Hot, Flat, and Crowded covers the growing problem of biodiversity loss due to deforestation and unsustainable practices. Author Thomas Friedman contends biodiversity loss could destabilize the planetary ecosystem as much as catastrophic climate change.
Friedman argues for a strong ethic of conservation, beginning with limits on encroachment into natural habitats and continuing with policies that replace fossil fuels with renewable fuels. He likens humans degrading the natural world with birds or animals fouling their own nests and concludes that “Later is over.”
What is being done about this now? The 2008 book described several ongoing projects along with the author’s visits with scientists and leaders. One year later…
This summer six Occidental College students and three Cal State Dominguez Hills students are conducting on-site ecology and biodiversity research at the 3,900-acre La Selva Biological Station and Reserve in the Costa Rican rainforest through a National Science Foundation grant.
The NSF project is one of many summer study programs offered at U.S. universities and colleges to foster understanding of sustainable development and biodiversity issues. (Here’s one offered by the University of North Carolina.)
Programs sending university students from the United States to ecologically threatened tropical locations have got to be good for academic international relations, but will these programs gather enough momentum to change current practices and stop biodiversity loss?
I found Friedman’s approach to this problem unrealistic in the short term. Dealing with rainforest biodiversity issues means dealing with foreign governments. He considers turning threatened areas into tourist destinations, but these will depend on widespread prosperity. In other words, it depends on the creation of high-paying 21st century green jobs (which the author believes political and economic policies addressing climate change can help to bring about!).