Man-made crises 'outrunning our ability to deal with them,' scientists warn
September 11, 2009The world faces a compounding series of crises driven by human activity, which existing governments and institutions are increasingly powerless to cope with, a group of eminent environmental scientists and economists has warned.
In today's issue of the leading international journal Science, the researchers say that nations alone are unable to resolve the sorts of planet-wide challenges now arising.
Pointing to global action on ozone depletion (the Montreal Protocol), high seas fisheries and antibiotic drug resistance as examples, they call for a new order of cooperative international institutions capable of dealing with issues like climate change - and enforcing compliance where necessary.
"Energy, food and water crises, climate disruption, declining fisheries, ocean acidification, emerging diseases and increasing antibiotic resistance are examples of serious, intertwined global-scale challenges spawned by the accelerating scale of human activity," say the researchers, who come from Australia, Sweden, the United States, India, Greece and The Netherlands.
"These issues are outpacing the development of institutions to deal with them and their many interactive effects. The core of the problem is inducing cooperation in situations where individuals and nations will collectively gain if all cooperate, but each faces the temptation to free-ride on the cooperation of others."
There are few institutional structures to achieve co-operation globally on the sort of scales now essential to avoid very serious consequences, warns lead author Dr Brian Walker of Australia's CSIRO.
While there are signs of emerging global action on issues such as climate change, there is widespread inaction on others, such as the destruction of the world's forests to grow biofuels or the emergence of pandemic flu through lack of appropriate animal husbandry protocols where people, pigs and birds co-mingle.
"Knowing what to do is not enough," says Dr Walker. "Institutional reforms are needed to bring about changes in human behaviour, to increase local appreciation of shared global concerns and to correct the sort of failures of collective action that cause global-scale problems."
"We are not advocating that countries give up their sovereignty," adds co-author Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
"We are instead proposing a much stronger focus on regional and worldwide cooperation, helped by better-designed multi-national institutions. The threat of climate change to coral reefs, for example, has to be tackled at a global scale. Local and national efforts are already failing."
The scientists acknowledge that the main challenge is getting countries to agree to take part in global institutions designed to prevent destructive human practices. "Plainly, agreements must be designed such that countries are better off participating than not participating," they say.
This would involve all countries in drawing up standards designed to protect the earth's resources and systems, to which they would then feel obligated to adhere.
However they also concede that the 'major powers' must be prepared to enforce such standards and take action against back-sliders.
"The major powers must be willing to enforce an agreement - but legitimacy will depend on acceptance by numerous and diverse countries, and non-governmental actors such as civil society and business," they add.
"To address common threats and harness common opportunities, we need greater interaction amongst existing institutions, and new institutions, to help construct and maintain a global-scale social contract," the scientists conclude.
More information: Walker,B., S.Polasky, V.Galaz, C.Folke, G.Engstrom, F.Ackerman, K. Arrow, S.Carpenter,K.Chopra, G.Daily, P.Erhlich, T.Hughes, N.Kautsky, S.Levon, K.Maler, J.Shogren, J.Vincent, T.Xepapadeas, A.de Zeeuw. Looming Global Scale Failures and Missing Institutions. Science 325 (5946): 1345-1346.
Source: ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies
Aug 26, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
Really that IS the core of the problem and the reason they are not suceeding in their efforts.
This is pretty freaking ignorant otto1923... I really don't even know what you think you know or mean.
What "obsolete cultures" were exterminated? And do you really think women are making a choice to prevent or terminate a pregnancy to help society? Birth control and especially abortion is an extremely personal action, with extremely personal consequences, the vast overwhelming majority of women who use birth control or have an abortion don't give a flying f*** about population control. And how did any set of wars enable abortions!?
You my friend have some majorly f***ed up biases if this is truly your world view.
a proper mindset accepts that crises is an inevitable part of change. the question is, how will we react to crises, and how will our reaction lead us beyond the crisis to a new settled order of things.
alot of our how we react to the crisis depends on our (mostly pre-established) fear of death. of course, a crisis requires that there be plenty of death to go around. and as the crisis unfolds , so to will the changes in our baseline fear of death. those who survive the crisis will carry their societies forward and beyond the crises. ...
LMFAO!!
Oops!! Somebody didn't do their homework before putting out their desperate crackpot conspiracy theories.
Otto1923, here's a little reflection on the actual truth, birth control and abortions have been common practices of humanity for just about as long as there has been civilization, there is concrete evidence of such dating back to 5000 BC, comrade. Last I checked the Rockefellers weren't around that far back, much less overpopulation concerns.
Conclusions?
I am actually the better informed one here, you ARE in fact demonstrably ignorant and biased and a crackpot conspiracy theorist. At least now everyone knows they can completely disregard anything you say out of hand, as you obviously have some agenda other than truth.
I'm sorry you have such a problem with humanity, maybe if you didn't see so much of it in yourself you'd be able to cope with reality a little better.
Correction: 5000 years ago; 3000 BC, sorry. But you can damn well know that it was going on loooong before that.
And sure, perhaps the majority of those were at the behest of men, to save inheritances or face or what not; I would never deny that historic society was not extremely androcentric. But your theory is contingent on this idea that a secret society of eugenicists have been plotting all this for centuries. It's as problematic as it is childish. You're looking too deep into it, perhaps because you don't want to admit you're part of it.
It's simply greed; the desire of mankind for money and power over all else, because of it's mortality. Simple and sad as that.
That's why Attack is the best Defense. At every level, in every venue.
http://www.johnst...dex.html
Upwards of 1/3 to1/2 of all children conceived in some countries.
You spell 'long' with too many o's. Pudel.
I think you touched on a truth here. People do want to make sure their child has the best future possible. How is that attained, even in nature? Invest more in your offspring. Simple biological life history strategy. Evident with education. How is this accomplished when it is very difficult to increase the amount of resources you have to invest? Have fewer children. i.e. birth control.
You're the one doing all the barking.
Besides AGW is a absolute scam. Even if it was real, it would solve itself as oil becomes harder and more expensive to extract,.. prices go up, alternative markets then open up for investment. That's free market capitalism,.. not social engineering idiots pushing buttons & turning knobs. Unbelievable!
Btw, it's been cooling globally for the last decade and 40 years ago the grandfathers of the naive GW theorists wrote their thesis on global COOLING.
CO2-induced global warming is a crisis created by the UN's IPCC and "scientists" willing to find whatever requested, with advertising assistance from former VP Al Gore.
For the real facts about "Earth's Heat Source - The Sun," see:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.0704
http://arxiv.org/...5.0704v1
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com
Once these type of morons are in power via social engineering they will decide who lives and how. No man or group of men have shown in human history to be qualified for this job.
These idiot environmentalist socialists regard 'human activity' as some plague infesting the world, like we're truspassing on nature,.. and they will act accordingly!. These people have the mentality of PETA, and are no where near qualified to design societies or 'fix nature'. Man is the epitome of nature. Man cannot hold back the ocean. The natural forces of free capitalism will solve all solvable problems or we will succomb to nature and go down with the ship.
The fact that the UN cannot achieve relativily simple things like prevent wars or genecide or poverty, is proof that "world government" is an idiotic sci-fi fantasy.
Such vitriol this morning! Have you had your pap yet?Slaughter begins when the resources of a given region are no longer sufficient to support the population there. UN can only do... nothing. Well they can feed them in the desert until the next gen is born I guess.Humans basically love company and cooperation against mutual threats is what has made us so successful. I agree competition is what drives innovation but basically we would rather sit back and make babies whenever possible. It's the result of this and the desire to protect our offspring which will cause us to fight like hell.
Well that's my point. Famine and genocide are relatively simple problems compared to controlling the global climate or global society. If the left can't even do the simple things, they are not qualified to do anything on the proposed comically grand scale.
Overpop = War
-The pop philos you espouse (root word-spout) never acknowledge the concept 'inevitability'. Their doctors promise life without end, their psychs dispel guilt, their lawyers defray culpability, their insurance alleviates consequences. No difference really than the deities they replace.
Overpop has always been inevitable and still is in many parts of the world. If not for the 1 BILLION ABORTIONS we might already be dust. Luckily, shrinking pops up north leave room for ambitious resourceful 3rd worlders tired of the crowds and mayhem. Luck or Plan? I say Pla
@Gummipuppe
Thanks for 2 cents. Survive we will, according to PLAN. Providence thanks to the ingenuity of man, not grace of God.
I don't believe in God either, I believe in the power of natural forces by which I mean capitalistic free society. AGW is a con, invented to get a foot in the door for socialists for redistribution of wealth.
AGW is probably the crisis, contrived or not, which will drive us to discard the older techs we have become comfortable with and embrace the new, whose time has come. This tech HAS to be developed now because it can be. We will buy it, use it, and be happy with it. It will allow humans to live comfortably in space, probably the reason for all of this. We are crisis-driven ie herded. Moo.
I'm waiting for your antithesis- or did I just win another dialectic? I would certainly apologize to DeadGod if I thought he wasn't just talking about traditional forms of abortion- herbs, incantation, sharp blows, jumping up and down- instead of infanticide. Midwives were burned as witches for offering advice on abortion and contraception-