Technology and the church: an analogy

Following the reflections on technology vs. technologism I posted a week ago, I thought I'd offer an extended analogy to tease out what I think are some of the implications for the church of rejecting such technologism in relation to our ecological predicament.

The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is a large and wicked* social problem. Its causes are complex and involve (amongst others) both individual lifestyle choices and broader cultural assumptions. It is a slow-burn problem, with cases multiplying in largely invisible ways (that is, infection is not an experience that a subject is usually aware of at the time) and symptoms only really becoming manifest years later. It is also a problem where the accumulation of individual cases generates further complex social realities (AIDS orphans, child-headed households, a culture of stigmatism and so on). In South Africa, for quite some time, the government held a position of officially denying the link between HIV and AIDS, holding back implementation of various policies that, while being very unlikely to "solve" the problem, nonetheless could have significantly reduced the spread of the disease and hence the resulting human suffering.
*Wicked in the technical sense, that is, a complex and multifaceted problem without a single "solution".

I'm just sketching a little and I'm going to assume that the parallels to a number of ecological problems are more or less obvious to those paying attention to such matters.

The point I'd like to make concerns the role and limitations of technology. In this case, I have in view both the very low tech option of condoms and the considerably higher tech option of antiretroviral drugs. Widespread adoption of safer sex practices would very significantly slow down the spread of the disease. Therefore, government and NGO programmes that promote such harm minimisation are, to my mind, basically a no-brainer. The widespread provision of antiretroviral drugs is slightly more complex, involving various economic implications and calculations, though still clearly a good idea on balance. These do not cure the disease, but they do slow its progression in an infected individual, and so increase his/her life expectancy. Now, in this situation, technology serves to provide real social and personal goods, and any responsible government ought to be implementing such actions amongst their many priorities.

Nonetheless, such provisions, while reducing the pace and severity of the crisis, do not by themselves decisively solve it. Huge damage has already been sustained and more is in the pipeline in the form of millions of carriers whose lives are likely to be shorter than they would otherwise be, and whose future sexual activities will be conducted under a shadow. Grief remains a healthy and appropriate response, not as a replacement for these policies, but simply out of emotional honesty.

Furthermore, implementing these policies doesn't remove the moral evaluation (at both personal and cultural levels) of the failures that enabled the problem to spiral to such magnitude. It would be easy to indulge in cheap and simplistic condemnation of the lax sexual ethics of many of those who end up infected (though of course, many spouses and children may contract the condition entirely innocently), and this would be reductionist if that were the extent of one's response. Conversely, not to comment on the sexual sins as a spiritual problem manifest in grave social harms would also be to miss an important component of the situation.

Now the analogy is not perfect and I'm sure there are all kinds of important differences between AIDS and ecological crises, but perhaps this example may illustrate the possibility that technological responses of real social benefit do not render the problem less wicked (in the technical sense) and do not sidestep the need for careful moral evaluation of the situation.

Now, consider the position of a Christian church facing an AIDS epidemic amongst the congregation. There are all kinds of possible responses, and a healthy one will include many facets: caring for the sick and orphaned; seeking honesty and reconciliation in relationships damaged by sexual misdeeds; helping the congregation understand the nature of the disease including causes and its likely effects; calling on governments to implement responsible social policies; planning for a future in which more families are broken and child-headed households increase. Amidst this, I presume that it would be a good idea to lay out sensitively the good news of sexually committed exclusive covenant relationships (within a full-orbed proclamation of the gospel of grace, repentance, forgiveness, freedom and reconciliation). Now, to speak of the goodness of sexual relationships as they were intended may not "cut it" as a social policy, and nor need this proclamation imply ecclesial support is restricted purely to abstinence/chastity programmes. But if the church does not recognise that one of the significant contributing factors to this epidemic is the eclipse of scriptural sexual ethics, then it would only be doing part of its job. Ultimately, the church will be praying and working towards becoming a community within which healthy sexual relationships of trust and commitment are the norm, where failures are handled sensitively and graciously, where reconciliation and stronger relationships are the goal. And even if to some observers it appears foolish, naïve or old-fashioned, it will hold onto the possibility of the partial and provisional healing of desire amidst a sinful world that at times shows little evidence of such a message being effective. It will hold onto the hope of eschatological healing, yet without confusing this with any sort of divine guarantee for miraculous deliverance from the consequence of our actions today.

Similarly, while technology may offer certain paths that reduce the pace and severity of ecological harms, and while governments may well be wise to consider various options carefully and responsibly (rather than the present mix of short term opportunism, denial and misguided or cynical tokenism), nonetheless, the church cannot but notice that behind our ecological woes are certain assumptions and patterns of behaviour: a reckless indifference to the consequences of our pursuit of ever higher levels of consumption; an insatiable acquisitiveness that desperately tries to find meaning in stuff; a foolish arrogance that claims to wield ultimate mastery over matter; a short-sighted willingness to sell our children's inheritance for a quick thrill today coupled with an inordinate unwillingness to let go of luxuries; and an ignorant inattentiveness to the plight of our fellow creatures. Noting these roots needn't remove the possibility that the church will support responsible technological mitigation of our crises, but the church will continue to hold out - despite the apathy and scorn of the surrounding culture - a picture of human communities not based primarily on acquisition, of a good life that is not built primarily around consumption or material wealth, of a heart that is content and generous and which desires neither poverty nor riches. It will speak out against the personal and systemic greed whose manifestation is a destabilised and scarred planet. It will grieve over the damage already done, and the more that is in the pipeline. It will speak of grace, forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation - and of a divine eschatological healing of a groaning world, yet without assuming that this implies we will not face the more or less predictable consequences of our present failures and so not at all neglecting the task of both caring for victims and advocating on behalf of those without a voice in the matter: the global poor, future generations and other species.

In short, the church is not unmindful of the potential benefits of technology, but it is called to be free from the slavish fascination that treats it as our saviour. A world in peril needs more than a renewable clean source of power; it needs a renewed and cleansed heart.

The difficulties of climate ethics: time

"[There is] a pronounced temporal dispersion of causes and effects. In the case of climate change, this is caused mainly by the long atmospheric lifetime of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and by the fact that some of the basic physical systems influenced by the greenhouse effect (such as oceans) are subject to profound inertia, so that changes play out over centuries and even millennia. This is important because it suggests that whereas fossil fuel emissions have immediate and tangible benefits for present people, many of the most serious costs are likely to be substantially deferred to future generations."

- Stephen Gardiner, A Perfect Moral Storm:
The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (Oxford: OUP, 2011), 123.

This time lag is critical to grasping climate change (and, to a greater or lesser extent, many other ecological issues). Many people don't realise that the changes we are already experiencing (Arctic summer sea ice volume down by over 70%, shifts in timing of the seasons, more frequent heatwaves and intense precipitation events in some regions, poleward shift of ecosystems, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels and so on) are not the result of present greenhouse gas concentrations. We are merely reaping the start of the harvest of seeds sown decades ago. It will be decades more before the effects of today's levels begin to be visible, and centuries or even millennia before their full impact is known.

This temporal lag means that climate change occupies an intermediate position amongst future threats, too close to be safely ignored and too distant to avoid being perpetually trumped by the myopic focus on today's problem caused by the media and political cycle. Dangerous climate change is far more immediate than say, the heat death of the universe or even the death of our Sun (or the preceding gradual increase in solar radiation that will likely destroy all life on earth well before either of these), and yet not immediate enough to enter the horizon of political decision-making. That this is so can be seen in the frequent attempts to find proximate hooks of one disaster or another on which to hang the climate threat. Yet these are doomed to be of only ambiguous use since any single disaster always has multiple causes and climate change is about a shift in statistical distributions, rather than being the sole unambiguous "cause" of any given event. In this intermediate position, climate change is uncomfortably dangerous enough to be of real concern and yet always comfortably far enough away to ignore for one more day, lowering the chance that will anticipate with prudence such (slightly) distant futures.

Individually, we are frequently poor at responding to such delayed feedback. The causes of obesity, heart disease, lung disease, alcoholism and all kinds of other long term health problems are increasingly well-known and connected to various behaviours that are often deemed quite pleasant in the short term. Yet, despite the long term ill-effects frequently being catastrophic for our health, we continue to indulge.

And that is just for problems where the effects are on my own life a few decades in the future. But when we turn to issues where the worst effects are felt by others, separated from me by time, space, social distance and even species, then my ability to refrain from indulging in short-term pleasures becomes even more difficult.

And when we turn from individual responses to collective responses, yet another layer of complexity is added and the potential to pass the buck becomes even higher. And when these collective responses are required not only at communal, social and national levels, but also critically amongst all nations of any economic size, then the barriers can appear insurmountable. More on these issues in the days ahead as I begin this series looking at some of the reasons why climate change is a particularly knotty ethical issue.
As one illustration of the temporal lag, a new publication from NASA claims that, based on paleoclimate records, each degree Celsius of global temperature rise will, in the long run, be associated with something like a twenty metre sea level rise. For those who don't understand why it matters whether we rise two or three or four degrees, here is one example to clarify our thoughts. This is not saying that such rises will be immediate, but that we are committing our descendants to a very, very different world.

A world without beaches?

Having been reading various papers and reports on climate change for some time now, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the range of negative effects associated with the unprecedented rate of change our actions are causing in the planet's atmosphere and oceans: higher temperatures, changing patterns of precipitation, more frequent heat waves and bushfires, more intense storms and floods, habitat destruction, biodiversity decline, cryosphere melt, reduced agricultural yields, increased water stress, increased area affected by drought at any one time, ocean acidification (which is not directly related to climate, but has the same cause: rising carbon dioxide levels), modified vector borne disease spread (such as dengue and malaria), exacerbation of respiratory health issues associated with ground-level ozone (smog), human migration patterns (refugees), desertification, shifting ocean currents, warming oceans, coral bleaching and mortality, poleward movement of the tropics, destabilisation of permafrost, shifts in the timing of annual events such as flowering, hibernations, migrations and peak river flows, sea level rise and the consequent threat to infrastructure during storm surges as well as salination of coastal water tables. All these I've read a fair bit about over the last couple of years. But only recently I have come across an implication that I hadn't heard before, one with a high visual and emotional impact for many people, but which, as far as I can tell, is not yet widely known.

Much has been said about sea level rise, and I don't intend to give a full account here. But quite apart from the risk of flooding, rising seas mean coastal erosion. I had not grasped how significant this could be. A rule of thumb used by some researchers is that, roughly speaking, for each centimetre of sea level rise, coasts will erode by one metre. When we are looking at a likely sea level rise between 50 and 200 centimetres by 2100 (and continuing thereafter for some time), you quickly get a sense of the scale of this particular issue. Sea defences can be built to minimise this impact, but they are only partially or temporarily effective (or extremely expensive), especially against the scale of change we are looking at.

Where the public at large are likely to particularly notice this, especially in Australia, is in its effect on beaches, many of which are likely to be progressively stripped of sand over the coming decades. The processes involved are complex and only partially understood, and there may be much local variation in how sea level rise affects coastal areas. Nonetheless, loss of sand is already a major (and costly) headache for many beaches and the best estimates are that this will generally get worse.

Many of us are likely to live to see a world virtually free of summer Arctic sea ice; our children may see the last of the great coral reefs die; our grandchildren may need an explanation of what a sandy beach was.

On the blame game

Brad also has an insightful reflection on the fallout from the recent tragic shooting in Arizona.

Christian tradition has never been content to leave the blame for sin at the feet of the sinner alone. Sin is not simply something that each of us as individuals choose for ourselves; it is a disease we inherit, a poisoned air we all breathe both in and out. While the shooter is not excused or exonerated by such considerations, ruling out any reflection upon the context within which this assault occurred is short-sighted.

Sustainable development?

Here is a short cartoon booklet offering a satirical look at what "sustainable development" often means for indigenous peoples.
H/T Jeremy Kidwell.

Amongst the most vulnerable peoples in the world are the so-called "lost tribes". Did you know that there are still over one hundred tribes around the world who are largely isolated from the rest of the world, in fact who reject contact? For many of these "uncontacted peoples", their immune system has never faced disease or illness and even a common cold can be fatal. Most tribes at first contact experience horrific mortality rates (up to 100% in some cases) from such deadly viruses as the common cold or chickenpox. Many of these groups are not entirely uncontacted, but their experience of civilisation has been of disease, violence, slavery, exploitation and contempt. No wonder they choose to go it alone.

I came across this issue as the result of reading about this story, which presents an interesting ethical debate about the risks that are acceptable in expanding human knowledge. An update to this story can be read here.

UPDATE July 2011: After the failure of the natural history museum project, the real dangers to the ecology and uncontacted tribes of this area are becoming clearer.

Over budget and getting worse

Too much of a good thing: "In fact, no phenomenon has probably impacted the nitrogen cycle more than human inputs of nitrogen into the cycle in the last 2.5 billion years".

Another threat to coral: algal blooms, caused by excess nitrogen, found to kill large areas of coral within weeks.

Plane danger? It turns out you are more likely to die from plane exhaust than in a plane crash.

Water, water everywhere: more water flowing into the ocean due to climate change, an 18 percent increase between 1994 and 2006. Another good summary and some discussion on Skeptical Science.

Birds could signal mass extinction: "Biodiversity loss is arguably much more serious and more permanent than climate change". Which is saying something, since anthropogenic climate change is likely to redefine the planet's living systems and geography for millennia.

Loss of old growth forests continues, albeit a little more slowly: where biodiversity and climate converge (one of many places, but this is perhaps the most critical).

Economy vs ecology? Ecological damage estimated to currently cost the global economy US$6.6 trillion (with a "t") each year.

Drying up: unexpected shift in evapotranspiration across large parts of the southern hemisphere.

Finish your plate: 27% of food in the US is wasted. I assume that is not even calculating all the excess calories that are actually consumed.

A second planet by 2030: current trends in consumption are drawing down on the natural capital of the earth. We're currently about 50% over "budget".

And some good news: deadly virus eradicated in "the biggest achievement of veterinary history".

Priorities

"It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to saved 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases."

- Bono

The full story is, of course, more complex. But sometimes such blunt juxtaposotion throws new light on our assumptions and priorities.

UPDATE: Here's three.
UPDATE #2: And the other side of the equation is no longer looking like a given either.

Jesus and climate change XV

Conclusion
Speaking of carbon-emitters and carbon-sufferers reminds us – what has the church got to do with climate change?

I submit that only a community based on love can sustain a genuine concern for justice and sustainability in the face of ecological crisis. Lots of other movements and groups do great stuff and I thank God for them. I thank God for the IPCC: on the whole, they do us all a great service, as do many others. But the desire for change, the impulse towards justice and living wisely, cannot be sustained merely by guilt over past mistakes. Even fear, which is a great motivator, in the end can just compound the problem, because we get so terrified that we’ll buy any solution, even if we have to sell our souls to get it.

Only if we are secure in the knowledge of being held in a love that will not let go, can we step out on the risky path of putting the needs of others first. Only when we know that we are deeply loved by a God who made the heavens and the earth can we move heaven and earth out of love for our neighbour. Only when we stop thinking individualistically and start thinking as a global family can we face global problems, when the ones who are suffering from our greed or thoughtlessness are not faceless strangers, but brothers and sisters. Only when we are not paralysed by fear can we be released from the chains of denial and be honest about the scope of the problem and think clearly about creative solutions. Only when staying alive is not our primary goal, can we avoid be paralysed by threats. Only when the environment is not treated as either a resource to be exploited or a god to be worshipped can we live in harmony with it. Only when we understand ourselves as God’s image on earth, a good part of the created order with the task of enjoying and serving the creation will we stop acting like we own the place, or thinking that we are a disease that needs to be purged. Only when we see the world as a gift entrusted to our care, as the realm of God’s coming glory, as our future home, will we make more than cosmetic changes to our behaviour.

In God’s grace, there are many people doing good things in response to the threat of climate change and certainly most of them do not yet think of Jesus as a brother and God as their father, or believe that God raises the dead. That too is a gift from God. But only a community based on love, not guilt and fear, can sustain a genuine concern for all of God’s children, and for all of God’s world. As strange as it may sound, I believe that the church is the hope of the world.* The church is what God is doing now. God likes to work in surprising ways. He used a poor marginalised Jewish peasant on the outskirts of the Roman empire to turn the world upside down. He won his greatest victory through a shameful death. What is God doing now? He’s building a community full of broken and hurting people, but a community that has started to taste what it’s like to be healed.

If you’ve never done so, then I’d like to invite you to come and taste this community at your local church. If you've had disappointing experiences before, remember, this ought to be the community that does failure and repentance and new beginnings well. Come and see whether God might be at work in surprising ways. Come and be healed. Come and become a healer. Come and be part of God’s renovation.
*Of course, Christ is the hope of the world, but the community of his followers is the sign and foretaste of his coming presence and rule.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; IX(b); X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV.

Jesus and climate change II

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the peak body on the science of climate change. The IPCC recently released the fourth part of its fourth report, which are completed every four years. This fourth document is publicly available (here is the Summary for Policymakers) and integrates the findings of the previous three sections published earlier this year. Here are some of the key findings (adapted from an SMH article I now can't find, though I also note it is here):

What's happening?

• Evidence for global warming is now “unequivocal”, and there is a more than 90 per cent probability of human responsibility for the problem. The main culprit is carbon gas emitted by burning of fossil fuels, which lingers in the atmosphere and traps solar heat.
• Since 1900, the mean global atmospheric temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius and the sea level by 10-20 centimetres. Eleven of the past 12 years rank among the dozen warmest years on record.
• Human-generated greenhouse gases rose by 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004 from 28.7 to 49 billion tonnes per year in carbon dioxide or its equivalent. Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, have risen by about a third since pre-industrial times and are now at their highest in 650,000 years.
• Climate change is already happening, visible in the loss of alpine glaciers and snow cover, shrinking Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost.

What are the likely implications?

• By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees compared to 1980-99 levels. But this average rise will mask big variations, according to region and country.
• Within this range, "best estimates" run from 2.4 degrees for a scenario based on a major switch to non-fossil fuels and 4 degrees for a fossil-fuel intensive "business-as-usual" scenario.
• Sea levels will rise by at least 18 centimetres by century's end. There is no estimate for the upper limit, given the unknowns about the impact of warming on ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic.
• Greenhouse-gas warming “could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible”. The risks are related to the rate and magnitude of the climate change.
• 20-30 per cent of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction if average global temperatures increase by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees, compared with the average temperature 1980-99. With a 3.5 degree rise, this rises to 40-70% of all plant and animal species.
• “All countries” will be affected, especially poor tropical countries struggling with water stress and few resources.
• In Africa, by 2020, 75-250 million people will be exposed to increased water stress. Yields from rain-fed agriculture in some African countries could be reduced by up to 50 per cent. Desert-like areas could expand by 5 to 8 per cent by 2080.
• In Asia, available fresh water will decrease by mid-century. Coastal mega-deltas will be at risk from flooding due to rising seas. Mortality due to diseases associated with floods and droughts will increase.

What can be done?

• To stabilise emissions at levels likely to limit the overall rise to 2.0 to 2.8 degrees would cost less than 0.12 percentage points of annual world GDP growth to 2030.
• A "wide variety of policies and instruments" exist to reduce emissions, including carbon taxes, tougher emission standards, caps on emissions, incentives for clean energy production.
• In addition to emissions mitigation, a huge effort is also needed in adaptation, to channel funds, technology and knowledge to poor countries that will suffer disproportionately from climate change.

Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; IX(b); X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV.

Jesus and climate change I

Why Jesus cares more about climate change than you do and what he's doing about it, or "What on earth is God doing on earth?"
Last week I mentioned that I was giving a seminar at St John's Ashfield on this wordy topic (another suggested title was Why Jesus cared about climate change before it was trendy). I thought I'd post at least some of my notes here.

Scepticism: an introductory caveat
I don’t really want to talk about scepticism here tonight. I believe the debate has moved on so I’m assuming you’re basically on board. Although various details continue to be adjusted in the light of new research,* the broad claim of alarming anthropogenic climate change is almost universally agreed upon by experts in the relevant fields. That is, the global climate pattern, which includes precipitation and extreme weather events, not just temperature, has begun to change rapidly in recent decades and will continue to do so. And these changes are anthropogenic, which means human activity has been a crucial part of the cause. And they are alarming in scope and implications. We face a world that is not simply getting a little warmer on average, but which, taken as a whole, is significantly less hospitable to human society and life in general as we know it. We’re not just talking about hotter days, or more heat waves, but also rising sea levels, increased erosion and flooding (particularly of densely populated areas such as the 60 million people in the low-lying country of Bangladesh), changing patterns of precipitation, with a significant net decline in global agricultural output, stronger and perhaps more frequent extreme weather events, broader distribution of deadly tropical disease, more environmental refugees, loss of unique ecosystems and significantly increased threat of species extinction. Climate change is much more than simply global warming.

So I’m assuming we’re all familiar with and broadly in agreement with the concept of alarming anthropogenic climate change. In fact, until recently, there was only one significant scientific body in the world that was officially sceptical about it, namely, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. But even they have now changed their position.
*Given the enormous volume of ongoing research and the complexity of technical detail, I make no promises about being entirely up to date and accurate on every point. I'm interested in these debates, but am not aiming to generate more of them here.
Five points for the city. Five more for each link to other images of the same city posted on this blog (I think there are thirteen apart from this one). No more than five points per person.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; IX(b); X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV.

Would Jesus vote green? VI

Sorrow
Once we move beyond systematic denial of environmental destruction, we reach the second common response: sorrow.

Upon coming to accept (at least some of) these claims as true, we are filled with sadness. It is sad that human action (and inaction) continue to cause so much destruction and senseless waste. This is a natural and right response, since we’re really losing things of that are of great value. In particular, I find the rate of extinction very sad, because while most other forms of environmental damage are reversible, (sometimes only in the very long term), with the extinction of a species, once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

It is not only the animals and plants that suffer from our environmental irresponsibility. Humans suffer too, especially those too poor to move and too marginalised to have a significant political voice. Poisoned rivers, degraded soil, more frequent and more severe extreme weather patterns – these and more cause incalculable human suffering too. This is far more serious than not being able to water your garden or having to pay a little more for electricity.

Sorrow at what is lost and sorrow at what it costs those least able to afford it – this response resonates with a deeply Christian way of viewing the world. We only grieve the loss of what is valuable. Fundamental to Christianity’s take on the environment is that the world God made was good, very good. Grief is the natural correlate of love, when the object of love is harmed or threatened.

And our sadness also accords with a second basic Christian belief: there is something deeply wrong with God’s world. The beauty is marred. There are cracks in the abundant diversity. The health of the planet is threatened by a global disease.

The Apostle Paul teaches that to follow Christ, to be filled with his Spirit, is to grieve over the plight of creation, to groan in shared pain, to be discontent with the fractures in the world. Following Christ is not a recipe for a mindlessly happy escapism; we follow the one called the man of sorrows.

Yet grief alone is insufficient, not least because despite our best – or perhaps our worst, or simply our mediocre – efforts, despite pollution, soil degradation, climate change, the squandering of finite resources, mass extinction, despite all this, the world remains a good gift from God, filled with delight and things worth celebrating. Unless we take the time to stop, notice, enjoy and give thanks for all that surrounds us, we lose the very reason to grieve because we lose sight of the goodness of this gift.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

Would Jesus vote green? II

As I mentioned back here, tonight I gave a talk titled 'Would Jesus vote green?' at a restaurant in Harbord. Over the next few days, I'll post the talk in a short series.
What has Jerusalem to do with Athens the Amazon?
Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years. A total of 11,046 species of plants and animals are listed as presently threatened or endangered. Current extinction rates are estimated to be around 1,000 times the normal background extinction rate. Within 50 years, one-third of all land-based species could face extinction. According to the United Nations, 71-78 per cent of the world's fisheries are 'fully exploited', 'over exploited' or 'significantly depleted'. All wild seafood will have disappeared from the world's menus within 50 years if current trends in overfishing continue according to one of the most comprehensive studies of marine life. In just 60 years the Antarctic blue whale population fell from 220,000 to just 1,000. One-quarter of the Earth's bird species have been driven into extinction by human activities.

Somewhere between a third and a half of the land surface of the earth has been transformed by human action. More than half of the fresh water sources of the world are now put to use by human beings.

Ancient forests are home to around two-thirds of all plant and animal species found on land. More than 2,000 tropical forest plants have been identified by scientists as having anti-cancer properties. Less than one percent of the tropical rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value. Nearly 90 percent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide depend on forests for their livelihoods. Yet 80 percent of the world’s ancient forests have already been either destroyed or degraded, and half of that has been in the last 30 years. An area the size of a football field of ancient forest is destroyed every two seconds. That’s an area bigger than France and Spain combined in the last ten years. At current rates, all tropical forests may be gone by the year 2090.

Demand for oil and energy resources from industrialized nations like China are expected to almost double by the year 2030. Two thirds of all energy generated in power stations is lost as waste heat – up the chimney and along transmission lines. The energy use per capita of high income countries is more than 10 times higher than that of low income countries. The world has a finite supply of oil. We are roughly halfway through using it. At some point within the next few years, it is likely that the rate of oil extraction will fall into decline. With ever-growing demand, once this point of ‘peak oil’ production is passed, prices are likely to rise rapidly, with possibly disasterous consequences for the global economy. For every kilojoule of energy we gain from eating food, we spend ten kilojoules of (mainly oil) energy to fertilise, harvest, transport, refrigerate and cook it. If we were to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear power, world uranium supplies would be depleted in four years.

More than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water, 2.6 billion lack access to adequate water for sanitation. Water-borne diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. This situation is getting worse. Two thirds of the world population will be without safe drinking water and basic sanitation services by 2025.

The Sahara desert in Africa currently expands southwards at the rate of 5-10 km per year.

Australians are ranked 7th worst in the world for our average ecological footprint. The total human ecological footprint is estimated to have exceeded the biocapacity of the planet by 25%.

And I haven't even mentioned climate change, toxins in the air and water, soil loss or nuclear waste.

How does this make you feel?
Five points for naming the location from which the first photo was taken. Fifteen for guessing the region in which the second one was taken. Second photo by JKS.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII.

UPDATE: When I first posted this, I avoided discussion of climate change because it is so politicised at the moment and seems to distract from the bigger picture. However, here is a useful site answering 26 common myths about climate change. H/T OSO.