Humanity's Unpaid Debt: The Climate, Pollution, Sustainability, and Biodiversity Crises

Conversations surrounding the environmental crises that we face today can often feel confusing and muddled--as though Expert A's recommendation is directly at odds with Expert B's recommendation, even though they are both billed as environmental scientists. This is because after the past few hundred years of human-caused environmental destruction we are actually facing multiple simultaneous overlapping environmental crises that need to be addressed all at once. Although average exposure to toxic substances has declined for typical people in the developed world due to regulations on chemical usage and disposal, even waste that is disposed of responsibly can affect the environment at large once enough builds up. To solve the problems we face, we need to not only stop causing further damage, but also repair the damage that was ignorantly caused over the past few hundred years. That is humanity's unpaid debt--it isn't fair that we need to clean up the messes our ancestors left for us, but all we can do is forgive them for not knowing any better, then roll up our sleeves and get to work.

The Climate Crisis

The Climate Crisis is generally the best understood environmental crisis for most people. Greenhouse gases are trapping more of the sun's rays inside the Earth's atmosphere, causing the Earth to become gradually warmer on average. This causes effects like extreme weather, sea level rise, droughts and famine. Climate Change used to be called Global Warming, because when the temperature of every place in the world is averaged over every day of the year, then that average temperature has been rising year over year for a while now. However, this global temperature shift also causes air currents and ocean currents to shift dramatically, which changes the local climate of particular places in dramatic and surprising ways. Even though the Earth is hotter on average, if this warming has caused an air current from the arctic to blow in a different direction than it used to, then that air can make a previously warm place cold. So for individual people this situation can feel more like a random change in weather patterns than the huge overarching trend that it is. To reflect this more subjective view of the situation, Climate Change is now the preferred term, although both names are correct.

Solving the Climate Crisis involves doing everything we can to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that we release into the atmosphere, then remove at least some of the gases that have accumulated over the past 200 - 300 years. In Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book, one of the contributors likens greenhouse gas emissions to water flowing into a bathtub. The bathtub is the Earth, and the water is all of our greenhouse gases. Right now between the water flowing rapidly from the spigot and the water that has accumulated already, the tub is dangerously close to overflowing. If that happens to the planet, then just like a tub overflowing in a house, it will cause a huge mess with enormous lasting damage that is difficult to predict and extremely expensive to fix if it can be fixed at all. 

Right now most of the attention surrounding Climate Change solutions is going into finding ways to turn off the tub's spigot, to stop the release of additional greenhouse gases. This is being accomplished by reducing the amount of energy that we use and finding new energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases. However, to continue our bathtub analogy, even if we can manage to turn off the spigot completely, we are still left with a bathtub that is full to the brim. Greenhouse gases aren't only released by human activity, they are also released in huge quantities by natural events like wildfires, so if we don't clean up the greenhouse gases released by our ancestors in addition to not producing any ourselves, then Bathtub Earth could still start to overflow at any moment. 

This is a complex problem with numerous interlocking parts, but fortunately there are lots of people working to solve every part of Climate Change. The team dedicated to turning off the spigot is made up of governments setting stricter limits on allowable greenhouse gas emissions, companies developing new ways of generating greenhouse gas-free energy, and everyday people who reduce emissions through their lifestyle changes. The team dedicated to bailing water out of the tub is made up of governments and nonprofits protecting forests that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, scientists and farmers inventing new types of agriculture that capture greenhouse gases while producing food, and engineers developing carbon capture technologies. It is important to understand that just like in the bathtub analogy, bailing water out of the tub is a much less effective solution than turning off the tap. There is no realistic future where so much greenhouse gas can be removed from the atmosphere through forestry and carbon capture that it allows us to leave the tap running, so it is also important to understand that when fossil fuel lobbyists tout the benefits of forest management and carbon capture they are only distracting from the real solutions in hopes of preserving their own business interests. Some research into carbon capture is useful, because once the bathtub spigot is turned off, we'll need all the tools we can get to clean up the remaining greenhouse gases, but in the meantime carbon capture is mostly a diversion from the more important work that needs to be done.

The Pollution Crisis

Since the dawn of industrialization, humanity has been releasing pollution of many kinds besides just greenhouse gases. Some common examples include plastics, heavy metals, pesticides, and so-called "forever chemicals." Since greenhouse gases are spread worldwide by the wind, the effects of global warming are generally more dramatic than other kinds of pollution on the global scale, but on the local scale pollution of all kinds can be devastating.

One needn't look far to find news stories surrounding the impacts of environmental pollution: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the Chromium-6 pollution detailed in the movie Erin Brockovich, the BP Gulf Oil Spill, and the several ongoing lawsuits against 3M for their release of PFAS ("forever chemicals") into communities surrounding their factories. These events and many more are well known, and contribute substantially to the general unease that average people have around chemicals. However, the damage caused by these events is less a matter of the inherent danger of chemicals and more a matter of negligence and hastiness. 

Although chemicals can indeed be dangerous, humanity has proven time and time again that we are up to the task of harnessing chemistry safely when we act with appropriate care. Mercury and lead poisoning used to be common, but through a combination of restrictions on their usage, more responsible waste management, and public awareness campaigns, most people never come close enough to these materials to ever be at risk. Similarly, we have proven that polluted environments can be cleaned if there is enough public support for the cleanup efforts. The Hudson River in New York was the site of chemical dumping by General Electric for decades, which caused massive damage to the local environment, but after years of concerted effort by nonprofits and local governments the river is now clean. More recently in anticipation of the 2024 Summer Olympics, cleanup efforts in the Seine River that passes through Paris have made the river safe to swim in for the first time in nearly 100 years. These river cleanups have shown that the pollution of the past can be removed and local environments can be fully restored if the public demands it.

Unfortunately, every success story of pollution cleanup in the developed world is mirrored by a story of ever-increasing pollution in the developing world. Since developing countries often have less strict regulations on pollution and worker safety, it can be appealing for companies to outsource their dirty practices to other countries rather than spending the money necessary to clean up their manufacturing. However our greatest hope is that when there's a will there's a way. The developed world has demonstrated that we already have all the tools we need to handle chemicals safely and clean up the pollution of the past, all it takes to usher in a cleaner future is for the usage of those tools to be mandatory worldwide. That can seem like a daunting task, but with enough public outcry we've already seen it's possible. Chemical pollution is one of the few issues most people can agree on. No one wants to be poisoned by their water or air, so as long as protest movements can stay laser-focused on pollution specifically, history has shown that it's possible to create strong coalitions of very different people to force their governments into action.

The Sustainability Crisis

The Sustainability Crisis is a relatively new term that encompasses all of the effects of humanity's pollution and more. It is important to remember that the word "sustainability" isn't synonymous with "environmentalism" even though it is often used that way. Specifically sustainability refers to the idea that whatever practices one is currently undertaking can continue to go on indefinitely without producing any notable adverse effects. That practice can therefore be sustained indefinitely. 

Many of the challenges that humanity faces are fundamentally caused by a lack of foresight or consideration about whether choices made today will get in the way of making the same choice tomorrow. For example, releasing greenhouse gases will cause dangerous climate consequences later, poisoning waterways will restrict our access to clean water for crops and drinking later, and manufacturing non-biodegradable disposable products will leave us with mountains of trash later. It doesn't take an environmentalist to understand that much of what we do today simply can't continue forever, because humanity's resilience and many of the Earth's resources will run out eventually. 

It can often feel as though it is impossible for humanity to survive sustainably, but fortunately for us we know it's possible because we've done it before. Humanity existed for hundreds of thousands of years while only producing minimal impacts on the environment, until about 300 years ago. Of course most modern people have no interest in returning to our sustainable paleolithic roots, but fortunately for us we have also learned quite a bit since the paleolithic era. Through the use of modern sustainable farming practices, sustainable construction practices, renewable energy generation, and smarter decisions surrounding manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods, sustainability is possible without the need for a scientific miracle or societal collapse. All that is really needed to usher in a sustainable future is for humanity to collectively take the sustainability crisis seriously and be willing to make some changes in how we live. To be clear, it is not the responsibility of any individual to single-handedly create a sustainable future, it is rather the responsibility of all of us to pressure our leaders into taking the steps necessary to put us all on a sustainable path so. So go get loud and let the politicians know that you and your friends care about our shared future!

(Also in the meantime, if you'd like a dose of comfort and a look into what a modern sustainable future might look like, I recommend reading the Monk and Robot novels by Becky Chambers. Those books gave me hope that a better future is possible.)

The Biodiversity Crisis

The environmental crises aren't only affecting humanity, they are also hurting the millions of other species that we share this planet with. Although we are the smartest of the Earth's residents, that doesn't necessarily entitle us to dominion over the planet. Many of the Earth's other denizens have been around for longer than we have and hold just as legitimate of a right to life as we do. While our intelligence doesn't entitle us to dominion, it does grant us the responsibility of stewardship, because we alone caused this mess that affects all life on Earth, so we alone carry the responsibility of fixing it while minimizing its impacts on other creatures. 

In addition to the moral reasons to prevent the extinction of Earth's most vulnerable species, there are also a myriad of practical benefits. To supply ourselves with the food, water, air, and shelter that we need to survive, we rely on a complex system of relationships between every living thing on Earth that we do not fully understand. For example, most crops rely on pollinating insects to produce food, but due to rampant pesticide use, many of those insect populations are at an all time low. Domesticated bees have been hit particularly hard by a disease called Colony Collapse Disorder that is killing them in droves while severely limiting our ability to pollinate crops, and the source of this disease is still unknown. Similarly, the deforestation of native plants in many ecosystems followed by replacement with human-preferred ornamental plants is already exacerbating natural disasters like wildfires and floods, because the new plants do not provide any of the fire-breaking or flood-absorption benefits that their natural counterparts did. Humanity's understanding of the natural world has progressed by leaps and bounds over the past several thousand years, but our understanding is still far from complete. Any given species in an ecosystem that goes extinct due to climate change or pollution could serve a crucial role in Earth's many systems that allow us to survive, and we wouldn't even know about it until it's too late. It is critically important to preserve all of Earth's species if we want to have any hope of the species Homo Sapiens surviving long into the future.

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