It is only natural that after all the warnings and signs of the end of civilization we encounter in our daily lives, we grow a certain insensitivity to an announcement such as this one. But to me, merely pondering the potential implications suffices for a cautious approach to our environmental issues. There is a crucial concept included in this article, a ‘tipping point’. We tend to assume all processes behave linearly, and that cutting down one more tree, will only account for a rather small added impact to our environment. In reality, what scientists have discovered is we will reach a point when cutting down one more forest, can be the difference between a ‘livable’ planet, and a collapse of the global ecosystem, that there is such a point that if we cross it, no matter how much effort or money we invest, we will not be able to go back to the previous status. This is to me a compelling reason to keep a ‘positive balance’, if we consider the consequences of preserving more forested areas than we need, are as positive as 7 billion lives full of possibilities, and that the opposite can mean the end of the most bountiful era for mankind.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:34:33 +0000
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