I was apprehensive last night as I headed uptown to Columbia University to hear anthropologist Richard Leakey and three others remind their audience that our species is driving Earth’s sixth great wave of mass extinction. I thought the event might be a downer. Boy, was it.
In 20 or 30 years, Leakey projected, “60 to 70 percent of the species we know today will disappear.” The national parks and animal sanctuaries we’ve created are islands, and whenever there’s a significant climate change--like the one we’re causing right now--“island species disappear because they can’t get off the island.” Furthermore, while human evolution has slowed to a crawl or stopped, the pathogens that attack us are evolving like crazy. We exist ourselves because of previous extinctions, Leakey pointed out--if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out, our mammalian ancestors wouldn’t have taken over. However, he said, “There’s no guarantee at all that in a sixth extinction, our species would survive.”
Next, marine scientist Ellen Prager took the mike to talk about species death underwater. “My colleagues and I fear going out to these reefs that used to be our inspiration,” she said, calling them “ghost towns.” Then David Thorson, a “modern-day explorer” who calls himself “a canary just back from the coal mine,” told about his attempts to navigate the Northwest Passage in a 57-foot fiberglass sailboat. When he tried it in the 1990s and early 2000s, pack ice blocked the way, forcing him to turn back. He tried again in 2007 and found the passage smooth sailing. “The good news for us on Cloud Nine turned out to be bad news for the planet,” he said. Finally, musician and bioacoustician Bernie Krause talked about the sounds that vanish as we wipe out species. He played before-and-after “soundscapes” recorded first in healthy ecosystems, then in the same spots after logging or jet-flybys or coral reef death. The difference was dramatic.
What can we do to make things better? Answers ranged from taking shorter showers (Leakey) and shutting the hell up (Krause) to winning allies by telling stories (Thorson) and letting politicians know that if they don’t pay attention to the environment, they’ll be out of a job (Prager).
“If we disappear, is that so bad?” one audience member asked. Leakey answered that although he would like his grandchildren to live, “There’s no question that the world would be better off without us.”
--Polly Shulman
Were there any forums that showcased or communicated the study of Food Science at World Science Festival?