By Maggie Hall
Maggie is a former Chair of Brighton Humanists, a member of the Humanists UK Dialogue Network, and a Humanists UK School Speaker. She is also a retired teacher of speech and drama. In this article, Maggie looks at the way human beings are consuming themselves out of existence and what some people are trying to do about it.
There is no doubt that the current level of human activity on our planet is having disastrous consequences. The overconsumption of resources is destroying, at an alarming rate, the only home we have and we are drowning in our own excess.
Biodiversity loss
10,000 years ago, 99% of the mass of vertebrate animals consisted of wild animals, while only 1% was human. Today, only 1% of the mass of vertebrate animals consists of wild animals, while humans account for 32% and livestock for 67%. Habitat destruction and species extinction are harmful to human beings as well as wildlife. 70% of all cancer drugs today are natural or bio-inspired products. And scientists are still discovering new species each year, including a fungus found in the Amazon rainforest that can eat plastic.
Resource depletion
We would need 1.75 Earths to maintain our current level of consumption into the future. While humanity is currently managing to produce enough food for eight billion people, our annual rate of consumption far exceeds the planet’s ability to regenerate critical resources such as water and sustainably produce building materials such as timber. If people in every country lived like United States citizens, then humanity would need five Earths’ worth of resources every year, according to the Global Footprint Network, a non-profit environmental organisation which each year calculates ‘Earth Overshoot Day’. This is an extract from the organisation's website: ‘Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.’ In 2024, Earth Overshoot Day falls on 1st August.
Pollution
Pollution from human activity is widespread and takes many forms. Plastic pollution has become a big global issue. Air pollution is caused by car exhaust fumes and the burning of fossil fuels. Soil and waterways are polluted by domestic and industrial waste, sewage, pesticides, extraction mining, herbicides, and animal waste run-off from agriculture and livestock farming. This pollution affects not only local areas but also spreads to remote places. Pesticides and other chemicals have been found in the Antarctic Ice Sheet and there is an enormous collection of microscopic plastic particles known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floating around in the middle of the northern Pacific Ocean. Estimates of its size vary, but the most widely accepted figure is about 1.6 million square kilometres, which is roughly twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.
The climate crisis
By far the most worrying effect of all this human activity is the alarmingly rapid rate at which global temperatures are rising. According to the latest IPCC report:
concentrations of carbon dioxide today are unmatched for at least two million years
glacial retreat is unmatched for 2,000+ years
the last decade was warmer than any period for approximately 125,000 years
sea level has risen faster than in any previous century for 3,000 years
summer Arctic ice coverage is smaller than at any time in the last 1,000 years
ocean warming is happening faster than at any time since the end of the last ice age
ocean acidification is at the highest level of the last 26,000 years
(Source: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), specifically the report from Working Group I.) The cause of all these environmental crises is painfully obvious. There are just too many of us – 8.1 billion, according to the most recent UN figures – and most of us, at least in the global north, are consuming far too much far too quickly, and a main driver of consumerism is advertising.
Black Friday
Black Friday began in the US and quickly spread to the UK. On this day, many stores slash prices for exclusive deals, making it one of the busiest shopping days of the year. This surge in shopping significantly impacts the environment in numerous ways. One major issue is that many of the items sold are of low quality and are soon discarded. A recent report by the University of Leeds found that up to 80% of items – and any plastic packaging they are wrapped in – will end up either in landfill, incineration or, at best, low quality recycling, often after a very short life. Consumers are also encouraged to upgrade their mobile phones unnecessarily, leading to ever more extraction of the rare metals used in their manufacture, not to mention the 121.5 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent produced by their manufacture in a single year. (This figure includes an allowance for all greenhouse gas emissions.)
Delivery of on-line purchases has its own impact. It’s estimated that 7.2 million delivery vehicles will be on the road by 2030, resulting in an increase of six million tonnes of CO2 emissions. The amount of packaging involved in online shopping is also colossal, contributing significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions.
Food waste
When surplus food is dumped in landfill sites it contributes significantly to the climate crisis. As it rots it produces methane gas, the most potent of all greenhouse gases. According to WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), the UK generates about 9.5 million tonnes of food waste annually. Of this total, about 70% (6.6 million tonnes) comes from households. Wasting food also wastes the huge amount of water that went into producing it. 70% of the world’s accessible fresh water is used in agriculture. It takes 100 buckets of water to produce one loaf of bread and 54 buckets to rear one chicken breast. According to the World Resources Institute, about 24% of the water used for agriculture is ultimately wasted because it goes toward producing food that is never consumed.
But now the good news
As is often the case, while governments often tackle problems at a glacial pace, at grass roots level people are doing it for themselves. To try to reduce levels of agricultural pollution and biodiversity loss they are going organic, growing their own food and reducing their consumption of meat, often opting for a totally plant-based diet instead. Research released by the personal finance comparison site Finder estimates that the UK’s vegan population has risen by 1.1 million in a single year. To reduce food waste, people are organising community larders and community fridges to use up
supermarket surpluses that would otherwise go to waste and buying ‘wonky’ fruit and vegetables that the supermarkets won’t buy from producers, sourcing them from farmer’s markets and other outlets like Odd Box. To reduce the environmental harm caused by consumerism they are donating to and buying from charity shops instead of buying new items, running ‘reuse’ shops, upcycling and recycling, often using reuse platforms such as Freecycle or Freegle, where unwanted items are offered free of charge to anyone who can make use of them. To make broken items reusable they are running repair cafes and projects like ‘men’s sheds’ and community workshops. To reduce the amount of plastic items in use in the home they are buying non-plastic alternatives from eco-friendly producers, such as bamboo toothbrushes, biodegradable rubbish bags, scourers made from copper, jute and other natural materials. They are also using paper products like tissues and toilet paper made from alternative materials such as bamboo, hemp, or recycled paper, which are more sustainable than slow-growing wood. To reduce the amount of harmful chemicals in the environment they are using natural cleaning and laundry products such as vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, soda crystals, oxygen bleach, soap nuts, lemon juice and citric acid. They are also forming local environmental groups and networks to share ideas and information and to put pressure on local councils and businesses to adopt more sustainable working practices, plant more trees that can sequester CO2 and make public spaces available for community gardens which can be used to grow food for local people.
The number of ways in which ordinary people in their own communities can drive change is huge. I have only mentioned a few of them. I leave the last word to one of the most revered names in humanism: 'It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.' Charles Darwin
References and further reading
Eco-friendly online shops
The Hive (an ethical alternative to Amazon for books, CDs, etc. Orders can be sent to your local independent bookshop for pickup.)
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