Paul Ehrlich’s solution to stem environmental collapse
Posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
By Roger
Paul R Ehrlich. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Stanford professor Paul R. Ehrlich has published an interesting article in PLoS Biology: The MAHB, the Culture Gap, and Some Really Inconvenient Truths.
According to PLoS: “Humanity’s failure to take adequate actions to stem a likely environmental collapse calls for extraordinary measures to understand and alter human behavior… [Ehrlich's] Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB) aims to chart the path to a sustainable future.”
This makes sense. I remember in the mid ’80s at the University of York discussing the effects of global warming with fellow students. I asked what it would take for them to do something to make a difference. They shrugged. I said “How about when the waters of melted polar icecaps are lapping at your doorstep?”
“Yeah, that might do it,” they replied. Since then I’ve not had much confidence that humanity will do what’s necessary to save itself. In my student days, the science was much less well-established than it is today, yet I do not see attitudes have changed that much.
Individually, those of us who are passionate and engaged will try to do what’s right. But collectively the inertia is frightening. Humanity needs a good kick in the pants. Maybe that will be the disasters that unfold. Or maybe not, if Ehrlich’s approach actually works.
Reference
Ehrlich PR (2010) The MAHB, the Culture Gap, and Some Really Inconvenient Truths. PLoS Biol 8(4): e1000330. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000330
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