"You can't draw a line and say the air ends here and I begin there. There is no line.
The air is in us, infused to us and it's circulating throughout us.
We are the air in the most profound way." — David Suzuki, Bioneers conference, 2013
The air is in us, infused to us and it's circulating throughout us.
We are the air in the most profound way." — David Suzuki, Bioneers conference, 2013
We aren't only what we eat, but also what we breathe, drink and touch. For nearly 60 years that's been at the heart of Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki's message. Suzuki, who trained as a geneticist immersed in reductionist science (studying the component building blocks of life), embraced a somewhat more holistic perspective after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. Life is more than the same of its parts. It is a dynamic system of nested systems where change is a constant, everything connects, and complexity (biodiversity) is essential for resilience and prosperity. The vulnerability of such vibrance is that even a well-intentioned, seemingly small change can lead to catastrophe if it diminishes complexity.
Kill the bugs. Lose the birdsong.
Suzuki's talk is brilliant and inspiring, but also underscores the id-fueled idiocy of the current administration's raging war against environmental protections (the effects of which are detailed in a recent New York Times report). We know better and have known better for decades.
Science doesn't require belief. Truth remains true no matter how many lies-per-day are Tweeted.
Likewise, asylum-seekers at the southern border are not the existential threat to the Union. For every rabid, though rare, headline about a murder committed by an illegal immigrant, there are thousands of deaths caused by poisoned air, water, land and climate. There are even government charts calculating the number of "pre-mature deaths" (aka murders) each policy rollback would cause. Factor in illness, diminished productivity and property losses due to extreme weather and costs are almost incalculable.
Perhaps we will adapt. As the world fills with plastic, plastic has been found to be filling us. It gets into microbes, birds and whales, so that shouldn't come as a surprise. Homo plasticus may not be the Singularity Ray Kurzweil had in mind, but given the durability of the material such a transformation could provide a measure of immortality. Methane? It's the new oxygen...
Kill the bugs. Lose the birdsong.
Suzuki's talk is brilliant and inspiring, but also underscores the id-fueled idiocy of the current administration's raging war against environmental protections (the effects of which are detailed in a recent New York Times report). We know better and have known better for decades.
Science doesn't require belief. Truth remains true no matter how many lies-per-day are Tweeted.
Likewise, asylum-seekers at the southern border are not the existential threat to the Union. For every rabid, though rare, headline about a murder committed by an illegal immigrant, there are thousands of deaths caused by poisoned air, water, land and climate. There are even government charts calculating the number of "pre-mature deaths" (aka murders) each policy rollback would cause. Factor in illness, diminished productivity and property losses due to extreme weather and costs are almost incalculable.
Perhaps we will adapt. As the world fills with plastic, plastic has been found to be filling us. It gets into microbes, birds and whales, so that shouldn't come as a surprise. Homo plasticus may not be the Singularity Ray Kurzweil had in mind, but given the durability of the material such a transformation could provide a measure of immortality. Methane? It's the new oxygen...
