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Where the environment is concerned, the entire GEO project is about trying to understand the future consequences of our actions today. Let’s start where governments start – with the scientists. After all, they are the experts!
In preparing GEO-2000, more than
200 environmental experts from 50
countries were asked to identify
environmental issues that they
expect to be on the national and inter-
national agendas of governments in the
early decades of the 21st century. These
are some of the issues with the percent-
age of scientists that mentioned them:
Climate change 51% Freshwater scarcity 29% Deforestation/ desertification 28% Freshwater pollution 28% Poor governance 27% Loss of biodiversity 23% Population growth and movements 22% Changing social values 21% Contamination from waste disposal 20% Air pollution 20% Soil deterioration 18% Chemical pollution 16% Urbanisation 16% Ozone depletion 15% Energy consumption 15% Emerging diseases 14% Natural resource depletion 11% Food insecurity 11% Industrial emissions 10% Natural disasters 7% War & conflict 7% Invasive species 6% Genetically modified organisms 6% Ocean flip-flop 5%  You thought global warming would just warm up the planet, right? Wrong! If the Arctic ice caps melt, it could very well produce another ice age in northwest Europe. This would happen because cold water flowing south from the Arctic would slow, and possibly halt, the warm Gulf Stream current which now allows people in Scotland to grow palm trees along the coast. If that current is cut off and only cold water reaches Britain’s coasts, land temperatures would plummet, there could be permafrost in Europe, and the River Rhine would freeze over. Crop yields would suffer; the transport network could close down for several months a year, and life in northern Europe as we know it could all but disappear. |
When poverty over-rides everything else, people forget about the environment.
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