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A Brief Review of the State of the Planet

What we have seen throughout this course is that the world in modern times was filled with a rich diversity of species and ecosystems.  Species over millions of years evolved relationships, such as herbivory, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, that made them interdependent within these ecosystems.  Into this world evolved Homo sapiens, who spread across the globe and eventually developed agriculture, cities, and industrial processes. These developments lead to a skyrocketing human population, an ever-increasing rate of resource use per person, and rapid technological innovations that allowed and necessitated greater inputs of natural resources.  Humans are now using over 1.5x what the planet can produce each year.  This has led to significant environmental degradation:

• 75% of terrestrial environments and 66% of marine environments have experienced severe habitat alteration.

• Total global forest area has declined 32% since pre-industrial times.

• 500,000 species have insufficient habitat for long term survival.  This means they’re already doomed to extinction, but it will take some time for their extinction to play out.

• 33% of marine fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels.

• 50% of the world’s live coral cover has been lost.

• Global extinction rates may be as high as 1000X greater than if humans were not on the planet.

• 27% of all assessed species are at risk of extinction in the near future.

Environmental Ethics

Humans, including you, have to decide weather we care enough about what is happening to natural systems around the world to do something about it, or if we just want to let these declines play out and accept the consequences.  Ethicists have discussed why we should care about what is happening to the natural world and have come up with a variety of arguments for us to think about.  They fall into two broad schools of thought: (1) Humans should care about the decline of species and natural systems because of the value that they have to humans. This is called the Anthropocentric (Human Centered) school of thought.  It argues that the value of nature is dependent on the value that it has to humans, but that nature is so valuable to humans that it should be protected. (2) Species and natural systems have value independent of the value they have to humans and have the right to exist purely by virtue of the fact that they do exist.  This is called intrinsic value and this school of thought is the Biocentric (Life Centered) school of thought.  We’ll explore these two schools of thought in a bit more detail.

Anthropocentric arguments for nature preservation take a variety of forms, a few of which I highlight below:

• Economic Value: Humans should protect nature because nature contributes significantly to our economy, but will only do so as long as it remains intact and functional.

  • Globally, nature provides services worth an estimated $125 trillion per year.

    • Coral reefs, as an example, provide ~ $9.8 trillion globally of social, economic, and cultural services each year.  Over 500 million people are dependent on coral reefs for food, income, and coastal protection.

    • Tourism accounts for 9% of GDP in Tanzania and 12% of GDP in Botswana.  In Madagascar, tourism brings in 600 million dollars per year and employs 230,000 people.  A primary reason, people travel to these countries is to encounter their unique wildlife.

  • In Madagascar, the cost of environmental degradation is approximately $450 to $550 million per year

  • By 2100, ecosystem service losses caused by ocean warming and acidification globally will reach $1 trillion annually and pollinator loss will put at risk $235 to $577 billion in annual crop output.

  • Humans use 50,000 to 70,000 plant species,14% of bird species, 22% of mammal species, 4% of amphibians for food or medicine.

• Aesthetic Value:  Humans like to enjoy the beauty of nature for hiking, birdwatching, scuba diving, photography, etc.  These experiences are reduced by reductions in biodiversity. 

• For Future Generations:  If current generations use up resources, drive species to extinction, destroy ecosystems, fail to stop climate change, etc. that alters the opportunities and quality of life for future generations of humans who have to live without these resources and in a world altered by climate change. 

  • The United Nations estimates that there will be 2 billion environmental refugees by 2100 (about 18% of world population) and that negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems will undermine progress toward 80% of the United Nation’s goals related to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans, and land.

Biocentric arguments:  The essence of biocentric arguments is Intrinsic Value, that all species have a right to exist simply by virtue of the fact that they do. In the U.S., we accept this for people.  We believe that all people are created equal and, therefore, have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of the contribution that they make to society or other individuals. 

Intrinsic Value is supposed to be self-evident and, therefore, need no justification or rational, but some people have argued that evolution justifies it.  When we look at life through the lens of evolutions, we see that all species are related to each other through common ancestry, all the back to the very first living organism 3.5 billion years ago.  Every species’ traits are the product of the same evolutionary processes:  mutation, natural selection, sexual selection, and genetic drift resulting in descent with modification through time.  Every species is the pinnacle of its evolutionary history.  The fact that we evolved large brains and tool use, doesn’t make us superior to something that has claws and large fangs, or a hard shell and hibernation, etc.  Does the fact that one person is taller or more intelligent or has longer fingers or different color eyes give them more of a right to exist than a person with a different set of traits?  Should the fact that one species evolved a large brain and tool use give them the right to drive 70% of all other species to extinction?

What Can Humans Do to Address the Global Decline of Biodiversity

• Reduce human population growth by empowering women and expanding family planning services.

• Conserve half of the earth’s land surface in nature preserves. Scientists estimate that globally this would require $100 billion annually.  This may sound like a lot of money, but consider that the U.S. spends $738 billion a year just on defense.

  • We are currently at 15% of the earth’s land surface preserved.

• Conserve 37% of the earth’s ocean area in marine protected areas.

  • We are currently at 7%, but with only 2% considered highly protected.

• Reduce Fossil Fuel Use. We need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 and to 0 by 2050.  To do this, we would need to increase our investment in energy by 20-40% ($830 billion annually) through 2050.

• Governments can address externalities through taxes. Governments can influence human behaviors by making sure that products are priced to send the appropriate signals to the market.  One problem we have in our economic models is that they fail to adequately incorporate externalities.  Externalities are costs associated with a product that are not incorporated in the market price.  For instance, when you buy gas for your car, you pay for the oil exploration, extraction, transport, and refining, and for the costs of the gas station, plus some level of profit. However, you are not paying for the impact of the greenhouse gasses that are released as a product of extracting, transporting, and burning that oil.  How much would gas cost if you were paying for the loss of coral reefs, property lost to sea level rise, species going extinct from changing temperature and rainfall patterns, increased damage from storms and flooding, increases in frequency and intensity of forest fires, beetle damage to forests, greater spread of warm climate diseases, etc.?  Efficient pricing of fossil fuels would result in 28% fewer carbon emissions, 46% fewer fossil fuel related air pollution deaths, and increased government revenues of 3.8% of GDP.  (Note that the cost of preventing global temperatures from increasing more than 1.5oC from human generated greenhouse gasses is 2.5% of GDP.)  One way to achieve fair market pricing of fossil fuels would be through a carbon tax where the cost of these externalities would be added to the price of the product through a tax.  In addition to sending better price signals, the tax revenue could be used to address the consequences of climate change.

• Governments can reform subsidies. Subsidies are government payments or tax breaks to industries. By lowering the cost of the product, subsidies encourage activities that the market might not otherwise support and can also cause increases in activities that result in externalities.  Harmful fisheries subsidies are estimated to total more than $20 billion a year.  Global fossil fuel subsidies in 2017 were $5.2 trillion (including externalities).  That’s 6.4 % of Global GDP.  Global fossil fuel subsidies not including externalities were $500 billion.  Developed nations (OECD) give $100 billion in support to agriculture that is potentially harmful to the environment.  (Consider these subsidies against the cost of 2.5% of annual global GDP to prevent global temperatures from exceeding 1.5oC from human generated greenhouse gasses or $100 Billion annually to conserve half the earth's land surface in a natural state.)

What Can You Do As an Individual

• Eat Less Meat

  • 25% of the world’s ice-free land is used for grazing

  • Animal based food contributes nearly 19% of human generated greenhouse gasses

• Be Careful Where You Spend Your Dollars. When you buy a product, it sends a signal to the company that you support their manufacturing, resource consumption, environmental, equity, and political practices and ideologies.  If you don’t approve of what a company does, don’t give them your money.

• Don’t Equate Consumerism With Quality of Life. Increases in average resource use per person is one of the major contributing factors to global environmental problems.  Does owning more things make us happier?  At what point do our possessions begin to control us, through environmental damage, incurred debt, working extra hours to afford them, the company’s donations to politicians whose policies we don’t support, clutter, etc. 

• Consider How You Vote. Become educated about what candidates support you and the issues you care about. Vote for them.  I hear from students that voting does not matter because big money supports the politicians.  It does not matter how much money a politician has if people don’t vote for them.  The problem is that voters don’t become educated on the issues and the candidates, so they allow themselves to be manipulated by paid advertising, possibly voting against their own self-interest or the public good.  You can be sure there is someone out there who is voting for something that you are against.  If you’re not voting, they are being heard while you are not.  They are deciding key aspects of your life for you and you may not like the choices they make.

• Support Organizations That Represent You. Individuals may not have much money or power to confront the policies, corporations, and politicians that do not represent them, but collectively working as part of a larger group can increase an individual’s power to effectuate change.  You can donate money, volunteer, or even raise awareness of a group’s activities or a particular environmental issue through social media and peer circles.

One last thought.  Have we built the world we want to live in?  Are we creating the future we want to leave to our children and our children’s children?  The United Nations has concluded that we need a fundamental system wide transformation of our society’s economic, social, political, and technological paradigms, goals, and values.  Consider what you’ve learned throughout this course?  What does it mean to you? What kind of a world do you want to live in?  Are you building it?

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