Nature's Trust: Reclaiming an Environmental Discourse
By Mary Christina Wood
INTRODUCTION
The term Bioneers suggests a new kind of community--an intentioned, innovative, diverse group of people who share a commitment to the future of this planet. Collectively, Bioneers are finding ways to reduce their own footprint on the Earth, hoping their innovations will spread to others. That is a worthwhile endeavor; as Gandhi said, we must be the change we want to see in the world.
But reducing our footprint is not nearly enough. We must also expand our imprint. Specifically, we need to engage our government to reverse the most encompassing destruction society has ever amassed against this Earth. It is a challenge unparalleled in the history of human civilization. To meet this challenge, citizens must re-conceive their government's role in environmental protection.
I begin by taking stock of where our civilization sits on the trajectory of environmental loss. Then I will suggest why government is essential and yet why it is not working. Finally, I will suggest a new discourse that we could all use to engage our government in protecting Nature.
Let us first confront the big picture. We are rapidly losing life on this planet. Just a few statistics speak volumes. In this country alone, at least 9,000 species are at risk of extinction. Fish advisories for toxic contamination are in effect for 24% of all rivers, 35% of all lakes, and 71% of all coastal estuaries in this country, as well as 100% of the Great Lakes. The United States has lost over 53% of its wetlands and 90% of its old growth forests. California has lost 99% of its native grassland. The amount of urban land development has quadrupled between 1954 and 1997. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 95% of all Americans now have an increased risk of lung cancer, just from breathing toxins in outdoor air. The EPA estimates that 8% of women of childbearing age have unsafe blood mercury concentrations, and more than 300,000 newborns each year risk learning disabilities due to fetal exposure to methylmercury. Babies in the United States are being born polluted.
On the global level, approximately half of the world's original forest is gone, and another 30% is degraded or fragmented. There are now 200 “dead zones” in the world's oceans, covering tens of thousands of square miles. Nearly one-third of the sea fisheries have collapsed, with the rate of decline accelerating towards complete loss of wild seafood just four decades from now. The World Conservation Union has found that globally, 20% of all mammals, 31% of all amphibians, and 12% of all bird species are threatened. The World Wildlife Fund 2000 report found that the Earth's natural ecosystems have declined by 33% over the last thirty years.
Global warming is a threat that eclipses all others, and it is accelerating. Carbon dioxide, the main contributor to global warming, has reached a level in the atmosphere higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years and is rising at a rate of 2% each year. Scientists warn that temperature increases worldwide may send more than a third of the planet's species into extinction within the next forty-four years. The polar ice cap and almost all of the glaciers of the world are melting rapidly--they include glaciers in the Swiss Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes. Glacier National Park will likely have no more glaciers in twenty-three years. Greenland is melting. On October 30, 2006, British Prime Minister Tony Blair unveiled a landmark report on global warming and said:
This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime. Unless we act now . . . these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be irreversible. There is nothing more serious, more urgent, more demanding of leadership . . . in the global commun- ity.
As Pulitzer Prize winner Ross Gelbspan puts it, “climate crisis is . . . a civilizational issue.”
It would be sheer fantasy to believe that these statistics are end points. Rather, they are mileposts along a road that leads to a very clear dead end for all of us. The twenty-five percents will turn into seventy-five percents and then one hundred percents. At some point, and perhaps very soon, there will be mere fragments of a natural system left, and it will not support abundant life on this planet. If you take a hard look at the pace of change, you see that such an end point could be within our lifetimes. We therefore need an immediate, massive shift in the way our society conducts itself. We have been saying that for years now, and yet the problems have only worsened.
If you are a strategic thinker, and devoted to the cause of environmental health, you might be thinking right now, what is my part in accomplishing such a massive shift? In assessing what you can do from this point on, think about what you have done during the last two decades to protect nature. It is during this recent time period that many losses have accelerated. Many Americans have been recycling, composting, buying organic products, using less paper, converting to rechargeable batteries, driving less, and trying to convince their family members, friends, and neighbors to do the same.
These are important changes to make, because they serve as examples to show others that we can make adjustments without society collapsing. But, these collective efforts on the part of dedicated citizens have not been enough. Sadly, they have barely made a dent in the way the broader mass of people goes about everyday living. For every person switching to a hybrid car, I can show you ten people driving SUVs. For every ten people that turn off lights to save electricity, I can show you a hundred that leave lights on when they leave home. For every hundred people that painstakingly recycle their plastic milk jugs, I can show you a thousand that just do not bother. At some point, environmental strategy must acknowledge simple mathematics: if the rate of voluntary conversion to eco-friendly behavior is not outpacing the rate of destructive behavior--and outpacing it enough on the macro scale to turn the tide of the environmental parameters we must pay attention to, like species loss, climate change, deforestation, toxic pollution, and such--then we are not reversing environmental losses; we are just slowing them by some indeterminate amount. As you know, an indication of insanity is doing the same thing a thousand times over with the same result and expecting a different result on the next attempt. We now must rethink our strategies for protecting nature, and we must do so urgently. The net losses over the past two decades make one thing very clear: environmental responsibility cannot be left solely to volunteerism.
The term Bioneers suggests a new kind of community--an intentioned, innovative, diverse group of people who share a commitment to the future of this planet. Collectively, Bioneers are finding ways to reduce their own footprint on the Earth, hoping their innovations will spread to others. That is a worthwhile endeavor; as Gandhi said, we must be the change we want to see in the world.
But reducing our footprint is not nearly enough. We must also expand our imprint. Specifically, we need to engage our government to reverse the most encompassing destruction society has ever amassed against this Earth. It is a challenge unparalleled in the history of human civilization. To meet this challenge, citizens must re-conceive their government's role in environmental protection.
I begin by taking stock of where our civilization sits on the trajectory of environmental loss. Then I will suggest why government is essential and yet why it is not working. Finally, I will suggest a new discourse that we could all use to engage our government in protecting Nature.
Let us first confront the big picture. We are rapidly losing life on this planet. Just a few statistics speak volumes. In this country alone, at least 9,000 species are at risk of extinction. Fish advisories for toxic contamination are in effect for 24% of all rivers, 35% of all lakes, and 71% of all coastal estuaries in this country, as well as 100% of the Great Lakes. The United States has lost over 53% of its wetlands and 90% of its old growth forests. California has lost 99% of its native grassland. The amount of urban land development has quadrupled between 1954 and 1997. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 95% of all Americans now have an increased risk of lung cancer, just from breathing toxins in outdoor air. The EPA estimates that 8% of women of childbearing age have unsafe blood mercury concentrations, and more than 300,000 newborns each year risk learning disabilities due to fetal exposure to methylmercury. Babies in the United States are being born polluted.
On the global level, approximately half of the world's original forest is gone, and another 30% is degraded or fragmented. There are now 200 “dead zones” in the world's oceans, covering tens of thousands of square miles. Nearly one-third of the sea fisheries have collapsed, with the rate of decline accelerating towards complete loss of wild seafood just four decades from now. The World Conservation Union has found that globally, 20% of all mammals, 31% of all amphibians, and 12% of all bird species are threatened. The World Wildlife Fund 2000 report found that the Earth's natural ecosystems have declined by 33% over the last thirty years.
Global warming is a threat that eclipses all others, and it is accelerating. Carbon dioxide, the main contributor to global warming, has reached a level in the atmosphere higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years and is rising at a rate of 2% each year. Scientists warn that temperature increases worldwide may send more than a third of the planet's species into extinction within the next forty-four years. The polar ice cap and almost all of the glaciers of the world are melting rapidly--they include glaciers in the Swiss Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes. Glacier National Park will likely have no more glaciers in twenty-three years. Greenland is melting. On October 30, 2006, British Prime Minister Tony Blair unveiled a landmark report on global warming and said:
This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime. Unless we act now . . . these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be irreversible. There is nothing more serious, more urgent, more demanding of leadership . . . in the global commun- ity.
As Pulitzer Prize winner Ross Gelbspan puts it, “climate crisis is . . . a civilizational issue.”
It would be sheer fantasy to believe that these statistics are end points. Rather, they are mileposts along a road that leads to a very clear dead end for all of us. The twenty-five percents will turn into seventy-five percents and then one hundred percents. At some point, and perhaps very soon, there will be mere fragments of a natural system left, and it will not support abundant life on this planet. If you take a hard look at the pace of change, you see that such an end point could be within our lifetimes. We therefore need an immediate, massive shift in the way our society conducts itself. We have been saying that for years now, and yet the problems have only worsened.
If you are a strategic thinker, and devoted to the cause of environmental health, you might be thinking right now, what is my part in accomplishing such a massive shift? In assessing what you can do from this point on, think about what you have done during the last two decades to protect nature. It is during this recent time period that many losses have accelerated. Many Americans have been recycling, composting, buying organic products, using less paper, converting to rechargeable batteries, driving less, and trying to convince their family members, friends, and neighbors to do the same.
These are important changes to make, because they serve as examples to show others that we can make adjustments without society collapsing. But, these collective efforts on the part of dedicated citizens have not been enough. Sadly, they have barely made a dent in the way the broader mass of people goes about everyday living. For every person switching to a hybrid car, I can show you ten people driving SUVs. For every ten people that turn off lights to save electricity, I can show you a hundred that leave lights on when they leave home. For every hundred people that painstakingly recycle their plastic milk jugs, I can show you a thousand that just do not bother. At some point, environmental strategy must acknowledge simple mathematics: if the rate of voluntary conversion to eco-friendly behavior is not outpacing the rate of destructive behavior--and outpacing it enough on the macro scale to turn the tide of the environmental parameters we must pay attention to, like species loss, climate change, deforestation, toxic pollution, and such--then we are not reversing environmental losses; we are just slowing them by some indeterminate amount. As you know, an indication of insanity is doing the same thing a thousand times over with the same result and expecting a different result on the next attempt. We now must rethink our strategies for protecting nature, and we must do so urgently. The net losses over the past two decades make one thing very clear: environmental responsibility cannot be left solely to volunteerism.
