Climate change is not the biggest problem facing the world. It is a symptom of the much larger problem of overshoot. Overshoot means that humans are using natural resources and polluting at rates beyond the planet’s capacity to recover.
The main cause of overshoot is the extraordinary growth of the human population made possible by fossil energy. Concerns about overshoot and population raised more than 40 years ago were dismissed. Climate change has captured public awareness more recently although many doubt that it is an emergency.
Overshoot is more difficult to dispute: the destruction of rainforests, the extinction of other species, the pollution of land, river, and seas, the acidification of the oceans, and the loss of fisheries and coral reefs.
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