The Living Planet Report 2022 is WWF’s most comprehensive study, to date, of trends in global biodiversity and the health of our planet, and it doesn’t make comfortable reading. You don’t need to be a genius to realise that our climate is changing and changing fast. Agriculture, urban development, forestation and deforestation, mining, industrialisation, over-consumption and many more other human-induced factors within our control all play a part, but with this report we can now start to understand and comprehend our impact on the world’s wildlife.
Our planet’s climate has, of course, changed through its history. It goes in cycles, with the most extreme ones causing extinctions or even mass extinctions. However, what we are now witnessing is not a ‘normal’ cycle. At best it is accelerated and this in itself presents problems as pace of change is well beyond that at which most of the living world can adapt to and evolve.