“Leave enough for everyone.” That’s what my mother used to tell us at dinner. However, the holiday season reminds me that human nature is far from innately moderate in consumption. With Black Friday as a kickoff, consumers will spend more than $600 billion by Christmas in the United States alone. As I witness droves of shoppers running through malls and stores, I wonder if their desire is driven by some insatiable appetite for their favorite products or something more fundamental about human nature.

“Humanity is altering Earth’s life support system. Carbon dioxide emissions are accelerating; greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented in human history,” says a new video summarizing some of the most striking finds of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report. The climate system is changing rapidly, and it is “extremely likely,” the video quotes the IPCC, that humans are the central reason why.

The original version of this article, by Lisa Palmer, appeared on The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media.

Humans, it’s no secret, are versatile and unpredictable in how they use their land. We build mega-cities in deserts, raise crops on flood plains, live along vulnerable coast lines enjoying seas dangerously rising, and burn rain forests to create new pastures.

In 2009, economist Jeffrey Sachs, alongside more than 20 eminent scholars from different fields, highlighted the importance of biodiversity for human well-being in a policy commentary published in Science. They noted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) included a target to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of species loss, and they also noted that it was one of the MDG targets that was most off-track. “Our lack of progress toward the 2010 target,” they said, “could undermine achievement of the MDGs and poverty reduction in the long term.” The 2010 target was missed, and today species are moving toward extinction at an ever faster pace. Last week’s announcement confirming the extinction of Africa’s western black rhino is the latest sad example of this trend.

Last month, two Chinese fishing boats were caught operating illegally in South Korean waters. The incident made local headlines and minor diplomatic waves, but it’s just a drop in the bucket in what has become a troubling trend for China’s foreign water fishing fleets. Over the last decade, there have been more than 4,600 cases of Chinese fishing boats being caught illegally in South Korea’s waters alone, according to the government, and these marine transgressions have not been limited to neighbors.

It is difficult to find a country feeling the negative impacts of climate change more severely than Bangladesh. Name any alarming, seemingly far off effect of a warming world being discussed in the halls of Washington or the summits of Copenhagen, and there is a good chance Bangladesh is experiencing it today. Flooding, drought, sea level rise, mass migration, and crushing poverty are exacerbated by a growing population and rapid urbanization. This perfect storm of climactic and demographic trends presents a looming crisis for Bangladesh, no more so than when it comes to food security.

In the wake of food riots in more than 30 countries in 2008 and the Arab Spring, in which food prices played an instigating role, the relationship between food security and instability demands a closer examination. “There is a lot of data on conflict, and a lot of data on food security, but it’s rarely brought together,” said Emmy Simmons, the author of the latest edition of ECSP Report. [Video Below]

The original version of this article, by Codi Yeager-Kozacek, appeared on Circle of Blue.

Developing countries will account for much of the world’s growth in agricultural production, demand, and trade during the next decade, as production growth in developed countries slows, according to reports from leading food policy organizations. The shift will pose challenges for the quality and abundance of water supplies in regions like South America, Asia, and Africa.