Recently, news of fires in Australia has been in the headlines from time to time.
Since last September, the fire has killed 1 billion animals and 26 people.
The European Copernican Atmospheric Monitoring Network analysed the causes of the fire and concluded that the rapid spread of fires in Australia was linked to dry, hot environmental conditions.
Throughout 2019, precipitation was below average in most parts of Australia, which led to unusually dry soils and vegetation.
Looking back at the past 2019, extreme weather events occur frequently.
Minnesota, the United States, set a new record for extreme cold in the United States with a century of cold currents of -38 °C, while Adelaide, Australia, far away in the southern hemisphere, reached the highest temperature peak in 80 years with a sweltering heat of 46.6 °C.
The Land of India and Africa and Central China have experienced a once-in-a-century drought, and the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, known as the "lungs of the earth", has ignited a dense and sustained fire...
Not only do people have to sigh, what has happened to the earth in recent years?
In fact, this question should be asked to human beings themselves.
Throughout the history of human development, it is basically the relationship between the two most complex systems on earth — human society and nature , and whether humans can reconcile this relationship.
If not, humanity will perish.
Human beings always say that they want to save nature, but in fact, nature does not need to be saved, only the natural environment that is not suitable for human survival, there is no unnatural natural environment.
What needs to be saved is humanity itself.
There are many documentaries about environmental protection, but the one introduced today is more special -
Its producer is Leonardo DiCaprio, the male god of countless people, and acts as a narrator in the film.
Eleventh Hour, which interviews more than 50 of the world's leading scientists, reveals the reasons behind climate anomalies and, more importantly, what we should do.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > eleventh hour</h1>
Directed by: Nadia Conners / Leila Conners Petersen
Writers: Nadia Conners / Leonardo DiCaprio
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio / Kenny Ausubel
Release: 2007-08-17(Chinese mainland)
Runtime: 95 minutes
As we all know, "Xiao Li" has always been a pioneer in environmental protection, and he has called on Weibo to let everyone pay attention to the seriousness of climate change.
Over the years, he has been quietly contributing to environmental protection, watching his personal social accounts, except for occasional new film promotions, mostly environmental protection-related content.
Just this month, the Earth Alliance, an environmental group that Leonardo co-founded, donated $3 million to Australia, which is suffering from fires.
Last year's Forest Fire in the Amazon, the Earth Alliance environmental group also donated $5 million to the forest fire relief.
Regarding the documentary, Leonardo DiCaprio said:
"It's not hard to make a film about the apocalypse now, but it's important that people leave theaters aware of their responsibility to protect the environment and then make a simple choice, which is to act and stop standing idly by."
Fires, hurricanes, floods, droughts...
Often when ecological disasters occur, they are always described by the media as sudden, isolated incidents.
However, if we look at these "isolated" events in a linked way, we will find deeper causes, and behind these frequent disasters all point to a common source – the Earth's environment is changing.
In the past 650,000 years, the earth's greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) has not exceeded 280 parts per million, but now this value has exceeded 400 parts per million...
The Earth's temperature is growing at a rate of 0.7 degrees Celsius, and even if we try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and control it at current levels, the Earth's temperature will still grow at a rate of 0.5 degrees Celsius.
This temperature is enough to melt 20% of the Arctic's glaciers, causing the permafrost in the Arctic to begin to melt.
Perhaps the most dire consequence of the total melting of Arctic glaciers is that 1.67 billion metric tons of carbon trapped in the permafrost will be released, which will further accelerate global warming.
In addition, ancient viruses frozen in the permafrost may reawaken, and humans have no immunity to it.
After the Industrial Revolution, nature ceased to be an awesome existence, but became a resource for human use.
Moreover, human beings tacitly believe that this resource is inexhaustible, and they also think that human progress can grow infinitely and expand infinitely.
The truth, however, is that resources are finite, and only human desires are unlimited.
Human beings, who had been slash-and-burn for tens of thousands of years, learned to exploit oil, and human industrial civilization began to develop at a high speed.
So in the short term, the global population exploded, surging billions of people. Humans are not only competing with each other, but also with nature.
However, modern humans are actually a very young species, and we appear late in the annals of life on Earth.
If The Earth had an annual calendar, assuming that the Earth formed on January 1, we would appear on December 31, and only 15 minutes before 12 a.m. on December 31, and all human history flashes by in a 60-second period.
We are actually a budding species, still lacking in understanding the earth and the laws of nature.
Numb to the "comfortable" life brought about by the Industrial Revolution, but turn a blind eye to the environmental crisis brought about by fossil fuels.
Rising Temperatures on Earth are almost a vicious cycle, with melting arctic ice reducing the amount of solar energy reflected back into space, thus raising temperatures even further.
Forests that have been cut down are difficult to recover, and they will eventually become arid deserts.
More than 30% of the earth's land is already severely degraded in order to grow crops.
Nothing in nature exists in isolation, and cutting down trees brings more disasters than desertification.
In fact, a single tree can store up to 216 tons of water like a sponge in a flood, preventing this water from escaping and then returning it to the land. So deforestation can also lead to flooding and soil erosion, which in turn can lead to ocean pollution.
Today, Earth's life-sustaining ecosystems are crumbling, and although the system has been in development for billions of years, industrial civilization has caused irreparable damage in a short period of time.
As we all know, the earth can produce life is extremely harsh conditions, and we have not yet found other extraterrestrial life.
However, the seemingly unique environment of the earth is actually extremely fragile, and once the balance is broken and the earth's environment is changed, it is likely to become no longer suitable for human survival.
Hawking had predicted that at the rate of humanity's current impact on the environment, the earth would likely become another Venus in the future.
Life has existed on earth for 38-4 billion years, 99.9999% of the creatures that once existed have gone extinct, it can be said that "extinction" is a natural phenomenon of life.
Sadly, while humans are "heading for extinction," they are also exterminating other species.
50 to 55,000 species go extinct because of us every year.
Nature does have the ability to repair, even if we completely change the air, water and soil conditions on the earth, life will be just as tenacious to adapt, but the human being at the top of the food chain is the most vulnerable, and the earth will still turn without human beings.
Why can humanity remain indifferent to the battle against global warming over the past 30 years?
The answer lies in the fact that in a modern, globalized world, economic growth remains the focus of many companies and governments that are willing to destroy the environment for economic gain.
And the masses are also slaves to consumerism, working desperately to maintain higher levels of consumption.
Essentially, doing so will only consume more of the earth's resources and ultimately create more garbage.
The relationship between human beings and nature has been severed by modern society.
Human beings cannot see true beauty, so they have to find alternatives in the trap of consumerism, chasing things that are not actually needed.
Although humanity is on the brink of extinction, there is still an opportunity for us to make a difference.
From destructive mass production to massive recyclability.
Develop renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass as much as possible.
Reduce human dependence on oil.
In fact, the energy provided by the sun every day can support the consumption of every factory, household, and car on the earth 13,000 times, but it has not yet been effectively used by humans.
Do a good job of water purification, so that every drop of water that enters the natural cycle is clean.
In other words, humans need to build a circular "cradle-to-cradle" system, rather than a one-time "cradle-to-grave" system.
This cyclical pattern allows humans to draw inspiration from nature.
There is no "garbage" in nature, the excrement of one organism is another kind of food, which is the ultimate goal of the development of the industrial system - the garbage-free industrial system.
Everything is recycled, no waste, no pollution.
For example, what would it be like to design a building to circulate naturally like a tree? What about designing a city as a forest? What if a building could photosynthesize?
Maybe nature is the best teacher.
In the face of such a big problem as global warming, individual actions seem meaningless. But in many ways, if everyone could change a little bit, it would add up to a big change.
Changing behaviors and lifestyles is the long-term solution.
People should jump out of the trap of consumerism.
Life should not be guided by commodities, and people's values should not be affected by advertising and marketing.
A lot of goods are just used to flaunt themselves, do we really need that much?
The spirit of frugality before the Industrial Revolution should once again be recovered by mankind.
The Industrial Revolution gave the illusion that the earth's resources were inexhaustible, and now we all know that this is not the case. And frugality is not poverty, but the wiser use of resources.
Environmental protection was once a matter for a few people, and with the occurrence of the greenhouse effect and other disasters, environmental protection has gradually become the focus of all mankind's attention, and many people have begun to realize the importance of protecting the environment.
At this critical time in human history, it is our responsibility to repair the damage caused by industrial civilization.
In any case, the earth will still rise as usual. It will be reborn in time, the rivers, the oceans, the mountains, everything will return to green again, everything will return to calm.
Because the earth has time, and human beings don't have that much time, this is where we are now.
*This article is written by RAMA