Groups Call for Attention to Scientists' Warning on Population

MINNEAPOLIS, July 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sustainable population organizations across the globe are calling on their governments to take action in response to a warning from 15,000 scientists last November regarding worsening environmental crisis. World Population Balance is among the groups calling for action on World Population Day 2018.

World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice warned that runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population is crippling the Earth's life-support systems, jeopardizing our future. Identifying population as a "main driver" of the crisis, its recommended actions include reducing fertility rates through education, family planning and rallying leaders behind the goal of establishing a sustainable human population.

Following a lack of meaningful response to the warning ? which since its release has been endorsed by an additional 5,000 scientists ? groups from the US, UK, Australia, Canada and France have issued a joint statement which they are sending to their respective governments.

"The environmental crisis described by the scientists is so severe," noted Dave Gardner, executive director of World Population Balance, "we cannot afford to ignore their warning. We must act now."

Global Statement & Call to Action World Population Day July 11, 2018

Twenty-six years ago, 1,700 of the world's leading scientists urged humankind to curtail environmental destruction and improve our stewardship of the Earth, in order to attain a sustainable future.

In 2017, the Alliance of World Scientists published a Second Warning to Humanity, supported by over 20,000 scientists in 184 countries, pointing to runaway consumption of limited resources by a still rapidly growing population. It warned that:

"Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse."

"...We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats"

Their warning calls for changes in public policy and individual behaviors. It lists 13 policy measures essential to safeguarding our future, including "estimating a scientifically defensible, sustainable human population size for the long term while rallying nations and leaders to support that vital goal."

Actions people can take as individuals include "limiting our own reproduction" and "drastically diminishing" our per capita resource consumption.

Our lack of adequate and appropriate action since 1992 risks condemning our children to a bleak and challenging future. The global population has grown by more than two billion people. Hard-won progress in human rights and social justice is at risk.

As in 1992, the Second Warning has not received the attention it demands. To mark World Population Day (11 July), the undersigned organizations call on national governments and international institutions to respond to the Warning to Humanity with urgent action. Specifically, we call on them to:

• Detail what actions they intend to take regarding the 13 specific policy prescriptions it lays out, including promoting a sustainable population size.
• Endorse the Scientists Warning to Humanity at http://scientistswarning.org

All signatories to this statement are committed to the goal of a sustainable world population, achieved through ethical, humane and non-coercive means that fully respect human rights.

SIGNATORIES
Démographie Responsible (France)
Population Institute (US)
Population Institute Canada
Population Matters (UK)
Population Media Center (US)
Sustainable Population Australia
World Population Balance (US)

NOTE: This statement and call is made with the knowledge of but entirely independently from the Alliance of World Scientists.

2017 and 1992 Warnings and more information: www.scientistswarning.org 
World Population Balance: www.worldpopulationbalance.org

Media Contact:
Dave Gardner
[email protected] 
719-576-5565

SOURCE World Population Balance