Our Future

The Earth is the only planet that we can live on, so it's in our best interest to keep it that way. The viability of the world’s ecosystems is a critical development priority for the 21st century. Earth’s ecosystems and its peoples are bound together in a grand but tenuous symbiosis. Ecosystems are the productive engines of the planet and they sustain us and provide essential functions—services like air and water purification, climate control, nutrient cycling,and soil production— In every respect, human development and human security are closely linked to the productivity of ecosystems... .The challenge of managing Earth’s ecosystems—and the consequences of failure—will increase significantly during the 21st century and international dimensions of environmental problems will become ever more important.

 The ecosystem goods include products such as food, timber, genetic resources, and medicines, and services encompass water purification, flood control, coastline stabilization, carbon sequestration, waste treatment, bio diversity conservation, soil generation, disease regulation, pollination, maintenance of air quality, and the provision of aesthetic and cultural benefits. Typically, we manage ecosystems to increase the production of one or more goods and services, such as food or timber, at the expense of others such as water quality or bio diversity. There is a cost to our quality of life, and that cost is pollution.

According to world census we can expect that by the middle of this century about 10 billion people will be placing stresses on the natural resource base of the globe, with most of that consumption coming from western countries. These stresses are sure to lead to further environmental problems. Unless we do something immediately and drastically.

The scale of human pressures on ecosystems increased enormously in the last century—and even more so in the last few decades. Overall, there are considerable signs that the capacity of ecosystems to continue to produce many of the goods and services we depend on is declining.[ Policy Implications? ]

Making the viability of the world’s ecosystems is a critical development priority for the 21st century.
Half of the world’s wetlands were lost last century.
Logging and conversion have shrunk the world’s forests by as much as half.
Some 9 percent of the world’s tree species are at risk of extinction; tropical deforestation may exceed 130,000 square kilometers per year.
Fishing fleets are 40 percent larger than the ocean can sustain.
Twenty percent of the world’s freshwater fish are extinct, threatened or endangered.
Nearly 70 percent of the world’s major marine fish stocks are over fished or are being fished at their biological limit.
Soil degradation has affected two-thirds of the world’s agricultural lands in the last 50 years.
Some 30 percent of the world’s original forests have been converted to agriculture.
Since 1980, the global economy has tripled in size and population has grown by 30 percent to 6 billion people.
Dams, diversions or canals fragment almost 60 percent of the world’s largest rivers.

Even as these trends indicate the environmental challenges ahead, it is important to remember that they can be modified with human resolve. Already, the transition to more environmentally benign ways of growing food, producing goods and services, managing watersheds, and accommodating urban growth has begun in many far-sighted communities and companies. How fast this transition to more "sustainable" forms of production and environmental management will proceed, and whether it can effectively mitigate the effects of large-scale environmental change, is the real question.

The natural environment performs for us, free of charge, basic services without which our species could not survive. But we are degrading, and in some cases destroying, the ability of the environment to continue providing these life-sustaining services for us.

The continued poverty of the majority of the planet's inhabitants and excessive consumption by the minority are the two major causes of environmental degradation. The present course is unsustainable and postponing action is no longer an option.

The combination of increased pressure on land by expanding urbanization and losses of productive land through degradation and unsustainable management practices may lead to shortages in arable land and water, impeding development in several regions. In such a scenario, sharp regional differences will remain and poverty will be aggravated in several regions. In the future shortcomings in environmental responses, and renewable resource constraints may increasingly lead to food insecurity and conflict situations. [ Policy Implications? ]

Environmental threats are not always comparable or additive, since they differ greatly in terms of scale, effect, and the time frame in which they act, from the local and immediate threats of over fishing or deforestation, to long-acting and global-scale threats such as climate change.