State of the planet (updated July 2008)*

From a million beginnings the river gathers momentum and flows to one destination.  Our destination is an ecologically sustainable future. We are the million beginnings. Every person, home, workplace, school, community and country. And this destination? Clean air, soil and water. 30 million healthy interdependent and interconnected species. Wonderful natural places forever. More livable and affordable homes.  More effective and inspired businesses. More connected and vibrant communities.  This world is no longer a dream or a possibility – we can and we must and we are creating it now.  And what is that future?

Imagine that our home or workplace created excess renewable energy, collected, treated and celebrated its water flows, had eliminated the concept of waste and now produced inputs for up cycling into industry or the soil, created habitat for local native plants and animals, celebrated natural light and air flows, released oxygen, sequestered carbon and gained insulation from the grass roof.  We were walking, cycling and using hydrogen fueled public transport as our local places were designed for people and human connection. Our buildings and the people in and around them were completely connected to local place and culture. Goods and services come from an effective and inspired local economy that was about growth - growth of what is good - human and ecological health, connection, diversity and delight.

This entire vision is possible now and all elements are happening this minute somewhere across the world.  What don’t we like about this?  In 2008 we understand. Ecological systems are telling us loud and clear that we must change. And change we are. The ecological sustainability and social justice movement worldwide is the biggest movement in human history.  Paul Hawkin’s group Wiser Earth has counted more than 1 million local groups world wide working towards social justice and ecological sustainability: in every country, in every class, in every region.  The movement is leaderless, non ideological and relentless.  This list of groups does not count the hundreds of thousands of “green teams” in organisations around the world. It does not count the hundreds of thousands of schools with habitat gardens and environmental curriculum. It can not hope to count the 76% of Australians who try to make environmentally friendly purchasing decisions. It does not count the 600,000 Australians who now purchase accredited, audited Green Power from their electricity retailer. It cannot count the thousands of ‘sustainability information sessions’ run by local governments around Australia.  The major religions are now spreading the sustainability message about looking after creation. According to the catholic church, pollution is now a sin. New technologies are arriving thick and fast. Remember compact fluorescent globes? They went from $30 each to $3 and now they are out of date as LEDs enter the market.  Wind, solar and geothermal energy technologies are developing quickly. Buildings are now being designed to clean the air, water and soil. Businesses are eliminating waste and pollution and becoming ecologically effective. The new science of biomimicry is discovering the genius of natures design and adapting it for medicine, industry and more: imagine a self assembling solar panel or an organic computer that operates at the speed of light and you get the idea. Many of the answers are not rocket science: our behaviour, the way we use a building, can reduce it’s impact by more than 30%. Melbournians used the same amount of water in 2007/2008 as we did in 1982/1983, even though we now have around one million extra residents.  The way we shop can reduce millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The number of sustainable choices we can make with transport, homes, appliances, food and power are growing exponentially.  The University of Melbourne's Nossal Institute found cycling currently saves an estimated $227.2m per year in health costs alone. A July 2008 report has found that organic produce growers have experienced an 80 per cent growth in farm-gate sales over the last four years, despite the widespread drought.

We face our greatest challenge. That is clear. We also face our greatest opportunity. We have the chance to recreate the way we live in this world in a generation.  A healthier world, a happier world, a cleaner world.

Biodiversity

The priceless interdependence and inter connectedness of life.  Up to 30 million species of life providing clean air, soil and water, controlling the spread of disease, the efficiency of nutrient cycles and providing the basis of 25% of all medical drugs.  Ecological systems are showing serious signs of collapse. Humans have polluted or over exploited 2/3 of the ecosystems on which life depends.   As of 2008, the Yangtze dolphin is extinct. 90% of Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Orangutans are gone, 70% of the lions are gone, 95% of the tigers are gone, 65% of Adele penguins in Antarctica are gone. There are 30 snow leopards left in the wild. 90% of the major fish in the oceans are gone.   At current rates of over fishing, by 2048 there will be no major oceanic fisheries.  We spend millions ‘saving’ individual species while we continue to destroy their habitats and ecosystems through pollution, alien species, deforestation and over harvesting. The Great Barrier Reef will be functionally extinct within decades.  Australia has the worst species extinction record of any continent and is in the top four countries for threatened species. Globally, 1 in 4 mammals, 1 in 8 birds, 1 in 3 amphibians and 70% of assessed plants are threatened. 785 species are listed as extinct and 65 only live in captivity.  Half the world’s forests, half the world’s wetlands and half the world’s grasslands are gone.  80% of the earth’s biodiversity lies outside national parks.  About 150 species of flora and fauna go extinct every day, a rate that is 100 to 1000 times higher than a natural dying out of species. Best estimates point to half of all species of life becoming extinct by the end of this century. We are living in the middle of a human led global mass extinction event and we have no idea what we are losing.  In the insect, viral and bacterial world (the main driver of all ecosystems) we have no idea how many species there are or what their function is.  There are aesthetic and moral reasons for protecting biodiversity. We could also be losing the chance to study natures 3.8 million years of design perfection and find cures for diseases or biomimetic glues, organic solar cells, structural designs, super fast computer hardware, self cleaning paints, truly biodegradable packaging, ‘photosynthetic’ hydrogen splitting for fuel cells, stronger and self assembling ceramics, more effective trains and aeroplanes, colour through shape rather than pigments, bacteria that mine metals from waste streams, collision avoidance circuitry from locusts and lots more. And in economic terms? One study in 1997 put the value to humans of ecosystem services (provided for free) at $31 trillion dollars a year.  We spent $200 million dollars on the failed BIOSPHERE 2, an eco dome designed to keep 8 humans alive that lasted for less than two years.  Environmental damage and species loss costs between 1.35 and 3.1 trillion euros (2.1 to 4.8 trillion US dollars) every year, according to a 2008 UN report. 
 
“Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.”

Energy and Climate Change

Human induced climate change is the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. The Pentagon has called it the biggest threat to USA security.  The atmospheric coal, oil, gas and land clearing carbon experiment is changing our climate faster than it has ever changed. There is now 30% more carbon in the atmosphere than there has been in 600,000 years.  The growth rate in global carbon dioxide emissions trebled between 2000 and 2006.  There have been higher levels of carbon in the atmosphere previously - when there was no life on earth. The International Panel on Climate Change (1000 climate scientists from 100 countries over 17 years) have concluded that human kind is to blame and that we have eight years to turn our carbon emitting ways around before run away climate change occurs.  The predicted two degree temperature rise this century could lead to the extinction of a third of all species of life. In the past 2 degrees has been the difference between a warm period on earth and an ice age.  The poles are warming five times faster than the rest of the globe. The summer arctic sea ice is now predicted to be gone by 2015: In 2005, this prediction was 2050. Ocean acidity is rising, which is lowering the ability of the oceans to sequester and store carbon. Mosquitoes and therefore disease are spreading in range, and altitude as temperatures change. 279 species of plants and animals have been observed moving closer to the poles. Ecosystems and habitats that have always evolved and moved with the climate cannot move fast enough for the current change. Category four and five hurricanes have doubled since the 1970’s. Extreme weather events generally are increasing including bushfires, droughts and floods. Ten of the past sixteen years in Australia have been the hottest on record.  Glaciers around the world are melting and retreating - in 2006 glaciers were found to have melted at nearly twice the rate as in 2005.  Across the Antarctic Peninsula air temperature has risen an average of 2.5 degrees in 50 years, the greatest rise in the world.  The International Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research says 87% of the glaciers on the Peninsula are in retreat.  A 2008 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report into climate change in the European Alps declared that in the past 500 years, the warmest years on record were 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007.  Ski fields are shrinking globally.  The CSIRO says Australian ski-fields with at least 60 days of snow cover will shrink 38-96% by 2050.  Swiss Banks are now refusing to lend money to skiing outfits below 1500m. Scientists have warned that at current rates of ocean temperature change, the Great Barrier reef will be functionally extinct within decades.  One third of the world's coral reef building species are threatened with extinction because of climate change.  The island nation of Tuvalu is disappearing under rising sea levels.  The Papuan Cararet Islands people are currently moving their culture and heritage to another island as their own has been inundated with surge tides, which ruined their fresh water supplies.  The poorest nations and peoples will be hit hardest by climate change; there are huge social justice implications.  Our fossil fuel energy addiction must be broken.  Wasting of energy must cease. Globally we need emissions to peak by 2015, be 30% less by 2020 and 80% less by 2050 to stabilise the climate below the 2 degree rise.  In 2008, scientists are now telling us that reduced natural carbon sinks and increased feedback loops since these targets were set mean that we now need to reduce CO2 by 90% ASAP.  These targets are non negotiable: we cannot debate with physics, chemistry and biology. We must eliminate fossil fuel use within our lifetime and create a renewable energy revolution.  And jobs? The 60,000 people employed in the threatened Great Barrier Reef tourism industry out number those employed in our coal industry by a factor of three.  The loss of the reef would also lose us $4.9 billion annually. Professor Ross Garnaut's draft report released in July 2008 predicted  a 92per cent decline by 2100 in irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin; a reduction of at least 7.8 per cent in real wages; and a $425 billion loss in potential gross domestic product.  The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics predicts if we don't act on climate change, Australia's exports of key commodities will fall by up to 63 per cent in 2030 and by up to 79per cent in 2050.  As for peak oil - a recent report suggests that petrol could soon cost $8 a litre.  And the shrinking number of deniers? In a 2006 letter to Esso, the UK arm of ExxonMobil, the Royal Society cited its own survey which found that ExxonMobil in 2005 distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society said misrepresented the science of climate change. 

 ... And the latest from the Australian government on Climate Change
Carbon pollution is causing climate change, resulting in higher temperatures, more droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather.  The 12 hottest years in history have all been in the last 13 years and IPCC scenarios project temperature rises between 1 and 6.4 degrees over the next century relative to 1980–99.  Without action, scientists predict up to 20 per cent more drought months over most of Australia by 2030, more intense and damaging cyclones and rising sea levels with serious impacts on:
    * coastal property in Australia
    * low lying Asian mega cities
    * the Pacific Islands.
With one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia's economy and environment will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we don't act now.  It threatens Australia's food production, agriculture, water supplies, as well as icons like the Great Barrier Reef, the Kakadu wetlands and the big tourism industries they support. Today we are already beginning to feel the economic and environmental costs of inaction on climate change. But if we delay action any longer, these costs will be felt even more by not only our generation, but also our children and grandchildren.
 

“First, climate change is the greatest long-term threat faced by humanity. It could cause more human and financial suffering than the two world wars and the great depression put together. All countries will be affected, but the poorest countries will be hit hardest. Secondly, the costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action.”

Waste

In nature there is no waste. Every atom is cycled through natural systems.  The Cherry tree creates an over abundance of petals, fruits and leaves - all of which nourish the soil.  In human society today we use huge amounts of money, energy, water and resources to mine, manufacture, buy, use and throw away trillions of tonnes of waste, all of which ends up polluting the air, the water and the soil. In fact, 99% of everything we harvest, mine, process, transport, buy and use is waste within six months of sale.  It is a cradle to grave mentality that cannot last on a finite planet.  Why do we pay money for stuff and then pay to send it straight to landfill?  In the past we could throw away what we liked: the earth was limitless.  But population has grown.  In the past three decades, one third of the planet’s natural resources have been consumed.  We have created a world of limits, pollution and waste. A recent drag of the pacific ocean found six times more plastic than plankton.  Our polystyrene cups will still be in our rivers, oceans and landfills 17 generations after they kept a drink warm for five minutes.  For every bin that sits on the kerbside waiting for the truck, 70 bins have already gone to landfill during the extraction, design, manufacturing, transport of that waste.  Do we really need a shampoo bottle that lasts for 500 years in landfill?  Despite this, from the moment we first saw the earth from space, we realised that our home was a single living system, that there is no ‘away’... We must eliminate the very concept of waste - that is, we must design our products, systems and services as if waste did not exist. And it’s not hard: the average home could reduce it’s waste to landfill by 90% right now - just by thinking about it while shopping.  Recycling is good. In Victoria last year recycling saved 91 Gigajoules of energy, 56000 Ml of water and 4.6 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide pollution.  But recycling still not the whole solution. Is it really good enough for our shampoo bottle to be downcycled into a park bench on the way to landfill? Imagine the savings if that waste was not created in the first place? Or if, like the Cherry tree, our ‘waste’ became nutrients for the soil, or for industry: forever. All waste = food.  

“We cannot throw ‘away’ anymore.  Away has gone away"

Water

We live in the driest inhabited continent on earth.  In the last decade around Melbourne there was 20% less rain than the long term average. There was 10% less rainfall totals for any other decade since 1900.  Since 1998, the Murray river has averaged 50% less in water inflows than in the 100 year average to that time. The CSIRO predicts rainfall will continue to drop throughout this century due to climate change. 400 million children (1 in 5 from the developing world) have no access to safe water. 1.4 million children will die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. 12% of the worlds population use 85% of the worlds water.  Already some one third of the world’s population is living in either water-scarce, or water-short areas. It is predicted that climate change and population growth will take this number to one half of humanity.  Australia’s great rivers and river ecosystems are drying up.  Three quarters of our rivers are in poor health.  The average Australian uses 400L of water per day, the average Kenyan uses 4L a day. We flush the cleanest drinking water in the world down the toilet. We value British gardens with lawns and other water guzzling plants when we are surrounded by beautiful and delicate Australian plants that have spent millennia evolving to our climate. In most areas of the world scarcity of water is not the problem: it is pollution and wastage.

 
“Australians’ bottled water use last year was responsible for more than 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions - the same amount 13,000 cars generate in 12 months.”

Chemicals

Every one of us has 500 chemicals in  our bodies that were not in our grandparents bodies - in fact, they were not in existence in 1920. There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals used in commerce today and only a handful have been tested for their impact on human health. In California a plastic duck was sold with the label “this product contains chemicals known to cause cancer in humans.” DDT and PCBs are now measurable in the breast milk of most lactating mothers on earth, despite being banned in most countries for over ten years. More oil washes off roads into oceans each year than was lost in the Exxon Valdez disaster. The nuclear fallout from Chernobyl travelled 1500km in one day to fall from the sky in Sweden. The Arctic ice core changed colour after the 1970 USA Clean Air act was passed.  In the 1930’s asthma was a rare condition. Now 1 in 5 children are born with asthma. On smog alert days our hospitals are filled with asthma patients.

“In 1999, a team of American and Canadian scientists for the first time found pesticides and industrial chemicals in the amniotic fluid of unborn babies.”