Is the world being destroyed?

Abstract

The human enterprise is in overshoot; we exceed the long-term carrying capacity of Earth and are degrading the biophysical basis of our own existence. Despite decades of cumulative evidence, the world community has failed dismally in efforts to address this problem. I argue that cultural evolution and global change have outpaced bio-evolution; despite millennia of evolutionary history, the human brain and associated cognitive processes are functionally obsolete to deal with the human eco-crisis. H. sapiens tends to respond to problems in simplistic, reductionist, mechanical ways. Simplistic diagnoses lead to simplistic remedies. Politically acceptable technical ‘solutions’ to global warming assume fossil fuels are the problem, require major capital investment and are promoted on the basis of profit potential, thousands of well-paying jobs and bland assurances that climate change can readily be rectified. If successful, this would merely extend overshoot. Complexity demands a systemic approach; to address overshoot requires unprecedented international cooperation in the design of coordinated policies to ensure a socially-just economic contraction, mostly in high-income countries, and significant population reductions everywhere. The ultimate goal should be a human population in the vicinity of two billion thriving more equitably in ‘steady-state’ within the biophysical means of nature.

The ozone layer is on track to heal within four decades, according to a recent UN report, but this progress could be undone by an upsurge in rocket launches expected during the same period.

The ozone layer protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. Destruction of the ozone layer became a major international issue in 1985 when the “ozone hole” was discovered over Antarctica.

Thanks to a coordinated global effort, the Montreal Protocol came into effect in 1987, leading to a ban on a class of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in aerosols and refrigeration. A global crisis was avoided as a result.

But the global space industry is growing rapidly, with an increasing number of annual rocket launches. As we show in our new review, the gases and particulates rockets emit as they punch through the atmosphere could lead to delays in the ozone layer’s recovery.

Rocket fuel emissions are not regulated

The launch industry today relies on four major fuel types for rocket propulsion: liquid kerosene, cryogenic, hypergolic and solid. The combustion of these fuels means contemporary rockets create a suite of gaseous and particulate exhaust products, including carbon dioxide, water vapour, black carbon, alumina, reactive chloride and nitrogen oxides. These products are known to destroy ozone.

In the stratosphere, an upper level of the atmosphere where the protective ozone layer resides, emissions linger for much longer than lower down. Small amounts of an exhaust byproduct can have greater destructive effects in the upper atmosphere than when close to Earth’s surface.

A new fuel is methane, which is used in multiple rocket engines under development by major launch companies. The emissions products of methane are as yet poorly understood.

As we outline, rocket emissions in the upper atmosphere can affect the ozone layer but are not regulated. We argue this policy gap must be filled to ensure sustainable growth of the rocket launch industry and protection of the ozone layer.

Charismatic technology

Solid rocket fuel contains a chemical that releases chlorine in the upper atmosphere and destroys ozone. CFCs were banned because they contain chlorine.

Fortunately, the number of launches to date is so small that the impacts on the ozone layer are currently insignificant. However, over coming decades the launch industry is set to expand considerably. Financial estimates indicate the global space industry could grow to US$3.7 trillion by 2040.

Rockets have exciting potential to enable industrial-level access to near-Earth space and exploration throughout the solar system. This makes them “charismatic technology” – and the promise of what the technology can enable drives deep emotional investment.

The allure of possibility can get in the way of even discussing how to make rockets achieve these aspirational goals without damage. We have to be able to have clear discussions.

Many communities – rocket launch providers, environmental regulators, atmospheric research scientists and government agencies – need to move forward together on an international level. Discussions on how to build best-practice operations for sustainability needn’t be stifling for space industry growth as potential actions are well within reach.

The greatest contribution each community can make, first off, is the collection and sharing of data. For example, those who build and launch rockets could estimate emissions during their design work and then measure actual emissions for their launch vehicles.

Working with researchers to sample emission plumes in the atmosphere would help develop understanding of the real-world impacts of emissions on the ozone layer. The current lack of these measurements for modern launch vehicles limits the predictive power of atmospheric modelling. Making data easily accessible to researchers is necessary for meaningful progress.

To evaluate emissions at early stages of rocket development, we also need accurate models of the impact emissions have on the atmosphere. This is where coordination between the space industry and the ozone research community is essential – each community holds a complementary puzzle piece, both of which together inform regulatory discussion.

Creating sustainable global rocket launches is going to need coordination across aerospace companies, scientists and governments: it is achievable, but we need to start now. This is our chance to get ahead of the game.

Abstract
Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) represent a major hazard and can result in significant loss of life. Globally, since 1990, the number and size of glacial lakes has grown rapidly along with downstream population, while socio-economic vulnerability has decreased. Nevertheless, contemporary exposure and vulnerability to GLOFs at the global scale has never been quantified. Here we show that 15 million people globally are exposed to impacts from potential GLOFs. Populations in High Mountains Asia (HMA) are the most exposed and on average live closest to glacial lakes with ~1 million people living within 10 km of a glacial lake. More than half of the globally exposed population are found in just four countries: India, Pakistan, Peru, and China. While HMA has the highest potential for GLOF impacts, we highlight the Andes as a region of concern, with similar potential for GLOF impacts to HMA but comparatively few published research studies.

Assessment shows 20% global loss since 1700 – far less than thought – but Europe, US and China bear the brunt
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Wetlands are important for biodiversity: up to 40% of the planet’s species live and breed in them. They also purify water, protect against flooding and improve the physical wellbeing of people in urban areas.

The destruction was fastest in the 1950s when government subsidies were given to farmers to drain land in North America, Europe and China to create fertile land for agriculture and forestry. Spain is the only European country with more than 50% of its wetlands intact.

Fluet-Chouinard said: “Now that we know the extent that’s been lost – and the benefits that are lost with the wetlands – we can make more educated and informed decisions about how we want to manage our landscapes.”
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“Wetlands are actually the superheroes of the natural world and can provide us with the ultimate nature-based solutions to tackle climate breakdown and its effects. We must do everything we can to not just halt this 20% loss but actually reverse it, and increase our wetland areas as a matter of urgency.”

Abstract

Tropical forests play a critical role in the hydrological cycle and can influence local and regional precipitation1. Previous work has assessed the impacts of tropical deforestation on precipitation, but these efforts have been largely limited to case studies2. A wider analysis of interactions between deforestation and precipitation—and especially how any such interactions might vary across spatial scales—is lacking. Here we show reduced precipitation over deforested regions across the tropics. Our results arise from a pan-tropical assessment of the impacts of 2003–2017 forest loss on precipitation using satellite, station-based and reanalysis datasets. The effect of deforestation on precipitation increased at larger scales, with satellite datasets showing that forest loss caused robust reductions in precipitation at scales greater than 50 km. The greatest declines in precipitation occurred at 200 km, the largest scale we explored, for which 1 percentage point of forest loss reduced precipitation by 0.25 ± 0.1 mm per month. Reanalysis and station-based products disagree on the direction of precipitation responses to forest loss, which we attribute to sparse in situ tropical measurements. We estimate that future deforestation in the Congo will reduce local precipitation by 8–10% in 2100. Our findings provide a compelling argument for tropical forest conservation to support regional climate resilience.

With the continent holding enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt, polar scientists are scrambling for answers

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The fate of Antarctica – especially the ice on land – is important because the continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt.

While melting sea ice does not directly raise sea levels because it is already floating on water, several scientists told the Guardian of knock-on effects that can.

Sea ice helps to buffer the effect of storms on ice attached to the coast. If it starts to disappear for longer, the increased wave action can weaken those floating ice shelves that themselves stabilise the massive ice sheets and glaciers behind them on the land.

One major area of concern is a marked loss of ice around the Amundsen and Bellinghausen seas on the continent’s west.

Even as the average amount of sea ice around the continent grew up to 2014, these two neighbouring seas saw losses.

That’s important because the region is home to the vulnerable Thwaites glacier – known as the “doomsday glacier” because it holds enough water to raise sea levels by half a metre.

“We don’t want to lose sea ice where there are these vulnerable ice shelves and, behind them, the ice sheets,” Prof Matt England, an oceanographer and climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, says.

“We are probably starting to see signs of significant warming and retreat of sea ice [in Antarctica]. To see it getting to these levels is definitely a concern because we have these potentially amplifying feedbacks.”

Data provided by scientists Dr Rob Massom, of the Australian Antarctic Division, and Dr Phil Reid, of the Bureau of Meteorology, shows two-thirds of the continent’s coastline was exposed to open water last month – well above the long-term average of about 50%.

“It’s not just the extent of the ice, but also the duration of the coverage,” Massom says. “If the sea ice is removed, you expose floating ice margins to waves that can flex them and increase the probability of those ice shelves calving. That then allows more grounded ice into the ocean.”

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For many years Antarctica had seemingly been confounding some climate models as sea ice had – on average – slightly increased until a crash in 2016.

Dr Ariaan Purich, a climate scientist at Monash University, looked at why the sea ice didn’t behave as some expected.

She said it was likely caused by changing winds and, counterintuitively, meltwater from the land entering the ocean that made it easier for ice to form.

One study suggested that a warming ocean had also contributed to the sudden 2016 drop in sea ice.

“All the models project that as the climate warms, we expect to see [Antarctic sea ice] decline,” she says. “There’s widespread consensus on that. So this low sea ice is consistent with what the climate models show.”

Antarctic scientists are now scrambling to work out what’s happening. Are the drops in sea ice and the back-to-back record lows just a natural phenomenon in a continent notoriously difficult to study? Or are these records another clear sign the climate crisis is beating down on the frozen continent?

“Antarctica might seem remote but changes around there can affect the global climate and the melting ice sheets affect coastal communities around the world,” says Purich.

“Everyone should be concerned about what’s happening in Antarctica.”

Highlights
• All organs examined (kidney, spleen, proventriculus) had embedded microplastics.
• Microplastics in tissues was correlated with macroplastics in the proventriculus.
• Plastic exposure led to considerable tissue damage.
• Tubular glands and rugae were significantly reduced in the proventriculus.
• Inflammation, fibrosis and loss of organ structure observed in both kidney and spleen.

Abstract
Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans is ubiquitous and increasing. The environment is inundated with microplastics (< 1 mm), and the health effects of these less conspicuous pollutants is poorly known. In addition, there is now evidence that macroplastics can release microplastics in the form of shedding or digestive fragmentation, meaning there is potential for macroplastic exposure to induce direct and indirect pathology through microplastics. Therefore, there is an urgent need for data from wild populations on the relationship between macro- and microplastic exposure and the potential compounding pathological effects of these forms of plastics. We investigated the presence and impact of microplastics in multiple tissues from Flesh-footed Shearwaters Ardenna carneipes, a species that ingests considerable quantities of plastics, and used histopathological techniques to measure physiological responses and inflammation from the plastics. All organs examined (kidney, spleen, proventriculus) had embedded microplastic particles and this correlated with macroplastic exposure. Considerable tissue damage was recorded, including a significant reduction in tubular glands and rugae in the proventriculus, and evidence of inflammation, fibrosis, and loss of organ structures in the kidney and spleen. This indicates macroplastics can induce damage directly at the site of exposure, while microplastics can be mobilised throughout the body causing widespread pathology. Collectively, these results indicate the scope and severity of the health impacts of plastic pollution may be grossly underestimated.


Graphical Abstract

Abstract

This age of modernity is characterized by consistent growth in energy use, economic activity, and resource consumption, and a generally increasing standard of living—albeit inequitably distributed. All currently living humans, and most academic disciplines, have developed in this age, which appears normal and indefinite to us. But modernity has been enabled by the rapid and accelerating expenditure of our one-time inheritance of fossil fuels, and by drawing down the resources and ecosystems of our finite Earth—none of which can be sustained as we transition from a resource-rich frontier to a human-dominated planet. Climate change is often singled out as modernity’s existential crisis, but it is only one of a series of interlocking challenges constituting an unprecedented predicament that must be understood and mitigated in order to live within planetary limits. While energetic and technological challenges attract significant attention, arguably the greatest challenges are conceptual or even cultural. In particular, as we review in this Perspective, today’s political economy has been designed to value short-term financial wealth over the real treasure of Earth’s functioning ecosystems, to discount the future at the expense of the present, and to demand infinite exponential growth…which is simply impossible on a finite planet. Given all this, humanity should view its present overshoot-prone trajectory with tremendous suspicion, humility, and concern. We call for the establishment of a transdisciplinary network of scholars from across the entire academic landscape to develop a global understanding of planetary limits and how humanity can adapt to the associated realities. We present a set of foundational principles to serve as a starting point to anchor this network and drive a new area of focused inquiry to develop a shared vision of viable future paths.

The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.

The decision has angered the programme-makers and some insiders at the BBC, who fear the corporation has bowed to pressure from lobbying groups with “dinosaurian ways”.

The BBC strongly denied this was the case and insisted the episode in question was never intended for broadcast.

Attenborough’s highly anticipated new series, Wild Isles, looks at the beauty of nature in the British Isles.

Narrated by David Attenborough, it is expected to be a hit, with five episodes scheduled to go out in primetime slots on BBC One.

A sixth episode has also been filmed, which is understood to be a stark look at the losses of nature in the UK and what has caused the declines. It is also understood to include some examples of rewilding, a concept that has been controversial in some rightwing circles.

The documentary series was part-funded by nature charities the WWF and RSPB, but the final episode will not be broadcast along with the others and will instead be available only on the BBC’s iPlayer service. All six episodes were narrated by Attenborough, and made by the production company Silverback Films, responsible for previous series including Our Planet, in collaboration with the BBC Natural History Unit.

Senior sources at the BBC told the Guardian that the decision not to show the sixth episode was made to fend off potential critique from the political right. This week the Telegraph newspaper attacked the BBC for creating the series and for taking funding from “two charities previously criticised for their political lobbying” – the WWF and RSPB.

One source at the broadcaster, who asked not to be named, said “lobbying groups that are desperately hanging on to their dinosaurian ways” such as the farming and game industry would “kick off” if the show had too political a message.

They added: “Frankly, this idea that you sort of put it in a separate programme to almost parcel it to one side is disingenuous. Why don’t they integrate those stories into all of them at the time?”

In a statement provided after the story was first published, the BBC said: “This is totally inaccurate, there is no ‘sixth episode’. Wild Isles is – and always was – a five part series and does not shy away from environmental content. We have acquired a separate film for iPlayer from the RSPB and WWF and Silverback Films about people working to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the British Isles.”

Alastair Fothergill, the director of Silverback Films and the executive producer of Wild Isles, added: “The BBC commissioned a five-part Wild Isles series from us at Silverback Films back in 2017. The RSPB and WWF joined us as co-production partners in 2018.

It was not until the end of 2021 that the two charities commissioned Silverback Films to make a film for them that celebrates the extraordinary work of people fighting to restore nature in Britain and Ireland. The BBC acquired this film for iPlayer at the start of this year.”

Laura Howard, who produced the programme and used to work at the BBC’s Natural History Unit, said she did not believe its messages to be political.

She told the Guardian: “I think the facts speak for themselves. You know, we’ve worked really closely with the RSPB in particular who are able to factcheck all of our scripts and provide us with detailed scientific data and information about the loss of wildlife in this country. And it is undeniable, we are incredibly nature-depleted. And I don’t think that that is political, I think it’s just facts.”

The producer said the film would touch on how farming practices had harmed wildlife, but would also profile farmers who had done the right thing.

“Those farmers are there to make the point that every farm in the country ought to be able to do a little bit at least of what they do, and that it is possible to farm alongside nature, to make a profit, to produce healthy food and to still run a business,” Howard said.

She added that she hoped a young audience would be able to find the film, as they are used to streaming on iPlayer rather than watching a broadcast.

Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: “For the BBC to censor of one of the nation’s most informed and trusted voices on the nature and climate emergencies is nothing short of an unforgivable dereliction of its duty to public service broadcasting. This government has taken a wrecking ball to our environment – putting over 1,700 pieces of environmental legislation at risk, setting an air pollution target which is a decade too late, and neglecting the scandal of our sewage-filled waterways – which cannot go unexamined and unchallenged by the public.

“BBC bosses must not be cowed by antagonistic, culture war-stoking government ministers, putting populist and petty political games above delivering serious action to protect and restore our natural world. This episode simply must be televised.”

Chris Packham, who presents Springwatch on the BBC, also criticised the decision. He told the Guardian: “At this time, in our fight to save the world’s biodiversity, it is irresponsible not to put that at the forefront of wildlife broadcasting.”

Stephen Moss, a natural historian and TV producer who has worked for the BBC on nature programmes, said focusing on a conservation angle could win political support for the cause. He said: “Often, if you lead on environmental issues, people genuinely turn off. But if you drip feed it within the programmes and then hit people with a message at the end when you convince them how brilliant wildlife is, it tends to work.

“With Blue Planet, you got Theresa May standing up and Philip Hammond, the chancellor at the time, saying: ‘this is the BBC as its very best’, doing what Conservatives never do, basically praising the BBC and saying: this is fantastic. So maybe that will happen with this. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Tory politicians jump on the bandwagon and go on and on about how brilliant it is.”

The charities involved in the programme are already using it to launch a campaign – unaffiliated with the BBC – called Save Our Wild Isles. They have gained the support of the National Trust, the Guardian understands.