In 1992, 1,700 of the world’s most prominent scientists, including most Nobel laureates in the sciences, endorsed a document titled “The World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity.”

The statement, spearheaded by the Union of Concerned Scientists, warns that humans have inflicted “harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources,” and, if humanity continued to do so, it would “put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.”

Those scientists called on authorities and citizens of the world to take action and to fundamentally change their way of life before it’s too late. Almost 15 years later, scientists are still voicing the same plea – but is the world listening?

In February, scientists from all over the world gathered with U.S. policy makers in California for an environmental summit in an attempt to translate science into action. Scientists presented the latest research on the effects of human influence on the environment and wildlife, and conservation officials discussed ways in which those findings could be incorporated into wildlife management practices to be more effective.

Sadly, the research presented at the summit shows many of the problems described in the 1992 document have not only persisted, but they have greatly intensified.

According to British researcher Georgina Mace, the irreversible loss of biodiversity continues to accelerate. Mace said the strongest evidence suggests humans have at least increased species’ extinction rate by a thousand times over typical rates throughout the planet’s history. And current trends show threatened species are becoming more and more threatened each day.

And the bad news keeps getting worse. Scientists now know humans are also changing the evolutionary course of plants, animals and bacteria.

IU biology professor Loren Rieseberg says that, in recent years, humans have caused the most drastic change of climate in the planet since the age of dinosaurs. Because of it, living beings have become unfit for their own environment, forcing them to either adapt or move. Those that can’t adapt – and science predicts many won’t – will disappear from the face of the Earth.

Habitat degradation has also continued to be a problem over the last decades and is limiting the available areas where life forms that cannot adapt can move to.

Fishing and hunting for the biggest and strongest animals has made them genetically smaller and weaker. Organisms kept in captivity have become genetically domesticated and make their species less fit in the wild.

And humans are opening the way for invasive species and diseases, which can rapidly adapt to and take over changing environments.

Clearly, the world scientists’ 1992 warning to humanity has been ignored. Although scientists continue to find more and more indisputable evidence of humans’ terrible lack of responsibility toward the environment, few are listening.

It took nearly 15 years for the U.S. government to acknowledge global climate change. How long will it take for authorities to take substantial, critical action to stop that and other catastrophes from happening?

Scientists’ suggestions to deal with the crisis stand today as they did 15 years ago: control environmentally damaging activities, such as carbon emissions, manage resources essential to life more effectively, stabilize population, reduce and eliminate poverty.

World leaders have taken steps toward these goals, but these efforts have been minimal compared to what is needed to prevent the Earth’s premature demise.

Already, the next generation will inherit an environmentally and biologically impoverished Earth, and absolutely nothing can be done about it. We can only hope to be able to minimize the negative effects of what we have wrought.

What will it take for humanity to heed the scientific community’s warning?

It is time to stop pretending we’re not in the middle of a crisis and to stop acting like we are invincible. We must acknowledge the urgency of the situation of our planet, and do whatever it takes so that, 15 years from now, we can look back and say we’ve not made the world worse, we’ve in fact made it better.

Joice Biazoto can be reached at joicecris@hotmail.com.