Are we living within nature’s limits? Or are we putting ourselves at profound risk of climate change, resource scarcity and a depleted world? Does the Fourth Industrial Revolution offer new opportunities or pose new threats? The World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Environmental and Natural Resource Security has spent the last two years trying to answer these questions.
We have entered the era of the Anthropocene
Humanity is reshaping the natural world. Nowhere on Earth has escaped our influence, from the deepest ocean trench to the outer limits of the atmosphere. We have truly entered the era of the Anthropocene.
Every year, we produce enough steel to make a girder that could circle the earth nearly 100 times, and we pour enough concrete to make a car park the size of England. In our lifetimes, plastic production has increased twentyfold, of which only 10% has been recycled. Every year, we produce our own weight in plastic, and the world uses 500 billion plastic bottles – around one million every minute. There could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050, according to a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Another recent report estimated the mass of all mammals on Earth and concluded that by weight, 60% are livestock (mostly cattle and pigs), 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals. The world has 1.5 billion cows, 1 billion pigs and 1 billion sheep, and we raise more than 50 billion chickens annually. Three quarters of agricultural land supports livestock, and nearly two fifths of grain is fed to animals rather than people. MORE
County Sustainability Group 