PARIS - Investing billions today to protect threatened ecosystems and dwindling biodiversity would reap trillions in savings over the long haul, according to a UN-backed report issued Friday.
More than a billion of Earth's poorest denizens depend directly on coral reefs, forests, mangroves, aquifers and other forms of "natural capital" to eke out a living.
Unless world leaders take swift action to halt the accelerating depletion of these resources, the result could be hunger, conflict and environment refugees, the study warned.
People who read my work often say, “Okay, so it’s clear you don’t
like this culture, but what do you want to replace it?” The answer is
that I don’t want any one culture to replace this culture. I want ten
thousand cultures to replace this culture, each one arising organically
from its own place. That’s how humans inhabited the planet (or, more
precisely, their landbases, since each group inhabited a place, and not the whole world, which is precisely the point), before this culture set about reducing all cultures to one.
"What is seen with one eye has no depth."
I'm thinking, as I ponder the wisdom of Ursula LeGuin, that American culture is at the end of what it can accomplish with its single-eyed vision. For all our material progress, for all our ability to dominate just about anything or anyone we encounter -- this is our history, our manifest destiny -- things are falling apart in every sector of society.
Living on the doorstep of Acadia National Park, my family hardly needs to be reminded that national parks are a good idea. But are they America’s best idea, as Ken Burns’ PBS documentary suggests?
Scott Klinger and Rebecca Adamson of the First People’s Alliance challenge Burns’ unequivocal enthusiasm. They credit Burns for acknowledging the violence against first peoples that stains the history of our parks. But for them the problem with the parks endures.
At dinner one evening, my younger son Matthew, then 10, said quite seriously:
“Dad, how come it was more fun when you were a kid?” Like many parents, I do
tend to romanticise my childhood — and children today do have plenty of fun,
of a different sort. But my son was serious; he felt that he had missed out
on something important. He was right.
Many people of about my age, baby boomers or older, were inclined towards a
kind of free, natural play. I knew my Missouri woods and fields; I knew
every bend in the creek and dip in the beaten dirt paths.
A few years ago, I visited Southwood Elementary, the grade school I
attended when I was a boy growing up in Raytown, Missouri. I asked a
classroom of children about their relationship with nature. Many of
them offered the now-typical response: they preferred playing video
games; they favored indoor activities-and when they were outside, they
played soccer or some other adult-organized sport.
