Sixth extinction: the crisis we are ignoring

A tremendously effective summary. Climate change is a threat multiplier of global scale and unprecedented magnitude. The Earth is experiencing an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity, and species at risk of extinction are more numerous now than at any time in human history. It has in fact been demonstrated that we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction. 

Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, as well as droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat waves and fires are a fact of life. Some cities risk being submerged. Food security is also threatened. Scientists have warned that global warming will put pressure on global food supplies in the coming decades and that there could be an increase in diseases. The COVID pandemic has made the damage caused by climate change even more evident, because the regions most affected by the virus and with the highest death tolls are also the most polluted.

The new wars will be driven by the environment and will cause people to flee from violence. Climate change will certainly not be the only phenomenon to generate conflicts, but it may be a decisive factor and will play a leading role in situations where other stress factors are already present. How to cope with such flows will therefore become an unavoidable issue. 

More than five years after the historic Paris Agreement, the world is slowly beginning to understand the urgency of the climate problem and the environmental crisis. The technologies to comply with the agreement and to complete, by 2050, a full replacement of fossil fuels would be available. But what is being done? The will of politics is often influenced by a few economic and financial interest groups. This climate crisis too is the result of our economic and industrial system. Of a self-destructive development model, but also of individual habits that are not very virtuous.