and enable planetary stability.
Managing forests, rivers, grasslands, and coral reefs in sustainable ways makes them more resilient and increases their ability to absorb greenhouse gases, which is good for business.
Decarbonization has already begun, and the appeal of a fossil-fuel-free world is growing - not only because it would limit climate change, but also because it would be more technologically advanced, democratic, resilient, healthy, and economically dynamic.
Fundamentally, we need a mind-shift that reconnects our development to the biosphere to ensure good and safe lives for all in the future.
If we don't succeed on the climate change agenda, we risk getting feedbacks that undermine everything else.
We live on a human-dominated planet, putting unprecedented pressure on the systems on Earth.
To reduce the risk of a global environmental catastrophe, and to avoid reversing the course of human progress, the world must urgently bend the curve of global emissions away from fossil fuels.
Emissions of greenhouse gases warm the planet, altering the carbon and water cycles. A warmer ocean stores more heat, providing more fuel for hurricanes. A warmer atmosphere holds more water, bringing dangerous deluges. Rising sea levels threaten coastal zones.
Under stable and incremental conditions, a free-market economy spurs entrepreneurship, ensures efficiency, and generates wealth. Those conditions no longer apply.
World leaders need to realize that the cost of transforming the global energy system is far less than coping with the consequences of burning the planet's remaining fossil fuels.
Either we leave our descendants an endowment of zero poverty, zero fossil-fuel use, and zero biodiversity loss, or we leave them facing a tax bill from Earth that could wipe them out.
Just as we demand that our governments address risks associated with terrorism or epidemics, we should put concerted pressure on them to act now to preserve our natural environment and curb climate change.
We see evidence that lakes and forests and wetlands can have different equilibria - so you have a savanna system that may be stable and thriving, but it can also tip over and become an arid steppe if pushed too far by warming, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.
If we are serious about our human wellbeing - from local communities to the global world economy - we need to now reconnect our entire world to the planet.
During the Holocene, we undoubtedly altered our environment significantly, clearing land, diverting water and building great cities.
Global warming is a scientific fact as much as the hole in the ozone layer or Earth's orbit around the sun.
There is no such thing as a Fourth Industrial Revolution with 9 billion thriving co-citizens in the world if it is accomplished on linear economic principles. We need a transition to circular economic principles and practice.
Global sustainability is now the only avenue to future inclusive progress that can deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement.
The value of biodiversity is that it makes our ecosystems more resilient, which is a prerequisite for stable societies; its wanton destruction is akin to setting fire to our lifeboat.
Protecting our planet is a moral imperative.
By decarbonizing the global economy and limiting climate change, world leaders can unleash a wave of innovation, support the emergence of new industries and jobs, and generate vast economic opportunities.
Paleoclimatic records show clearly that the past 10,000 years, the Holocene, is a remarkably stable period in which we went from being a few hunters and gatherers to become more sedentary agriculture-based civilizations, which then moved us to the current populated modern era.
