How to Save Our Planet

How do we create a future in which both people and nature can thrive? This is the biggest question of our times. In the next few decades we need to do something unprecedented. Achieve a sustainable existence on earth. But how do we do it? We can start by understanding how we got to this point. 20,000 years ago humankind consisted of less than a million hunter-gatherers across the globe. We lived within the resources on offer, in balance with nature. A strategy that could theoretically last forever. But it wasn't an easy life. Nature determined our survival. We used our unique minds to challenge that reality. We learned how to tame the wild, get more from the environment. Our population boomed, as did our demands. Every time a new problem arose we solved it, altering earth's entire surface in the process. And now we have changed the world so profoundly, scientists have decided that earth has entered a new phase of its existence. Welcome to the Anthropocene, the age of humans. The tables have turned. We now determine nature's survival. The planet is ours. There's just one problem. We're now totally out of balance with nature. And unless we get our balance back, this age of humans is due to be short-lived. So how do we deal with this problem? When you boil it down, there is one underlying big issue. Our planet is becoming less wild. Our species has cleared three trillion trees, cultivated half its fertile land, and now fishes across most of the ocean. In the last 50 years, the populations of wild animals have reduced by 60%. We've replaced them with ourselves and our domesticated animals and plants. Today, we and the animals we raise account for 96% of the mass of mammals and 70% of the birds on earth. There's very little wild left. This biodiversity loss is not just a tragedy, it's the single biggest problem we face. Without biodiversity, the world as we know it doesn't work. Our planet needs its wild spaces. Everyone is a component in the global machine. Only if they are all healthy can the planet run smoothly. A less wild world is less able to provide for our needs, less able to maintain dependable weather and seasons, less able to absorb our impact. Biodiversity equals stability, and stability is what we need most of all. Can we turn this situation around? Can we re-wild the world? Well, maybe, due to one key change. As societies develop, something is happening that has never happened before. People are having fewer children. Globally, since the year 2000, the number of people under 16 years old has hardly changed. The main reason our population is still rising is because people are living longer. If this continues, our population may finally stop growing by the turn of the century. By investing in education and women's rights and raising people out of poverty, we could bring about peak human even sooner. This changes everything. It gives us the opportunity we need to regain our balance. The plan for our planet is remarkably simple. Reduce our impact by making sure that everything we do, we can do forever. For the biggest gains, we could concentrate our efforts on four goals. Phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables. This will not only slow the warming of the planet and the acidification of the ocean, but it will lead to clean air for all of us. Upgrading to efficient food production and reducing our consumption of meat. We'll require far less space to provide for ourselves, leaving more for grasslands, reducing deforestation and our demand for fresh water, and feeding more people with healthier, more affordable food. Working together to properly manage our ocean. A global network of no-fish zones and a treaty on the use of international waters would restore the health of the ocean so it actually produces more fish for us all to eat. Working hard to keep hold of the wild populations we still have, encouraging nature wherever we can. In the ocean, on land we no longer need and even in our cities. If we make these changes, we'll be a long way to becoming a species in balance with nature once again. We will have taken a remarkable journey from a million people struggling to survive to several billion living long healthy lives on a stable planet, able to provide for all our needs. Only at that point will the Anthropocene, the age of humans, be truly underway. At that point, we will be proud to call it our planet. How do we create a future in which both people and nature can thrive? We open our eyes to this moment in history. Think on a planetary scale. Embrace the challenge we face and do something we humans are very good at. Change the world.