Dot Earth Blog: The Invisible Ax - People, Profit and Progress on Humanity's Planet

I recently traveled for the first time to Taiwan, where I saw inspiring efforts to give a decent life to orangutans and other wildlife cast off by the exotic-pet trade and to collect and conserve rare tropical flora from around the world. I?ll be posting more on those projects in January.

I also addressed students and the public at several universities.* At National Cheng Kung University in the southern city of Tainan, I gave a lecture titled ?The Invisible Ax: People, Profit and Progress on a Planet Under Pressure,? which has now been posted on YouTube.

I think you may particularly appreciate the onstage discussion near the end led by Professor Chia-wei Li of National Tsing Hua University, who is editor in chief of Scientific American?s Chinese-language edition, former director of the National Museum of Natural Science and founded the preservation center for tropical plants that I visited and will post on soon.

Here?s the university?s description of the lecture and here?s my written outline (the talk itself strays far and wide):

From the depths of the Amazon rain forest to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, Earth?s biological riches are under assault.

The pressure has grown with the surge in human numbers and appetites since the Industrial Revolution, and in recent decades has expanded even faster along with the resource demands of the world?s rapidly growing middle class.

Sometimes the human impact has been as direct as the bite of chain saws toppling ancient trees to make way for cattle pasture or nets corralling schools of giant bluefin tuna for the sushi trade or gunshots felling elephants for their ivory. Sometimes it?s been indirect, as in the human transport of invasive species around the world ? either as pets or unwitting hitchhikers ? causing enormous ecological disruptions from the Everglades to Australia.

The most indirect impact of all is coming through the global buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which are altering the climate and ocean chemistry with long-lasting repercussions.

Much has been lost, but much remains to conserve. And the same technological capacity that has so boosted the human potential to destroy and disrupt Earth?s operating systems also provides unparalleled capacity to protect them and build the awareness and care that will be necessary to maintain a vibrant, thriving planet in this century and beyond.

From the still-violent Amazon frontier to the thawing North Pole sea ice there are signs that science, education, transparency and global communication networks can foster progress even in the face of rapid change.

Tribes deep in the Amazon are working with Google to demarcate their territory not only on the ground but also on the World Wide Web, to cut chances that profiteers could invade their territory without consequences.

A team of scientists is pioneering new strategies for ensuring that polar bears can persist even as summer sea ice ? a vital feeding platform ? retreats under the climate change that is already in the pipeline no matter how aggressively societies tackle the greenhouse challenge.

DNA, the barcode of every species, is being used to track shipments of tropical hardwood and even detected illegal whale meat being served in a Los Angeles sushi restaurant.

Anti-poaching patrols in an African park are being backed by funding raised through blogs and crowd-sourced contributions.

But without getting to the root driver of demand for everything from oil to rosewood to ivory, such efforts will always come up short.

That?s where education comes in, and new visualization techniques are making inroads there, as well. Animators and illustrators are devising fresh ways to explain the invisible connections between our habits and environmental impacts a world away.

And while virtual experience through a screen, large or small, is seen by many as disconnecting people from nature, there are also innovations in teaching and communication in which digital tools can enrich and build on real-world experience ? providing a hybrid path to increasing environmental care and a conservation ethic.

| Disclosure Note | My expenses were covered by the lecture sponsors, the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation, but my views, as always, are my own and my reporting in Taiwan was done in my free time.

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/the-invisible-ax-people-profit-and-progress-on-humanitys-planet/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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