15,000 Scientists from 184 Countries Issue a ‘Warning to Humanity’

Abstract

Many people world-wide are wondering how serious is ‘the environmental situation and climate change’. It is now 25 years since a group of scientists, 1500 in number, issued a global warning: “there needs to be a change in order to save Earth”.

Now, twenty-five years later, in mid-November, 2017, a very much expanded group of scientists, 15,000 in number, from 184 countries, signed a second warning. (Ripple, W. & Crist, E., 2017). The key line in the newest warning is ‘There is rising evidence that Earth has entered the sixth mass extinction event brought on by humans’. Independently, the British theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, recently warned that humans “must evacuate Earth in 600 years before soaring energy consumption turns the planet into a ball of fire” (Hawking, 2017).

This present Guest Editor’s Note is intended to alert RJAS readers to this recent news item, in case they missed these recent reports.

The latest report presents compelling evidence under several categories. Some of these data are not unknown. However, some data may be surprising to even the best-read among readers: some facts at first glance appear to be ‘good news’. However, they do have a ‘dark side’.