Climate Change
This is a symptom of humankind’s lack of respect for the world’s natural systems. Many people will loose their lives as a result. We are seeing the early indicators, with record summer temperatures across Europe in 2003 causing more than 20,000 deaths and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 killing more than 1,800 in America.

As well as the directly attributable deaths there will be many more people who lose their livelihoods, as farms become deserts and coastal communities are submerged.

Looking further into the future, the worst refugee crisis the world has ever seen is pending as rising sea level threatens to swamp a large proportion of the world’s most densely populated country, Bangladesh.

Threats to the Oceans
The sum total of the myriad discharges of substances alien to nature is becoming increasingly apparent. We will reach the stage when we ban fishing for human consumption across the world’s oceans, starting with fish higher up the food chain such as shark, swordfish, marlin and tuna.

Swimming in the sea will become a universal danger to health; as it already is in close proximity to some centres of population and industrial activity. Sailing will still be a safe leisure pursuit but falling in will require emergency medical attention.

This dystopian description of the oceans is not fantasy. It is where we are heading, ever so slowly but ever so surely. It will be beyond our life-time that the problems get as bad as the picture portrayed, but that should not be used as an excuse for inaction.

Natural Habitats
As the world’s population expands and the demand for energy and resources grows, pressure will increase to bring all the land outside national parks into economic use. Everywhere will be either commercial agriculture or concrete.

Even national parks will no longer be able to support the vegetation and species for which they were established, as they are strangled by changes to the world systems on which the parks rely.

We may be able to retain a genetic pool kept in deep freeze within our laboratories, but it is doubtful that we could ever replace the complex diversity of the rain forests once we have destroyed them.

© Susta 2007