How To Save The Human Race

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Thirty years after crossing the historical number of 450ppm CO2 in 2029, measurements from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii show that the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere has dropped to the same level as in the year 2000.

After reaching the biggest concentration of CO2 in our earth's atmosphere ever, 458.98 ppm in 2032, numbers has been declining ever since. 20 years later, in 2052, CO2 levels dropped below 400 ppm for the first time since 2014. Now, 7 years after that, carbon levels are on their lowest since the change of the millennium, almost 60 years ago. How did we come to this bending?

After the first commercial nuclear fusion plant powered on in Japan on February 11 2027, other countries followed their example to deliver cheap and clean electricity to the world. In 2039, India completed the hundredth nuclear fusion plant in the world and eighteen years later Brazil was the country receiving the honor for completing the thousandth one. Now, there are exactly 1854 fusion power plants on our planet with a total capacity of 28.000 gigawatt, supplying 97% of the global energy use.

Estimates are that in the next five to ten years, CO2 levels will start to decline with a slower rate, so the pre-industrial numbers of 280 ppm CO2 will probably be reached around the year 2080.

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Take a look around in the room you're sitting in and pick out ten objects at random. Your computer or television, a marker, a chair...Pick whatever you want. Do you have ten? Ok, now take a closer look and count how many of those are made of plastic or have plastics processed in them. I did the test and counted seven! Maybe you've counted only five or perhaps nine or even all of them, the precise number doesn't really matter.

The point I'm trying to make is that lots and lots of the object we use in our daily life are made of plastic. It's hard to deny, plastics are useful. But why? The reasons are obvious. Plastics are easy and very cheap to produce, but most important of all, they're nearly indestructible. And let that be the big issue with plastics. Because of their resilience and durability, only 1 to 3 percent is recycled. The other 97 percent is burned or dumped.

In the sixties, the rise of plastics brought with it a wave of single use items. People did no longer have to buy an expensive pen or some other everyday object. You just bought ten made out of plastic for the price of one decent piece. Pen empty? Throw it in the trash can and pick another one!

Far away, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, there's a plastic "soup" of garbage, twice the size of the continental United States. Fifteens years ago, nobody knew this! This "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has been discovered by accident in 1997 and ever since, it hasn't stopped growing. It's weight is estimated at - hold on tight - 100 million tons! That's about 16 kilograms or 35 pounds for you, me and every other person on the planet!

Swirling underwater currents are responsible for the vast expanse of debris to be held in place. In fact, the "soup" is actually two linked areas, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs to kayaks and Lego blocks to carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.



It's disastrous. Every sea or ocean in the world is polluted with plastics. Sea turtles mistake a plastic bag for a jelly fish, swallow it...and die a painful death.



Or they get trapped it a piece of garbage and get deformed.



Here's a short movie about the damage done by plastics to sea turtles.



Seals also have their share of misery.



Albatrosses fill up their stomach with plastics, one small piece at a time, until there's no space left for real food.



Because most of the particles are very small, straining the ocean for plastic is not an option. The nets used to catch those particles would fish up tons of plankton in the process, robbing lots of sea animals of their food.

Bigger pieces often drift ashore.



Bays are often garbage accumulation places too.



It's clear plastics is no blessing at all. On the contrary! It's something we want to get rid of as soon as possible, but because of the lack of a decent - read functional ánd cheap - alternative, we're stuck in our addiction to it. There have been quite a few attempts to invent suitable alternatives, but you know our economic point of view: Rather dirty and cheap then sustainable but expensive...An example of a functional but expensive alternative is the biodegradable bottle by the Colorado company called Biota. After 80 days, the bottle if fully decomposed.



Besides its price, the biodegradable bottle has another disadvantage: It has corn processed in it. It's clear that making billions of biodegradable bottles and bags would be disastrous for food supplies in developing countries. And there's always something. With every attempt made, there's been a deal breaker...As long as there's no breakthrough we'd better try to limit our use of plastics. The damage plastics is causing in the environment is huge...

What can you do yourself?

- Stop buying plastic bottles! Buy deposit bottles and a water filter like this one to filter ordinary tap water into clean drinking water.

- Try to avoid plastic packaging. It's not easy because you don't always have a choice, but if you really pay attention, you can make a big difference here too.

- Use reusable diapers. They make a difference of 280 kilograms of garbage per baby!

What's the worst thing that could happen if climate change turned out to be the biggest - second biggest if you count religion - hoax in human history?

Born and raised in Vancouver, Severn Suzuki has been working on environmental issues since she was just a little girl. At age 9, she and some friends started the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. With the money they raised themselves, they traveled 8000 kilometers or 5000 miles to 1992's UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. There, 12 year-old Severn gave this powerful speech that deeply affected and silenced some of the most prominent world leaders.

Speaking about the hole in the ozone layer, pollution, deforestation and the extinction of so many species, Severn charges that the adults have no idea how to fix these things and that they must change our ways. “If you don’t know how to fix it, stop breaking it”, she pleads.

What has changed since then? Almost nothing. Her speech is as resonant today as it was 18 years ago.

Years later, in 2002, Severn wrote a piece for Time magazine in which she said:

“I spoke for six minutes and received a standing ovation. Some of the delegates even cried. I thought that maybe I had reached some of them, that my speech might actually spur action. Now, a decade from Rio, after I’ve sat through many more conferences, I’m not sure what has been accomplished. My confidence in the people in power and in the power of an individual’s voice to reach them has been deeply shaken…In the 10 years since Rio, I have learned that addressing our leaders is not enough. As Gandhi said many years ago, ‘We must become the change we want to see.’ I know change is possible.”

Today, Severn is an environmental activist, speaker, television host and author. She has spoken around the world about environmental issues, urging listeners to define their values, act with the future in mind, and take individual responsibility.

Totally worth six minutes of your life!

Here's a guideline for becoming a sustainable eater. Below, I introduce six categories, I've called them levels, in which most of us can be grouped. It's possible to evolve from one level to another and the higher the level you're in, the more sustainable your food consumption is. You can also drop down a level, but once you're in level one, it's impossible to drop to zero. Except for people suffering from insomnia...

Level zero:
If you are in this level, you're not aware of the impact the meat industry has on the environment. Ignorance is bliss. You'd be surprised how many people fit in this category...If you belong in this level, I recommend you watch a documentary called "Meat the truth". You can watch the trailer below.



Level one:
You've read, heard or learned in one way or another that our meat industry is a pain in the ass for our planet, but you don't do anything with that knowledge. You're still a devoted carnivore and you're fine with that. If someone becomes a vegetarian because of environmental issues, good for him, but you won't join him.

Level two:
You take a real first step towards becoming a sustainable eater: You start lowering your meat consumption. Instead of eating a 300 gram steak, you are satisfied with the 100 grams of meat per day recommended by doctors. You still eat meat every day, but your meat consumption may be halfed in weight.

Level three:
You manage to renounce meat for at least one day a week. In Flanders, we have something called "Thursday veggie day", though it hasn't really settle down yet. If all 6 million inhabitants of Flanders would participate in this event, that would be the CO2-equivalent of taking 500.000 cars off the road. That's huge!

Level three and a half:
Instead of being meat-free for one day a week, there are multiple days in a week on which you don't consume meat.

Level four:
You've managed to ban all meat from your diet. You're now officially a pescetarian: someone who doesn't eat meat, but still consumes fish.

Level five:
After banning all meat, you've decided to stop eating fish and other sea products too. No tuna, salmon or shrimps for you. Overfishing is a huge underestimated problem. A great documentary about it is "The end of the line". Here's the trailer:



Level six:
To become a level six, you should try to ban as much milk and eggs from your diet as possible, but don't exaggerate. If you eat some pastries with eggs processed in them, don't make it a drama. The intention of a level six is to avoid drinking huge quantities of milk and eating lots of eggs. Our goal is not becoming a vegan, it's becoming a sustainable eater.

I don't say anything about people eating eggs or chicken meat from hens they keep in their own garden. That's not the point here. I'm talking about the huge livestock industry that is needed to provide people with their needs.

It's clear that the higher the level you get, the 'harder' it is to jump to the next one. Evolving from level two to level three is peanuts in comparison with going from level four to level five. In my opinion, everybody should get to level three, or at least level two. The more people get to level four, the better, but you can't really order someone to become a pescetarian or a vegetarian. I myself, I'm a level four, but thinking of becoming a level five.

Keep in mind that there are a lot of other aspects in sustainable eating, which I don't mention here. Even if you're a level six, you're still doing a bad job when you're eating strawberries in February.

Feel free to comment below!

1998:"The Chacaltaya glacier (5300 meters or 17400 foot) will be gone by 2015."

2009:"The Chacaltaya glacier will be gone by 2010."