DEAR READERS: I hope you all had a good holiday season, and I wish you all the best for this coming year.
It seems self-evident that modern “civilization” has become increasingly disconnected from nature -- from respect for, and protection of, the lives in the oceans, forests, mountains and grasslands of planet Earth. Otherwise, we would not be facing today's climate and extinction crises. I am deeply concerned that many Americans, and citizens of other countries, are supporting politicians who are evidently psychopathic, yet who are establishing new cultural norms in their voiced opposition to human rights and environmental protection.
Poor nations are receiving only a fraction of what they need to adapt to climate change, despite being promised the money by rich countries, which are most responsible for causing the problem.
The headline for a recent writeup on Nature.com says it all: "Low-income countries need 10-18 times more global funding than they are receiving to help them adapt to climate change." From the article:
“Studies show that for every $1 billion (U.S.) invested in coastal flood protection, you avoid $14 billion in damages,” says climate researcher Henry Neufeldt, the chief scientific editor of a new report from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). “We have floods, droughts, and heat waves all over the world and it’s just getting worse and worse. This newest data is a wake-up call.” (Full story: Nature.com, Nov. 6)
“There is already clear evidence that climate change is harming the health of people across the globe,” says Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London. “Without much greater investment in adaptation, health impacts of climate change will only get worse.” (Full story: Nature.com, Oct. 9)
It is no secret that the rich keep getting richer, and that wealthy corporations and individuals are the major drivers of not only unbridled capitalism, but of social and environmental injustice. A report released in November puts startling numbers to these ideas. The report, co-produced by various scientists, the charity Oxfam and The Guardian, says that the world’s richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than do the poorest 66%. It also estimates that the emissions produced by the 1% in 2019 alone could have been sufficient to cause the heat-related deaths of 1.3 million people between 2020 and 2100.
“The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction and it is those who can least afford it who are paying the highest price,” says Chiara Liguori, a climate-justice adviser. These emissions come from extravagant superyachts, huge mansions, private jets and even spaceflights, as well as from less-flashy sources like investments in fossil-fuel companies.
With insufficient action on these issues, there will be more immigrants seeking refuge in more secure and affluent countries; more riots over food, fuel and water; more extensive suffering of livestock lacking feed, water and veterinary care; and an escalating extinction rate of indigenous wildlife species.
We must learn the lesson of the wolf and other predators, whose numbers are always far fewer than their prey. As evolving carnivorous apes living as gatherer-hunters for millennia, humans were few and often nomadic. But once we began to domesticate plants and animals and became more sedentary, our numbers began to escalate, now to over 8 billion. We now have rising poverty and famine and crime and ever more political and economic-environmental refugees.
Our rising population and consumption rates are unsustainable and are leading to the demise of wildlife and their habitats along with climate change, which we are now experiencing as it intensifies. We should be raising and consuming less meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, regardless of how profitable these items are for Big Ag and Big Pharma -- the latter of which produces and markets many vaccines and drugs to these food-animal industries that are not without risk to the environment and to consumers.
We must collectively achieve a complete phase-out of fossil fuels, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. This will not be achieved without funding and development of alternative energy sources.
What is now called for is a new order: not of human domination, exploitation and consumption, but of responsible, empathic planetary CPR -- conservation, protection and restoration. Father Thomas Berry called this the "ecozoic era," where humans live in a mutually enhancing relationship with Earth and all creatures. In such a world, equal consideration will be given to the protection and rights of all species, plant and animal, under the global vision of One Health.
For more details, go to drfoxonehealth.com/post/one-earth-one-health-a-manifesto-for-action.
(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.
Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)