It’s in our DNA to modify our environment and use tools to extract the choicest foods from it as easily as possible. Extinction from both suppression of unwanted and overexploitation of wanted species is what we do. How can we work together to a halt to Earth’s sixth great extinction event?
Industrial agriculture requires the mining, manufacture and distribution of 200 million tons of fertiliser annually. Without it, most of us would starve. Every step of world fertiliser supply depends on fossil fuels. How do we feed 8 billion people as fossil fuel supplies dry up?
Unsustainable pastoral lease beef grazing is destroying sensitive habitats across Australia. The beef is mainly sold for burgers, 'the gateway drug' to junk-food related diseases. Should stopping beef exports be viewed the same way as stopping coal exports?
The land-based effects of global heating require a coordinated international response. Unsurvivable heat, impending water and food shortages, coupled with population overshoot, mean many people will soon be on the move. How many will move? And where will they go?
Does global heating, resource depletion and declining globalisation mean we face a less stable future, unlikely to supply our needs & wants reliably? If so, what strategies should we consider in planning to adapt and mitigate the impacts?
Everything comes from everywhere: globalisation, enmeshed with anaemic policy, constrains effective climate and overshoot action. But times are changing. Will strained to breaking point supply chains and resource nationalism mean we will need to prioritise what we ask of the rest of the world?