As people around the world mark Earth Day, an Indian spiritual leader and environmental campaigner has warned that humans could go extinct if significant action is not taken to combat climate change in the coming years.
Sadhguru, a yogi and mystic with a combined following of more than 16 million on Instagram and X, said the disasters fueled by climate change today “will seem minuscule compared to what could happen in the next 15, 20 years if we continue with the current level of human activity.”
He told Newsweek that the world is facing a future where floods, cyclones and droughts are common, and such events will stifle agricultural productivity and threaten food security.
“Once there are food shortages, there will be civil unrest, which will he uncontrollable,” he said. “And when biodiversity is lost, it means the very basis and foundation stones of our existence are being undone.”
Sadhguru said if “significant action does not happen in the next couple of decades, it is not the planet that is in peril—it is human beings who are in peril. Whether we come out of this consciously or a disaster brings us back to our senses is left to us.”
Sadhguru, argues that while managing fossil fuel emissions is important, fighting the degradation of soil should be the first step countries take when it comes to tackling climate change because it is “the easiest step.”
Much of the world’s soil is plowed land that is left unproductive, he said, and a huge source of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. A United Nations report in 2022 estimated that over 40 percent of the world’s land is already degraded. Without significant change, an area the size of South America will be added to that amount by 2050, the report said.
Sadhguru argues that the effects of climate change could be “significantly” mitigated in the next 15 years just by revitalizing agricultural soil.
