i live in san diego. frequently we read about hurricanes generated in the warm pacific ocean south of us that lay waste to central American and Mexico but never make it this far north. I believe that's because we are protected by the pacific current which is a cold water current running up the coast of California. last year I bought flood insurance in anticipation of el nino half as a joke because the chance of flooding where I live is virtually nil. but that is going to change. the warming of the oceans is going to turn that cold water pacific current warm and when that happens watch out. of course I don't know when that will happed but I am betting that within the next 20 years a hurricane will blow through san diego and that will be a real shocker.
3
Ironic that the Republican symbol, an elephant, is a fast becoming extinct.
Since most of the illegal ivory is being shipped to China, how would they like it if we let loose poachers to hunt Pandas for their pelts to hang on walls or for carpets? We could use the same argument that big game hunters use, "we are hunting to save the animals/environment - we take one Panda for every tusk you buy" or use Japanese reasoning of killing Pandas for "scientific study." As perverse as that is, the Chinese should view the elephant as much of a treasure as their Pandas are.
Half-Earth sounds good, but without containing population growth - "Half-Population"? - a Half-Earth is untenable. Especially with human greed in the mix, where profit trumps all including sustainability.
Get ready for a future where our grand children will be taught that the elephant did not go extinct because of an asteroid but at the hand of man.
Since most of the illegal ivory is being shipped to China, how would they like it if we let loose poachers to hunt Pandas for their pelts to hang on walls or for carpets? We could use the same argument that big game hunters use, "we are hunting to save the animals/environment - we take one Panda for every tusk you buy" or use Japanese reasoning of killing Pandas for "scientific study." As perverse as that is, the Chinese should view the elephant as much of a treasure as their Pandas are.
Half-Earth sounds good, but without containing population growth - "Half-Population"? - a Half-Earth is untenable. Especially with human greed in the mix, where profit trumps all including sustainability.
Get ready for a future where our grand children will be taught that the elephant did not go extinct because of an asteroid but at the hand of man.
8
On a positive note, whatever humans have done over the past 35 years has been very good for the polar bear. Their population has grown from around 7,000 in 1980 to approximately 23,000 today.
6
In my slide presentations on the environmental crisis, I make the case that "we are systematically taking apart our life-support system." There are many campaigns to deal with the most urgent need, climate change, by converting cities or neighborhoods to 100% renewable, stopping their use of fossil fuels. None that I've seen consider the question: "But in the long run, is it really possible to convert the whole U.S. 100% from fossil fuel combustion to energy efficiency and renewable energy?"
I have asked and answered this question in my new posting at Medium.com:
https://medium.com/p/35644816e557 and https://medium.com/p/a0af77db212a
I have asked and answered this question in my new posting at Medium.com:
https://medium.com/p/35644816e557 and https://medium.com/p/a0af77db212a
3
If archeologists made the momentous discovery that a world wide human civilization existed here a billion years ago, but was done in by polluting themselves to death, would that be enough to wake up these greedy selfish deeply ignorant science deniers ?
If any one of them had heart problems or cancer, would they not hope that the science of medicine would cure them?
If anyone of them needed an operation, would they want a qualified surgeon to operate, or would they trust a two bit reality show host to perform the task?
If we suspect the wrong answer to any of those types of questions, say bye bye to our earth. Then, Maybe we will be a lesson to morons of the future to wake up and smell the garbage, and that is our ultimate purpose for existing.
If any one of them had heart problems or cancer, would they not hope that the science of medicine would cure them?
If anyone of them needed an operation, would they want a qualified surgeon to operate, or would they trust a two bit reality show host to perform the task?
If we suspect the wrong answer to any of those types of questions, say bye bye to our earth. Then, Maybe we will be a lesson to morons of the future to wake up and smell the garbage, and that is our ultimate purpose for existing.
7
Thank you, Mr Friedman. You steadfastly speak truthfully to a society fractured by the illusion of connectedness through social media, but one which is increasingly disconnected from the Earth which supports us, and our folly.
20
Friedman would have more credibility and impact if he didn't allegorically refer to goofy Bibiical folklore. It diminishes the severe consequences of humans giddily sticking with the infernal combustion engine and even jet engines.
5
Unfortunately, the human species, Americans especially, won't act, until it's too late. That's been the human way of dealing with big problems since the industrial revolution, and our social lethargy or perhaps social paralysis only gets worse as we propel ourselves into the digital age.
Even though we are globally connected and as aware as we will ever be of the true state of the human society and the global ecological train wreck we've set in motion. Time and time again, unless an issue is smacking us directly in the face, we are loath, ignorant, and thanks to today's state of global Plutocracy, rampant consumerism and the 24/7 news cycle, the reality is that thanks to modern day consumerism we are all mostly powerless to really do anything about it.
Obviously, the Earth's average temperature is increasing, it's a well proven scientific fact, and we have more than enough good unbiased data to prove it. But, rather than discussing what the gradually increasing global temperature really means for all life on earth; mass human migrations, coastal devastation, drought, famine, floods, disease, wars over resources and territory etc., the discussion (argument) is instead focused on what's causing it, not how to mitigate, perhaps forestall or solve the problems that clearly point to a not so bright future for all life on earth.
Even though we are globally connected and as aware as we will ever be of the true state of the human society and the global ecological train wreck we've set in motion. Time and time again, unless an issue is smacking us directly in the face, we are loath, ignorant, and thanks to today's state of global Plutocracy, rampant consumerism and the 24/7 news cycle, the reality is that thanks to modern day consumerism we are all mostly powerless to really do anything about it.
Obviously, the Earth's average temperature is increasing, it's a well proven scientific fact, and we have more than enough good unbiased data to prove it. But, rather than discussing what the gradually increasing global temperature really means for all life on earth; mass human migrations, coastal devastation, drought, famine, floods, disease, wars over resources and territory etc., the discussion (argument) is instead focused on what's causing it, not how to mitigate, perhaps forestall or solve the problems that clearly point to a not so bright future for all life on earth.
1
Quoting Friedman in an otherwise excellent essay:
"This is no time to be electing a climate-change denier like Donald Trump for president."
Actually, though, it is liberals who are in denial, regarding the impact of population growth on the world's environment, including global warming as one of the effects.
We have known about population growth at least since 1968-72, when Paul Ehrlich published his book, "the Population Bomb," and the Club of Rome published "the Limits to Growth."
The message was that population growth would ultimately cause not just destruction of the environment (and the extinction of elephants) but also declining quality of life for humans due to running out of resources.
Yet quasi-intellectuals put forth theories that sounded appealing. No need to worry. Ehrlich is a "nut case." The world is huge. All its people could fit into Texas. And so forth.
Thus NO ACTION was taken.
And truth be told, it was mainly people in the third world who suffered at first. Intermittent hunger in places like Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa.
And religious groups maintained that birth control was sinful and abortion murder, so that population in many of the poorest countries doubled, then doubled again.
Now we see illegal immigrants crying for entry into the US, refugees from Syria destabilizing Europe.
Yet there is NEVER any discussion of the impact of population growth. Particularly by liberals who deny the impact of illegal immigration on jobs.
"This is no time to be electing a climate-change denier like Donald Trump for president."
Actually, though, it is liberals who are in denial, regarding the impact of population growth on the world's environment, including global warming as one of the effects.
We have known about population growth at least since 1968-72, when Paul Ehrlich published his book, "the Population Bomb," and the Club of Rome published "the Limits to Growth."
The message was that population growth would ultimately cause not just destruction of the environment (and the extinction of elephants) but also declining quality of life for humans due to running out of resources.
Yet quasi-intellectuals put forth theories that sounded appealing. No need to worry. Ehrlich is a "nut case." The world is huge. All its people could fit into Texas. And so forth.
Thus NO ACTION was taken.
And truth be told, it was mainly people in the third world who suffered at first. Intermittent hunger in places like Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa.
And religious groups maintained that birth control was sinful and abortion murder, so that population in many of the poorest countries doubled, then doubled again.
Now we see illegal immigrants crying for entry into the US, refugees from Syria destabilizing Europe.
Yet there is NEVER any discussion of the impact of population growth. Particularly by liberals who deny the impact of illegal immigration on jobs.
9
You mentioned nothing about population explosion, which is the main cause of our problems. Unless human start curbing their numbers, which I doubt, since it's so good for capitalism, the planet will eat itself.
13
George Orwell imagined it best in "1984:"
When we get take away the language to identify and define something. We make it much harder for the element deleted from language to be identified, explored, and owned by mankind.
The editors of a dictionary should understand this better than anyone!
There are things in this article that should make grown men weep the world over. How else will children learn of nature, let alone learn to cherish and respect it? Hasn't Mother Nature received insult enough at the hands of mankind? Do we want to define her out of existence too?!
This makes me want to crawl back in bed and just call it a day...
When we get take away the language to identify and define something. We make it much harder for the element deleted from language to be identified, explored, and owned by mankind.
The editors of a dictionary should understand this better than anyone!
There are things in this article that should make grown men weep the world over. How else will children learn of nature, let alone learn to cherish and respect it? Hasn't Mother Nature received insult enough at the hands of mankind? Do we want to define her out of existence too?!
This makes me want to crawl back in bed and just call it a day...
6
Economy and Environment are clearly out of sync. The economy, which favors gluttony, hoarding of wealth and resources, ever larger populations and endless growth is completely incompatible with an environment that is force to obey the laws of nature. On our current path, there is no doubt that we will destroy our only home.
12
Mr. Friedman:
i trust that your re-awakening will sustain a concerted effort to beat this new-drum loudly and continuously...you do have the Con, sir - - - so please use it.
here,
our local Natural and Cultural History Museum has recently devoted a wing to the Sixth Mass Extinction:
this is the one that is occurring right now,
principally the result of the leading present predator:
h.sapiens.
this self-chosen-selected-demanded reality is mind boggling, heart rending, and soul devastating.
is 'this' the best that we can do?
that an international conversation, reassessment, and new-commitments be firmly established and supported might be a fragile start toward a more cohesive and sustaining future.
as other commenters have already noted:
e v e r y t h i n g e l s e p a l e s
5
So pessimistic. There are a lot of environmental measures which have improved, you know. If Trump said the things Mr. Friedman does, Dems would say he was "dark"; that he was describing a dystopia that didn't exist (like black poverty in the inner cities).
2
I'm all for setting aside half of Earth strictly for other species. But it would be nice to see some discussion of reducing the world's population as well, instead of being reconciled to the addition of another 2,500,000,000--which was the entire population of Earth during the Eisenhower Administration--which would bring world population to 10,000,000,000.
In '11 I attended a symposium on feeding the world in 2050 at the annual meetin gofthe American Association for the Advancement of Science. the three speakers painted a fairly optimistic picture: if the world did everything right--such as increasing yields in Africa, where there is plenty of room for improvement, rather than in Western countries, where there is not--we could actually feed the 10 billion.
In the Q&A, I asked one of the speakers what global warming would do to this outlook. All of a sudden, his face darkened, as if a big dark cloud had descended. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't have an answer."
In '11 I attended a symposium on feeding the world in 2050 at the annual meetin gofthe American Association for the Advancement of Science. the three speakers painted a fairly optimistic picture: if the world did everything right--such as increasing yields in Africa, where there is plenty of room for improvement, rather than in Western countries, where there is not--we could actually feed the 10 billion.
In the Q&A, I asked one of the speakers what global warming would do to this outlook. All of a sudden, his face darkened, as if a big dark cloud had descended. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't have an answer."
12
Edward Abbey said it best: "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
23
I support Ed Wilson's work and plan and appreciate your intelligent work at the NYT. Your column underscores why Americans should run away from Trump and the GOP's ignorance on global warming and ocean acidification.
I invite your reader's attention to Silent Earth by James Powell. In this latest book by Powell, he proposes a practical solution to climate change, when coupled with Dr. Wilson's plan, can save our species from its own extinction.
I invite your reader's attention to Silent Earth by James Powell. In this latest book by Powell, he proposes a practical solution to climate change, when coupled with Dr. Wilson's plan, can save our species from its own extinction.
6
Overpopulation.
Excess humanity.
Too many people.
Deluge of Homo sapiens.
Swarms of the "smart" primate.
Thought I'd mention this several ways, and break the apparent taboo.
Humans breeding to the level of causing extinction of other species is wrong. Unfortunately, most cultures are trying to defeat their numerous enemies by out-populating them.
Excess humanity.
Too many people.
Deluge of Homo sapiens.
Swarms of the "smart" primate.
Thought I'd mention this several ways, and break the apparent taboo.
Humans breeding to the level of causing extinction of other species is wrong. Unfortunately, most cultures are trying to defeat their numerous enemies by out-populating them.
23
There is enough wealth, currently being horded by the 1%, to insure every man, woman, and child on earth against poverty and dire circumstances.
There is enough technology available to turn the tide on the destruction of our planet. It would be expensive, but it would be doable. Sacrifices would have to be made.
We can either have a sustainable habitat or we can have Walmarts. We cannot have both.
It would be an unthinkable paradox if this generation is the last generation on the planet to enjoy our primacy on the planet while we send a primate from an ancient age to reside in the White House.
Goodnight and Good Luck.
There is enough technology available to turn the tide on the destruction of our planet. It would be expensive, but it would be doable. Sacrifices would have to be made.
We can either have a sustainable habitat or we can have Walmarts. We cannot have both.
It would be an unthinkable paradox if this generation is the last generation on the planet to enjoy our primacy on the planet while we send a primate from an ancient age to reside in the White House.
Goodnight and Good Luck.
12
As the award winning documentary series of conservation international ,Nature is Speaking stated so eloquently ".nature doesn't need people, people need nature." This is part of a series nature is speaking.org. voiced over by Julia Roberts Harrison Ford Kevin spacey edward Norton lupita nyongo Penelope Cruz Robert Redford Joan chen Liam Neeson. Watch and weep for what we are losing
5
Someone please explain to me why it was necessary to drop ANY words simply because new ones have entered our lexicon? Is there some limit to be imposed on how much diverse information a child can be allowed access to?. . . a shortage of dictionary pages?
Did some genius determine that a 7-yr old cannot grasp many concepts and that they have to be channeled into "relevant" categories, and determined by whom?
Is there no limit to the stupidity that finds its way into our educational system, even by presumed stalwarts like Oxford English Dictionary?
Did some genius determine that a 7-yr old cannot grasp many concepts and that they have to be channeled into "relevant" categories, and determined by whom?
Is there no limit to the stupidity that finds its way into our educational system, even by presumed stalwarts like Oxford English Dictionary?
9
The most environmentally destructive action that anyone can take now is to procreate. Every added person, no matter how environmentally conscious he or she may be, contributes to the devastation that seven billion people are wreaking on an over-burdened planet. If there were only seventy million of us (one percent of the current population), our species would survive and so would many other species that are now doomed.
17
So ,who's saving all these Noah's?
1
We are all Noah now? When we have finally sucked all the life out of our planet, a few of us Noahs -- a very, very few -- will sail their arks to the new Mt Ararats -- the moon and Mars and beyond. Thus is the curve of evolution.
....great, very important essay! This is the real threat to humanity -us! ISIL gets all the attention while we are slowly - but faster every year - killing the vital ecosystem on our little, life-sustaining planetary spaceship.... Perhaps our besotted species really is just too ignorant & selfish to survive....?
.... & whatever happened to population control? Why (in heaven's name!) have we forgotten how to slow the number one threat to our survival on this beautiful planet we all share?
.... & whatever happened to population control? Why (in heaven's name!) have we forgotten how to slow the number one threat to our survival on this beautiful planet we all share?
3
Beautifully said, is anyone listening? Back around 1950 the critic Russell Lynes lamented that "the paper plate is the symbol of our age." The symbol of OUR age might be said to be "the disposable planet."
3
The USA and China spew out 40% of the carbon that is provoking the green house affect in our atmosphere - the greatest danger to all living things on our planet. Meanwhile, the "leaders" of the USA won't budge an inch to guarantee a universal right to healthcare to their own citizens. China provides gas masks to their citizenry to deal with the unbreathable air in their capital city. I just read (again) that an estimated that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours - nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate and, say many biologists, is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago. I thought that my generation (boomer) was motivated to do something since the first Earth Day in 1970. No. Instead, the capitalists continue their march to control their "strategic" hegemony for carbon based energy sources (oil, "fracked" gas & "clean coal"), even if that means killing millions (never ending conflicts in the Middle East & Africa, leaving toxic dumps in the former industrialized Great Lakes region and Appalachia, exporting their toxic waste to Asia). Sorry, I don't expect much of anything positive to happen (let alone Wilson's plan) when the USA is contemplating Trump vs. Clinton and we in France/Europe are considering putting xenophobic right wingers in charge. Naïveté, Mr. Friedman, is thinking that anything will change when so few people in the world control so much.
3
In you last column you talked about getting policies that could "propel" our (money) economy. Now you write about the depressing state of our planetary natural economy. The former comes at the expense of the latter. If we cannot find a balance, we are doomed.
2
I point to the 'Ivy League' universities training MBA's in the practice of selfism and greed which underpins capitalism. We must change the paradigm to emphasize collectivism and responsibility before anything will change.
12
Articles about climate change that do not mention human population as a main driver are patently invalid. Conversely to the extent that a more nasty weather environment and more dangerous coastline puts the clampdown on spreading and development of the human race, it is good for other species.
4
How do we protect "safe zones" on land from the polluted air and water around them? How do we protect safe zones at sea from the currents carrying mercury and plastic (and much else)?
1
The publicans have long denied environmental problems. ronnie's interior secretary said ozone depletion was no problem-people could wear hats or stay indoors. Maters have gotten a lot worse. They are determined to ruin the planet. shrub2 flipped from promising regulations to combat global warming to denying there was a problem.
2
Ok, you have sufficiently reawakened my fear. But please give your readership an action they can take to respond to this crisis.
3
Birth control resulting in global population decline is the only solution. We already have too many people now and if we continue at current growth rates, the next generations will not have a planet that can sustain life as we know it. Climate change is already happening. Mass starvation and lack of water is already happening. Oceans are being overfished.
Political and religious leaders will need to popularize birth control in all countries now to get a handle on this crisis. I doubt most religious leaders will do this however and politicians are loathe to even talk about this so I am doubtful anything will be done before it is too late.
Nations will eventually be forced to have mandatory limits on family size- hopefully better planned and executed than China did it which resulted in an imbalance between males and females and forced abortions which is abhorrent. But China had the right idea of small family size and they at least recognized they had a huge problem. It is too bad they had to resort to draconian measures and they have softened it not to 2 kids per couple- but they understood that population control was critical for them.
Decrease in global population needs to happen now but most likely won't for a variety of reasons. But, it will happen eventually- and when it finally does, it won't be pretty. Better to do it now while you still have control of how it happens- but we never do anything the smart way.
Political and religious leaders will need to popularize birth control in all countries now to get a handle on this crisis. I doubt most religious leaders will do this however and politicians are loathe to even talk about this so I am doubtful anything will be done before it is too late.
Nations will eventually be forced to have mandatory limits on family size- hopefully better planned and executed than China did it which resulted in an imbalance between males and females and forced abortions which is abhorrent. But China had the right idea of small family size and they at least recognized they had a huge problem. It is too bad they had to resort to draconian measures and they have softened it not to 2 kids per couple- but they understood that population control was critical for them.
Decrease in global population needs to happen now but most likely won't for a variety of reasons. But, it will happen eventually- and when it finally does, it won't be pretty. Better to do it now while you still have control of how it happens- but we never do anything the smart way.
7
The goal of biological DNA genetic evolutionary naturally fit success is to leave the most best adapted offspring over time. Chronological ecological isolation is the cold reality battlefield that determines the winners and losers in the race for life. But for the fact that 99.9999+% of all living things have become extinct there would be no room on the ark aka Planet Earth.
Extinction, like death, is inevitable and necessary. Noah and his Ark were supernatural human fable born of the hubris that placed humanity and Earth at the center of a vast natural universe. We are not Noah nor Noah's god. We are animal vertebrate mammalian primate apes who appeared 250,000 years ago in East Africa.
Extinction, like death, is inevitable and necessary. Noah and his Ark were supernatural human fable born of the hubris that placed humanity and Earth at the center of a vast natural universe. We are not Noah nor Noah's god. We are animal vertebrate mammalian primate apes who appeared 250,000 years ago in East Africa.
3
Curious.
If the Oxford Junior Dictionary is aimed at 7 year olds, why drop "acorn", "dandelion", "fern", "nectar", "otter", "pasture" & "willow", which they may NOT know, in favor of "broadband", "blog", "cut-and-paste", "MP3 player", & "voice-mail", which in 2016, they most certainly DO know.
Sylvia Earle & E. O. Wilson are prescient which is not surprising for people with 7 to 8 decades of experience living in this world of ours & being able to see the forest for the trees.
If the Oxford Junior Dictionary is aimed at 7 year olds, why drop "acorn", "dandelion", "fern", "nectar", "otter", "pasture" & "willow", which they may NOT know, in favor of "broadband", "blog", "cut-and-paste", "MP3 player", & "voice-mail", which in 2016, they most certainly DO know.
Sylvia Earle & E. O. Wilson are prescient which is not surprising for people with 7 to 8 decades of experience living in this world of ours & being able to see the forest for the trees.
2
Last week the NYT did a piece on "Rolling Coal". This is an activity where people dismantle the emission controls of their vehicles in order to belch black smoke at walkers, joggers, cyclists, hybrid cars and others who appear to be concerned about the environment. This is but another example of the black heart of homo sapiens. We are a cruel and foolish group of primates unable or unwilling to do the hard work it takes to be responsible planetary citizens. Greed, fear and stupidity are just too much for us to overcome and we will pay the price.
20
This is one of Tom Friedman's best columns in recent memory. It seems to focus on the Half-Earth solution, and I fault it for not daring to use the O word, as in, the biggest problem facing the earth is Overpopulation. I continue to recommend people read Dan Brown's page turning novel "Inferno," because I like his discussion, that we need to reduce the earth's population approaching 8 billion, by 4 billion, and not allow it to increase 13 or 15 billion. The path we are in will cause our extinction, if it hasn't already. James Lovelock thinks it is too late. Justin Gillis just wrote in the NYT sunday 9/4/16 that now many climatologist think a 15-20 increase in sea level is already inevitable.
50
Now that elephants are on the protected list and pandas are off the Trump boys will have to adjust their schedules for hunting season.
8
For a long time human being were undoubtedly oblivious to the harm that we have done and continue to do to the earth. However, the reality of climate change has forced us to either address the truth of our folly or live in denial as we (not so slowly) continue to destroy the delicate balance of nature we depend on to survive.
I am fortunate enough to have green space in the concrete jungle that is NYC. This is my third year of growing a summer garden. Nothing extreme, just some cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, peppers, and flowers. This has been the worst crop yet. Between the harshness of the heat and the low rainfall, my poor plants have struggled. Last year I had so many cucumbers and tomatoes I was literally giving them away to anyone who came to our door. Some cukes got so big they looked like giant squash. Now, I barely have enough for my own family. My cukes are tiny and shriveled and struggling to grow and my tomatoes are not much better. My neighbor's cukes have all died over the past few weeks. His fig tree has only started to bear fruit and the summer is almost done (he normally gets two crops of figs per season), and his peas did not make it. And he is retired and works tirelessly on his garden.
Look around people. You don't need scientists and celebrities to tell you about the ills of global warming. We are living through it.
I am fortunate enough to have green space in the concrete jungle that is NYC. This is my third year of growing a summer garden. Nothing extreme, just some cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, peppers, and flowers. This has been the worst crop yet. Between the harshness of the heat and the low rainfall, my poor plants have struggled. Last year I had so many cucumbers and tomatoes I was literally giving them away to anyone who came to our door. Some cukes got so big they looked like giant squash. Now, I barely have enough for my own family. My cukes are tiny and shriveled and struggling to grow and my tomatoes are not much better. My neighbor's cukes have all died over the past few weeks. His fig tree has only started to bear fruit and the summer is almost done (he normally gets two crops of figs per season), and his peas did not make it. And he is retired and works tirelessly on his garden.
Look around people. You don't need scientists and celebrities to tell you about the ills of global warming. We are living through it.
3
I cringe each time I see balloons released into the heavens to celebrate a
life or occasion. It is already established and talked about how birds choke to death on these fragments of rubber, yet people still do it. Pitiful.
life or occasion. It is already established and talked about how birds choke to death on these fragments of rubber, yet people still do it. Pitiful.
7
No sane person would treat their own backyard like we treat this beautiful, mysterious, wonderful planet. It is the only known place that sustains life of any kind and it is disgusting what we do to it. The spectacular oceans are becoming open sewers. What are we doing? What is wrong with us as a species?
Everything is wrapped in plastic. We don't have enough sense to drink water out of a faucet in a glass anymore. We put it in toxic plastic bottles and then ultimately throw the plastic junk into the sea. We are sick. We are immoral. We have no right to do this damage for "convenience". Corporations have no right to create this mess for profit.
And killing elephants? One has to be truly deranged to engage in that sort of horrific activity. Elephants have close family ties. They grieve their dead. They visit each other's "graves". If you can kill an elephant, you are capable of just about any evil.
Everything is wrapped in plastic. We don't have enough sense to drink water out of a faucet in a glass anymore. We put it in toxic plastic bottles and then ultimately throw the plastic junk into the sea. We are sick. We are immoral. We have no right to do this damage for "convenience". Corporations have no right to create this mess for profit.
And killing elephants? One has to be truly deranged to engage in that sort of horrific activity. Elephants have close family ties. They grieve their dead. They visit each other's "graves". If you can kill an elephant, you are capable of just about any evil.
14
Good point. With all their flaws the one thing that matters most between the two candidates is that one is a climate change denier. That alone should carry a lot of weight.
13
And a 1 percent that blocks any movement to save the planet by buying politicians.
7
Thank You a thousand times for this beautifully written column, you've said truths everyone needs to hear and heed. I applaud you and the I.U.C.N. and all people working or supporting protection and conservation our earthly heritage (including the native american protectors rallying against the oil pipeline in North Dakota).
Then I read "Rolling Coal at the Fair" or find the latest bad news from Fukushima and try not to despair at the future we're bequeathing the grandkids.
Wish you were a full-time environmental writer (there is no post environment economy). The environment needs all hands on board...
Then I read "Rolling Coal at the Fair" or find the latest bad news from Fukushima and try not to despair at the future we're bequeathing the grandkids.
Wish you were a full-time environmental writer (there is no post environment economy). The environment needs all hands on board...
6
Never mind the sixtees I'm like Medvedev I grew up in the seventees I know what you're talking about for crying out loud I bought my first car a ford escort 1,3 liter made in Britain after working two summer month at the docks at the iron works comming out of the army got my steelinforced shoes for free when the world was heading towards a new iceage.
There is an underground mall at the Columbus Circle subway station in New York City. It was completed this summer; a long passageway connecting exits that now has 39 shops. With few exceptions they sell coffee and sugar snacks. There is not a single newspaper, magazine or book shop.
The Barnes and Noble, a few blocks away at Lincoln Center (also NYC), closed a couple of years ago and was replaced by a Century 21 (a cheap clothing retailer.)
I am well aware that reading has become digitized. I strongly suspect that what is being read is updates on the Kardashians and Angry Birds.
The Barnes and Noble, a few blocks away at Lincoln Center (also NYC), closed a couple of years ago and was replaced by a Century 21 (a cheap clothing retailer.)
I am well aware that reading has become digitized. I strongly suspect that what is being read is updates on the Kardashians and Angry Birds.
5
Who can blame the Oxford editors for dumping Amazon words for Amazon.com ones?
You can.
We can.
Everyone should.
"Our natural world is rapidly disappearing. Just how fast was the major topic here last week at the global conference held every four years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature."
You can.
We can.
Everyone should.
"Our natural world is rapidly disappearing. Just how fast was the major topic here last week at the global conference held every four years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature."
3
I wish someone would remove African elephants from their present vulnerable situation, and take them to a safe place, where poachers can't get them. That is a cause to which I would contribute. At least, cut off all their tusks. ALL.
1
It shouldnt' be difficult to keep track of 500 animals.
1
There is no longer anything to dispute. We two-legged creatures are committing Suicide, and we're selfishly taking the rest of our Planet with us.
Deniers are not ignorant (they don't know) but stupid (they don't want to know), and they celebrate their stupidity hourly by re-tweeting "The-Donald's" outlandish, divorced from reality, screeching's on what we are doing to US.
Pessimist here, but keeping plugging at me, Mr. Friedman; I always enjoy being annoyed by you.
(The idiot to my left, whose IPhone kept chirping minute by minute, has finally left. I hope they will be happy together ... but not around me.)
Deniers are not ignorant (they don't know) but stupid (they don't want to know), and they celebrate their stupidity hourly by re-tweeting "The-Donald's" outlandish, divorced from reality, screeching's on what we are doing to US.
Pessimist here, but keeping plugging at me, Mr. Friedman; I always enjoy being annoyed by you.
(The idiot to my left, whose IPhone kept chirping minute by minute, has finally left. I hope they will be happy together ... but not around me.)
2
The earth abides and both our past existence here, as well as our continued future existence are but a small piece of a vast continuum. Our egoic depredations too, will succumb in due course. Will it occur in time to reverse the trend(s), or maybe just achieve a new, less habitable normal? I hope so, but I think it will take either spiritual transformation, or perhaps one of Plato's "Philosopher Kings". As the Bard said; "we but teach bloody instructions, which being taught return, to plague the inventor."
17
Nature and the Earth will persist no matter what, at least until the Sun enters its red giant phase. Mass extinction including homo sapien very likely.
3
..".from which Mother Nature will not be able to recover."
Mother nature will do just fine, being the species agnostic that she is. She will just go on without sapiens, elephants, and the millions of other creatures we eliminate in our time as we eventually create this epoch's great extinction.
Mother nature will do just fine, being the species agnostic that she is. She will just go on without sapiens, elephants, and the millions of other creatures we eliminate in our time as we eventually create this epoch's great extinction.
3
Nature literally saved my life from a very chaotic, dysfunctional household growing up in the '50's. Getting out of the house alone was very important to me and I knew every tree, bush and rock in my neighborhood. My grandparents had a farm that was a respite, being out in the fields with the sheep, gathering eggs, feeding the chickens. I would not be alive at nearly 65 without that. My daughter, now 30 used to roam an old farm apple orchard and woods right behind our house. Now there are three very large student housing developments that have taken it all. There was so much milkweed! So many butterflies! I have to stop, as I'm crying when I think about it. I'm so grateful she got to experience that 'wildness' away from parents, time alone in nature.
I was truly shocked about the dictionary, having not heard that before. That kind of says it all, doesn't it?
I feel so sorry for the young children of today, sitting in front of screens. And knowing what kind of world we are leaving them.
I was truly shocked about the dictionary, having not heard that before. That kind of says it all, doesn't it?
I feel so sorry for the young children of today, sitting in front of screens. And knowing what kind of world we are leaving them.
5
If Trump is elected, on Day 2 of his presidency, Day 1 being consumed with building the wall and deporting immigrants, he will rescind all of President Obama's climate initiatives. Can't wait for Day 3.
1
What would be meaningful would be for the New York Times to bring its phony section called The Environment out of the closet where it is hidden behind the also dimly lit Science heading and become a leader in reporting on our natural world that we are destroying rapidly. Is it any wonder that most the population have no clue regarding the condition of our natural world?
That the people who run this paper are so incredibly short sighted that along with all the other journalistic failures they relegate the condition of our environment to the back pages is a failing of judgement so profound as to be astonishing. It strikes me that the Times is bound and determined to turn this into the most mediocre news platform in the world. Its management, editors, reporters, and opinion writers are or will soon be lost in a wilderness of meaninglessness. Trapped forever in their own personal nightmarish terminally redundant echo chamber.
The so-called section on the environment, Revkin's hobby column's meanderings, and the occasional other column or human interest feature do not add up to responsible journalism. What it is, is disgusting and shameful.
That the people who run this paper are so incredibly short sighted that along with all the other journalistic failures they relegate the condition of our environment to the back pages is a failing of judgement so profound as to be astonishing. It strikes me that the Times is bound and determined to turn this into the most mediocre news platform in the world. Its management, editors, reporters, and opinion writers are or will soon be lost in a wilderness of meaninglessness. Trapped forever in their own personal nightmarish terminally redundant echo chamber.
The so-called section on the environment, Revkin's hobby column's meanderings, and the occasional other column or human interest feature do not add up to responsible journalism. What it is, is disgusting and shameful.
8
There are a few people in this part of Maine who come close to living in balance. What impresses me is how difficult that is. Not proposing grand solutions, not pretending that it's a game, but really. None of them lives in a tent and hunt buffalo (one actually uses a crossbow). But being energy efficient, driving an efficient car as little as posible, growing food, heating with wood, solar, heat pumps; some spinning wool. All reading and connected to the internet for crucial information. It would help if you found a couple of these people and spent a few days living their life.
Pogo as usual, was right.
Pogo as usual, was right.
29
When I was a child in the city flies bees and butterflies grasshoppers and ladybugs were common. Today they are uncommon even in the country.. one suspects this observation is as relevant as the loss of gorillas and elephants.
6
Our destruction of the earth is a large-scale version of a suicide bomber blowing up a cafe. Only it's a creeping suicide, not a big bang that gets three days of news. To the climate change naysayers: even if science and the facts are wrong, we can't afford to take the chance. It isn't a political issue; it's doing the smart thing to protect our world.
5
Of course we have global warming. The existence of this phenomenon is not the issue. The question is, what portion is caused by human activities and what part by nature itself? Also relevant is the question, what can we do to mitigate the effects of the warming?
Neither of the two questions is anywhere close to answered.
Neither of the two questions is anywhere close to answered.
1
All of this suggests that, perversely, there is a bright side to the devastation of war, disease, famine, abortion, natural disasters and other activities that serve to reduce -- drastically -- the human population. The idea, of course, is to be one of the survivors, but clearly somebody -- somebody --has got to be shoved overboard for the good of the planet. None of us, of course.
1
Has anyone ever pointed out the parallel between a cancer tumor and human beings? Just as a cancer tumor appropriates the resources of the body for its own selfish growth and finally ends up killing the host body, so too are human beings like a cancer on the body of Mother Earth. We are appropriating all its resources for our own ends and doing nothing to sustain the earth. There are only 3 possible endings to this story:
1. We reform ourselves and figure out a way to live in harmony with nature and start to repair the damage that we have caused OR
2. We are overcome with Biblical pestilences and threats (comets, asteroids, super volcanoes, etc.) and our civilization comes to an end while Planet earth recovers OR
3. We destroy the planet without hope of repair and not only destroy ourselves in the bargain but destroy earth as a livable habitat for any other species
At present, it looks to me that all 3 outcomes are equally likely. It is up to this generation to tilt the scales in favor of Option 1
1. We reform ourselves and figure out a way to live in harmony with nature and start to repair the damage that we have caused OR
2. We are overcome with Biblical pestilences and threats (comets, asteroids, super volcanoes, etc.) and our civilization comes to an end while Planet earth recovers OR
3. We destroy the planet without hope of repair and not only destroy ourselves in the bargain but destroy earth as a livable habitat for any other species
At present, it looks to me that all 3 outcomes are equally likely. It is up to this generation to tilt the scales in favor of Option 1
1
There's one elephant that is not endangered. It's the kind that's right there in the living room but no one talks about it.
We have got to reduce our population. We're overfilling the place with ourselves and our stuff.
Some groups are doing just that, but this creates another set of problems. First, their economies will suffer because they can't expand, and given our current models, the economy must expand or slip into depression. Second, neighboring groups who do not reduce their populations will take over, so that the grandchildren of those who reduce will be a minority in their own land.
Then there's our footprint. In the modern world, we throw away far too much stuff, especially outdated tech and plastic. The ROHS standards might mitigate the tech, but the plastic is ubiquitous. Everything I buy is wrapped in plastic. After we open it, we tend to wrap it in plastic bags. We have got to get back to using re-usable containers, and make use-once containers out of something that degrades gracefully.
That's not an elephant in the living room, it's two elephants in the living room. That type of elephant is not endangered at all.
We have got to reduce our population. We're overfilling the place with ourselves and our stuff.
Some groups are doing just that, but this creates another set of problems. First, their economies will suffer because they can't expand, and given our current models, the economy must expand or slip into depression. Second, neighboring groups who do not reduce their populations will take over, so that the grandchildren of those who reduce will be a minority in their own land.
Then there's our footprint. In the modern world, we throw away far too much stuff, especially outdated tech and plastic. The ROHS standards might mitigate the tech, but the plastic is ubiquitous. Everything I buy is wrapped in plastic. After we open it, we tend to wrap it in plastic bags. We have got to get back to using re-usable containers, and make use-once containers out of something that degrades gracefully.
That's not an elephant in the living room, it's two elephants in the living room. That type of elephant is not endangered at all.
62
To write about the dramatic decline of biodiversity without mentioning our own species' numbers is truly irresponsible. The word overpopulation has become verboten. The problem is not poaching or climate change. It is habitat loss caused by our own species's numbers being very unbalanced. 99% of humans do not benefit because there are more of us, but the 1%, their media and politicians, do. And eternal growth of humans is the lifeblood of the 1%. This is a hard truth for humans, and inconvenient because our excess numbers fuel climate change, extinctions and depletions of resources. Of course climate change and poaching have an impact, but they are fueled by our numbers. Their predictions were off and so were demonized, but Malthus and Ehrlich were correct. One billion humans, by one child incentives, would provide the space and healthy habitats for all species of plants and animals including our own (and 1/7the CO2) That's if we can see the animal that we are in our mirrors, not the gods we see now.
2
Yes, given the political will, we can protect the land, one small or not so small parcel at a time. But how can we truly protect any percentage of the world's oceans unless we protect it all? The oceans are fluid by nature and fluid dynamically. Protect a portion of it and the dumping and polluting in an unprotected portion will have a negative impact on the protected portion. The same goes for our atmosphere. This strategy, while noble in intent, still falls short in the long run
1
The protected zone sounds good, even exciting. But which people and nations will be willing to make the sacrifices to establish it? On something as small as wind turbines off the Mass. coast, even environmentalists find 50 reasons to reject it (including R. Kennedy Jr.), the obvious and true objection being that it mars the ocean view for the fortunate few that can afford one. On Malibu, the guitarist for U2 is fighting to build a mansion (a "green" one, of course) on raw land that residents want preserved. And, of course, everyone wants their iphones, ipads, imacs and the like, made from lithium, plastic and poisonous metals; Apple introduces the iPhone7 today and everyone has bated breath.
If even wealthy advocates for protecting the globe won't deny themselves the good life that impinges on the environment, how can we expect 3rd world nations and people to deny themselves the industrial activity necessary to climb out of wretched poverty? Indeed, for decades the argument and pleading has been that the polluters have gotten rich but only now have found a conscience the service of which is to be paid for by the poor.
Yes, the large protected zone is a great idea and might solve the problem. What part of the good life is Friedman and the other participants in the conference willing to forgo?
If even wealthy advocates for protecting the globe won't deny themselves the good life that impinges on the environment, how can we expect 3rd world nations and people to deny themselves the industrial activity necessary to climb out of wretched poverty? Indeed, for decades the argument and pleading has been that the polluters have gotten rich but only now have found a conscience the service of which is to be paid for by the poor.
Yes, the large protected zone is a great idea and might solve the problem. What part of the good life is Friedman and the other participants in the conference willing to forgo?
3
Brilliant piece "We Are All Noah Now". Dr. Friedman. Attention must be paid before it's too late. Yes, our natural world is disappearing. Mother Nature will not replenish our planet with water, coral and elephants. And the International Union for Conservation of Nature decries our destroying our planetary boundaries - forests, oceans, ice melt, species extinctions, temperatures. Alas, sustainability is just a buzzword these days. E. O. Wilson, at sustainability conference by East-West Center, averred that "the world as we know it will unravel". NOAA reported that July, 2016 was the hottest month on record due to global warming. We, the global people, are attacking our own planet. We humans and animals of this time on Earth could be just a biological experiment, unless we commit half Earth's surface to protected zones, as Wilson, a biodiversity expert, forecast in his book "Half-Earth". Sylvia Earle, oceanographer, predicted that what we do right now or fail to do will determine the future ...for all life on earth." Verily.
1
Just as with the children's dictionary, the Great Book of Metaphors is also due for revision. That old saw about the blind men touching an elephant. Sorry, no one knows what an elephant really looks like in 3 dimensions. Sly as a Fox? Sorry, Dad, but what's a fox. The list goes on and on. I like the comparison here of our wild places to the “lungs” of the Earth, but, sadly, we all know how little the destruction of lungs means to the average person. As a civilization, we are like the neighbor I once had who suffered from the emphysema that soon killed him. He would stagger to our porch on warm summer nights, coughing so deep that it seemed he might expire right there. As soon as he settled and calmed though, out came the Lucky Strikes. Collectively, we seem determined to smoke the last of those fossil fuels, no matter if it kills us. Note that, like my cigarette smoking neighbor, we think it is our right to exploit what's ours, and if someone tries to restrain us, we loudly bemoan the destruction of our “rights”. Well, OK, here's another metaphor to discard: Your rights end where my nose begins!
4
Articles like this remain highly relevant to human predators (us!), destroying the very environment that makes life possible. We are the barbarians, not our predecessors, who hunted for their survival, not for pleasure and greed. Alexander von Humboldt, one of our greatest proponents of a vital symbiosis of humans with nature, had periods of depression when seen our human claws in the innocent offerings of Nature; further, he called it 'a complex and interconnected global force'. As he became pessimistic, watching the ravages we produced already on Earth, painted a bleak future of human expansion into space, spreading their lethal mix of vice, greed, violence and ignorance across other planets...and turn them 'barren'. Are we ever going to learn?
1
I have seen a lot of comments here focusing on birth control, and how it is THE only solution or the msin problem we have towards improving the environment.Id argue that birth control is under control and is perhaps not the best area of opportunity. Indeed, population growth has been steadily declining to just above 1% half of what it was in its 60s peak. We could perhaps improve on that but not enough to make a big difference. What we consume and how much of it can potentially do much more towards improving the environment. Meat production takes around 30% of the total usable surface of the earth, and a third of water. Halve your meat consumption, throw less food away and you've just liberated 15% of land. Using and demamding better public transportation, renewables for energy and perhaps settling for a moderate size pool instead of a 1km maze in your next Cancun vacation....That will truly make a change. Only it takes an effort on our part instead of demanding birth control on other people...Accorging to Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, the average American will drain as many resources as 35 natives of India and consume 53 times more goods and services than someone from China.
3
The column with a picture of an elephant ignores the elephant in the room: the human population is increasing at a catastrophic rate.
We save the elephants, whales, and Friedman's favorite kid dictionary words only if we stop breeding like rats. We litter the planet with uneducated desperate hungry humans--the planet is filling up with them the way the oceans are filling with plastic garbage gyres.
Crowding our species into a small portion of the planet is an ideal solution--infectious agents thrive in crowded populations, so epidemics will reduce our species to a manageable number.
We save the elephants, whales, and Friedman's favorite kid dictionary words only if we stop breeding like rats. We litter the planet with uneducated desperate hungry humans--the planet is filling up with them the way the oceans are filling with plastic garbage gyres.
Crowding our species into a small portion of the planet is an ideal solution--infectious agents thrive in crowded populations, so epidemics will reduce our species to a manageable number.
4
A more humane solution may be coming from our air and water pollution. Talk is, it is already lowering sperm count.
2
Climate change is, unquestionably, the greatest challenge mankind has ever faced. I would argue that the only way to get everyone involved would be if everyone were negatively impacted equally. That's very unlikely to happen since those with the most resources are also those most resistant to accepting the dire results of this potential catastrophe. It makes no difference if those in power have an unequal ability to maintain the status quo. Citizen's United sealed that deal.
Know this, conservatives. Your grandchildren are going to hate you. That is, if there will be any children left alive in another hundred years. Your march to disaster has to not only stop, it has to be reversed. Now! Not tomorrow. You are burning your offspring's planet.
Know this, conservatives. Your grandchildren are going to hate you. That is, if there will be any children left alive in another hundred years. Your march to disaster has to not only stop, it has to be reversed. Now! Not tomorrow. You are burning your offspring's planet.
3
Population control is a freighted subject, but mankind would be wise to address it because it's the problem that underlies all the others mentioned in this column.
Our species has become too successful; we've overpopulated the planet and looted it.
No amount of wishful thinking will cause the problems to dissipate. On the contrary, public denial and private self-delusion will serve to exacerbate the problems.
No amount of money will insulate the wealthy from the wrath of the masses when they are hot and hungry.
Our species has become too successful; we've overpopulated the planet and looted it.
No amount of wishful thinking will cause the problems to dissipate. On the contrary, public denial and private self-delusion will serve to exacerbate the problems.
No amount of money will insulate the wealthy from the wrath of the masses when they are hot and hungry.
5
Three points. 1: Recently I had the great fortune to take a trip to South Africa where we saw these animals close up in the wild. After seeing them one can only shake with despair to think of big game hunters (like the Trump sons or Dr. Palmer the dentist) who take pleasure from ripping the life out of their bodies. And in a very unequal contest because a complete novice of a shooter could probably kill one with his eyes closed.
2. China must do its part and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners worldwide must denounce any and all benefits thought to be derived from animal horns. In South Africa great attention has been paid to saving the elephant. The result? They're going after rhinos. There are only 5000 black rhinos left because their horns have a mythical viagra status.
3. Poverty and unemployment in Africa is a huge problem. When a wealthy foreigner offers months of wages for an animal horn it's hard to say no when you have no job and struggle to feed your children. This is a direct consequence of colonialism and its' awful child, apartheid, which, yes, is still manifesting itself in clear view despite laws and claims to the contrary. The Western European (Caucasian) powers are directly responsible for setting up the scenario which encourages the desperate search for money that leads to poaching, and therefore have an enormous obligation to help find a solution to African poverty. Especially if they are the ones calling for saving the earth.
2. China must do its part and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners worldwide must denounce any and all benefits thought to be derived from animal horns. In South Africa great attention has been paid to saving the elephant. The result? They're going after rhinos. There are only 5000 black rhinos left because their horns have a mythical viagra status.
3. Poverty and unemployment in Africa is a huge problem. When a wealthy foreigner offers months of wages for an animal horn it's hard to say no when you have no job and struggle to feed your children. This is a direct consequence of colonialism and its' awful child, apartheid, which, yes, is still manifesting itself in clear view despite laws and claims to the contrary. The Western European (Caucasian) powers are directly responsible for setting up the scenario which encourages the desperate search for money that leads to poaching, and therefore have an enormous obligation to help find a solution to African poverty. Especially if they are the ones calling for saving the earth.
1
The loss of nature words in the Oxford Junior Dictionary should be fought against and reversed. Never more critical than now, we need the young to understand the complexity and interconnectedness of life on Earth. Since our government (and sadly much of the populace) don't seem to understand the consequences of inaction, we must pin our survival hopes on children whose future will be the most impacted by climate shifts.
I have read that laying aside even 1/3 of the world's oceans would allow fish stocks to replenish and the waters to renew and stabilize. If that were true, then the oceans might actually have a chance...except for plastics and microbeads in cosmetics that affect aquatic life from the Great Lakes to the oceans, fertilizer runoff and drugs dumped into waterways, even water that ran into the Pacific from the Fukushima reactor meltdown. With expanding populations and pollution on land, it is hard to imagine that a successful laying aside of land will happen.
It is greatly disheartening but nevertheless important that these climate crises are addressed--effectively and promptly. Parents, take your children to local preserves, the national parks--anywhere--and speak to them of acorns, ferns, nectar, otters, and all the other things that the OJD doesn't feel it is necessary for your children to know. Information is the best antidote to inaction; give them the great gift of a love for the natural world. Our survival depends on bucking the bias toward tech.
I have read that laying aside even 1/3 of the world's oceans would allow fish stocks to replenish and the waters to renew and stabilize. If that were true, then the oceans might actually have a chance...except for plastics and microbeads in cosmetics that affect aquatic life from the Great Lakes to the oceans, fertilizer runoff and drugs dumped into waterways, even water that ran into the Pacific from the Fukushima reactor meltdown. With expanding populations and pollution on land, it is hard to imagine that a successful laying aside of land will happen.
It is greatly disheartening but nevertheless important that these climate crises are addressed--effectively and promptly. Parents, take your children to local preserves, the national parks--anywhere--and speak to them of acorns, ferns, nectar, otters, and all the other things that the OJD doesn't feel it is necessary for your children to know. Information is the best antidote to inaction; give them the great gift of a love for the natural world. Our survival depends on bucking the bias toward tech.
1
I would love to see the 50% protected plan happen. I'd question the efficacy of it not for its naivete but because such hopes run against all the claims for the severity of climate change. In a couple centuries the earth's climate will be far different from anything it's known for millennia. There will be mass extinction. So while such protected areas may be the best we can do, they too may be doomed.
1
The catastrophe of the human use of the Earth progresses slowly in the view of most of us humans. Slowly enough that there's still room for a lingering doubt that action must be taken right now. There's big money stoking that doubt in order to allow extraction and burning of remaining poisonous deposits of oil and coal.
It will take an environmental 9/11, I'm afraid, to focus the minds of billions of people on what's happening and what must be done as soon as possible. Concerns like disappearing reefs and glaciers and the sea lanes opening in the Arctic are failing as calls to arms. The extinctions of beloved species like whales and elephants are really progressing but not fast enough for the lights to go on illuminating the reality to the average Earth user like most of us.
What will it be? The actual destruction of a great city? Venice, New Orleans, or New York? The disruption of the great ocean conveyor current that regulates the climates we depend upon in so many places for habitability of land masses along its route? Crop failures caused by great droughts or floods that might cause the comfortable to miss a meal or two?
It feels wrong to hope for an event so awful and so clearly caused by human activities that action is demanded by whole populations. But what else might cause the drastic and enlightened action we need? The Half Earth proposal is the kind of thing that needs to be ready for application when the dreaded and inevitable day comes.
It will take an environmental 9/11, I'm afraid, to focus the minds of billions of people on what's happening and what must be done as soon as possible. Concerns like disappearing reefs and glaciers and the sea lanes opening in the Arctic are failing as calls to arms. The extinctions of beloved species like whales and elephants are really progressing but not fast enough for the lights to go on illuminating the reality to the average Earth user like most of us.
What will it be? The actual destruction of a great city? Venice, New Orleans, or New York? The disruption of the great ocean conveyor current that regulates the climates we depend upon in so many places for habitability of land masses along its route? Crop failures caused by great droughts or floods that might cause the comfortable to miss a meal or two?
It feels wrong to hope for an event so awful and so clearly caused by human activities that action is demanded by whole populations. But what else might cause the drastic and enlightened action we need? The Half Earth proposal is the kind of thing that needs to be ready for application when the dreaded and inevitable day comes.
1
Thank you, Tom, for this article which stimulated thoughtful discussion on the grievous loss of our natural world. Many of your readers brought up the role of the population explosion in global warming. I would add that we not only need fewer people, but we need more people who have studied biology and understand the importance of individual life forms in maintaining the whole.
Our leadership is following the "Nero Principle", fiddling while the earth burns. Tonight the presidential candidates will participate in the Commander in Chief forum where each will attempt to demonstrate their ability to protect us from the evil in the world. The symbolic elephant that will be ignored in that room is the fact that as resources shrink, due to global warming and human greed, there will be more competition for those resources. This will result in more human conflict.
The earth's citizens, through the media, must force political candidates to address climate change not just as believers vs non, but as seekers and supporters of real solutions.
Our leadership is following the "Nero Principle", fiddling while the earth burns. Tonight the presidential candidates will participate in the Commander in Chief forum where each will attempt to demonstrate their ability to protect us from the evil in the world. The symbolic elephant that will be ignored in that room is the fact that as resources shrink, due to global warming and human greed, there will be more competition for those resources. This will result in more human conflict.
The earth's citizens, through the media, must force political candidates to address climate change not just as believers vs non, but as seekers and supporters of real solutions.
1
For every one person who is concerned about the environment and the survival of wildlife there are tens of thousand (hundreds of thousands?) who have no such consciousness. Do we really need a statistician to calculate the probability of success for the former group of folks?
5
As Dr. Henry Giroux explains, we have become 24/7 viewers of the very "disimagination machines" that produce the images we would normally imagine for ourselves. Swayed by Amazon.com and Google, where we outsource and surrender our imaginations (individually and collectively), neither the Oxford Junior Dictionary nor the masses can seemingly escape this web of distraction as we "entertain ourselves to death." And so the vicissitudes of the marketplace gobble-up our senses and sensibilities. Read, write, paint, observe and create your own images; gaze at the two-by-four-inch screens and surrender to the images created.
Tolstoy wrote of Anna Karenina's 'picture-making machine going black' as she
falls upon the railroad track. It's amazing that we allow our own imaginations to 'go black' while we're still conscious, oblivious to others, our surroundings, and both our physical relationship to the world and all living entities. We know not from where we come, for history is now an irrelevant footnote to a future beckoning us onto a magic carpet-ride in search of whatever Pokemon-Go leads us to.
Both Jevon's Paradox and the paradox of capitalism itself: all development requires destruction of the environment on some level (extraction etc.), should be the first lines in any economics textbook. But who reads and thinks beyond the rectangular devices whose borders obliterate the horizons and stars, not to mention the timescales of slow, evolutionary growth of our ecosystem?
Tolstoy wrote of Anna Karenina's 'picture-making machine going black' as she
falls upon the railroad track. It's amazing that we allow our own imaginations to 'go black' while we're still conscious, oblivious to others, our surroundings, and both our physical relationship to the world and all living entities. We know not from where we come, for history is now an irrelevant footnote to a future beckoning us onto a magic carpet-ride in search of whatever Pokemon-Go leads us to.
Both Jevon's Paradox and the paradox of capitalism itself: all development requires destruction of the environment on some level (extraction etc.), should be the first lines in any economics textbook. But who reads and thinks beyond the rectangular devices whose borders obliterate the horizons and stars, not to mention the timescales of slow, evolutionary growth of our ecosystem?
38
Imagine all the people living in the world committed to putting the earth back the way we found it. Gee, we'd create millions of jobs and build a robust global economy wouldn't we.
1
I don't know what the silence on the comment section indicates. For me, I have no words that matter. I am heartbroken. Yet, I can't say nothing. I cannot believe we have let global warming proceed so far, that greed, corporate power and our own personal convenience have trumped our intelligence.
I don't know what to do. I sign petitions, give money to environmental organizations and politicians, march in demonstrations, even get symbolically arrested. It's all too small and without power.
i know that Earth will survive us and regenerate new species over thousands of years in which time will be irrelevant. But it is sad. What we have is so beautiful and generous, even today in spite of our destructiveness. Maybe we can do the half-earth thing. How wonderful would that be. I'm doubtful. But doubt gets us nowhere. Grief gets us nowhere.
Of all the things that matter in this election year -- ISIS, jobs, economic inequality, healthcare, immigration, campaign finance, big banks, racism, the Supreme Court, taxes, emails, narcissism -- climate change overrides everything. But as this campaign shows, the human race is pretty stupid. I'm not hopeful we'll learn in time. But I am so grateful fo E.O. Wilson and all those who try to help us out of our mess.
I don't know what to do. I sign petitions, give money to environmental organizations and politicians, march in demonstrations, even get symbolically arrested. It's all too small and without power.
i know that Earth will survive us and regenerate new species over thousands of years in which time will be irrelevant. But it is sad. What we have is so beautiful and generous, even today in spite of our destructiveness. Maybe we can do the half-earth thing. How wonderful would that be. I'm doubtful. But doubt gets us nowhere. Grief gets us nowhere.
Of all the things that matter in this election year -- ISIS, jobs, economic inequality, healthcare, immigration, campaign finance, big banks, racism, the Supreme Court, taxes, emails, narcissism -- climate change overrides everything. But as this campaign shows, the human race is pretty stupid. I'm not hopeful we'll learn in time. But I am so grateful fo E.O. Wilson and all those who try to help us out of our mess.
2
NASA needs to be rejuvenated, quickly!
I have another audacious plan. Instead of protecting half the global surface of the earth how about getting half of our political parties out of the wilderness to pay attention to science? How about getting half of our presidential candidates stop saying it's a Chinese hoax?
2
Protect half the earth!? I don't think it works that way. You can't cordon off half the earth and tell atmospheric pollution to stay on one side of a line. There are no safe places. You mention mercury and plastic in the oceans, but the most insidious of the ocean's problems in acidification brought about by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Acid rain caused by the burning of fossil fuels is slowly dissolving historic monuments, killing our trees and disrupting the ecology of wetlands. Increasing acidity in the oceans is interfering with the life cycles of corals, plankton and molluscs and, in turn, all forms life up the food chain, which includes mankind. It's nice to speculate about saving half the planet, but everything is interdependent and interconnected. We are in the early stages of a global mass extinction brought about by human infestation of the planetary jewel that is our earth.
4
I thought a dictionary was supposed to be a place to look up words you don't know, not words you already know. And it's interesting that a dictionary is a zero sum game, where an old entry must be deleted in order to make room for a new entry.
2
In a country like Germany, with 80 million people packed into a very small land mass (much smaller than Montana), most people live in large urban conglomerations and in any case there is virtually no real nature left, only 'industrial' nature domesticated and used by humans. There may seem to be a lot of green when driving the German countryside, but looks are deceiving: all those fields are highly industrialized farms, and the so-called forests are all essentially tree farms. Take a walk in a German forest, and you will see that all the trees are uniform and planted in straight rows.
Germany is a future microcosm for the entire planet. We know the only way to slow human population growth is through disease and war, so what's left of true nature--of complex ecosystems not controlled by humans and with large mammals still roaming freely--will very quickly disappear. Thousands of species have been wiped out in my lifetime, and before I die most large animals still existing will do so only in protected zoos.
Germans have no understanding of true, unfettered nature, for them nature is a highly cultivated park or an industrial woodland denuded of most of its original wildlife. Germany does not consider itself overpopulated with its 80 million humans, though it does envy the natural beauty of Sweden, a country the same size geographically, but with 8 million people...
Germany is a future microcosm for the entire planet. We know the only way to slow human population growth is through disease and war, so what's left of true nature--of complex ecosystems not controlled by humans and with large mammals still roaming freely--will very quickly disappear. Thousands of species have been wiped out in my lifetime, and before I die most large animals still existing will do so only in protected zoos.
Germans have no understanding of true, unfettered nature, for them nature is a highly cultivated park or an industrial woodland denuded of most of its original wildlife. Germany does not consider itself overpopulated with its 80 million humans, though it does envy the natural beauty of Sweden, a country the same size geographically, but with 8 million people...
2
I'm wondering if the flooding of the world's cities will change how we all act; I'm thinking not!
2
Instead of "It's the economy, stupid," we need: "It's the population, stupid." Population control is an impossible sale, so far, since it's linked to sexual pleasure and creativity. There's no way out of it. Humans have turned the planet into a filth and garbage ridden hovel. Meanwhile our Republican dominated Congress finds reward by promoting birth defects using Zika as a vector and discouraging sensible population growth by trying to defund Planned Parenthood. Taken together these actions constitute a sort of perfect, long term suicidal venture, currently under the guidance of a literally clown-faced Ryan. It's painful to look at him, knowing as we do what is coming.
7
The anti Trump with no praise for Hillary Clinton is no answer at all. It's time that the NYTimes accepted its responsibility for the current mess as it did not with Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Equivocation is not a liberal tradition. That's just weakness and poor thought no matter how pretty the writing and articulate the writer.
1
Protected zones are merely a band-aid approach. It treats the symptoms, not the disease. Over-population is the disease. Population control must come first and nobody....read NOBODY is addressing that.
6
First, not teaching children the names of the world they are loosing is a deeply political act. Language -or the lack there of - shapes what we can conceive.
I have been watching this slow moving trainwreck for decades. At first, being young, I thought we would respond. The Clean Air Act seemed a good start. Then the movement sputtered out, drowned in the oil slicked bathtub of greed and short-sightedness. Now I realize that nothing will be done here where it really counts.
I listened to a segment on NPR a year or so ago in wnich a scientist described how microbes behave in a petri dish when well nourished. They breed and eat and produce waste until their numbers reach the edge of the dish. Then they drown in their own waste.
I'd say we are reaching the edge of our petri dish and the outcome is predictable. Why foolishly waste your time worrying about the economy or anything else when environmental collapse is staring you in the face? Everything else is just a baroque worry in comparison to that. Go ask the people of Easter Island at what point did they realize they were cutting down the last tree?
I have been watching this slow moving trainwreck for decades. At first, being young, I thought we would respond. The Clean Air Act seemed a good start. Then the movement sputtered out, drowned in the oil slicked bathtub of greed and short-sightedness. Now I realize that nothing will be done here where it really counts.
I listened to a segment on NPR a year or so ago in wnich a scientist described how microbes behave in a petri dish when well nourished. They breed and eat and produce waste until their numbers reach the edge of the dish. Then they drown in their own waste.
I'd say we are reaching the edge of our petri dish and the outcome is predictable. Why foolishly waste your time worrying about the economy or anything else when environmental collapse is staring you in the face? Everything else is just a baroque worry in comparison to that. Go ask the people of Easter Island at what point did they realize they were cutting down the last tree?
2
It is 8:30 am on the East Coast, and I am the 9th person to post a comment to this story. If I were to compare that with one of today's stories about Trump, I would find hundreds.
Granted, the presidential election is very important and will have an impact on US efforts to create a sustainable world and encourage other nations to follow suit. Still, it is discouraging to see that NYT readers are not more interested.
Granted, the presidential election is very important and will have an impact on US efforts to create a sustainable world and encourage other nations to follow suit. Still, it is discouraging to see that NYT readers are not more interested.
1
I have long believed Mother Nature is working to eradicate the human species as she should. It will be difficult as we are the first to inhabit every corner of the earth. However, we seem to be helping her move the process along. I also have long believed humans are too selfish and lazy to change the habits that brought us to this moment. Looking at the biggest picture...is it better for the Earth or humans to survive?
6
To my mind Friedman stated it succinctly.
"These plants and animals and their ecosystems sustain the foundations of life on which we depend."
Indeed.
I can forgive a lot of our past actions, for they have been done out of ignorance as to how they impacted the larger whole, the web of life. But no longer. We fully comprehend what we are doing, and we realize - as a species - the impact we are having. Yet we proceed apace. In effect we are sawing the legs off the very stool upon which we are standing, all the while next to a precipice. This is the very definition of stupidity.
We need to control our numbers; stop our rapacious locust-like actions and husband the Earth. It is our home; the only one we have. Writ large, and in evaluating the greater Universe, it is Paradise itself for our species. And since there is no other we would do well to marshal efforts and return to sustainable practices within it.
Else...well....Paradise has its ways of dealing with malignancies. And we may not be liking much what it does when it does it. Its actions may be akin to a response from a thousand angry screaming gods. Paradise lost? Banishment from it? Whatever it may be we will have only ourselves to blame...
John~
American Net'Zen
"These plants and animals and their ecosystems sustain the foundations of life on which we depend."
Indeed.
I can forgive a lot of our past actions, for they have been done out of ignorance as to how they impacted the larger whole, the web of life. But no longer. We fully comprehend what we are doing, and we realize - as a species - the impact we are having. Yet we proceed apace. In effect we are sawing the legs off the very stool upon which we are standing, all the while next to a precipice. This is the very definition of stupidity.
We need to control our numbers; stop our rapacious locust-like actions and husband the Earth. It is our home; the only one we have. Writ large, and in evaluating the greater Universe, it is Paradise itself for our species. And since there is no other we would do well to marshal efforts and return to sustainable practices within it.
Else...well....Paradise has its ways of dealing with malignancies. And we may not be liking much what it does when it does it. Its actions may be akin to a response from a thousand angry screaming gods. Paradise lost? Banishment from it? Whatever it may be we will have only ourselves to blame...
John~
American Net'Zen
43
There is no species more invasive and so incredibly destructive than human beings.
10
Yes to all this. But why don't we see more coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in the Times? This is a real battle on this actual front -- happening in real time, and the last story was what, a week ago?
Is there a Times reporter covering this, or is it too far away from Chicago, or good coffee?
Is there a Times reporter covering this, or is it too far away from Chicago, or good coffee?
2
It is indeed shocking that words that describe species that are *not* under threat like dandelions are being removed. That is more a symptom of neglect, letting children replace going outside with going online, to disastrous effect for both psyche and health. This neglect comes with consequences: pretending earth does not have the final say about our environment is both temporary and fatal.
I do wish we didn't get these exaggerated headlines. The problem is real, and putting it in a cartoonish end-timesy way is unhelpful at best.
On the whole, I think Bill McKibben has it closer to right: we need a high-level high-energy push to install and figure out ways to deliver and store truly clean energy, wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, small hydro, anything that works and doesn't involved burning stuff with the associated heat-trapping emissions and toxic waste at every level (think coal ash ponds, mountaintop removal, tar sands, injection wells and earthquakes, water overuse and pollution, corn ethanol and the food supply, cutting down, growing, and exporting wood pellets because somebody makes a profit pretending it is "clean" - faugh!).
https://newrepublic.com/article/135684/declare-war-climate-change-mobili...
(This does not exempt us from ecological preservation)
Also, don't forget conservation! Waste, waste, waste - light and noise pollution as well, so dumb!
A full redesign of our passive sports/entertainment excitation, getting people outdoors, would be a good start!
I do wish we didn't get these exaggerated headlines. The problem is real, and putting it in a cartoonish end-timesy way is unhelpful at best.
On the whole, I think Bill McKibben has it closer to right: we need a high-level high-energy push to install and figure out ways to deliver and store truly clean energy, wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, small hydro, anything that works and doesn't involved burning stuff with the associated heat-trapping emissions and toxic waste at every level (think coal ash ponds, mountaintop removal, tar sands, injection wells and earthquakes, water overuse and pollution, corn ethanol and the food supply, cutting down, growing, and exporting wood pellets because somebody makes a profit pretending it is "clean" - faugh!).
https://newrepublic.com/article/135684/declare-war-climate-change-mobili...
(This does not exempt us from ecological preservation)
Also, don't forget conservation! Waste, waste, waste - light and noise pollution as well, so dumb!
A full redesign of our passive sports/entertainment excitation, getting people outdoors, would be a good start!
10
Bill McKibben is waiting for the "right virus" to come along and wipe out humankind. He's not someone interested in human life, unless that human is a Neanderthal.
We have a proven "way" to generate truly clean energy. It's called "Nuclear Power" and Ecomentalists are dead-set against it for one reason: It's cheap, clean, and nearly infinite in its ability to supply electricity. Which drives Ecomentalists nuts, because it would mean that more people would have cheap energy and therefore the uses for that energy would rise. McKibben would go apoplectic, because it would mean moving humankind further away from living as Neanderthals.
In case you were asleep over the last 40+ years, this country has subsidized solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc., and as yet none of those has reached the level of cheap 24/7 on-demand energy delivery that coal, oil, and nuclear has achieved. Rockefeller never asked for a government subsidy - Solyndra left every American paying off half a billion dollars in debt. You're pining for something that has been tried, and has spectacularly failed, yet you keep demanding more taxpayer funding to be thrown at it.
We have a proven "way" to generate truly clean energy. It's called "Nuclear Power" and Ecomentalists are dead-set against it for one reason: It's cheap, clean, and nearly infinite in its ability to supply electricity. Which drives Ecomentalists nuts, because it would mean that more people would have cheap energy and therefore the uses for that energy would rise. McKibben would go apoplectic, because it would mean moving humankind further away from living as Neanderthals.
In case you were asleep over the last 40+ years, this country has subsidized solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc., and as yet none of those has reached the level of cheap 24/7 on-demand energy delivery that coal, oil, and nuclear has achieved. Rockefeller never asked for a government subsidy - Solyndra left every American paying off half a billion dollars in debt. You're pining for something that has been tried, and has spectacularly failed, yet you keep demanding more taxpayer funding to be thrown at it.
1
A glorious column by Thomas Friedman about the tipping point the human race has already toppled over.
But how did we get here ?
The political-parasitic economic model of 'growth' hucksters, marching in fascist lockstep with its its medieval, religious 'be fruitful and multiply' nihilism water boy, peddled mindless, explosive cancerous human growth as a free lunch.
One of the great fatal flaws of humans is his psychopathic greed, a Grand Old Profit psychopathy that elevates material selfishness over human life, animal life, plant life, insect life, aquatic life and all forms of natural life...it's a religious form of megalomania stemming in large part from the perverted biblical theory of Dominionism that pretends man is in charge of nature.
Of course, the Bible also says to steward the Earth - but the answer to that biblical commandment by America's fake Republi-Christians is to proudly belch black smoke out of their custom-polluted pick-up trucks, to Drill Baby Drill and to 'bring back coal'.
There's a lot of global human brain damage out there, best exemplified by a wide swath of politically conservative religious humanity that champions banning contraception and abortion while actively aborting planet Earth...because 'God said so' according to medieval sources.
The world needs a massive condom drop, free IUD implants for every female, free sterilization for all takers and a new Surgeon General Warning that organized medieval religions are really bad for planet Earth.
But how did we get here ?
The political-parasitic economic model of 'growth' hucksters, marching in fascist lockstep with its its medieval, religious 'be fruitful and multiply' nihilism water boy, peddled mindless, explosive cancerous human growth as a free lunch.
One of the great fatal flaws of humans is his psychopathic greed, a Grand Old Profit psychopathy that elevates material selfishness over human life, animal life, plant life, insect life, aquatic life and all forms of natural life...it's a religious form of megalomania stemming in large part from the perverted biblical theory of Dominionism that pretends man is in charge of nature.
Of course, the Bible also says to steward the Earth - but the answer to that biblical commandment by America's fake Republi-Christians is to proudly belch black smoke out of their custom-polluted pick-up trucks, to Drill Baby Drill and to 'bring back coal'.
There's a lot of global human brain damage out there, best exemplified by a wide swath of politically conservative religious humanity that champions banning contraception and abortion while actively aborting planet Earth...because 'God said so' according to medieval sources.
The world needs a massive condom drop, free IUD implants for every female, free sterilization for all takers and a new Surgeon General Warning that organized medieval religions are really bad for planet Earth.
149
All of this is being driven by overpopulation and the greatest driver of overpopulation is religion. The greatest birthrates in the world are in areas dominated by the Catholic Church, Islam, and ancient tribal customs. These are the areas that are also experiencing the greatest effects of global warming. Africa, the Middle East, and south central Asia are burning up. Soon, it will get so hot there that people will no longer be able live in many locations. The rain forests of South America and the Pacific region are under tremendous pressure caused by expanding populations and poverty. The Church has a big footprint there.
So long as these major religions are more interested in what goes on in heaven instead of what happens on earth, we will never escape this trend. Look, I love babies. Who doesn't love babies? Children bring sheer joy to the world. It is wonderful to see large families with all the little ones running around and playing, and to play with them. But the planet cannot support this much joy. We all have to work to stabilize populations or its curtains for all of us. Biodiversity supports all life and that includes people. If we lose the bees, we lose the crops and then we starve.
So long as these major religions are more interested in what goes on in heaven instead of what happens on earth, we will never escape this trend. Look, I love babies. Who doesn't love babies? Children bring sheer joy to the world. It is wonderful to see large families with all the little ones running around and playing, and to play with them. But the planet cannot support this much joy. We all have to work to stabilize populations or its curtains for all of us. Biodiversity supports all life and that includes people. If we lose the bees, we lose the crops and then we starve.
62
I was more interested in the apparently successful efforts at the IUCN meeting this past week to get business and industry to understand that conservation was in their own self interest. Alas, any number of science deniers, capitalists and many voters still fail to understand this same principle. (Good discussion you had at the meeting by the way. Congrats)
2
People don't care enough.
People living in North America, and Europe who are nature-oriented worry more about college tuition and car repairs than elephants.
People now achieving middle class lives in formerly third world countries are working hard to acquire washing machines and air conditioners. They care little for the unseen natural world. And for the huge portion of the world that's religious, what really matters is getting into heaven - the present world is just a starting point.
Equally (more?) depressing is that people hardly care about actions that pollute and destroy their own back yards. They elect Republicans who enable toxic sludge in waterways and carcinogenic pollutants in the air...
Lecturing, hectoring and begging are not going to make the people of earth care more about what its losing, what they are losing. Neither will films like Avatar.
But we can try.
My daughter is majoring in environmental studies at Northeastern with the specific goal of becoming a publicist for the environment. She may end up doing fund raising for land acquisition or making eco-documentaries or working as a sales rep for North Face. But she intends to dedicate her life to preserving the natural world. She grew up with the Cape Cod National Seashore as her back yard.
Maybe what the world needs are more family vacations to national parks.
People living in North America, and Europe who are nature-oriented worry more about college tuition and car repairs than elephants.
People now achieving middle class lives in formerly third world countries are working hard to acquire washing machines and air conditioners. They care little for the unseen natural world. And for the huge portion of the world that's religious, what really matters is getting into heaven - the present world is just a starting point.
Equally (more?) depressing is that people hardly care about actions that pollute and destroy their own back yards. They elect Republicans who enable toxic sludge in waterways and carcinogenic pollutants in the air...
Lecturing, hectoring and begging are not going to make the people of earth care more about what its losing, what they are losing. Neither will films like Avatar.
But we can try.
My daughter is majoring in environmental studies at Northeastern with the specific goal of becoming a publicist for the environment. She may end up doing fund raising for land acquisition or making eco-documentaries or working as a sales rep for North Face. But she intends to dedicate her life to preserving the natural world. She grew up with the Cape Cod National Seashore as her back yard.
Maybe what the world needs are more family vacations to national parks.
27
I wish your daughter the best but hope she isn't graduating with too much debt given her choice of vocation. She's essentially choosing a life of poverty.
2
Hooray for you and hooray for your daughter! You did a good job,
1
How do you get 7 billion people to act in concert for the good of the whole? It is the tragedy of the commons writ large.
With a population of 7 billion people, and the specter of climate change, of eating through the resources of the sea, the threat of arid regions displacing hundreds of millions - we ought to be smart enough to figure out how to avoid some of the worst fall out.
But when each individual is driven by personal needs, that doesn't happen. A man will serve the last fish in the ocean to his starving children.
With a population of 7 billion people, and the specter of climate change, of eating through the resources of the sea, the threat of arid regions displacing hundreds of millions - we ought to be smart enough to figure out how to avoid some of the worst fall out.
But when each individual is driven by personal needs, that doesn't happen. A man will serve the last fish in the ocean to his starving children.
26
Why is our natural world disappearing? Vast ignorance of that world and its complex, fragile ecosystems? Too many humans, living, or aspiring to live unsustainable lives? An unjustified faith in mere technological solutions? Economic arrangements that exploit the natural world, including the humans that are part of, and depend on it? A belief in the magic of markets? (Quote from G. Mulgan's "The Locust and the Bee" : 'Communism failed because it didn't let prices tell the economic truth, and capitalism will fail because it doesn't let prices tell the environmental truth.') Approaches to education that ignore the need to understand the interplay between nature, economics, and politics? Setting aside half the earth is just one important part of meeting the challenges we face...
8
The list of what makes Trump completely unqualified to be President is ridiculously long. But perhaps no issue is more important than dealing with man made climate change and Trump is not only a climate change denier - like virtually all Republicans - he has stated that it is a hoax created by China to destroy America's economy - one of his long list of deeply bizzare and harmful conspiracy theories. What's really sad is that 50% of Americans find Trump honest and trustworthy compared to only 36% finding Hillary Clinton honest and trustworthy (latest CNN/ORC poll, but similar results in other recent polls). That's stunning - a con man who lies with every breath and denies climate change is seen as more honest than a woman with email issues and constantly being judged to a much higher standard than Trump. And get rid of regulations and the EPA Trump will never even consider the Half the Earth solution to save our oceans, forests and diversity of species that Friedman reports on in one of his best columns.
134
When will we start including effect of human population explosion in this discussion?
25
We are just another biological experiment. We just haven't awakened to that reality. The planet will spit us out when and if it decides we should go. Just like the Elephants. We are part of the plant and, therefore, we have contributed to the decline of the Elephants Tom so treasures. Our presence, just like the presence of spiders, dogs, children et al, contributes to the demise of every other species because we take up space. The only real answer is birth control...try getting that past any government on earth.
3
Dealing with a looming climate catastrophe which would further degrade the Earth’s natural systems would be a top priority for those who are concerned about the Earth’s fate during this century.
These persons and organizations could take a biological approach and pursue a healthy half Earth or take a monetary approach that would pursue a carbon-based international monetary system with its standard of a specific tonnage of CO2e per person as a transformational way of dealing with the looming climate catastrophe. The conceptual, institutional, ethical and strategic dimensions of this proposal are presented in Verhagen 2012 "The Tierra Solution: Resolving the climate crisis through monetary transformation" (www.timun.net).
Having worked on this approach for about eight years it may seem to most observers that is naïve to think that such global monetary cooperation is possible, but isn’t naïveté the new realism? I have been encouraged to continue this pursuit by the evaluation of this transformational, not reformist approach to the climate crisis by Bill McKibben who stated in 2011: “The further into the global warming area we go, the more physics and politics narrows our possible paths of action. Here’s a very cogent and well-argued account of one of the remaining possibilities.”
These persons and organizations could take a biological approach and pursue a healthy half Earth or take a monetary approach that would pursue a carbon-based international monetary system with its standard of a specific tonnage of CO2e per person as a transformational way of dealing with the looming climate catastrophe. The conceptual, institutional, ethical and strategic dimensions of this proposal are presented in Verhagen 2012 "The Tierra Solution: Resolving the climate crisis through monetary transformation" (www.timun.net).
Having worked on this approach for about eight years it may seem to most observers that is naïve to think that such global monetary cooperation is possible, but isn’t naïveté the new realism? I have been encouraged to continue this pursuit by the evaluation of this transformational, not reformist approach to the climate crisis by Bill McKibben who stated in 2011: “The further into the global warming area we go, the more physics and politics narrows our possible paths of action. Here’s a very cogent and well-argued account of one of the remaining possibilities.”
2
One warning: beware the tourist, an easy fund, but a destructive force.
I loved my visit to Namibia to see the preserves and the national park. The government, directed by the Constitution, acts to protect and foster the ecology rewarded by the prospect of tourist monies. But we must be careful that such havens do not become like Venice.
I loved my visit to Namibia to see the preserves and the national park. The government, directed by the Constitution, acts to protect and foster the ecology rewarded by the prospect of tourist monies. But we must be careful that such havens do not become like Venice.
2
You might like an old Bruce Dern movie called Silent Running.
2
How does your unwavering support of TPP power this vision of humanity saving the planet's ecosystems from humanity's own greed? If you believe that the free flow of capital will enable the protection of half the planet, you are suffering from profound cognitive dissonance.
12
But Tom just think, your beloved globalization and flat earth logic is the principal cause of global warming that will destroy all of your dreams. And in 200 years or so man kind will be back to barely making it as a species and we will all be dust by then.
8
The "Tragedy of the Commons" on global scale.
13
Glad to see you focus on what ails the Earth.
Can there ever be a discussion about limiting the numbers of the ones creating this adverse impact on Mother Nature. The politicians will not touch it, BUT the fact remains. Either we learn to live more consciously and limit our numbers or Nature will end the human population BLOOM in a natural destructive cycle of BOOM/BUST.
Can there ever be a discussion about limiting the numbers of the ones creating this adverse impact on Mother Nature. The politicians will not touch it, BUT the fact remains. Either we learn to live more consciously and limit our numbers or Nature will end the human population BLOOM in a natural destructive cycle of BOOM/BUST.
4
After reading this article, I beg you to go to the WP and follow up with Kathleen Parker's article, "Another Group that Loses If Trump Wins? Animals."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/another-group-that-loses-if-trum...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/another-group-that-loses-if-trum...
6
Everything here is pointless kerfluffle.
The problem isn't dictionaries or Presidential policies (though I think the actions of the Oxford Dictionary people are just deplorable! pandering to high tech as they are).
THE PROBLEM IS PEOPLE.
Nothing will change, nothing can EVER change -- with 7 BILLION people on this planet which cannot support more than about half that number (and ideally, even less).
Instead, we are encouraging people to keep pumping out babies. Our national policies, our welfare system....they all encourage childbearing. We give tax breaks to people who have children and MORE breaks the MORE children they have!
Those African elephants? They are not dying from climate change. They are being KILLED for their IVORY and other parts, because the PEOPLE in Africa are desperately, desperately poor -- so poor, that they are choosing their own welfare and that of their family, over those elephants. Only affluent lefty liberals in Friedman's "ivory tower bubble of affluence" can afford to be sympathetic to elephants.....over hungry children and desperately impoverished African people.
When I was young, in the 60s and 70s, one of the prime social movements was ZERO POPULATION GROWTH. It has died out so completely, that nobody even uses the term anymore. To tell people to have fewer children is "politically incorrect" today. To put in place policies to reduce immigration or not encourage the poor to have large families -- that's BIGOTRY and racism and xenophobia!
The problem isn't dictionaries or Presidential policies (though I think the actions of the Oxford Dictionary people are just deplorable! pandering to high tech as they are).
THE PROBLEM IS PEOPLE.
Nothing will change, nothing can EVER change -- with 7 BILLION people on this planet which cannot support more than about half that number (and ideally, even less).
Instead, we are encouraging people to keep pumping out babies. Our national policies, our welfare system....they all encourage childbearing. We give tax breaks to people who have children and MORE breaks the MORE children they have!
Those African elephants? They are not dying from climate change. They are being KILLED for their IVORY and other parts, because the PEOPLE in Africa are desperately, desperately poor -- so poor, that they are choosing their own welfare and that of their family, over those elephants. Only affluent lefty liberals in Friedman's "ivory tower bubble of affluence" can afford to be sympathetic to elephants.....over hungry children and desperately impoverished African people.
When I was young, in the 60s and 70s, one of the prime social movements was ZERO POPULATION GROWTH. It has died out so completely, that nobody even uses the term anymore. To tell people to have fewer children is "politically incorrect" today. To put in place policies to reduce immigration or not encourage the poor to have large families -- that's BIGOTRY and racism and xenophobia!
5
I prefer to think of us as a chastened species which has to take dramatic action in an earth-wide crisis, rather than as a generation acquiescing to life in the Anthropocene era we've inadvertently---but, nevertheless, sinfully---created.
It's the duty of humans to save all living things from ourselves.
[https://secretgardening.wordpress.com/]
It's the duty of humans to save all living things from ourselves.
[https://secretgardening.wordpress.com/]
2
Very nicely put, Cassandra. I concur.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-blogs/climate-change-the-big-pa...
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-blogs/climate-change-the-big-pa...
1
Thank you, Mr. Friedman. Has anyone seen any Monarch butterflies this Summer? Only two years ago, they were a daily sight where I live. Last year, there were fewer. This year, I have not seen a single Monarch butterfly all year. They are gone!
1
And what are the Trumps and Koch brothers advocating, bringing back the good old days of belching coal and oil fired greed pits.
Me rich - you extinct.
So sorry suckers.
Me rich - you extinct.
So sorry suckers.
19
To protect half our surface, and make it a good distribution, not just the deserts and poles, would mean huge support for birth control. That means extinguishing Catholicism, Islam, and any other religion still encouraging humans to be fruitful and multiply, as a means of increasing adherents.
28
I'm appalled at the lack of any discussion of environmental issues in the presidential campaign. I don't expect Trump to say anything remotely intelligent on the subject, other than his dumbed down 'I want clean water and clean air', all the while denying science and calling for elimination of regulations which deliver clean air and water. But where's Hillary and the democrats on this issue?? I've heard nothing. There's so much to be done, and with some imagination this issue can be a real positive for her, a job creator, forward looking, attractive to young people, essential! If elections are about highlighting differences, this is huge opportunity. HRC...hello??
156
George, I hope the environment will finally be front and center during the debates. I noticed there was no mention of climate change or the environment during the GOP primaries but it did come up during the Dem primaries.
Moreover, HRC has been airing campaign ads that talk about the US being the leader for clean energy and manufacturing solar panels. She would also continue Obama's path with the global climate change agreements.
But we need to do much, much more as a country and as citizens of the planet.
Moreover, HRC has been airing campaign ads that talk about the US being the leader for clean energy and manufacturing solar panels. She would also continue Obama's path with the global climate change agreements.
But we need to do much, much more as a country and as citizens of the planet.
5
At the Democratic Convention, she did say that she believed in science, to much applause.
1
The person who addressed this issue was Bernie Sanders, and it is a large part of why younger voters supported him, not because of the Hillary slur that they just "wanted free stuff". That was both an insult and a deliberate misreading of what was happening. A deliberate misreading that the NYT was happy to promote.
1
Please don't save them. Humans deserve to live on a planet by ourselves.
1
I agree with Mr. Friedman: "This is no time to be electing a climate-change denier like Donald Trump for president."
But why is this remark parenthetical? More important, where is the NYT-endorsed candidate on these crucial themes?
Hillary Clinton has held the national spotlight for a full generation, but has never acknowledged our environmental peril. Shame on her.
But why is this remark parenthetical? More important, where is the NYT-endorsed candidate on these crucial themes?
Hillary Clinton has held the national spotlight for a full generation, but has never acknowledged our environmental peril. Shame on her.
1
The Natural World won't end of course, it will survive in a form that few of us will like or recognize. After this hot summer it is now conceivable to me now that my magnificent New England flora and fauna, once thought by me and others to be perennially THERE, are in danger of drying out and disappearing, maybe for good.
It is up to us, all of us, to act and not be the generation who will say "we could have done something but we didn't".
It is up to us, all of us, to act and not be the generation who will say "we could have done something but we didn't".
2
In reply to J. Parula. In point 4) in my previous post I meant to say: "It is irrefutable ..." instead of "It is refutable"
An alarming piece, and rightly so. But the sloppy writing is uncharacteristic of its author—“a revealing but stunning story” (why “but”?); “acorn,” “dandelion,” “otter,” and “willow” Amazon words??
2
I keep thinking about this comment made to many doubters back in the 1960's when the 'save the earth' movement as getting started, "you only visiting this planet?"
3
More articles like this please .
Highly recommend EO Wilson's " Half Earth"
Let's start by implementing a carbon market , encouraging natural forests and avoiding deforestation through strong policy mechanisms.
Highly recommend EO Wilson's " Half Earth"
Let's start by implementing a carbon market , encouraging natural forests and avoiding deforestation through strong policy mechanisms.
2
We desperately need guidance from government, right now, because no group, as hard and as honest and as well-meaning as they may be , can stem the tide. Face it, few of us advocate big government, but in this case, lets make an exception. We the people must prevail, through elected officials, and by doing the right things ourselves, on the local, community, and personal scale.
2
Better send this to Sen. Inhofe. It will go well with his snowball.
5
Geologists, who think not in terms of election cycles but in terms of periods of time that are somewhat on the longer side, have a joke.
Two planets are talking to each other and one says to the other: "How are you feeling? You look a little under the weather." The other replies: "I'm not feeling well. The doctor says that I have homo sapiens." "Oh dear," says the first. "I'm sorry to hear that. I had homo sapiens once and it made me terribly sick, but I got over it quickly."
Two planets are talking to each other and one says to the other: "How are you feeling? You look a little under the weather." The other replies: "I'm not feeling well. The doctor says that I have homo sapiens." "Oh dear," says the first. "I'm sorry to hear that. I had homo sapiens once and it made me terribly sick, but I got over it quickly."
7
Tom. Thanks for this piece. Where/how can an individual like me get involved in raising the awareness of this situation and possibly even doing something about it? Thanks.
2
“Indeed, strip them all away, said Wilson, “and the world as we know it will unravel.”
I hope that Mr. Friedman recalls that – “strip them all away, all regulation all barriers to the free flow of Capital…” was precisely his recommendation in ‘Understanding Globalisation – the Lexus and the Olive Tree.’
Any form of control or tax, was “Throwing sand in the gears” i.e. naïve.
Yes, indeed – that approach to globalization was part of the drive that got us to where we are. Thank you Mr. Friedman!
I hope that Mr. Friedman recalls that – “strip them all away, all regulation all barriers to the free flow of Capital…” was precisely his recommendation in ‘Understanding Globalisation – the Lexus and the Olive Tree.’
Any form of control or tax, was “Throwing sand in the gears” i.e. naïve.
Yes, indeed – that approach to globalization was part of the drive that got us to where we are. Thank you Mr. Friedman!
20
excellent
Naïveté is the new realism — or else we, the human species, will become just another bad biological experiment.
Naïveté is the new realism — or else we, the human species, will become just another bad biological experiment.
I honestly think that the term "Homo Sapiens" does not really describe the planet's greatest and merciless predator. His prey is not only others of his own kind, but his own habitat and, eventually, other planets as well. The irony lies in the fact he is creating the conditions for his own extinction.
96
I've begun to believe that our global elites consciously or sub-consciously think that that our population levels are unsustainable and that the 'bottom' two or three billion are expendable. And it is the poorest who suffer the worst effects of climate change.
So in their blinkered minds, it's best not to do anything much now.
So in their blinkered minds, it's best not to do anything much now.
64
I've held on to this, produced by John Podesta (who works with Hillary), hoping he will remember and bring her to face reality when she becomes president (the alternative is unthinkable, and while we're at it, we need Democrats to overcome obstruction at all levels, midterms too, not just the high-profile presidential elections; that's partly why we're in this mess).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqRpM72Odg
I was reminded because it shows a possibility that human population will be down to 2 or 3 billion (or less) by 2100. That's only a scenario, but killing off two or three billion is a lowball estimate of the consequences we face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqRpM72Odg
I was reminded because it shows a possibility that human population will be down to 2 or 3 billion (or less) by 2100. That's only a scenario, but killing off two or three billion is a lowball estimate of the consequences we face.
1
Douglas Adams had it right. Send all the middle managers to another planet.
2
And yet there is evidence that any society where women have rights and birth control is readily available will reduce its population within reasonable spans of time. I think the elites want an overpopulated earth to sustain the pernicious aspects of capitalism. And should populations drop and workers become scarcer, pay will improve for those left. Should unemployment drop too low, who the hell will clean their houses and cut their lawns for just short of nothing. Now those are problems which keep the elites up at night. A world without elephants? Not so much. KA
6
Tom Friedman our generation will not lead the way. Our generation has lost its way and can't get beyond the Koch Bros. Look to the Millennials and hope they succeed.
Global warming is threatening us and we don't understand it well enough to fight it effectively. Making national parks and protected zones are not bad things. They alone are just not sufficient. Dinosaurs once dominated our planet. They are now extinct. Who knows whether humans and dinosaurs could coexist and who knows whether we would be better off with the diversity dinosaurs would add to our world today.
Global warming is threatening us and we don't understand it well enough to fight it effectively. Making national parks and protected zones are not bad things. They alone are just not sufficient. Dinosaurs once dominated our planet. They are now extinct. Who knows whether humans and dinosaurs could coexist and who knows whether we would be better off with the diversity dinosaurs would add to our world today.
1
If humans are solely a product of nature we already are the results of an experiment gone amuck. The only question is whether we can stop the results from getting worse.
4
Why is there poaching? Money. Why is there global warming? Money. The challenge to save the planet is the challenge to raise standards of living, so people do not need to choose between survival and hurting the environment. It is a tough problem. We first need to challenge corporate greed around the world.
110
Corporations are not inherently greedy; some of their managers and owners are. The challenge is not to raise living standards, but rather to right size them with respect to the carrying capacity of the earth. Rich people will have to lower theirs while the masses get raised. Not difficult to understand, but hard to implement while greedy people are allowed to continue raping and plundering by poor political system design and implementation.
1
It is consumers who are ultimately responsible. Poachers would be the ones going extinct if the Chinese didn't desire ivory and rhino horn. The rain forests would be safer if we didn't want tropical woods like teak for our furniture and boats. As to rising standards of living, they won't help our planet if it means buying SUVs and big trucks one doesn't need and buying tons of stuff we don't how to get rid of once the stuff is obsolete.
1
Tom, what is most disturbing is that nearly everything important to so many phases of our life on this beautiful planet requires "drastic action" of some sort to save.
As we are learning here in America, acts of human kindness and decency have been challenged by the Republican Party and voila, another need for "drastic action."
"Half-Earth" may be our only answer but don't hold your breath. I'm sure, even this intelligent possible solution's necessity is being denied.
It appears we don’t “noah” what we are doing.
As we are learning here in America, acts of human kindness and decency have been challenged by the Republican Party and voila, another need for "drastic action."
"Half-Earth" may be our only answer but don't hold your breath. I'm sure, even this intelligent possible solution's necessity is being denied.
It appears we don’t “noah” what we are doing.
69
I'll never understand how Thomas Friedman reconciles his apparently ardent environmentalism with his militarism and unabashed support for imperialist capitalism -- but nevertheless, we urgently need his voice to help save what's left of the natural world. But Friedman should remember the reason Yahweh unleashed the Flood: "And God said unto Noah, the end of flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold I will destroy them with the earth." As in Biblical myth, our greed and violence are destroying us, symbolized by those two great U.S. institutions: Wall Street and the Pentagon.
7
Uh, Tom, Nature's goal is death and destruction. Nature does everything it can to kill. Humans are the only species that has ever stood up to Nature, and defied it. No other animal ever has, and more species have gone extinct prior to the "global spread of humanity" than currently exist - all because of Nature.
Luckily, E.O. Wilson only understands his concept of "biodiversity" and therefore is a great resource - for nothing else.
Luckily, E.O. Wilson only understands his concept of "biodiversity" and therefore is a great resource - for nothing else.
1
The science is crystal clear, but this is not a scientific problem. Our dominant religions teach us that human souls are special, that they come from / go to a very special place called "heaven", and that we are obligated to create as many of these heavenly souls as possible. Earth and earthly limitations have nothing to do with it.
And while we are proliferating ourselves to oblivion, just for fun let's persecute lesbians and gays and others who tend not to bear their own children!
For all of its vaunted intellect, homo sapiens is dangerously primitive.
And while we are proliferating ourselves to oblivion, just for fun let's persecute lesbians and gays and others who tend not to bear their own children!
For all of its vaunted intellect, homo sapiens is dangerously primitive.
7
This is a challenge that needs leadership from the Presidency of the United States. Obama is doing a great deal, but his successor needs to develop collaboratively, with other nations, a Global Biodiversity Plan and treaty, as with climate change. Only Hillary, among present contenders including Jill Stein, can do it, so her victory by a compelling margin needs to be the second step. The first needs to be that her campaign takes ownership of this issue with another specific commitment.
4
I am increasingly contemptuous of adults who are the stewards of children's lives.
How were dinosaurs relevant to my life in 1960 when I was 7? Or the horse and buggy? Or - being in New York City - farm tractors, silos, wolves, giant Sequoia trees, The Mikado, nectar, otters, the dodo, quill pens and Hungarian gulyas?
And yet, there they all were in dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and magazines. They intrigued me, inspired me and set my imagination on fire. They expanded my world.
But if you asked me what was relevant to me I would have said potato chips, Bozo the Clown, Superman and the Yankees. Imagine if I was surround by idiotic adults who only pandered to what I deemed relevant instead of exposing me to a much, much wider world.
How can today's children be the stewards of the world when their world is a screen? And idiotic adults pander to that?
How were dinosaurs relevant to my life in 1960 when I was 7? Or the horse and buggy? Or - being in New York City - farm tractors, silos, wolves, giant Sequoia trees, The Mikado, nectar, otters, the dodo, quill pens and Hungarian gulyas?
And yet, there they all were in dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and magazines. They intrigued me, inspired me and set my imagination on fire. They expanded my world.
But if you asked me what was relevant to me I would have said potato chips, Bozo the Clown, Superman and the Yankees. Imagine if I was surround by idiotic adults who only pandered to what I deemed relevant instead of exposing me to a much, much wider world.
How can today's children be the stewards of the world when their world is a screen? And idiotic adults pander to that?
316
Very well said! I think we need to put down our 'screens' and be with each other and nature.
2
Brilliantly and concisely stated. Thank you.
2
Several large footprint residences. Yachts. Private jets and frequent air travel. Fleets of automobiles. Far more than any who question the purely theoretical computer modeling that produces all the science that warns of man-made climate catastrophe, which for argument's sake is accepted, it is the rich and famous who are the climate criminals. They produce carbon footprints that a typical middle class family of four could not produce in 100 years of American suburban life. Yet they are wont to lecture the rest of us as they blithely go about their daily dastardly destruction of all that this author apparently holds dear. When we see the column detailing these dismaying lifestyles and their cost to our precious environment...we will have seen hades freeze over.
94
so Rose,
now that you have that out of your system, what are you going to do about the planet?
now that you have that out of your system, what are you going to do about the planet?
2
The rich surely have a larger footprint than the rest of us. But rich is itself relative. The per capita carbon footprint of Americans is much greater than that of Indians, for example, not to mention some of the most impoverished areas of Africa. No one is without sin in this and no one is without responsibilities. Nor is anyone's meeting of those responsibilities likely to be perfect. However much we are or aren't doing, we all need to do more. Trying to put all the blame and all the responsibility on others doesn't cut it.
1
Thomas Friedman is absolutely correct.
"Naïveté is the new realism — or else we, the human species, will become just another bad biological experiment."
The biggest cause of pollution is mankind, and over-population of humans is the reason the earth is dying.
It is naive in the extreme that most elites and pundits do not focus on the number of humans (about 7 billion so far).
So why are we sending food to sub-Sahara Africa, the area of the world with the fastest growing population which is already over 800 million? Why do we send so much money (thanks to *free trade*) to Asia, which is already vastly over-populated and home to over 60% of humans?
"Naïveté is the new realism — or else we, the human species, will become just another bad biological experiment."
The biggest cause of pollution is mankind, and over-population of humans is the reason the earth is dying.
It is naive in the extreme that most elites and pundits do not focus on the number of humans (about 7 billion so far).
So why are we sending food to sub-Sahara Africa, the area of the world with the fastest growing population which is already over 800 million? Why do we send so much money (thanks to *free trade*) to Asia, which is already vastly over-populated and home to over 60% of humans?
5
I've dedicated my career and life to educating people about the wonders and importance of this planet and the need to balance our own growth. To live in a sustainable way. I did this using science and facts . Now there's such a sense of helplessness as our younger generations only care for money and the next gadget they can buy.
The kind of work needed to truly get the people on this planet conscious of how their own well being is tied to the health of the planet is critical. As a biologist I can attest to how low salaries are compared to other professional jobs. I know millennials with deep caring for the environment who are choosing to become lawyers instead because of the terror behind not being able to pay off student debt. We do not value an economy designed to sustain humanity and the planet because there is greater profit exploiting resources. Endless unchecked profit.
We live on a beautiful little blue ball in a solar system that's part of a galaxy over 100,00,000 light years across. We don't have anywhere else to go. There is no secret space ship to escape our own fowled nest. We really need to change our human culture to value balance, altruism, and all life. So many good people are trying to get this message out, yet clearly it's not enough. Please at the very least elect leaders that will work towards policy that will help. Here in the US Hilary is the only choice. Trump will be a disaster on so many levels.
The kind of work needed to truly get the people on this planet conscious of how their own well being is tied to the health of the planet is critical. As a biologist I can attest to how low salaries are compared to other professional jobs. I know millennials with deep caring for the environment who are choosing to become lawyers instead because of the terror behind not being able to pay off student debt. We do not value an economy designed to sustain humanity and the planet because there is greater profit exploiting resources. Endless unchecked profit.
We live on a beautiful little blue ball in a solar system that's part of a galaxy over 100,00,000 light years across. We don't have anywhere else to go. There is no secret space ship to escape our own fowled nest. We really need to change our human culture to value balance, altruism, and all life. So many good people are trying to get this message out, yet clearly it's not enough. Please at the very least elect leaders that will work towards policy that will help. Here in the US Hilary is the only choice. Trump will be a disaster on so many levels.
243
"our younger generations only care for money and the next gadget they can buy."
This is desperation talking, and not even remotely accurate. I have a son (30) and daughter (28) who care a great deal about "the wonders of the planet". My daughters Master's thesis looked at the issues surrounding minority participation in the environmental movement. It is complicated. She really likes the smart phone she bought about a year ago (her first), but would never ignore the environment for an upgrade.
This is desperation talking, and not even remotely accurate. I have a son (30) and daughter (28) who care a great deal about "the wonders of the planet". My daughters Master's thesis looked at the issues surrounding minority participation in the environmental movement. It is complicated. She really likes the smart phone she bought about a year ago (her first), but would never ignore the environment for an upgrade.
perhaps a million gallons of gas have been used in limos over the past 20 years so Hillary can be transported like some Egyptian queen to make her appointed rounds. She is hardly aware of what it takes in BTUs to keep her happy.
1
We could set aside half the earth in protected zones, as E. O. Wilson suggests, if we stop eating animals and their eggs and milk. By various estimates, 30% to 40% of the earth's surface is devoted to animal agriculture. Even assuming that some sectors of plant agriculture would have to increase, to make up for animal foods, there would be a huge net gain of land to be set aside for protection, simply because animal agriculture is so inefficient and uses 10 to 20 pounds of plant food to produce one pound of meat, eggs, or milk. (Most of the corn and soy in the US is grown to feed animals.) Watch the film "Cowspiracy" on Netflix or visit cowspiracy.com
2
It is impossible to imagine someone who would waste, spoil and destroy our planet unless that person fell into one of two categories.
Either the despoiler must be ignorant, unaware that his actions are causing permanent damage, or he must be incredibly selfish – uncaring that his actions are creating irreversible harm to the world in which we live.
Ignorance is something we can deal with, as long as we have the time left to teach, and as long as there are not competing, well-financed forces teaching that global warming is a myth and that the effects of pollution are greatly exaggerated.
As far as the extremely selfish people who knowingly treat the planet like a supply depot of disposable items which can be sold for great sums, there really is nothing we can do – except prosecute them. Vigorously
Either the despoiler must be ignorant, unaware that his actions are causing permanent damage, or he must be incredibly selfish – uncaring that his actions are creating irreversible harm to the world in which we live.
Ignorance is something we can deal with, as long as we have the time left to teach, and as long as there are not competing, well-financed forces teaching that global warming is a myth and that the effects of pollution are greatly exaggerated.
As far as the extremely selfish people who knowingly treat the planet like a supply depot of disposable items which can be sold for great sums, there really is nothing we can do – except prosecute them. Vigorously
162
Actually I think we should round up the climate deniers and their paymasters and fly them to the great floating island of plastic waste in the Pacific. Leave them there. It is their country. They created it. Let them rule it. They won't even have to pay taxes.
Without them, we might be able to mitigate the rapidly unfolding catastrophe.
Without them, we might be able to mitigate the rapidly unfolding catastrophe.
3
I appreciate your sentiments, but not your two choices. Perhaps these are all you can manage. There is at least a third possibility -or spectrum of possibilities - that fall into the category of being aware of the downsides, but still going ahead and damaging the natural Earth. Perhaps people are desperate, or clearing Amazonian forest is the only work they can get. I am not saying it is right, just that, as Mr Beck wrote today, we may need more empathy.
Education is good: so the poacher can find better work, not sit and starve while watching his former livelihood forage.
Education is good: so the poacher can find better work, not sit and starve while watching his former livelihood forage.
"As far as the extremely selfish people who knowingly treat the planet like a supply depot of disposable items which can be sold for great sums, there really is nothing we can do – except prosecute them. Vigorously"
We can also quit rewarding them for what they do. We can stop throwing our money at products that are destroying the ecosystem. I'm fond of quoting Bob Dylan's words: "Money doesn't talk, it swears." We need to clean up its language by transforming our economy into one that rewards good behavior, where economic incentives are consistent with things of real value, like breathable air, drinkable water and healthful food.
We can also quit rewarding them for what they do. We can stop throwing our money at products that are destroying the ecosystem. I'm fond of quoting Bob Dylan's words: "Money doesn't talk, it swears." We need to clean up its language by transforming our economy into one that rewards good behavior, where economic incentives are consistent with things of real value, like breathable air, drinkable water and healthful food.
2
The Earth will recover from the infestation of Humanity. Might take 100,000 years. Might take a million. But it will recover. Even the radioactive detritus left behind will cease to be poisonous. The environment will finally breakdown the mountains of plastics left behind. There will be balance in the climate. New species will evolve; flora and fauna unimagined today will fill the oceans, cross the lands, skim the skies. And if a species of intellect and reason should evolve perhaps, in it's collective unconscious, there will be a wisp of instinctual memory warning it to not do the things that were done once before.
The Earth will recover. The Earth will heal. The Earth abides.
So...don't worry...about the Earth.
The Earth will recover. The Earth will heal. The Earth abides.
So...don't worry...about the Earth.
6
What most humans fail to realize is that we are just one of the species present here on earth at this time. Mother Nature would have no problem doing away with us should she so wish to. As we create more and more places inhospitable to life unless lived with AC, storms growing in severity, sea level rise, spreading of diseases such as Zika, antibiotic resistant bacteria and all the rest, we are slowly chipping away at our own ability to survive.
One of our failures as humans is our inability to reckon with slow change. We respond to quickly moving events but not those that creep up on us. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity; these all fall into that slower change category. Since many humans are also not conversant with nature they don't see what is happening even in their own habitat. This combination doesn't bode well, especially with the short sighted approach of believing that environmental protection is economically unjustified and unaffordable. When we no longer have a habitable planet, I don't think the economy will much matter anymore.
One of our failures as humans is our inability to reckon with slow change. We respond to quickly moving events but not those that creep up on us. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity; these all fall into that slower change category. Since many humans are also not conversant with nature they don't see what is happening even in their own habitat. This combination doesn't bode well, especially with the short sighted approach of believing that environmental protection is economically unjustified and unaffordable. When we no longer have a habitable planet, I don't think the economy will much matter anymore.
10
Never mind our sacred redwood forests and sequoias, towering higher than the Statue of Liberty, surviving blight, pestilence, drought, lightning and fire; some since a thousand years before Christ walked upon the earth. Until the loggers came. Now 95% sawed down. Along with half of the world’s forests.
Never mind the Appalachian mountaintop removals. The heavy metals poisoning thousands of miles of streams. Nor the Alberta ginormous 45,500 ton Bagger 288 strip-mining machine, 311’ tall by 705’ wide executing the vast strip-mining for Keystone XL dirty tar sands oil, on course to wipe out Canadian wildlife and wilderness the size of England, to pipeline oil over our heartland aquifers.
Nor the 1/8th of America, cleared to grow grain for animal factory farming, accounting for over 50% of greenhouse gasses. Nor that a cow needs 60 to 100 times more water (and land; some 45% of the world for livestock production) to produce one meal than its vegetable equivalent.
No, pay no mind to the deforestation of the Amazon, about half the size of the United States, 20% cut away, now at a rate of a football field per second, some say the size of a Florida per year; gone from the earth by 2030, along with 20% of earth’s oxygen production and fresh water, increasing global drought. 90% for cattle pasture. For McDonald’s and Jack in the Box.
Never mind that as stewards of our planet we are allowing it to be destroyed by our ignorance and apathy and the greed of the .1%.
Never mind the Appalachian mountaintop removals. The heavy metals poisoning thousands of miles of streams. Nor the Alberta ginormous 45,500 ton Bagger 288 strip-mining machine, 311’ tall by 705’ wide executing the vast strip-mining for Keystone XL dirty tar sands oil, on course to wipe out Canadian wildlife and wilderness the size of England, to pipeline oil over our heartland aquifers.
Nor the 1/8th of America, cleared to grow grain for animal factory farming, accounting for over 50% of greenhouse gasses. Nor that a cow needs 60 to 100 times more water (and land; some 45% of the world for livestock production) to produce one meal than its vegetable equivalent.
No, pay no mind to the deforestation of the Amazon, about half the size of the United States, 20% cut away, now at a rate of a football field per second, some say the size of a Florida per year; gone from the earth by 2030, along with 20% of earth’s oxygen production and fresh water, increasing global drought. 90% for cattle pasture. For McDonald’s and Jack in the Box.
Never mind that as stewards of our planet we are allowing it to be destroyed by our ignorance and apathy and the greed of the .1%.
57
Thomas Friedman refers to Sylvia Earle today. Thirty years ago, I had the pleasure of getting to know Dr. Earle and spending time with her in places as diverse as China and Scotland. She already was one of the world’s pre-eminent oceanographic scientists, and she and my wife were friends and colleagues.
At that time, Sylvia Earle had gained a reputation as a practical environmentalist. That means that, in addition to her research, she helped educate companies using the resources of the oceans to do so responsibly.
Over the past thirty years, the clock has kept ticking closer to a point of no return, and the position of those who have no intention of helping to solve the deterioration of our planet has hardened.
I can think of no better way to help good people like Sylvia Earle than to spend my time and money to prevent Donald Trump from ever sitting in the Oval Office.
At that time, Sylvia Earle had gained a reputation as a practical environmentalist. That means that, in addition to her research, she helped educate companies using the resources of the oceans to do so responsibly.
Over the past thirty years, the clock has kept ticking closer to a point of no return, and the position of those who have no intention of helping to solve the deterioration of our planet has hardened.
I can think of no better way to help good people like Sylvia Earle than to spend my time and money to prevent Donald Trump from ever sitting in the Oval Office.
8
There are two problems with Friedman's suggestion. First, it completely ignores human population growth. The population of Africa, for example, has quintupled since 1960 and that of South Asia more than tripled. These are rates of increase that are unprecedented in human history or prehistory. They are, on the one hand, a testament to the relative good governance of these countries, despite the negative views we often have of them. On the other hand, they are environmentally and politically unsustainable. Second, it implicitly treats the world as one country. What that means is that some countries will in effect be treated as nature parks for others, with the citizens of the latter dressing up in national attire to serve as guides for rich eco-tourists from other countries. Guess which countries will be the nature parks and which countries will be providing the eco-tourists. . Imperialism returns as eco-imperialism.
3
I cannot agree more with this article, but unfortunately it is very short in solutions. Here are a few ones:
1)Our economic model that values growth above all needs to be revised.
2)We cannot live in a world with such abysmal economic imbalances among countries, even continents. All developed nations have an obligation to help to end these disparities, instead of putting all their effort to trade among themselves. 3)The hyper consumption that drives developed economies needs to be curtailed. 4)Please reproduce responsibly! Population growth needs to be addressed worldwide. It is refutable that population growth is having a very clear negative impact in the environment and species. Yet, media outlets ignore this issue. 5) The UN needs a serious revision if it is going to help to save us. 6)Newspapers should have frequent discussions on those thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Bertrand Russell and others who have addressed the issues of humanism, freedom and rational thinking . Instead, religious discussions predominate. What about "What political party would Voltaire belong to?
1)Our economic model that values growth above all needs to be revised.
2)We cannot live in a world with such abysmal economic imbalances among countries, even continents. All developed nations have an obligation to help to end these disparities, instead of putting all their effort to trade among themselves. 3)The hyper consumption that drives developed economies needs to be curtailed. 4)Please reproduce responsibly! Population growth needs to be addressed worldwide. It is refutable that population growth is having a very clear negative impact in the environment and species. Yet, media outlets ignore this issue. 5) The UN needs a serious revision if it is going to help to save us. 6)Newspapers should have frequent discussions on those thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Bertrand Russell and others who have addressed the issues of humanism, freedom and rational thinking . Instead, religious discussions predominate. What about "What political party would Voltaire belong to?
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Your points 1) and 4) are quite related. We must start shrinking the number of humans on this planet and our economy has to adapt to a population that is shrinking rather than growing. But we also have the paradox of economic growth has been the best way to reduce the rate of population growth.
Changes in human nature are required to save the ecosystem that supports us, including less greed and willingness to work together as one people to solves the massive problems that confront us. Changing the way we think about the world is a very difficult task, but it can be done. Some of us have made great strides in accepting all the different kinds of people that exist, but there are still to many of the "us vs. them" type that still think of those different from them are subhuman and must be fought.
I am not sure that humans can succeed in this challenge as we rush headlong at great speed into the Sixth Great Extinction that will make this planet uninhabitable for us and most of the present day species. Life will continue and evolve new species, but it is a great shame for us to commit the greatest Murder-Suicide crime in the history of this planet.
Changes in human nature are required to save the ecosystem that supports us, including less greed and willingness to work together as one people to solves the massive problems that confront us. Changing the way we think about the world is a very difficult task, but it can be done. Some of us have made great strides in accepting all the different kinds of people that exist, but there are still to many of the "us vs. them" type that still think of those different from them are subhuman and must be fought.
I am not sure that humans can succeed in this challenge as we rush headlong at great speed into the Sixth Great Extinction that will make this planet uninhabitable for us and most of the present day species. Life will continue and evolve new species, but it is a great shame for us to commit the greatest Murder-Suicide crime in the history of this planet.
4
Teach humans to respect the natural environment, planet earth?
I am 52 and shocked how unbelievably limited the human lifespan is, how limited we are in character, focus and intelligence. A person has no time to learn a fraction of the things humans do know (of various fields, disciplines, professions, etc.) not to mention whether we have the intelligence and focus required in the first place, and many human advances are dangerous and require exceptional character from a person.
Add to this that for all our saying that we can learn from the past we in fact, if we are honest, lose virtually all certainty and insight into the past before our memories begin to consolidate in adolescence, it makes you wonder why anyone should care much at all about earthly progress and not rather view all of life as something of a grand illusion, a test of patience and that we should be comfortable with religion, metaphysics instead.
In short if we want to save planet earth we need a Manhattan project of increased lifespan, character, memory and intelligence of the human race to "fix us" more strongly to the planet and life, so we "take" more strongly to life and are not liable to conclude life is so short and we are so limited in every other way we might as well turn to religion, metaphysics and the heck with the planet...
Or maybe life really is just an illusion, some test of patience and we should just bear to our deaths all crumbling to dust around us, even the death of planet earth.
I am 52 and shocked how unbelievably limited the human lifespan is, how limited we are in character, focus and intelligence. A person has no time to learn a fraction of the things humans do know (of various fields, disciplines, professions, etc.) not to mention whether we have the intelligence and focus required in the first place, and many human advances are dangerous and require exceptional character from a person.
Add to this that for all our saying that we can learn from the past we in fact, if we are honest, lose virtually all certainty and insight into the past before our memories begin to consolidate in adolescence, it makes you wonder why anyone should care much at all about earthly progress and not rather view all of life as something of a grand illusion, a test of patience and that we should be comfortable with religion, metaphysics instead.
In short if we want to save planet earth we need a Manhattan project of increased lifespan, character, memory and intelligence of the human race to "fix us" more strongly to the planet and life, so we "take" more strongly to life and are not liable to conclude life is so short and we are so limited in every other way we might as well turn to religion, metaphysics and the heck with the planet...
Or maybe life really is just an illusion, some test of patience and we should just bear to our deaths all crumbling to dust around us, even the death of planet earth.
The question, a quaint one for some, is whether or not, in fact, we have souls. If we are ourselves part of nature only - regardless of Shakespeare, the Manhattan skyline, space exploration and gene theory - then even our "artifice" is merely natural occurrence, despite our footprint. These may produce unintended and unpleasant results but even these are, in turn, naturally occurring events. If, however, we are in reality moral beings of a unique kind of sentience, bearing responsibility for ourselves and others, and our world, the matter is altogether different. We are, in fact, asked to respond to nature in crisis as if we were beings with soul - both in and outside of nature. This is illogical and emotionally difficult if we have come to see ourselves as soulless, merely material/natural entities. Reverence is required, and this, I suggest, requires something which we may call "soul," and this is not merely natural.
2
I wouldn’t bet that some ultimately-sophisticated 3-D printer couldn’t eventually recreate lost wonders. Indeed, the 3-D printer is merely a more prosaic version of the Star Trek “transporter” – given a recorded matrix, what did that transporter do but destroy something then re-create it from scratch? Increase the sophistication of recordings, increase the potential for exact replication.
Perhaps we should be taking excruciatingly detailed digital recordings of the innards of ALL at-risk life forms in preparation for future capacities. Except maybe of Donald Trump.
“What we do right now or fail to do will determine the future — not just for us, but for all life on earth.” Hardly a revelation, since this has been our primary prospect since we developed the means to destroy civilization and ourselves in the bargain. THAT process began in 1945, a long time ago; so, we’ve needed to live with it for all that time.
How many kids who are not born to the 0.1% or who are not indigenous to the native venues get to actually see an elephant in the wild, Tom? How many species were extinguished millions of years ago when the extinction-level event of a giant asteroid impacted the Earth and ended the reign of the reptiles (and a lot of other critters)? How can we know that 50% of the species now extant will be gone by the end of the century when we discover thousands of new species each year?
This planet ALWAYS was an ark. But it’s a pretty resilient ark.
Perhaps we should be taking excruciatingly detailed digital recordings of the innards of ALL at-risk life forms in preparation for future capacities. Except maybe of Donald Trump.
“What we do right now or fail to do will determine the future — not just for us, but for all life on earth.” Hardly a revelation, since this has been our primary prospect since we developed the means to destroy civilization and ourselves in the bargain. THAT process began in 1945, a long time ago; so, we’ve needed to live with it for all that time.
How many kids who are not born to the 0.1% or who are not indigenous to the native venues get to actually see an elephant in the wild, Tom? How many species were extinguished millions of years ago when the extinction-level event of a giant asteroid impacted the Earth and ended the reign of the reptiles (and a lot of other critters)? How can we know that 50% of the species now extant will be gone by the end of the century when we discover thousands of new species each year?
This planet ALWAYS was an ark. But it’s a pretty resilient ark.
1
That must have been what one dinosaur said to the other one about 65 million years ago "This planet ALWAYS was an ark. But it’s a pretty resilient ark."
Then they said "what is that bright light in the sky..."
Then they said "what is that bright light in the sky..."
3
Kevin:
Well, with the percentage of GDP that industrialized societies, including ours, spend on merely feeding their people and providing them with Band-Aids, it's unlikely that we'd be able to do anything more about the NEXT asteroid that hits the Earth than those two dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
But if we extend ourselves, we MIGHT be able to save an elephant.
Well, with the percentage of GDP that industrialized societies, including ours, spend on merely feeding their people and providing them with Band-Aids, it's unlikely that we'd be able to do anything more about the NEXT asteroid that hits the Earth than those two dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
But if we extend ourselves, we MIGHT be able to save an elephant.
1
Actually, the ecosystem is quite fragile, and once certain tipping points are crossed, it won't recover for thousands of years, if ever. We are seeing this all over the planet, and denying the peril we are in only hastens it. Whether or not our children get to see elephants in the wild is not the point, per se. The elephants, or lack thereof, are environmental markers--canaries in the coal mine, to mix metaphors, and they are shouting (trumpeting?) a warning to all of us. We need to pay attention, and minimize the destruction.
11
Perhaps your greatest column. Everything else that claims our attention pales in comparison.
122
Man has reached out to the skies above
And created the art works we love,
While the heavens thundered
He's sundered and plundered
With wars he has been hand and glove.
Exalted and sometimes debased
Think of the species he's erased
Yet William Shakespeare
Whom we all revere
Evolved with his exquisite taste.
Which of us will step to the fore
Pope Francis whom many adore,
Obama who's striving
A Trump who's conniving,
Determine what History was for.
And created the art works we love,
While the heavens thundered
He's sundered and plundered
With wars he has been hand and glove.
Exalted and sometimes debased
Think of the species he's erased
Yet William Shakespeare
Whom we all revere
Evolved with his exquisite taste.
Which of us will step to the fore
Pope Francis whom many adore,
Obama who's striving
A Trump who's conniving,
Determine what History was for.
121
Thank you Larry for your always thoughtful comment. I look forward to reading your poems everyday always connecting all the important issues and making perfect sense out of all the craziness. You give me a reason to be hopeful.
Response to Larry Eisenberg
Response to Larry Eisenberg
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