When we talk about our impact on the planet in terms of a looming environmental crisis, we refer to many different things. Activities like transport, construction, and agriculture require using massive quantities of materials such as crude oil, concrete, and steel, all resulting in vast CO2 emissions. The extraordinary quantities of livestock we rear to feed ourselves have a huge environmental impact, accounting for 14.5% of global emissions. Combine this with the loss of 46% of the trees on earth since the dawn of human civilisation and the result is a sharp increase in CO2 concentration in our atmosphere. The increase in global temperatures caused by these greenhouse gasses could have cataclysmic consequences if left unchecked. Already sea levels are rising as the oceans warm and glacial ice melts. CO2 absorption is acidifying the ocean, killing corals and other marine species, and extreme weather events such as tropical storms, droughts and flooding are increasing in frequency and severity. Deforestation for materials, mining, urbanisation, and agriculture is destroying precious habitats for wildlife, and as a result, humans have caused the loss of 82% of wild mammals and half of all plants. In other words, as a result of human destruction, we are currently living through the planets 6th mass extinction; the first extinction period since the Late Cretaceous Epoch in which the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid. As if all this wasn’t enough, human-made pollutants have reached the farthest reaches of our planet’s land, air and sea, permeating the remaining wild spaces. Plastics are being found everywhere from the bottom of the Mariana trench to the summit of Mount Everest, and the great Pacific garbage patch is now the size of Texas. Other contaminating materials are more sinister still. Heavy metals, radioactive isotopes, persistent organic pollutants, and many other dangerous chemicals are also widespread with devastating impacts, particularly for aquatic life. In short, we’ve made quite a mess. Each of these problems is worthy of its own blog post, and they will all get one in this series. For now, let’s focus on the big picture. It is clear that our meteoric development and the corresponding exponential increase in resource consumption is totally unsustainable. The damage this is doing to our environment and ecosystems is severe and, in some cases, irreversible. This is the essence of the environmental crisis.