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"CRIST, EILEEN"
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The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection
Research suggests that the scale of human population and the current pace of its growth contribute substantially to the loss of biological diversity. Although technological change and unequal consumption inextricably mingle with demographic impacts on the environment, the needs of all human beings—especially for food—imply that projected population growth will undermine protection of the natural world. Numerous solutions have been proposed to boost food production while protecting biodiversity, but alone these proposals are unlikely to staunch biodiversity loss. An important approach to sustaining biodiversity and human well-being is through actions that can slow and eventually reverse population growth: investing in universal access to reproductive health services and contraceptive technologies, advancing women’s education, and achieving gender equality.
Journal Article
Protecting the wild : parks and wilderness, the foundation for conservation
Protected natural areas have historically been the primary tool of conservationists to conserve land and wildlife.These parks and reserves are set apart to forever remain in contrast to those places where human activities, technologies, and developments prevail.
eBook
Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and forge a just and sustainable future
Abstract
Human development has ushered in an era of converging crises: climate change, ecological destruction, disease, pollution, and socioeconomic inequality. This review synthesizes the breadth of these interwoven emergencies and underscores the urgent need for comprehensive, integrated action. Propelled by imperialism, extractive capitalism, and a surging population, we are speeding past Earth's material limits, destroying critical ecosystems, and triggering irreversible changes in biophysical systems that underpin the Holocene climatic stability which fostered human civilization. The consequences of these actions are disproportionately borne by vulnerable populations, further entrenching global inequities. Marine and terrestrial biomes face critical tipping points, while escalating challenges to food and water access foreshadow a bleak outlook for global security. Against this backdrop of Earth at risk, we call for a global response centered on urgent decarbonization, fostering reciprocity with nature, and implementing regenerative practices in natural resource management. We call for the elimination of detrimental subsidies, promotion of equitable human development, and transformative financial support for lower income nations. A critical paradigm shift must occur that replaces exploitative, wealth-oriented capitalism with an economic model that prioritizes sustainability, resilience, and justice. We advocate a global cultural shift that elevates kinship with nature and communal well-being, underpinned by the recognition of Earth’s finite resources and the interconnectedness of its inhabitants. The imperative is clear: to navigate away from this precipice, we must collectively harness political will, economic resources, and societal values to steer toward a future where human progress does not come at the cost of ecological integrity and social equity.
Journal Article
Reimagining the human
A human-centric worldview is blinding humanity to the consequences of our actions Earth is in the throes of a mass extinction event and climate change upheaval, risking a planetary shift into conditions that will be extremely challenging, if not catastrophic, for complex life ( 1 ). Although responsibility for the present trajectory is unevenly distributed, the overarching drivers are rapid increases in (i) human population, (ii) consumption of food, water, energy, and materials, and (iii) infrastructural incursions into the natural world. As the “trends of more” on all these fronts continue to swell, the ecological crisis is intensifying ( 2 – 4 ). Given that human expansionism is causing mass extinction of nonhuman life and threatening both ecological and societal stability, why is humanity not steering toward limiting and reversing its expansionism?
Journal Article
Human population, social justice, and climate policy
We illustrate how human population has been mostly ignored with regard to climate policy by conducting a systematic review of the literature in the context of social justice and six transformative steps for climate change mitigation. Despite this, implementing socially just population policies could make substantial contributions to climate mitigation and adaptation while also promoting social justice and gender equity. We detail how this is possible using a number of policy examples, including increasing the availability of voluntary family planning services and improving education for girls and young women.
Journal Article
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1992 \"World Scientists' Warning to Humanity\", we look back at their warning and evaluate the human response by exploring available time-series data. Since 1992, with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse.
Journal Article
INTRODUCTION: Unsettling anthropocentrism
This paper provides a brief critique of anthropocentrism and introduces the papers of the special theme issue on \"non-anthropocentric conceptions of nature.\"
Journal Article
An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm
We assess progress toward the protection of 50% of the terrestrial biosphere to address the species-extinction crisis and conserve a global ecological heritage for future generations. Using a map of Earth’s 846 terrestrial ecoregions, we show that 98 ecoregions (12%) exceed Half Protected; 313 ecoregions (37%) fall short of Half Protected but have sufficient unaltered habitat remaining to reach the target; and 207 ecoregions (24%) are in peril, where an average of only 4% of natural habitat remains. We propose a Global Deal for Nature—a companion to the Paris Climate Deal—to promote increased habitat protection and restoration, national- and ecoregion-scale conservation strategies, and the empowerment of indigenous peoples to protect their sovereign lands. The goal of such an accord would be to protect half the terrestrial 2050 to halt the extinction crisis while sustaining human livelihoods.
Journal Article
Confronting the United Nations’ Pro-growth Agenda
In this article, we enjoin the United Nations (UN) to forge a path out of our plight of multiple environmental and social crises. With other analysts, we identify ‘overshoot’ – the state in which humanity has substantially outpaced Earth’s capacity to regenerate its natural systems and to absorb our waste output – as the root cause of the existential threats we face. This dangerous condition demands rethinking our relationship with Earth and embarking on scaling down the human enterprise within policy frameworks of equity and rights. We argue that when the UN first articulated its international unity and prosperity mission, it did so within a ‘growth’ paradigm that treats Earth and its nonhuman inhabitants as mere resources at humanity’s disposal. The 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development reinforced this agenda, with its sharp turn away from the earlier emphasis on population concerns and their link to environmental protection. Today, it is clear that the UN’s foundational goals of peace, human rights and sustainability flounder within a growth-driven framework of human exceptionalism and nature domination. To correct course and reverse our advanced state of ecological overshoot we urge the UN to lead in contracting the large-scale variables of the human enterprise – population, economy, technosphere – and to resist co-optation by political, ideological and special interest pressures that would derail this mandate.
Journal Article