Intergenerational justice, water rights, and climate change

Abstract

In 1992, the Union of World Scientists (numbering 1500) issued a first ‘Warning to Humanity’ which stated that ‘great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided’. They called for stabilization of the world’s population, substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the phasing out of fossil fuels, reducing deforestation, and resisting destruction of biodiversity. On a recent silver jubilee of that warning, the same Union issued a second warning (signed by 150,000 scientists) summoning urgent action now.1