If we came across a man who every day took a brick out of the walls of his house without considering that eventually the house would collapse, then we would be concerned about his mental state. Yet humans continue to consume and pollute the natural environment, upon which the long-term survival of our species depends. Such behaviour reflects the widely held attitude that nature is a free commodity – an idea that has prevailed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and has led to the current twin global emergencies of climate change and species extinction. The consequences of this attitude are becoming clearly manifest in the acceleration of severe climate change events and the rapid global loss of biodiversity.
The extent to which biodiversity has been diminished by human activities is highlighted in 1 an independent global review of how ecosystem processes are affected by economic activity. It was commissioned in 2019 by the UK government’s economic and
