Think tank finds human impacts have reached a critical stage

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has published a report urging politicians and policymakers to recognise the scale of the current environmental crisis.

The report, ‘This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown‘, highlights the multiple factors that are “driving a complex, dynamic process of environmental destabilisation…” including: climate change, species declines and losses, topsoil erosion, deforestation and ocean acidification.

The authors warn that these factors are not only causing widescale environmental destabilisation, but knock on effects for society, including: economic instability, large-scale involuntary migration, conflict, famine and the potential collapse of social and economic systems. The paper argues that shifts in the understanding of the scale and pace of environmental breakdown, the implications for societies, and the subsequent need for transformative change, are needed.