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The climate and ecological emergency

Global warming and climate change are real. They’re not a hoax, a conspiracy or a money-making scheme. The climate and ecological emergency is the biggest threat to civilisation the world has ever faced, and we’re seeing its effects on our weather patterns right now all over the planet. If we do not tackle the causes of this change, the world will face large-scale human displacement, disease, famine, loss of ecosystems and ultimately mass extinction.

The biggest contributing factor to atmospheric warming and climatic effects is greenhouse gas emissions, which are released into the atmosphere in many forms. Proportionally, CO2 is the most-emitted gas, and it comes predominantly from the burning of fossil fuels to power our homes, industries and transportation. This, together with the devastation of oxygen-generating forests and jungles, is causing the polar ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise and extreme weather events to take place more often all over the world.

There are other major contributors to rising atmospheric temperatures, including industrial-scale agriculture – in particular, deforestation – to clear land for growing crops to feed the world’s exponentially growing appetite for meat. This expansion in livestock, as well as an uptrend in waste food and biodegradable materials, is generating huge volumes of methane, which is eighty-four times more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2 in the short term.1

Additionally, the global fishing industry is systematically wiping out aquatic ecosystems by uncontrolled over-fishing. Cathedral-sized trawling nets destroy whatever is in their path, including CO2-absorbing submarine vegetation as well as sharks, whales and dolphins – all considered ‘by-kill’. If current fishing trends continue, we will see virtually empty oceans by the year 2048.2 This doesn’t just mean no more fish; the ripple effect on the human civilisation will be widely felt and devastating.

Over the last century or