Are humans ruining the Earth?

The concept of intervening in the climate is called geoengineering.

There are two types of geoengineering. The first is

greenhouse gas removal: removing and storing carbon dioxide and other

greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The second is solar

radiation management, reflecting a level of sunlight away from the Earth,

but not actually doing anything to deal with greenhouse gas emissions in

the first place.

“Unfortunately, there’s not a great deal of agreement when it comes to managing the problems of climate

change across the world. This is simply because people have different interpretations of how stable the

climate is and different preferences for how climate change should be solved..”

-Dr Rob Bellamy, University of Oxford

As scientists, we must continue to search for evidence-based answers and share the results of our work with a wide, diverse audience -not just our peers, opinion formers or politicians but ordinary people, without either exaggeration or understatement. We have to recognise that how these messages are received is directly influenced by the values and beliefs of the audience. For example, when confronted, some climate deniers approach the subject from a vested personal interest or political creed. Often the science is secondary to them and muddies the waters of what they want to believe.

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, https://oxplore.org/additional-resource/1613/1631#1631

A PATH OF HUMAN DESTRUCTION?

On average, it takes 15,400 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef.

By August 2nd, 2017, humans had consumed more resources than the planet could renew in all of 2017.

In 2015, only 1/3 of the 1.5 million tonnes of recyclable plastic waste thrown away by people in Britain was recycled.

Oxplore Quiz

For decades we’ve heard that humanity is threatened by intelligent machines. Even top tech businessman, Elon Musk, believes that AI could lead to World War Three. But rather than panicking, it’s worth considering the real risks of algorithms. AI brings helpful automation, freeing humans from difficult tasks. But what happens when these big decisions go wrong?

Three Ways We’re Protecting WildlifeMost countries nowadays offer

conservation legislation. This

Can be tailored to a country’s

Particular needs and interests.

By maintaining populations of a variety of wild species, zoos provide ‘reservoirs’ of endangered animals which may be released back into the wild.

While many species are affected by

human activity, some are more at risk

than others. By categorising those which

are most threatened, we can target our

conservation efforts more effectively.

Everyone – even those who don’t live anywhere near the coast – is affected by the activities of our oceans. This is because its

algae produce 50% of the Oxygen we breathe and absorbs large quantities of carbon dioxide – ensuring that our air is

chemically balanced.

“Researchers have long assumed that a long-term drying trend caused hominin environments to become more open.

It was thought that this was what drove many of the fundamental changes in human evolution. We didn’t find

evidence for a long-term trend like this. We found that the climate has varied over time from arid to humid, similar to

the range of environments you find in eastern Africa today. It may be that this variability of climate was more

important in driving evolutionary changes.”Dr Scott Blumenthal, of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at Oxford University

Are humans capable of living in harmony with the Earth?

Will the Earth evolve to develop ways to heal itself from humans’ damage?

What are ways in which humans could decrease their impact on the Earth?