IS 2023 GOING TO BE THE YEAR THAT HUMANITY FINDS OUT THAT IT IS NOT THE DOMINANT FORCE OF CHANGE ON PLANET EARTH?
What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity? Temptation is to say, that you may rest assured that it will be another year of unadulterated verbal dioramas diarrhoea. With humanity waging war on nature the risks we are taking are astounding. What did Earth look like from space in 2022? It looked beautiful, it looked dangerous. It looked small and inconsequential, it looked incredible. Nature always strikes back – and it is already doing so with growing force and fury. About 96% of all mammals by weight are now humans and our livestock, like cattle, sheep and pigs. Just 4% are wild mammals like elephants, buffalo or dolphins. Seventy-five percent of Earth’s ice-free land is directly altered as a result of human activity, with nearly 90% of terrestrial net primary production and 80% of global tree cover under direct human influence. We have grossly simplified the biosphere, a system of interactions betwee...