We [humans] are the colonists and rulers of the Earth, we live on borrowed resources provided by a planet that has been too generous to us for millennia, it is estimated that life began on earth three thousand two hundred million years ago1, however in just a few centuries we have been spending most of our easy accesible resources. This must stop if we want future generations to call this planet their home.
We spend resources a lot faster than they recover; We consume, without any kind of self-restraint, the planet's fertile soil, minerals, fossil fuels, ecosystems, and generally everything that the planet provides us (including ecosystem services).
A clear example is underground drinking water aquifers; we are consuming them in an unsustainably way. We consume square meters per year and the only aquifers are only recharged / recovered year a few millimeters per year. Which means that we are overexploiting the aquifers, and if pumped too fast they could collapse and never recharge again.
While neglecting the efficient exploitation of aquifers: We are urbanizing, paving and building on land that is needed to recharge them, thus rainwater can not penetrate the soil and recharge the underground reserves. This water, that could be beneficial in the future, ends up discharged into the ocean, which then is mixed with saltwater and is not longer suited for human consumption.
Access to clean water has already been the subject of conflict, creating water wars in the Middle East and if we continue in this path is very likely that it will be a cause of wars in more countries around the world.
On the other hand, the biodiversity that supports our lives and our economy are being consumed rapidly, the last time that biodiversity was lost in such a fast pace was in the mass extinction event of dinosaurs and took nearly 20 million years for biodiversity to return to previous levels.
Although one could say that biodiversity is a renewable resource, its renewal rate is very slow, and is much slower than our rate of consumption / destruction of it.
Our habit of consumption makes us need a lot of energy for our daily lives. The dependence on fossil fuels that we have is scary; As we consume existent fossil fuel reserves we need to exploit new ones that are less easy to reach and therefore every time we pollute more to extract this resources. And by polluting to extract we damage the ecosystems that could help trap emissions. Creating an unsustainable vicious cycle.
Energy consumption per person in developed countries is very high; the impact on the planet is too strong:
The average energy use per person in the United States of America is 12kW / p, while in less developed countries is close to 2kW / p. It is estimated that people in the United States of America could live a full life using only 3kW / p and the difference of 9kW / p is mostly wasted.
In the last 150 years due to population growth and increased consumption we have achieved two twentyfold our impact on the planet's systems that support our lives.
We have used more than 50% of the easy accessible aquifers1, we have destroyed more than half the tropical forest2, more than a quarter of the corals3, have deteriorated by more than 10% the fertile soil4. And not only that, but we have destroyed 40% of the planet's productivity4 (the resources the planet gives us for free). We've taken care of changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, we have exploited and moved huge banks of materials, we have thrown oil in the oceans, all this in just 150 years.
We cannot keep damaging our planet.
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1,2,3,4(2002) Lecture of Andrés Marcelo Sada Chair "Planeta Finito", issued by Dr. Paul Ehrlich at the Tecnologico de Monterrey
Our lives are made possible by natural ecosystems on the planet that supports us. From microbes to animals, to trees, to oil deposits, and the interactions between them and the services they provide to us.
We have very great challenges to attack in the short to medium term, before the damage is so severe that humans will be on the eve of extinction.
The main challenge for the world is population control.
The population needs to be controlled, so that births should be lower than deaths. The population growth not only damages the environment through the consumption needs but also helps to spread viruses and diseases much faster.
Developed and developing countries, such as the United States and Mexico, need to change the mentality of people through education, awareness and culture to teach people to analyze and judge, to think for themselves to assess the accuracy of the information they are getting and make appropriate judgments and decisions.
Another important challenge will be to stop designing cities for car usage; we need to start planning based on people and therefore promoting less harmful transportation systems.
Also we need to start using clean ways of getting the energy that we need, the technologies are at our disposal. A clear example is Tesla Motors' PowerWall.
The damage is already happening globally, we can appreciate the increased flooding, forest fires, droughts, intense heat waves, pest outbreaks, death of corals, strength and destruction of typhoons and hurricanes and the geographical scope of diseases (influenza, dengue, chincuncuya, zika, etc.), all of the above are, possibly, manifestations of climate change.
We consume everything that is within our reach without, we multiply and look for more places to exploit. Repeating the destructive cycle over and over again.
However we are destroying the only planet (currently known) that gives us the resources we need to survive and to reach happiness.
The stable climate of the past that helped the development of humanity is changing rapidly. Very son it could be a thing of the past, so it is very likely that this change in the short term will impact our ability to feed ourselves, to develop and live life in its fullest.
We need to take action on the matter immediately; we can not give us the luxury of apathy. The time to act is now.
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Sources:
International Energy Agency (IEA). "World Energy Outook 2015". Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/
Edmonds, J. (2004). Implications of a Technology Strategy to Address Climate Change For the Evolution of Global Trade and Investment. Policy and Governance Working Paper. Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://coe21-policy.sfc.keio.ac.jp/ja/wp/WP25.pdf
Holdren, J. P. (2010), Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Energy-Technology Innovation and the Climate-Change Challenge. Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/holdren-arpa-e-03032010.pdf
Web site of the National Commission for the Efficient Use of Energy (CONUEE). Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://www.conuee.gob.mx/wb/Conuee/programas
(2015) International Energy Agency, Energy Statistics of OECD Countries. Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2014.pdf
(2011) IPCC 2011 Special Report on renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation. Summary for Policymakers Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srren/srren_report_es.pdf
Edmonds, J. (2014) Global Energy Technology Strategy Addressing Climate Change: Initial Findings from an International Public-Private Collaboration. Battele Memorial Institute, Wshington, D.C. Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from: http://www.globalchange.umd.edu/data/gtsp/docs/GTSP-indfind.pdf
Tenenbaum, D. (2002). "When Did Life on Earth Begin? Ask a Rock". Astrobiology Magazine. Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from: http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/when-did-life-on-earth-begin-ask-a-rock/
Bishop, B. (2015) Energy Tesla's Elon Musk is battery system can power That homes, Businesses, and the world. USA: The Verge Retrieved on March 28, 2016 of http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8525309/tesla-energy-elon-musk-battery-announcement
Tesla Power Wall Mexico. Retrieved on March 18, 2016 to:
https://www.teslamotors.com/es_MX/powerwall?redirect=no
Tesla Motors Power Wall. Retrieved on March 28, 2016 to:
https://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall
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