Over The Horizon

Humans a Major Natural Disaster

Distinguished Professor of Zoology at Oregon State University, Jane Lubchenco, says human activities are now on a par with natural disasters as major forces of nature. Currently at Canterbury University, Lubchenco says humans have unwittingly caused changes to the Earth's systems that are unforeseen, unwanted and undesirable.

Lubchenco recently presented the findings of a US National Science Foundation report that reveal major new environmental research directions for the US. Human activities have transformed 50% of the Earth's surface, changed the Earth's atmospheric chemistry by increasing carbon dioxide emissions and doubled the amount of nitrogen entering the natural cycle. Increases in carbon dioxide are a likely contributor to global warming; excess nitrogen in coastal waters is suspected of causing rapid increases in many harmful algal blooms and causing "dead zones". Now numbering 50, over half of these "dead zones" have appeared in the last 10 years.

"The environmental changes we are seeing today are fundamentally different from anything in the past -- the rates of change are faster, the scales are bigger and some changes are absolutely new, like the effects chlorofluorocarbons have had on the ozone in the upper atmosphere," says Lubchenco.

She believes these changes are due to a combination of explosive population growth and unsustainable environmental exploitation and waste generation. Lubchenco also believes that better understanding of the connections between actions and effects will facilitate more sustainable actions.The report recommends that the US spend an additional US$1 billion annually on environmental sciences.

"Good, solid scientific information about the environment should inform our decisions and actions," she says.

"These issues are having a global impact and we need to understand what's happening so we can figure out how we can do things differently, to stabilise human population rates and moderate activities so we have less of an impact on the systems we depend on."

"It's important for governments to invest in science and fundamental research so countries and citizens have better information for decision-making. Scientists also need to do a better job at communicating timely, useful and understandable information at a national and international level."