Choosing life

As the world celebrated the forty-fifth World Environment Day on Wednesday, are there any signs of hope? A statement from the United Nation’s Development Program (UNDP) thinks so, but not before sharing some ominous warnings. The world could be set to lose one million species in the next three decades. We have a decade to stop the climate crisis from crossing the tipping point. There is set to be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050. The almost 3.4 billion people who depend on nature for their survival face a precarious future. So then how can there be good news to share when the omens are so bad? The optimism comes from the fact that there are communities around the world that are innovating – by returning to, or, inventing new ways of living more harmoniously with the environment. In effect, the solutions have always been there, its just the will that's missing. The profit motive continues to overpower the motive to converse life, both human and non-human.

We know very well how much worse the future could be. The present is a good indicator. The lives claimed by air pollution alone should be enough to shake the world into action. Coupled with environmental disasters, we have already entered a world where human greed has greatly damaged the natural systems that preserved life on earth. There is great belief that technology will always find a way out – but scientists have continued to warn that this is not true. Action will need to be drastic and it will need to be now. Otherwise we are looking at extinction, not just of millions of species, but of humans too. And it is human hubris that is responsible for things remaining the same. Otherwise: how difficult would it be to ban the use of dangerous plastics throughout the world? Or replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy? Or regrow the forests that once made up much of the earth? If human civilisation at the start of the 20th century was ready for the industrial revolution, it has been ready to start an environmental revolution in the 21st century. But this would require greed to stop being the primary motivator for development. We will instead have to find new principles: cooperation, harmony and the instinct to survive. We face two choices – stepping into a brave new world or letting the world we live in be destroyed. The choice is ours.