ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

A severe decline in biological productivity and associated soil degradation resulting from extensive and persistent adverse human impact on ecosystems and landscapes. Many examples are known, or suspected, from throughout human history. Environmental crises threaten sustainability and may be evident in deterioration in the health of human populations. Such crises represent a late stage in the development of creeping environmental problems (CEPs). Beyond irreversibility thresholds, environmental crises become environmental catastrophes, which are characterised by major disruptions to ecosystems and dependent economic and social systems.

The current global environmental crisis is the concept that extensive, cumulative and far-reaching effects of human impact on environment are affecting human populations (and those of other life forms) at the global level to the extent that the future of humanity is threatened. It implies that serious environmental degradation has already occurred and is often associated with the impending future impacts of global warming. Some attribute the environmental crisis to the advent of global capitalism. Numerous smaller-scale cases of environmental crisis (or ecological crisis) have been recognised in the literature. Many of these are best described as environmental accidents or environmental disasters, rather than as crises.

[See alsocollapse of civilisations, ecological collapse, environmental accident, environmental degradation, environmental disaster, environmental problem, environmenthuman interactions, global environmental change]