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As usual, big global issues were on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly when it met in New York City this month. The session's theme was collaboration, for "the advancement of peace, sustainable development, and human dignity for present and future generations."
It was a reminder that big aspirations should also be on the agendas of election candidates who want to make public policy in the U.S. Issues like immigration and the economy are getting ample attention; however, the candidates have said nothing about the most significant issue voters face this November: America's ongoing assault on its natural capital, ecosystems and biodiversity.
State and federal governments will always be expected to treat society’s infections and broken bones, but we can't let short-term problems distract us from a metastasizing cancer. It’s the poisoning, abuse and destruction of the ecological systems on which our lives, posterity and other species depend.
Even climate change is getting less attention than it deserves up and down the ballot. Polling by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication shows that two-thirds of Americans are worried about climate change and believe Congress should do more to address it. Yet climate deniers still control the Republican Party, including 123 members of Congress and the GOP's presidential candidate.
No Republicans in Congress voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation's largest-ever investment in pollution-free energy. Although 85 percent of the investments and 68 percent of the jobs created by the act went to Republican districts as of Aug. 16, congressional Republicans have voted 51 times to repeal it.
The Yale Center's director, Tony Leiserowitz, says polling shows, "at all levels of government … officials dramatically underestimate the level of support (for climate action) from their own constituents." Candidates should be discussing this.
However, climate change is only part of the problem.
Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum asked nearly 1,500 world leaders in government and civil society to identify the world’s most significant risks in the coming decade. The top four were all about the environment.
Extreme weather (climate change) ranked No. 1. The next three are changes to Earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and natural resource shortages, in that order. All are considered more threatening than wars, terror attacks, social polarization, economic downturns or nuclear hazards.
These threats affect the U.S. in many ways. While sea-level rise is evident on America's ocean coasts, we hear less about rising water levels in the Great Lakes. They are the largest unfrozen freshwater lakes on Earth. Rising water levels jeopardize property, infrastructure, ecosystems and livelihoods along 4,500 miles of coastline along with Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo, N.Y.
America has more than 250,000 inland rivers flowing more than 3 million miles. In 2013, a national water-quality survey found that 55 percent were in poor biological condition and the condition of 23 percent was only "fair."
Oceans contribute nearly $480 billion and 2.4 million jobs to the U.S. economy. Scientists report that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels — the U.S. is the second-largest source — are on the brink of destroying ocean food chains. Science has identified nine planetary systems necessary to support life. Civilization has already pushed six into “unsafe operating spaces.” Oceans would be the seventh.
More than 40 percent of native landscapes have been lost in the contiguous U.S. An analysis by NatureServe last year found that 34 percent of plants and 40 percent of animals in the United States risk extinction. Over 40 percent of the nation's ecosystems risk range-wide collapse.
Biodiversity loss degrades ecosystems that provide countless benefits to the nation. The loss of genetic diversity undermines agricultural productivity and critical ecological services. For example, nature is the source of about half of modern medicines.
A study published by the journal Nature Communications predicts that ecosystem services will decline in the U.S. between 2020 and 2100 because of population pressures and changes in land use. As usual, non-white, lower-income and urban residents will bear a disproportionate share of the consequences.
Much of the world's biodiversity resides in its soils, yet some scientists say we know more about the soils on Mars than those on Earth.
The loss of topsoil threatens food production. The Midwest's "breadbasket" has lost 57 billion tons of topsoil over the last 160 years. A study published three years ago found that topsoil has been permanently lost in 35 percent of the Corn Belt from Ohio to Nebraska. It takes between 500 and 1,000 years for nature to produce one inch of topsoil.
Dwindling water supplies also undermine food production. Aquifers that supply 90 percent of water systems in the U.S. and irrigate "some of the world's most bountiful farmland" are threatened, according to a series in the New York Times last year. "These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole," the Times reported.
Fourteen states are at high risk of water shortages in the next 25 years. More than 2 million Americans already lack access to clean drinking water at home; more than 1 million don't have the plumbing required to flush a toilet. A recent check found that inadequate water systems serving more than 44 million people violated the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Water insecurity reportedly costs the U.S. economy $8.58 billion annually in lost labor and productivity, reduced household earnings and higher healthcare expenses. As usual, these problems disproportionately affect low-income families.
In addition, the water conflicts we have seen elsewhere in the world may be coming to the U.S. CNN reports, "A water war is looming between Mexico and the U.S." because severe drought has prevented Mexico from meeting its obligations under an 80-year-old treaty to send water to the U.S.
Although the World Economic Forum survey did not mention them, government subsidies are contributing to environmental threats by underwriting activities that make the biosphere and life within it weaker, sicker, poorer and less secure. Earth Track, a U.S. organization that monitors government subsidies, has found that environmentally harmful subsidies worldwide amount to at least $2.6 trillion annually, with most going to fossil fuels and practices like overproduction that are detrimental to agriculture and water resources.
These are some of the big metastasizing issues today. The people who want to make America's policies should address them.
William S. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.
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