In a piece titled, The attack of the killer everything, the BBC’s Richard Black makes a pretty good case for the world-wide decline in amphibians and bees being linked to the piling on of environmental stress including lack of habitat, food, and perhaps most interesting, diversity.
So its not just humans who are not eating properly, not using sunblock, exposed to toxic chemicals in our air and water, and living in environments that we were not adapted to emotionally and psychologically.
This unhealthy environment is cause for concern, and one reaction to it has been the rise of the “Smart Growth” movement. Over at the Huffington Post, Seth Bauer interviewed one of the deans of Smart Growth, Architect Andres Duany, who has written a new book titled, appropriately enough, The Smart Growth Manual. From the article:
Duany began by identifying three concurrent crises that he traced directly to the American lifestyle: Peak oil (the likelihood that we’ve already consumed more than half the planet’s petroleum in barely 100 years), the housing bubble, and global climate change. “It’s where we live, the size of our houses, the distances we drive for work, commerce, play–everything.”
And there’s a brutal irony to our long record of poor choices, Duany says: Other countries are emulating it. As they become wealthier per capita, it’s the American lifestyle that they aspire to, the one that has undermined our health, our social engagement, and our environment. He laughs. “In some ways, it’s our only chance,” he says, of staying on top. “We can ruin China by making extremely unpleasant places for them.” What justifies density is urbanism, he says. “You give up your back yard for street life. But they’re getting neither. They’re getting Tyson’s Corner.”
The solution for all of us is to make choices for land use based on good science, not what is expedient or produces the highest short-term gain. So, “The solutions to this oversized, expensive, and planet-killing misery, Duany says, are simple, obvious, and nearly impossible to implement.”
I know how tiring it can get to keep hearing this, and it does seem that we’ve been saying it for years, but the need for more environmental education among all peoples is critical to initiating any needed changes. There is probably a majority of people who don’t see a problem if we lose amphibians and bees all together. They don’t know what they are “good for.” We are at Earth Day +40 years, and though we have made gains, we still have far to go, and it’s getting late.
By allowing biological diversity to continue to diminish we are rushing toward a day when our planet won’t be able to support us. But relying on enlightened self interest fails to take into account the “what good is it?” argument. We must reach that point where frogs, bees, bluebells and brown trout have standing and are seen as legitimate stakeholders. Because right now we are treating the planet like almost all empires have treated indigenous peoples. They aren’t like me, they don’t vote, they have something I want, they have to go. But we do this at our peril.
A great illustration of this is the new movie “Avatar.” If you haven’t seen it yet, go! Or rent the disc when it comes out and watch it with an awareness that it is a warning against our specie’s ignorance and avarice that rings true.
We need to start a foundation and a telethon to find a cure for Industrial Disease before it’s too late.
JP
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