I’ve met a lot of people in my time and from all walks of life, but lately I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting so many so called scientists and climatologists.
They’re all coming out of the woodwork, standing on their soapboxes spreading misinformation, and with such conviction. Apparently, there’s nothing to worry about!
Now it’s not uncommon to have a fear of some kind, maybe a fear of heights, confined spaces, creepy crawlies, flying or a fear of deep water, yet our mortality as a species doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. These charlatans are dangerous fools and they need to be silenced with some cold hard facts.
Most of society have forgotten that our survival is solely dependent on clean water, fertile soil, fresh air and favourable weather, but now all four can no longer be guaranteed.
Water abounds on Earth, but this is deceiving when only .05% of fresh water is accessible or useable, leaving very little in reserve and a report from the UN University is absolutely frightening.
The world has now entered a state of “global water bankruptcy” as water systems all around the world deplete faster than they can recover. Lakes, rivers and aquifers have passed their “tipping point” of sustainable use, and a report from the World Meteorological Organisation revealed more than 50% of the world’s river catchments are under extreme stress and many are drying up.
This has left two billion people without access to safe drinking water and roughly four billion now experience a severe shortage every year for a month or so. Our very own Murray Darling Basin once fed 77,000 kilometres of waterways but today it’s suffering from extreme water stress, impacting many smaller rivers that have ceased to flow or vanished.
Worldwide major rivers that once travelled freely have reached historically low levels – the Amazon, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Mississippi, Colorado, Yangtze, Loire, Rhine, Danube, Rio Grande, Rio Bravo, Tigris and Euphrates.
That’s a lot of rivers and glaciers play a crucial role feeding them, such as the Ganges and Brahmaputra that are the only source of water for hundreds of millions of people. Tens of thousands are shrinking and melting at an extraordinary pace and already hundreds have “melted out of existence”, including Venezuela where not a single glacier remains.
The agricultural sector on average uses 70% of the planet’s freshwater and it takes 2,000 to 5,000 litres to produce one person’s daily food requirements, so envisioning a starving world isn’t hard to imagine, and we’re right on target.
The world’s food security is now at risk, as reductions in crop yields rise and the overall nutritional value of staples drops. Crops that are a primary source of food for billions of people, such as maize, and rice and wheat, are losing their protein content and the crisis is deepening with no end in sight.
Currently there are 2.8 billion people who can’t afford a healthy diet and 700 million suffering from chronic malnutrition, plus 318 million whose levels of hunger have reached crisis point or worse. And not surprisingly the UN have forecast an inevitable worldwide famine within the next 30 years.
Dirt isn’t just dirt; it’s a highly prized commodity and why? It takes roughly a thousand years to form three centimetres of topsoil, yet we’re using it ten to forty times faster than it can be replenished and industrial agriculture is to blame for the loss of 40%. If current erosion rates continue, industrial experts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have warned that the world’s topsoil could disappear in sixty years.
Every day we’re totally unaware that the air we breathe in and out is now the greatest environmental threat to human health. According to the World Health Organisation, 99% of the world’s population are breathing in air that exceeds air quality guidelines and less than 1% of the planet’s land area has air quality that meets international standards.
Today, nine out of ten deaths in low to middle income nations are attributed to outdoor air pollution, and how disturbing to think this includes 2,000 innocent young children who die every day.
The weather determines nearly everything we do, and those good old-fashioned seasons really have become a thing of the past. They’re gone! What more is there to say? I’m completely off the grid, and for the first time in nearly 17 years I have no power and still waiting for the sun to return, but it’s not looking good.
That expression “It’s not the end of the world” just doesn’t ring true, it’s now a probability and it took a mighty effort on our part to sweep an entire planet under the carpet, and somehow, we managed to not trip over it. Now there’s no avoiding it.
All those thoughtless actions that were considered inconsequential, created a butterfly effect, and even when society were warned time after time, they continued on regardless. We say we love our children but not enough, apparently.
What springs to mind? Global warming, the modern-day Pied Piper of Hamelin and there’ll be no negotiating. Nature’s on a course of destruction, and now our children get to pay the price!