[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 12, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E757]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         WORLD SCIENTISTS WARNING TO HUMANITY: A SECOND NOTICE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. PETER A. DeFAZIO

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 12, 2019

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, climate change is an existential threat 
to all of humanity, and it is essential that we start acting--now--to 
stop and reverse the destructive effects of climate change.
  In 2017, Oregon State University Professor Dr. William Ripple 
published ``World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,'' 
which has been endorsed by more than 15,000 scientists from 184 
countries. He outlined the irrefutable proof of the damage climate 
change has caused over the last twenty-five years. He also provided 
effective steps we can take to combat climate change.
  I urge my colleagues to read his report and take action before it is 
too late.

          The Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

   (By William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Mauro Galetti, Thomas M. 
Newsome, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F. 
    Laurance, and 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries.)

       [Affiliations: Global Trophic Cascades Program, Department 
     of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, 
     Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. Instituto de Biociencias, 
     Universidade Estadual Paulista, Departamento de Ecologia, 
     13506-900 Rio Claro, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Centre for 
     Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental 
     Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.(Burwood 
     Campus). Desert Ecology Research Group, School of Life and 
     Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South 
     Wales 2006, Australia. Institute of Forestry and 
     Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong 
     4331, Bangladesh. Department of Science and Technology in 
     Society, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA 24061. ICT/Geographic 
     Information Systems Unit, National Oil Spill Detection and 
     Response Agency (NOSDRA), PMB 145, CBD, Garki, Abuja, 
     Nigeria. Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability 
     Science, and College of Science and Engineering, James Cook 
     University, Cairns, Queensland 4878, Australia.]

       Twenty-five years ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists 
     and more than 1,500 scientists, including the majority of 
     living Nobel laureates in the sciences, penned the 1992 
     ``Scientists' Warning to Humanity'' (see supplemental 
     material). These scientists called on humankind to curtail 
     environmental destruction and cautioned ``a great change in 
     our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, 
     if vast human misery is to be avoided.'' In their manifesto, 
     they showed that humans were on a collision course with the 
     natural world. They expressed concern about current, 
     impending, or potential damage on planet Earth involving 
     ozone depletion, freshwater availability, marine fishery 
     collapses, ocean dead zones, forest loss, biodiversity 
     destruction, climate change, and continued human population 
     growth. They proclaimed that fundamental changes are urgently 
     needed to avoid the consequences our present course would 
     bring.
       The authors of the 1992 declaration feared humanity was 
     pushing the Earth's ecosystems beyond their capacity to 
     support the web of life. They described how we are fast 
     approaching the many limits of what the planet can tolerate 
     without substantial and irreversible harm. They pleaded that 
     we stabilize the human population, describing how our large 
     numbers--swelled by another 2 billion people since 1992, a 
     35% increase--exert stresses on the Earth that can overwhelm 
     other efforts to realize a sustainable future (Crist et al. 
     2017). They implored that we cut greenhouse gas (GHG) 
     emissions and phase out fossil fuels, staunch deforestation, 
     and reverse the trend of collapsing biodiversity.
       On the 25th anniversary of their call, 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 (Figure 1, supplemental table S1). 
     Especially troubling is the probability of catastrophic 
     climate change due to rising GHGs from burning fossil fuels 
     (Hansen et al. 2013), deforestation (Malhi et al. 2008), and 
     agricultural production, particularly from farming ruminants 
     for meat consumption (Ripple et al. 2014). Moreover, we have 
     unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 
     million years, wherein many current life forms could be 
     annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of 
     this century.
       Humanity is now being given a second notice as illustrated 
     by these alarming trends (Figure 1). We are jeopardizing our 
     future by not reigning in our intense but highly uneven 
     material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid 
     population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological 
     and even societal threats (Crist et al. 2017). By failing to 
     adequately promote family planning, implement carbon taxes, 
     incentivize renewable energy, and set aside substantial 
     swaths of habitat in well-protected reserves, humanity is not 
     taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperiled 
     biosphere.
       As most political leaders respond to pressure; scientists, 
     media influencers, and lay citizens must insist that their 
     governments take immediate action, as a moral imperative to 
     current and future generations of human and other life. With 
     a groundswell of organized grassroots efforts, dogged 
     opposition can be overwhelmed and political leaders compelled 
     to do the right thing. It is also time to re-examine and 
     change our individual behaviours, including limiting our own 
     reproduction (to replacement level, at most) and drastically 
     diminishing our consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other 
     resources.
       The rapid global decline in ozone-depleting substances 
     shows that we can make positive change when we act 
     decisively. We have also made advancements in reducing 
     extreme poverty and hunger. Other notable progress (which 
     does not yet show up in the global datasets in Figure 1) 
     includes: the rapid decline in fertility rates in some 
     regions attributable to investments in girls' and women's 
     education, the promising decline in the rate of deforestation 
     in parts of the Amazon (which might still be reversed), and 
     the rapid growth in the renewable-energy sector. We have 
     learned much since 1992, but the advancement of urgently 
     needed changes in environmental policy and human behavior is 
     still far from sufficient.
       Sustainability transitions come about in diverse ways and 
     all require civil-society pressure and evidence-based 
     advocacy, political leadership, and a solid understanding of 
     policy instruments, markets and other drivers. A dozen 
     examples of diverse and effective steps humanity can take to 
     transition to sustainability include: 1) prioritizing the 
     enactment of connected reserves for a significant proportion 
     of the world's terrestrial and marine habitats, 2) 
     maintaining nature's ecosystem services by halting conversion 
     of forests, grasslands, and other native habitats; 3) 
     rewilding regions with native species, especially apex 
     predators, to repair damaged ecosystems; 4) developing and 
     adopting adequate policy instruments to redress the current 
     poaching crisis and the exploitation and trade of threatened 
     species; 5) reducing food waste through education and better 
     infrastructure; 6) promoting dietary shift towards mostly 
     plant-based foods; 7) further reducing fertility rates by 
     ensuring women have access to education, family-planning 
     services, especially where such resources are still lacking; 
     8) increasing outdoor nature education for children; 9) 
     developing progressive tax incentives for reducing 
     overconsumption; 10) reducing the consumption rate of raw 
     commodities by banning planned obsolescence of goods; 11) 
     devising and promoting new green technologies and massively 
     adopting renewable energy sources; and 12) estimating a 
     scientifically defensible, sustainable human population size 
     for the long-term while rallying nations and leaders to 
     support that vital goal.
       To prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity 
     loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally 
     sustainable alternative to business-as-usual. This 
     prescription was well articulated by the world's leading 
     scientists twenty-five years ago, but in most respects, we 
     have not heeded their warning. It is about to be too late to 
     shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is 
     running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and 
     in our governing institutions, that the Earth with all its 
     life is our only home.

                          ____________________