Hello Elizabeth, it's wonderful to have
you with us this afternoon. We're very excited to have this opportunity
to speak with you and ask you a few questions
about your book, The Sixth Extinction, which as we know was
the assigned reading for the class of 2018 here at
Lafayette College. So in your book, The Sixth Extinction, we read
that by the end of the century, 20 to 50 percent
of all species on Earth could be on their way to extinction.
What possible implications does that have for the human race?
-Well the the clear, honest
answer there.. is that we don't know.
One of the points of the book is that we
seem to be in one of those rare moments
in, you know, the history of the planet of a
what's known as a mass extinction, and in this particular case
we are the agents of that extinction, and one of the points that scientists make when they talk
about mass extinction is that
what seems to happen when we look back at the past, the mass extinctions in the
past
which have a sort of diversity of causes,
is that the rules of the game change. It seems that so, for example,
to take a very well-known example, the last mass extinction
was about 66 million years ago when the dinosaurs died off
and you know people, we use the word dinosaur to refer to something that's
obsolete and and we think of dinosaurs as, you know, they were sort of not too bright
and sort of shuffled off. But dinosaurs were the dominant creature
a whole group of creatures
on earth for many tens of millions of years, a lot longer than people have
been around.
So when the rules change
um you really don't know what you're going to
get and so I think that
the implications obviously of being at a time of
extinction are, you know, they're not good they're generally not
good, they're obviously not good for all the species that are
on their way toward extinction and
if you wanna say "what are they for us?" you would
you would probably also have to infer that they're not too good, but what
exactly they are
you know are impossible to predict
-I understand you have three sons, is it?
-Yes
-So with that in mind, what are your greatest concerns regarding the
changes that the next generation will face if we continue on our current path?
-Well
I think one really huge
concern that I have and that many, you know, it's not an original point and I
really also want to emphasize that the points in the book
in in virtually every chapter are you know I'm
out there with a group of scientists, often out in the field
people doing fieldwork
So in many cases these are not my points, they're points that were
were made to you mean by you know pretty eminent scientists and
a point that you will very very often hear scientists make is
what they're really worried about in addition to
what's happening to all the other creatures on the planet which,
you know, have their own value, their own intrinsic
value, I would argue, and certainly they would argue that.
People were out there studying amphibians and birds and
insects and that they have their own right to exist
But, you know, we are not birds or insects
we are people or and I think that one thing that really scares
a lot of scientists, and scares me
is that society,
you know, we sort of think that society can withstand
a lot of change, but societies are actually quite fragile, we've seen
that
in the past and I think if you look at climate change and the projections for
the
mid to end of the century you get very
concerned about what the social reaction is going to be you know how are
we gonna cope
with some of these changes that we're gonna see,
is there going to be, you know, a lot of global tensions over
things as simple as water and food so
I guess if you ask me, you know, sort of what do I worry about for my kids,
that's a biggie.
-Absolutely.
And as a result of everything that you've experienced, and everything that you've
learned,
what changes have you made in your own life kind of as a result of
your work?
-Well, I
if you look at sort of, you know,
the checklist of things that people advocate doing to, you know, reduce your
carbon footprint
I have done them. I have solar
panels on my roof that really do provide actually all of our electricity, sort of a
net electricity provider, and things like that, and I drive a hybrid car, but
I really emphasize whenever people ask me that, you know, I came here I
traveled here
on a plane and that probably knocked out, you know, the benefit-
I'd have to do the math on it- that having solar panels really maybe for
half a year or something like that. So I never hold myself
out, I never say like "oh if people live like me, we would solve this problem"
because
if you do you know the numbers, which unfortunately I do,
you know that, you know, we here in the US
are living way way, you know, very carbon-intensive lives even just
your share if you just took you know the infrastructure that you're
using, the electrical grid, or ever check your share of that
that would be very very high number.
So, you know, I don't hold myself up I don't say "oh, you know, this is what
we should do."
That being said I i do think that all the steps that, you know, people know
that they should do
do, and they've been told a million times
are worth taking, worth trying.
-So
I know when we look at these collective issues such as
anthropogenic, human created,
climate change, or loss of biodiversity, there's kind of
a diffusion of responsibility, where people feel like those steps that you
mentioned
if I take the steps, you know, will anything really change, I'm only a small
part of
this bigger problem. So what advice would you give
to individual Lafayette College students regarding how they could best
act to combat the damage we're inflicting on our planet?
-Well I do think that the point you make
people feel powerless, it becomes a situation where everyone's responsible
sort of so therefore no one
has to take responsibility and that's true and that's very debilitating
but, I guess the way I
try to look at it, you know, once again this is personal,
you know, these are personal decisions unfortunately, I mean
what we need are sort of big political decisions, but on a personal level
I think people need to do, you know,
what they think is right and,
you know, we wouldn't say in terms of ordinary everyday ethics "well,
I'm not sure that that guy over there isn't cheating I'm not sure
he's not,
you know, cheating on his taxes or whatever, so therefore,
I'm gonna do it too"- I mean a certain number of people are gonna say that- but you know we all
do sort of everyday ethical things and I think that that is the same
thing here, it's not going to change the world but
on the other hand, universalized, there are actions that
if we all took them, universalized, they would
actually make a pretty significant difference and i think that that
even though you know that by your doing them,
you know, by your riding your bike as opposed to driving your car that is not
changing the world, but if
everyone rode their bike instead of driving their car
that would have a big impact and so those kinds of actions I think are worth
taking, both
just because they're the right thing to do, and also because they set an example
that,
if followed by enough people actually would have a practical impact.
-Alright well I'd like to just thank you again for
coming and sharing your experiences and your insights with us
we're very grateful for this learning opportunity and having the chance to
speak to you. Thank you.
-Thanks for having me