Humanity may have as little as three generations to act to limit the escalating effects of climate change and biodiversity loss, according to the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST).
The organisation says deep-time fossil records offer a warning from Earth’s past: periods of rapid planetary warming have been linked to major biodiversity losses and the disappearance of entire branches of life.
While natural climate cycles such as El Niño influence global weather, PAST says human-driven warming is intensifying environmental pressures and contributing to increasingly severe disruptions.
“Deep time provides the precise, long-term scale needed to understand this crisis,” says Emil Krupandan, Director at PAST.
The organisation points to research showing that 73 vertebrate genera have gone extinct since 1500, at a rate far above estimated background extinction levels.
Southern Africa is already experiencing some of the consequences through extreme weather, warming oceans and rising sea levels. Coastal communities and infrastructure face growing risks from flooding and severe storms.
However, PAST stresses that the future is not predetermined.
“Every fraction of a degree of avoided warming, every ecosystem protected, and every species retained can dramatically reduce the severity of future loss,” Krupandan says.
PAST argues that studying Earth’s deep history can help put today’s climate crisis into perspective — while highlighting the urgency of decisions being made now.
The organisation says the choices made over the next three generations could have a lasting impact on the future of life on Earth.
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