It is now clear that the world is in a state of ecological crisis.  It is a systemic crisis with , and (the three that emerged from the in 1992) [apparent omissions/errors in original] as the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced.  As we move out of the Holocene’s relatively stable climate regime, further land degradation and greenhouse gas emissions will impede the biosphere’s ability to regulate the Earth’s functional systems, compromising access to essential resources such as water and food.  Erratic and disruptive weather events and ecosystem collapse will result in a severe deterioration in human and planetary wellbeing.

In December 2015, the (COP21) succeed in arriving at the to limit global warming to 2 degrees centigrade and to aim for 1.5 degrees if possible.  The Parties agreed to submit National Determined Commitments (NDCs) to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and instructed the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to draw up reports on the most appropriate pathways to achieve these objectives.  The Paris Agreement and the latest IPCC reports will be discussed in more detail later.  You can check to see what your government has pledged by following the link below.

Link

 Infographic: Who has pledged an INDC so far, and what percentage of the world’s emissions are covered. Credit: Rosamund Pearce, Carbon Brief, based on EU data. Only UN parties have been included in the emissions total. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, not covered by the EU’s INDC. It is not a UN party. Taiwan is also not a UN party.  Source: Carbonbrief.org

Also in 2015, the United Nations agreed to implement 17 Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millenium Development goals and the Agenda 21 that emerged from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. [And in 1987 the UN's Brundtland Report agreed that sustainable growth (development), at a suggested target of 5%/year (doubling the global economy every 14 years) was necessary to create enough wealth to end poverty and hunger.] The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, while tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification. [Meanwhile, the pace of planetary destruction will not slow.]  If you want to check on your country’s commitment to the Agenda, you can click on the link below.

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/memberstates

Source: un.org

[And I felt like rewritting the above, and so I did:]

 

The most encouraging development to date lies in the (2021-2030).  Along with the IPCCs (August 2019), which recognised the role played by degradation of terrestrial ecosystems in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the capacity for combatting climate change through ecosystem restoration, this heralds a major step forward, bringing together the three UN Framework Conventions (Biodiversity Loss, Desertification and Climate Change) to promote systemic solutions to our global ecological crisis.

Watch this video by filmmaker and ecologist John D. Liu of the Ecosystem Restoration Camp movement as he explains the need for the paradigm shift in focus that puts the biotic components of the Earth’s systems at the forefront of a holistic approach. 

[John D. Liu is a filmmaker who, in 1995, filmed a documentary on agricultural development of the Loess Plateau in NE China, an arid to semi-arid region whose population tripled between 1949 and 2000. He saw this as an ecological restoration project whose success was the verdant images filmed soon after. Loess is a highly erosive soil that had been terraced for rainfeed irrigation and failed. The vast 'restoration' project succeeded by turning electricity into pumped water. Add water, get green. No magic. It only looks like a sustainable development success to the energy blind, and the salinization blind as you cannot irrigate semi-arid lands sustainably by pumping ground water or diverting river/stream flows, e.g. the former Fertile Crescent and in the near future California's San Joaquin Valley. Liu retired in 1997 to become the became the director of the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) that shows Liu traveling the world to countries as Jordan, China and Ethiopia and shows the possibilities in re-greening areas turning into desert. John Liu founded Ecosystem Restoration Camps in 2017, a worldwide movement that aims to restore damaged ecosystems on a large scale. A traditional Hopi farmer can grow 4 bushels of corn on an acre after 30 to 50 years of fallow, without irrigation. Give me all the water and direct and indirect fossil fuel inputs I ask for, and I'll grow 200 bushels of corn every year. But not sustainably, and the changes I'd make to the land would not be an ecological restoration project. But my before and after pictures would be impressive, and a lot of money would come my way.]

 

The Paradigm Shift leading to Survival and Sustainability | John D. Liu | TEDxWageningenUniversity

Our biosphere crisis is now energising large-scale social movements.  Young people are deeply concerned about the future and equally deeply committed to change.   Larger numbers of people of all ages aspire to live within the social and planetary boundaries, building resilience within intentional communities and co-housing projects, regenerating urban and rural areas, reconnecting to the web of life and healing ourselves and the Earth in the process.

These initiatives lead by example and will galvanise others to follow. The awareness, knowledge, tools and methodologies Gaia Education’s courses offer, hope to inform, enable, and inspire you to become an active agent for change, to make lifestyle choices fully integrated into regenerative cultures.  While choosing to live within the social and ecological boundaries, we can do so in ways that work with nature to regenerate ecosystems and bring the Earths dysfunctional cycles back into dynamic equilibrium. [by rapidly degrowthing the human, livestock, pet, and crop populations and contracting the global economy.]