Nobel Laureates: The Earth is Overexploited

Eleven Nobel laureates will attend a four-day conference in Hong Kong from October 8, coinciding with the 2014 Nobel Prize announcements in Stockholm and Oslo, Norway, to sound the alarm about the current state of the Earth being overexploited by humans and call for a revolution in human behavior.

Illustration photo. (Source: www.frontpagemag.com)

In a letter to the French news agency AFP, Mr. Peter Doherty, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine, emphasized that the current situation is "catastrophic."

Global warming, deforestation, soil erosion and water quality degradation, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, environmental diseases are becoming more serious and the list of “planetary wounds” is constantly growing.

It is time for people, businesses and politicians to consider the impact on our Earth in every decision they make, he said.

Scholar Brian Schmidt, co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, said that resource depletion is imminent. Consumption of raw materials has increased continuously in the past 35 years, causing the Earth to be exploited more than in the previous 1,000 years.

Scientists agree that immediate solutions are needed to "save" the Earth.

Clean and alternative energy is mentioned as a priority solution.

However, scholars also point out that new inventions and technologies are not enough, but it is important to bring those scientific inventions into life, change people's thinking, and help them realize that changing their behavior towards the Earth is for the long-term benefit of humans./.

According to VNA