The "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" was a document written in 1992 by Henry W. Kendall and signed by about 1,700 leading scientists. Twenty-five years later, in November 2017, 15,364 scientists signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice" written by William J. Ripple and seven co-authors calling for, among other things, human population planning, and drastically diminishing per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources.[a] The second notice has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published.[1]
In late 1992, the late Henry W. Kendall, a former chair of the board of directors of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), wrote the first warning, "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity", which begins: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course." A majority of the Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences signed the document; about 1,700 of the world's leading scientists appended their signature.[2]
It was sometimes offered in opposition to the Heidelberg Appeal—also signed by numerous scientists and Nobel laureates earlier in 1992—which begins by criticizing "an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress, and impedes economic and social development." This document was often cited by those who oppose theories relating to climate change.[citation needed]
In November 2017, 15,364 scientists signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice" written by lead author professor of ecology, William J. Ripple of Oregon State University, along with 7 co-authors calling for, among other things, limiting population growth, and drastically diminishing per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources.[a] The second notice included 9 time-series graphs of key indicators, each correlated to a specific issue mentioned in the original 1992 warning, to show that most environmental issues are continuing to trend in the wrong direction, most with no discernible change in rate. The article included 13 specific steps humanity could take to transition to sustainability.
The second notice has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published.[1] The full warning was published in BioScience[a] and it can still be endorsed on the Scientists Warning website.
2019 warning on climate change and 2021 and 2022 updatesEdit
In November 2019, a group of more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries named climate change an "emergency" that would lead to "untold human suffering" if no big shifts in action take place:[3][4][5]
We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency. To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.
The emergency declaration emphasized that economic growth and population growth "are among the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion" and that "we need bold and drastic transformations regarding economic and population policies".[3]
A 2021 update to the 2019 climate emergency declaration focuses on 31 planetary vital signs (including greenhouse gases and temperature, rising sea levels, energy use, ice mass, ocean heat content, Amazon rainforest loss rate, etc), and recent changes to them. Of these, 18 are reaching critical levels. The COVID-19 lockdowns, which reduced transportation and consumption levels, had very little impact on mitigating or reversing these trends. The authors say only profound changes in human behavior can meet these challenges and emphasize the need to move beyond the idea that global heating is a stand alone emergency, and is one facet of the worsening environmental crisis. This necessitates the need for transformational system changes and to focus on the root cause of these crises, the vast human overexploitation of the earth, rather than just addressing symptom relief. They point to six areas where fundamental changes need to be made:[6]
(1) energy — eliminating fossil fuels and shifting to renewables; (2) short-lived air pollutants — slashing black carbon (soot), methane, and hydrofluorocarbons; (3) nature — restoring and permanently protecting Earth's ecosystems to store and accumulate carbon and restore biodiversity; (4) food — switching to mostly plant-based diets, reducing food waste, and improving cropping practices; (5) economy — moving from indefinite GDP growth and overconsumption by the wealthy to ecological economics and a circular economy, in which prices reflect the full environmental costs of goods and services; and (6) human population — stabilizing and gradually reducing the population by providing voluntary family planning and supporting education and rights for all girls and young women, which has been proven to lower fertility rates.
At the 30th anniversary of the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, a second update to the climate emergency declaration concluded that "We are now at 'code red' on planet Earth".[7]
2022 warning on populationEdit
In October 2022, Eileen Crist, William J. Ripple, Paul R. Ehrlich, William E. Rees, and Christopher Wolf all contributed to the Scientists' warning on population, published by Science of the Total Environment as "part of the ongoing series of scientists' warning publications," to address the negative impacts of population size and growth on the climate and biodiversity, which they posit "continues to be ignored, sidestepped, or denied." It calls for two actions that, if heeded, will stop population growth before the end of this century. Firstly, the authors issue a global appeal to all adults to have no more than one child as part of the transformative changes needed to mitigate both climate change and biodiversity loss. Secondly, the warning urges policy-makers to "implement population policies with two key female empowerment components," primarily improving education for young women and girls and providing high-quality family-planning services to all. It emphasizes that "the combination of institutional support to plan one's child-bearing choices and educational attainment, including enhanced opportunity for higher education for women, yields immediate fertility declines." It also posits that a sustainable human population, which according to environmental analysts is "one enjoying a modest, equitable middle-class standard of living on a planet retaining its biodiversity and with climate-related adversities minimized," is between 2 and 4 billion people.
The warning also advocates for combatting poverty, patriarchy and overconsumption by the affluent, and calls for a global wealth tax to be levied primarily against "wealthy nations, industries and people who have benefitted the most from humanity's massive-scale historical and contemporary use of fossil fuels" in order to expand "clean sanitation and water availability, food sovereignty, and electrification via renewables." It stresses that poverty alleviation must include the provision of basic public services, in particular healthcare and education.[8][9]
Other scientists' warningsEdit
Georgian, Samuel; Hameed, Sarah; Morgan, Lance; Amon, Diva J.; Sumaila, U. Rashid; Johns, David; Ripple, William J. (2022). "Scientists' warning of an imperiled ocean". Biological Conservation. 272: 109595. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109595. S2CID 249142365.
Wiedmann, Thomas; Lenzen, Manfred; Keyßer, Lorenz T.; Steinberger, Julia K. (2020). "Scientists' warning on affluence". Nature Communications. 11 (3107): 3107. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.3107W. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y. PMC7305220. PMID 32561753.
Merz, Joseph J; Barnard, Phoebe; Rees, William E; Smith, Dane; Maroni, Mat; Rhodes, Christopher J; Dederer, Julia H; Bajaj, Nandita; Joy, Michael K; Wiedmann, Thomas; Sutherland, Rory (2023). "World scientists' warning: The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot". Science Progress. 106 (3). doi:10.1177/00368504231201372. ISSN 0036-8504.
^ abcRipple 2017, pp. 1026–1028: "On the twenty-fifth anniversary of their call, we look back at their warning and evaluate the human response by exploring available time-series data. Since 1992, with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse (figure 1, file S1). Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic climate change due to rising GHGs from burning fossil fuels (Hansen et al. 2013), deforestation (Keenan et al. 2015), and agricultural production—particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption (Ripple et al. 2014). Moreover, we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century. Humanity is now being given a second notice, as illustrated by these alarming trends (figure 1). We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats (Crist et al. 2017). By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere. As most political leaders respond to pressure, scientists, media influencers, and lay citizens must insist that their governments take immediate action as a moral imperative to current and future generations of human and other life. With a groundswell of organized grassroots efforts, dogged opposition can be overcome and political leaders compelled to do the right thing. It is also time to re-examine and change our individual behaviors, including limiting our own reproduction (ideally to replacement level at most) and drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources."
Bose, Priyom (July 7, 2022), "Scientists appeal for global population control", News Medical, retrieved November 4, 2022
Carrington, Damian (November 5, 2019), "Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering'", The Guardian, retrieved November 8, 2019
Crist, Eileen; Ripple, William J.; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Rees, William E.; Wolf, Christopher (2022), "Scientists' warning on population" (PDF), Science of the Total Environment, 845: 157166, Bibcode:2022ScTEn.845o7166C, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157166, PMID 35803428, S2CID 250387801
Kendall, Henry W. (18 November 1992), World Scientists Warning To Humanity(PDF), ucsusa.org, retrieved 2011-08-26
Ripple, William J.; et al. (13 November 2017), (PDF), BioScience, 67 (12): 1026–1028, doi:10.1093/biosci/bix125, archived from the original (PDF) on 15 December 2019, retrieved 12 July 2018
Ripple, William J.; et al. (November 5, 2019), "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency", BioScience, doi:10.1093/biosci/biz088, hdl:1808/30278, retrieved November 8, 2019
Ripple, William J.; et al. (July 28, 2021), "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021", BioScience, 71 (9): 894–898, doi:10.1093/biosci/biab079, hdl:1808/30278, retrieved July 29, 2021
Ripple, William J; et al. (26 October 2022), "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022", BioScience, 72 (12): 1149–1155, doi:10.1093/biosci/biac083, hdl:1808/30278
Suzuki, David (January 6, 2018), "15,000 Scientists Issue Urgent Warning: Humanity Is Failing to Safeguard the Planet", AlterNet, retrieved January 15, 2018
Weston, Phoebe (2019-11-05), "11,000 scientists declare global climate emergency and warn of 'untold human suffering'", The Independent, retrieved 2019-11-07
External linksEdit
World Scientists Warning to Humanity (2017)
"World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" (1992)
Our Best Point the Way 2008-02-19 at the Wayback Machine (2001)
ScientistsWarning.org (2018-Present)
ScientistsWarning.TV (2014-Present)
New commentary on the famous 'Warning to Humanity' paper brings up global inequalities. Phys.org. April 8, 2019.
October 20, 2023
world, scientists, warning, humanity, document, written, 1992, henry, kendall, signed, about, leading, scientists, twenty, five, years, later, november, 2017, scientists, signed, second, notice, written, william, ripple, seven, authors, calling, among, other, . The World Scientists Warning to Humanity was a document written in 1992 by Henry W Kendall and signed by about 1 700 leading scientists Twenty five years later in November 2017 15 364 scientists signed World Scientists Warning to Humanity A Second Notice written by William J Ripple and seven co authors calling for among other things human population planning and drastically diminishing per capita consumption of fossil fuels meat and other resources a The second notice has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published 1 Contents 1 First publication 2 Second Notice 3 2019 warning on climate change and 2021 and 2022 updates 4 2022 warning on population 5 Other scientists warnings 6 See also 7 References 7 1 Excerpts and notes 7 2 Citations 7 3 Bibliography 8 External linksFirst publication EditIn late 1992 the late Henry W Kendall a former chair of the board of directors of the Union of Concerned Scientists UCS wrote the first warning World Scientists Warning to Humanity which begins Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course A majority of the Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences signed the document about 1 700 of the world s leading scientists appended their signature 2 It was sometimes offered in opposition to the Heidelberg Appeal also signed by numerous scientists and Nobel laureates earlier in 1992 which begins by criticizing an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development This document was often cited by those who oppose theories relating to climate change citation needed In contrast the UCS led petition contains specific recommendations We must for example move away from fossil fuels to more benign inexhaustible energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the pollution of our air and water We must stabilize population 2 Second Notice EditIn November 2017 15 364 scientists signed World Scientists Warning to Humanity A Second Notice written by lead author professor of ecology William J Ripple of Oregon State University along with 7 co authors calling for among other things limiting population growth and drastically diminishing per capita consumption of fossil fuels meat and other resources a The second notice included 9 time series graphs of key indicators each correlated to a specific issue mentioned in the original 1992 warning to show that most environmental issues are continuing to trend in the wrong direction most with no discernible change in rate The article included 13 specific steps humanity could take to transition to sustainability The second notice has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published 1 The full warning was published in BioScience a and it can still be endorsed on the Scientists Warning website 2019 warning on climate change and 2021 and 2022 updates EditIn November 2019 a group of more than 11 000 scientists from 153 countries named climate change an emergency that would lead to untold human suffering if no big shifts in action take place 3 4 5 We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency To secure a sustainable future we must change how we live This entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems The emergency declaration emphasized that economic growth and population growth are among the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and that we need bold and drastic transformations regarding economic and population policies 3 A 2021 update to the 2019 climate emergency declaration focuses on 31 planetary vital signs including greenhouse gases and temperature rising sea levels energy use ice mass ocean heat content Amazon rainforest loss rate etc and recent changes to them Of these 18 are reaching critical levels The COVID 19 lockdowns which reduced transportation and consumption levels had very little impact on mitigating or reversing these trends The authors say only profound changes in human behavior can meet these challenges and emphasize the need to move beyond the idea that global heating is a stand alone emergency and is one facet of the worsening environmental crisis This necessitates the need for transformational system changes and to focus on the root cause of these crises the vast human overexploitation of the earth rather than just addressing symptom relief They point to six areas where fundamental changes need to be made 6 1 energy eliminating fossil fuels and shifting to renewables 2 short lived air pollutants slashing black carbon soot methane and hydrofluorocarbons 3 nature restoring and permanently protecting Earth s ecosystems to store and accumulate carbon and restore biodiversity 4 food switching to mostly plant based diets reducing food waste and improving cropping practices 5 economy moving from indefinite GDP growth and overconsumption by the wealthy to ecological economics and a circular economy in which prices reflect the full environmental costs of goods and services and 6 human population stabilizing and gradually reducing the population by providing voluntary family planning and supporting education and rights for all girls and young women which has been proven to lower fertility rates At the 30th anniversary of the World Scientists Warning to Humanity a second update to the climate emergency declaration concluded that We are now at code red on planet Earth 7 2022 warning on population EditIn October 2022 Eileen Crist William J Ripple Paul R Ehrlich William E Rees and Christopher Wolf all contributed to the Scientists warning on population published by Science of the Total Environment as part of the ongoing series of scientists warning publications to address the negative impacts of population size and growth on the climate and biodiversity which they posit continues to be ignored sidestepped or denied It calls for two actions that if heeded will stop population growth before the end of this century Firstly the authors issue a global appeal to all adults to have no more than one child as part of the transformative changes needed to mitigate both climate change and biodiversity loss Secondly the warning urges policy makers to implement population policies with two key female empowerment components primarily improving education for young women and girls and providing high quality family planning services to all It emphasizes that the combination of institutional support to plan one s child bearing choices and educational attainment including enhanced opportunity for higher education for women yields immediate fertility declines It also posits that a sustainable human population which according to environmental analysts is one enjoying a modest equitable middle class standard of living on a planet retaining its biodiversity and with climate related adversities minimized is between 2 and 4 billion people The warning also advocates for combatting poverty patriarchy and overconsumption by the affluent and calls for a global wealth tax to be levied primarily against wealthy nations industries and people who have benefitted the most from humanity s massive scale historical and contemporary use of fossil fuels in order to expand clean sanitation and water availability food sovereignty and electrification via renewables It stresses that poverty alleviation must include the provision of basic public services in particular healthcare and education 8 9 Other scientists warnings EditGeorgian Samuel Hameed Sarah Morgan Lance Amon Diva J Sumaila U Rashid Johns David Ripple William J 2022 Scientists warning of an imperiled ocean Biological Conservation 272 109595 doi 10 1016 j biocon 2022 109595 S2CID 249142365 Wiedmann Thomas Lenzen Manfred Keysser Lorenz T Steinberger Julia K 2020 Scientists warning on affluence Nature Communications 11 3107 3107 Bibcode 2020NatCo 11 3107W doi 10 1038 s41467 020 16941 y PMC 7305220 PMID 32561753 Merz Joseph J Barnard Phoebe Rees William E Smith Dane Maroni Mat Rhodes Christopher J Dederer Julia H Bajaj Nandita Joy Michael K Wiedmann Thomas Sutherland Rory 2023 World scientists warning The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot Science Progress 106 3 doi 10 1177 00368504231201372 ISSN 0036 8504 See also Edit nbsp Global warming portal nbsp Environment portal nbsp World portalClimate emergency declaration Individual action on climate change List of open letters by academicsIssuesAnimal industrial complex List of global issues Anthropocene Climate crisis Defaunation Effects of global warming Habitat loss Habitat protection Holocene extinction Human impact on the environment Human overpopulation Sustainable food systemGroupsExtinction Rebellion Scientists for Future Scientists for Extinction RebellionReferences EditExcerpts and notes Edit a b c Ripple 2017 pp 1026 1028 On the twenty fifth anniversary of their call we look back at their warning and evaluate the human response by exploring available time series data Since 1992 with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges and alarmingly most of them are getting far worse figure 1 file S1 Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic climate change due to rising GHGs from burning fossil fuels Hansen et al 2013 deforestation Keenan et al 2015 and agricultural production particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption Ripple et al 2014 Moreover we have unleashed a mass extinction event the sixth in roughly 540 million years wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century Humanity is now being given a second notice as illustrated by these alarming trends figure 1 We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats Crist et al 2017 By failing to adequately limit population growth reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth reduce greenhouse gases incentivize renewable energy protect habitat restore ecosystems curb pollution halt defaunation and constrain invasive alien species humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere As most political leaders respond to pressure scientists media influencers and lay citizens must insist that their governments take immediate action as a moral imperative to current and future generations of human and other life With a groundswell of organized grassroots efforts dogged opposition can be overcome and political leaders compelled to do the right thing It is also time to re examine and change our individual behaviors including limiting our own reproduction ideally to replacement level at most and drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of fossil fuels meat and other resources Citations Edit a b Suzuki 2018 a b Kendall 1992 a b Ripple 2019 Carrington 2019 Weston 2019 Ripple 2021 Ripple 2022 Crist et al 2022 Bose 2022 Bibliography Edit Bose Priyom July 7 2022 Scientists appeal for global population control News Medical retrieved November 4 2022 Carrington Damian November 5 2019 Climate crisis 11 000 scientists warn of untold suffering The Guardian retrieved November 8 2019 Crist Eileen Ripple William J Ehrlich Paul R Rees William E Wolf Christopher 2022 Scientists warning on population PDF Science of the Total Environment 845 157166 Bibcode 2022ScTEn 845o7166C doi 10 1016 j scitotenv 2022 157166 PMID 35803428 S2CID 250387801 Kendall Henry W 18 November 1992 World Scientists Warning To Humanity PDF ucsusa org retrieved 2011 08 26 Ripple William J et al 13 November 2017 World Scientists Warning to Humanity A Second Notice PDF BioScience 67 12 1026 1028 doi 10 1093 biosci bix125 archived from the original PDF on 15 December 2019 retrieved 12 July 2018 Ripple William J et al November 5 2019 World Scientists Warning of a Climate Emergency BioScience doi 10 1093 biosci biz088 hdl 1808 30278 retrieved November 8 2019 Ripple William J et al July 28 2021 World Scientists Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021 BioScience 71 9 894 898 doi 10 1093 biosci biab079 hdl 1808 30278 retrieved July 29 2021 Ripple William J et al 26 October 2022 World Scientists Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022 BioScience 72 12 1149 1155 doi 10 1093 biosci biac083 hdl 1808 30278 Suzuki David January 6 2018 15 000 Scientists Issue Urgent Warning Humanity Is Failing to Safeguard the Planet AlterNet retrieved January 15 2018 Weston Phoebe 2019 11 05 11 000 scientists declare global climate emergency and warn of untold human suffering The Independent retrieved 2019 11 07External links EditWorld Scientists Warning to Humanity 2017 World Scientists Warning to Humanity 1992 Our Best Point the Way Archived 2008 02 19 at the Wayback Machine 2001 ScientistsWarning org 2018 Present ScientistsWarning TV 2014 Present New commentary on the famous Warning to Humanity paper brings up global inequalities Phys org April 8 2019 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title World Scientists 27 Warning to Humanity amp oldid 1179044616, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
