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The Guardian
6 days ago
- The Guardian
I travelled the globe to document how humans became addicted to faking the natural world. Here's what I found
The Anthropocene is a new term used by scientists to describe our age. While scientific experts argue about the start date, many point to about 200 years ago, when the accelerated effects of human activity on the ecosphere were turbocharged by the Industrial Revolution. Our planet is said to have crossed into a new epoch: from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, the age of the human. The strata of rock being created under our feet today will reveal the impact of human activity long after we are gone. Future geologists will find radioactive isotopes from nuclear-bomb tests, huge concentrations of plastics, the fallout from the burning of fossil fuels and vast deposits of cement used to build our cities. Meanwhile, a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the British Zoological Society shows an average decrease of 73% of wild animal populations on Earth over the past 50 years, as we push creatures and plants to extinction by removing their habitats. Humans have concentrated in cities. We have separated ourselves from the land we once roamed – and from other animals. But somewhere deep within, a desire for contact with nature remains. So, as we destroy the natural world around us, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial experience of nature, a reassuring spectacle, an illusion. Over the past six years I have visited 14 countries across four continents, observing how we humans immerse ourselves in increasingly artificial landscapes. We holiday on synthetic beaches, attend zoos that display living animals in artistically rendered dioramas of their natural habitats, and visit amusement parks that offer a 'jungle experience'. We gaze at aquatic creatures in artificially lit sea-worlds, and at polar bears in Chinese shopping malls, pacing out their existence in glazed enclosures of plastic ice and snow. We ski on artificial slopes in Dubai, while outside the desert temperature is 48C. Tropical Islands holiday resort in Germany is a short train ride from Berlin. Housed in a vast hermetically sealed dome, the resort offers a sandy beach, a 10,000 sq metre indoor rainforest, a waterfall and a mangrove swamp with live turtles, dragonfish, flamingos and macaws. It's so large you can ride in a hot air balloon inside the dome, hovering above the crowds on the synthetic beach below. Walt Disney World in Florida covers more than 39 square miles (100 sq km), making it almost the same size as Paris. Completed in 1971, it is the largest and most visited theme park on the planet. In 2022, more than 47 million people visited Walt Disney World, where total revenue was $28.7bn. Nine million of those people visited Disney's Animal Kingdom. It was here that I visited Disney's version of Africa, where you can observe elephants, rhinos and fake villages (without leaving your electric mobility scooter with built-in cup holder). Experiences on offer include Kilimanjaro Safari and Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail, offering safe views of the world's largest primates, set to music. At the Tusker House restaurant you encounter Donald Duck in a colonial-era safari suit and pith helmet, before setting off on the Wild Africa Trek to see the rhinos. In the numerous theme parks and zoos I visited, I realised a strange thing: in these places, nothing happens. There are no surprises. There may be a wave machine, or a volcano that puffs smoke on the hour, or a rollercoaster offering momentary thrills. But nothing changes, good or bad. Everything repeats itself. Nothing happens unless it's part of the show. Here, nature is made safe – no thorns, biting insects, flooding or unpredictable creatures. This is nature only as spectacle. Even the surviving scraps of nature in the real world are becoming packaged for our consumption. Yosemite national park in California receives more than 4 million visitors a year, almost all of whom arrive by car. I found myself in a long traffic jam of SUVs crawling through the park, engines and air-conditioning running. Occasionally, a window glides open and an arm extends out to take a photo on a smartphone. Ski tourists are becoming more demanding, too. Everybody wants a winter wonderland, despite warming temperatures. According to the European Environment Agency, the length of snow seasons in the northern hemisphere has decreased by five days each decade since the 1970s. In Italy, 87% of ski slopes were kept operational with artificial snow in 2018, the first year I visited. Many ski resorts use artificial snow to extend their seasons, and some now rely almost entirely on artificial snow production. I saw whole hillsides covered with snow guns working through the night. A typical resort I visited in the Italian Dolomites had a five-megawatt power station to run its 250 snow guns. The owner told me: 'We make better snow than the natural stuff. In the past 20 years, the tourists have come to expect perfect-quality champagne snow.' Hotels in Asia offer live penguin encounters in restaurants, while South African lion farms offer tourists the chance to pet lion cubs and walk with tame adult lions. Later these same animals will be sold to visiting trophy hunters who want an effortless experience of hunting in 'the wild'. Even the great previously untamed places are under assault. Just 3% of the world's land now remains ecologically intact, with healthy populations of all its original animals and undisturbed habitat. Charles Darwin controversially recategorised man as just another species – one twig on the grand tree of life. But modern humans are no longer just another species. We are the first to reshape the Earth's ecosystem. We have become the masters of our planet and pivotal to the destiny of life on Earth. But it seems we are not prepared – ethically, emotionally or scientifically – for the enormous side-effects of our new and recklessly wielded power over our planet. In his 1989 book, The End of Nature, the writer Bill McKibben predicted a day when our changed environment would surpass the capacity of our environmental vocabulary. The remade Earth, he argued, would set record after record – hottest, coldest, driest – before people would be forced to seek new ways of describing and understanding events. For a long time, he suggested, confronted with evidence of a changing world, humans would simply refuse to change their minds. Social media and the internet's ceaseless flow of visual stimulation and information have birthed a state of unreality, where we are no longer looking for truth, but only a kind of amazement. Our future as a species depends on urgent new evaluations of humanity's relationship with the natural world. We have divorced ourselves from nature, yet we crave a connection with the very thing that we have turned our back on. In surrounding ourselves with simulated recreations of nature we create unwitting monuments to the very things that we have lost. It will take a paradigm shift in our priorities and empathies to change. But it is on an industrial and political level that change needs to happen. We already have a list of great ideas: protected natural habitats, rewilding, sustainable agricultural practices, ethical treatment of animals, renewable energy, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. We know what can be done. We just need to find leaders and captains of industry who want to do it. The Anthropocene Illusion, by Zed Nelson is published by Guest Editions
Finextra
27-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Why do customers and business leaders diverge on client experience views?
0 This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Customers aren't 'buying' companies' improved customer experience (CX) claims or promises, and company leaders aren't buying the value of spending more to delight the customer. At least not in large percentages on either side of the commerce spectrum, according to a recent global study. When it comes to the leaders of the companies surveyed, responses to another question revealed a fundamental lack of understanding by many of them of the main purpose or definition of customer experience itself - prompting observers to ask: Do most business leaders even know what CX really is? How effectively current and future leaders respond to this question will likely determine how successful and mutually profitable a company - and its client relationships - will be. Not just differences, but pronounced disconnects shown in survey results There were substantial differences in viewpoints regarding client experience perceptions, effectiveness, and the importance (as judged by business leaders) of investing in and providing fulfilling experiences to their customers. These were just a few of the key findings that emerged from a recent survey by cloud consulting, digital engineering, and customer experience design firm Amdocs Studios. The company commissioned the outreach to almost 1,000 business leaders across 14 industries and 2,000 consumers in 14 countries in Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North America to ask them a number of questions. All queries centred more or less around expectations and performance when it comes to client experience as detailed in the survey results, entitled 'CX20 Report: CX Without Illusions' and published a couple of months ago. Of course, this isn't the first such survey or analysis of client experience attitudes, needs, and trends. In addition to, for example, Forrester's annual CX Index and report, a recent Finextra community article by Chris Brown noted just how important focusing on customer experience can be for regulated industries like financial services with constantly changing rules. Especially for 'digital-first' clients from Gen Z age groups and likely those to follow, Brown wrote that 'By modernising CX strategies with the right tools, financial service providers can strike the right balance between meeting complex compliance needs and delivering standout customer journeys.' Digital transformation not really delivering for clients, with most AI tools yet unproven This may be true. The problem is, client surveys don't yet bear out that people using companies' products across many industries – no matter what their generation – truly feel better served by the 'modern' technology and tools that have been introduced. That applies to both financial services companies and organisations in other fields. In fact, many of these studies show that today's digital, online customer experience is perceived to be getting demonstrably worse than it used to be in 'standard' non-electronic interactions and environments. In financial services, early Gen AI applications, notably chatbots used as alternatives to speaking to a human for assistance or guidance, are appreciated by some and exasperate many others. Beyond such first-phase, often limited-scope and reduced-capability implementations of customer-facing AI technology, it's too soon to see how now-emerging Agentic AI solutions will fare in the marketplace. Agents are being tested and actively planned for rollout in many organisations. Their purpose in general is to supplant or aid humans to support many use cases and client interactions, ostensibly to enhance and extend traditional generative AI to enable 'autonomous decision-making, collaboration, and learning to revolutionise financial services.' Gaps across the board, more like chasms between perceptions of same issues As far as the Amdocs CX 20 report goes, it's not just about financial services, and in fact, Nikola Klacar, a senior researcher for the company, confirmed in an interview with Finextra that only around 10% of the company leaders it surveyed for the 2025 report were from the banking and financial services sector. However, given the frequent client interactions required and how prominent financial matters are in nearly everyone's lives, the findings of the survey are nonetheless searingly instructive. Individually and collectively, they raise powerful questions about client experience myth vs. reality - in an ever-evolving financial marketplace and amid ever-increasing customer expectations. The huge variances between group responses are the most fascinating part of the study. The CX20 framework narrowed down 20 gaps between companies and their customers into what they call five core 'experience gap' categories where differences found 'systematically undermine CX' of these relationships. Perceptual: when companies and customers see the experience differently Operational: Internal inefficiencies that negatively impact CX Technological: Innovation that fails to drive real outcomes Communication: Poorly managed touchpoints and messaging misalignment Data: Missed opportunities to leverage insights for CX measurement and improvement. To start with, the survey found that 80% of business leaders believe they're delivering a great customer experience, but only 24% of consumers responding agreed. This is puzzling, because while 92% of companies say CX is a "priority' and 88% say that positive client experience is critical to revenue growth, many of these same companies are clearly 'overlooking critical gaps that drive customers away.' Amdocs claims that this – per a 2024 study by Qualtrics - puts $3.8 trillion in sales at risk. Poor customer experiences, according to the same estimates, directly result in more than a third as much in annual business losses, and 'very poor CX' drives away hundreds of billions worth of customer revenues every year. Companies aren't convinced on how to fix things, even if they say they agree on the why It seems like the obvious solution – if it's judged to be so important to their revenue growth – is for companies to plan and invest to improve client experiences. Yet, astoundingly, of the same leaders asserting how vital a positive client experience is to their organisations' financial (and reputational) success, only 28% of them believe that CX is important to invest in. We asked Klacar for an explanation of why there is a huge disconnect between survey responses on the same topic, and he ventured that it likely reflects a combination of factors that influence the views of company leaders, including real and recent experience. One survey question addressed this issue, with 63% of business leaders admitting 'they aren't realising meaningful outcomes' from digital transformation, while 43% asserted 'the benefits' of such efforts 'don't justify the investment' required. 'I think a lot of digital transformation that they engaged with before hasn't panned out the way they thought it would,' Klacar explained, going on to note that inconsistent or unclear metrics might be the culprit, or simply that 'some executives just haven't been seeing the impact' or return on investment (ROI) expected – or promised - from digital innovation initiatives. There's also the problem of making assumptions, then making decisions based on those misapprehensions that exacerbate the problems of 'misplaced' or poorly designed new programs. 'Sometimes it just comes down to playing catch up, right? Let's say a company had a CX initiative. It didn't pan out. Now [company leaders] say, 'Let's quickly look to patch the problem with something else, and then just layer technology upon technology' or worse, they create siloes across the organisation to manage all the data, in different departments." Klacar said, 'customers might think these are all internal issues, but they do see them,' and if the measures don't deliver as expected for those customers, don't actually help them operate more efficiently, then the battle for a better customer experience is lost. Along with it, perhaps confidence by company leaders that more 'tries' to fix the failings involved would be worthwhile. Misunderstandings of fundamental concepts yield ineffective steps, inaction, unhappy clients A big part of the problem, the survey report asserts, is that 'leaders still don't get' that customer experience is not just 'customer service' as imagined in the past. 30% of business respondents still defined CX that way, and 48% failed to recognise that the true definition of customer experience includes the sum total of 'all brand interactions' clients have with the company. Predictably, businesses continue to make decisions based on incorrect assumptions as well as a limited understanding of the problems or failings their customers are facing with their products, services, and performance. With these telling findings exposed, it shouldn't be a surprise that most efforts to improve customer experience in an increasingly digital-forward world are treading water, at best. That signals an even bigger problem now and continuing into the future for customer retention and revenue growth, because another data point from the survey was that 85% of loyal customers will 'consider switching after repeated bad experiences' and further, that 54% of them may 'disengage' after 'just four or fewer' negative experiences with that company. Companies say AI is 'crucial' to CX success - customers? Not so much Many are now sounding calls and staking claims that new AI tools are the answer to solving the customer experience problem – for banks as well as other industries. Business leaders surveyed concurred: 85% of them agreed with the statement 'AI is crucial to CX success,' and more than two-thirds reported they are already using AI, with 27% planning to adopt AI tools and applications soon to improve their customer experience performance. But the survey findings illuminated yet another major disconnect: consumers aren't buying those lofty predictions or promises. Only 33% of them who responded are 'excited about AI improving their experiences' and 36% are 'indifferent' or not really sold one way or the other. 30% are outright 'concerned' that AI will hurt, rather than help them have a better customer journey. Loyalty, increased revenues reward companies that offer better customer experience What's at stake for those who 'do customer experience' right? One question in the survey asked about the rewards to companies for providing a great customer experience. 50% of respondents said they'd 'switch brands for better CX, even if it costs more,' and 67% and 60%, respectively, said they'd 'spend more' or 'recommend brands' based on positive customer experiences they'd had. On the flip side of this question's results, we wondered, is it true that only between 33% and 50% of customers are really concerned about customer experience – to the extent they'd either switch, spend, or refer others to a provider? Why is this cohort's 'bar' set so low for client experience expectations? Klacar surmised that there were perhaps three key reasons for this. 'First, they may feel they have no other options,' to replace the product or service in question. Second, 'financially, it's a good deal' for them, so they're willing to look the other way and accept less-than-stellar client experience performance to keep those cost advantages in play. The other key factor is not a big surprise in the financial services world, especially. 'It's painful, difficult, and sometimes also costly to change' bank accounts and relationships, Klacar pointed out. If companies think they have ample wiggle room to avoid investing money, time, or people in ratcheting up their customer experience efforts in meaningful ways, they might want to consider another finding from the survey: 80% of business leaders 'think they're delivering great CX' according to their responses, only 24% of customers surveyed agree, and 74% of them expect companies 'to be fully equipped to meet their needs,' yet are failing to do so. 'Satisficing' won't deliver wins, but improving CX, just might Who's going to fix this huge gap between customer experience reality, expectations, and perceptions? Klacar said it comes down to careful planning, continued commitment, and execution. Right now, he asserted, many companies are doing what he called 'satisficing' - or just finding short-term, 'patchwork' solutions that deliver experiences that are 'something between satisfying and satisfactory' to their customers. That won't suffice to bring long-term success to the client experience, nor preserve or grow company revenues. But improvements might start incrementally. 'It comes down to the executives in the company making decisions like 'we're going to eliminate the silos.' Everybody is going to implement these new procedures. It might come down to one department, showing what incremental gains [in customer experience] can really, really do' for the company as well. But ultimately, he concluded, 'It's everybody together, not just a single department or a single person making a choice,' but a company-wide culture change that's required.
Sky News
10-06-2025
- Health
- Sky News
Birth rates are plummeting worldwide - but it's not because people don't want kids anymore
Two in five people over 50 say they have not had as many children as they wanted - with economic issues, health concerns and fears about the state of the world among the main barriers. More than half said financial factors such as affordable housing, childcare options and job security were things that had limited, or would limit, their ability to grow their families. One in four said health issues were holding them back, while a fifth of respondents mentioned fears about global issues including climate change, wars and pandemics. The findings come from a new survey of over 14,000 people by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) - spanning 14 countries on five continents that are home to a third of the world's population. Birth rates have been declining across almost all regions of the world, while life expectancy continues to grow. There are concerns, from politicians and commentators like Elon Musk, that future generations of working age people will find it more difficult to economically support people of pension age as the ratio of workers to pensioners shifts. "Vast numbers of people are unable to create the families they want," said Dr Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UNFPA. "The issue is lack of choice, not desire, with major consequences for individuals and societies. That is the real fertility crisis, and the answer lies in responding to what people say they need: paid family leave, affordable fertility care, and supportive partners." Differences around the world The survey was carried out in four European countries, four in Asia, three across Africa and three from the Americas. The countries were picked to try and represent "a wide variety of countries with different cultural contexts, fertility rates and policy approaches", according to the report's editor Dr Rebecca Zerzan. It includes, for example, the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world - South Korea. It also includes country with a birth rate among the highest in the world, which also happens to be the most populous country in its continent - Nigeria. The others, in order of population size, are India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, South Africa, Italy, Morocco, Sweden and Hungary. In many cases there were significant differences in responses depending on which country people were reporting from. For example in Nigeria, a third of men (although only 21% of women) reported that they wanted to have four or more children. The numbers were similar in South Africa. However in South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Germany and Hungary, no more than 5% agreed. Fertility issues were twice as likely in the US (16% of respondents) as in neighbouring Mexico (8%). In South Korea, three in five respondents reported financial limitations as an obstacle. But in Sweden, where both men and women are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave per child (which can also be transferred to grandparents), fewer than one in five said the same. Birth rates in Sweden are still among the lowest in the world, however. Dr Zerzan told Sky News that this shows that no one factor alone contributes to people feeling empowered to have children at the right time. "A third of people in Sweden say they think raising a child will take up too much time and energy. And a higher number of people there, compared with other countries, are also concerned about climate change and bringing a child in to an uncertain world." Unintended pregnancies vs not as many children as wanted A curious finding from the survey is that, while there has been much discussion around declining fertility rates, almost a third of people said they or their partner had experienced an unintended pregnancy. Globally, as people who become pregnant unintentionally often do so more than once, half of all pregnancies are unintended. In Morocco and South Africa, around half of people had experience of an unintended pregnancy. In the same two countries, more than half of people had experience of being unable to have a child at their preferred time. Overall, one in eight people had experienced both an unintended pregnancy and barriers to a desired child. "Everywhere we look, people are struggling to freely realise their reproductive aspirations," explains the report. People who had more children than they wanted, and people who had fewer, were present in countries with high and low fertility rates. "That indicates that barriers to achieving one's ideal family are ubiquitous." What can be done to help? The report says that the crisis does require political interventions, but warns against policies that often amount to short-term fixes, or those designed to coerce people to either use or not use contraception. "Whether the policies are coercive or not, there are real risks to treating fertility rates as a faucet to be turned on or off. Many of the countries that are today seeking to increase fertility have, within the last 40 years, sought to decrease birth rates. "For example, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and Türkiye all reported in 1986 an intention to lower their national fertility rates through policy interventions, deeming their respective fertility rates at that time as 'too high'. By 2015, however, all five countries had switched to policies designed to boost fertility. "Today all five have total fertility rates below two children per woman."
NHK
10-06-2025
- Health
- NHK
Financial worries main reason for not having ideal number of children: UN survey
A UN survey shows that more than half of people without their ideal number of children cite economic instability as the main reason. The United Nations Population Fund surveyed about 14,000 people in 14 countries from 2023 to 2024 and released the results on Tuesday. The countries include those with low fertility rates such as South Korea and Italy, and others with high rates. Asked what the ideal number of children is, "two" was the most common reply in all the countries. People with fewer children than they consider ideal were asked what factors led to this situation. Fifty-four percent said financial worries, such as job instability or housing conditions. Twenty-four percent said health reasons such as difficulty conceiving, and 19 percent said fears about the future, such as climate change and wars. UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem cited lack of choice as the main issue. She said, "That is the real fertility crisis, and the answer lies in responding to what people say they need: paid family leave, affordable fertility care and supportive partners."
Sky News
10-06-2025
- Health
- Sky News
Global birth rates crisis: People do still want to have children, but many can't - here's why
Two in five people over 50 say they have not had as many children as they wanted - with economic issues, health concerns and fears about the state of the world among the main barriers. More than half said financial factors such as affordable housing, childcare options and job security were things that had limited, or would limit, their ability to grow their families. One in four said health issues were holding them back, while a fifth of respondents mentioned fears about global issues including climate change, wars and pandemics. The findings come from a new survey of over 14,000 people by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) - spanning 14 countries on five continents that are home to a third of the world's population. Birth rates have been declining across almost all regions of the world, while life expectancy continues to grow. There are concerns, from politicians and commentators like Elon Musk, that future generations of working age people will find it more difficult to economically support people of pension age as the ratio of workers to pensioners shifts. "Vast numbers of people are unable to create the families they want," said Dr Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UNFPA. "The issue is lack of choice, not desire, with major consequences for individuals and societies. That is the real fertility crisis, and the answer lies in responding to what people say they need: paid family leave, affordable fertility care, and supportive partners." Differences around the world The survey was carried out in four European countries, four in Asia, three across Africa and three from the Americas. The countries were picked to try and represent "a wide variety of countries with different cultural contexts, fertility rates and policy approaches", according to the report's editor Dr Rebecca Zerzan. It includes, for example, the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world - South Korea. It also includes country with a birth rate among the highest in the world, which also happens to be the most populous country in its continent - Nigeria. The others, in order of population size, are India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, South Africa, Italy, Morocco, Sweden and Hungary. In many cases there were significant differences in responses depending on which country people were reporting from. For example in Nigeria, a third of men (although only 21% of women) reported that they wanted to have four or more children. The numbers were similar in South Africa. However in South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Germany and Hungary, no more than 5% agreed. Fertility issues were twice as likely in the US (16% of respondents) as in neighbouring Mexico (8%). In South Korea, three in five respondents reported financial limitations as an obstacle. But in Sweden, where both men and women are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave per child (which can also be transferred to grandparents), fewer than one in five said the same. How paternity leave in the UK compares to other countries Birth rates in Sweden are still among the lowest in the world, however. Dr Zerzan told Sky News that this shows that no one factor alone contributes to people feeling empowered to have children at the right time. "A third of people in Sweden say they think raising a child will take up too much time and energy. And a higher number of people there, compared with other countries, are also concerned about climate change and bringing a child in to an uncertain world." Unintended pregnancies vs not as many children as wanted A curious finding from the survey is that, while there has been much discussion around declining fertility rates, almost a third of people said they or their partner had experienced an unintended pregnancy. Globally, as people who become pregnant unintentionally often do so more than once, half of all pregnancies are unintended. In Morocco and South Africa, around half of people had experience of an unintended pregnancy. In the same two countries, more than half of people had experience of being unable to have a child at their preferred time. Overall, one in eight people had experienced both an unintended pregnancy and barriers to a desired child. "Everywhere we look, people are struggling to freely realise their reproductive aspirations," explains the report. People who had more children than they wanted, and people who had fewer, were present in countries with high and low fertility rates. "That indicates that barriers to achieving one's ideal family are ubiquitous." What can be done to help? The report says that the crisis does require political interventions, but warns against policies that often amount to short-term fixes, or those designed to coerce people to either use or not use contraception. "Whether the policies are coercive or not, there are real risks to treating fertility rates as a faucet to be turned on or off. Many of the countries that are today seeking to increase fertility have, within the last 40 years, sought to decrease birth rates. "For example, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and Türkiye all reported in 1986 an intention to lower their national fertility rates through policy interventions, deeming their respective fertility rates at that time as 'too high'. By 2015, however, all five countries had switched to policies designed to boost fertility. "Today all five have total fertility rates below two children per woman."
