By Mary O’KEEFE

“We cannot turn back time, but we can grow forests, revive water sources and bring back soils. We are the generation that can make peace with land,” according to https://worldenvironmentday.global.

Yesterday, Wednesday, June 5, was World Environment Day and according to its website it is one of the biggest international days for the environment. This event has been held annually since 1973. The event has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach with millions of people from across the world engaging to protect the planet.

The movement is led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and events were held throughout the world to call attention to the environment, with a live stream shared by the host country Saudi Arabia.

One of the videos released focused on how Saudi Arabia has worked to protect animals that were/are on the brink of extinction including the oryx, an “Arabian icon.”

Veterinarian Naif Ahmed Alhanwsh works with his government to safeguard the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s biodiversity by breeding, rearing and releasing endangered native species,” according to the UNEP website.

“Established on what was a royal farm in 1987, this [center] is home to some of the most iconic wild animals in the Arabian Peninsula, including large hoofed mammals like the oryx,” according to UNEP.

The “national” plan is to “rewild” Saudi Arabia and surrounding areas. The efforts include replanting native trees and restoring vegetation by expanding the country’s national park system.

“The deterioration of ecosystems worldwide effects [40%] of the global population, a number expected to rise in the coming years. The loss of once-productive lands is threatening food supplies, feeding climate change and driving a biodiversity crisis that is pushing one million species towards extinction, say experts,” according to UNEP.

Species extinction is a natural thing. About 98% of all the organisms that have ever existed on our planet are now extinct, according to an article in the National History Museum published in May 2021 and updated in February 2023. The article was written by Tammana Begum. However what is now being faced by many species is not natural extinction but accelerated extinction by human activity.

“Human activity is killing nature at an unprecedented rate. We are now experiencing the consequences in the form of a possible sixth mass extinction,” according to the Natural History Museum (NHM).

There have been five mass extinctions of the planet over the last 500 million years. They were caused by extreme temperature changes, rising or falling sea levels and catastrophic events like an asteroid hitting the planet or huge volcanic eruptions. The reason some scientists feel we are heading for a sixth mass extinction comes down to what humans have done and continue to do to the planet.

“We are experiencing drastic changes to our planet, including extreme weather such as flooding, drought and wildfires. Research, including some led by the [NHM], shows humans are the cause of these changes. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been putting pressure on nature by using its resources without supporting recovery,” according to NHM.

We have seen natural landscapes destroyed by development, soil degradation through agriculture, deforestation and biodiversity loss.

“Naturally, extinction occurs over hundreds and thousands of years, which allows nature to slowly replace what has been lost. But humans have sped up this process to a dangerous rate,” according to NHM.

The positive in all of this is there are people, beyond the voices of scientists, who are taking this threat seriously and no longer deny human-caused climate change. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is one of those positive programs that is not only calling attention to the issue but is moving forward with action.

This effort is lofty (to say the least) but it is a movement forward. For so long scientists have been talking to a group of scientists about this climate threat at events like the World Climate Conferences, the first one held in 1979. But earlier, in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson was given a report titled “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment” that focused on the role humans played in the changing climate. The report included predictions including Antarctic ice melting, rising sea levels and rising temperatures in both the land and sea.

The information was at first taken seriously. President Johnson reported the credible threat to Congress but (like what happens so many times) special interest lobbyists, including those from fossil fuel companies, wanted this information discredited, so a disinformation campaign was launched. Scientists who dared to speak on human-caused climate change were fired, climate research groups were dissolved and organizations like the Global Climate Coalition were created to lobby against any fossil fuel reduction. Exxon was part of this Coalition; the company’s knowledge of the threat of human-caused climate change and its efforts in disinformation have been well documented by numerous media publications and investigations by  attorneys general in California and New York as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But now, as what happens often, it comes down to the people – boots on the ground, so to speak – who are dealing with the extreme changes and are now leading the way to help save the Earth.

In my non-profit life I have found the more normal things appear the less a distant threat is taken seriously. If it doesn’t affect people directly they are able to believe that it is someone else’s problem – whether a murder at an after-prom party, which was the inspiration for Prom Plus, or a young man’s overdose death, which is the foundation of the Chase Impact Foundation and the CV Substance Misuse Prevention Coalition/CV Cares. It is a belief that if it hasn’t happened lately to them or someone they know, it is just a fluke. But just because it doesn’t happen within the small circle of an individual’s life does not mean the threat has vanished.

Human-caused climate change continues to be a threat to us all and many people are not waiting for the water to come up to their own door or having a fire outside their house to take action.

For us, warming is in our future though not as extreme as in other Southern California areas.

According to NOAA, we will still be dealing with the persistent June Gloom marine layer through next week. This may bring drizzle in the mornings but should burn off in the afternoons. Our temperatures will be mild – in the lower 80s – through next week.