People Still Do Not Understand That A

In The Past Few Decades, Earth's Natural Systems Have Endured More Pressure Than In All Preceding Human History.

Photosynthetic Organisms In The Sea Yield Most Of The Oxygen In The Atmosphere, Take Up And Store Vast Amounts Of Carbon Dioxide, Shape Planetary Chemistry, And Hold The Planet Steady.

As A Child, I Was Aware Of The Widely-held Attitude That The Ocean Is So Big, So Resilient That We Could Use The Sea As The Ultimate Place To Dispose Of Anything We Did Not Want, From Garbage And Nuclear Wastes To Sludge From Sewage To Entire Ships That Had Reached The End Of Their Useful Life.

Meat Reared On Land Matures Relatively Quickly, And It Takes Only A Few Pounds Of Plants To Produce A Pound Of Meat.

Throughout All Of Human History We've Enjoyed Certain Benign Circumstances: An Envelope Of Atmosphere, An Envelope Of Temperature. A Kind Of Resilience That If You Cut Down Trees, Then They'll Grow Back. You Take Fish, They Recover. You Put Stuff Into The Atmosphere That You Know Is Not Good For Us, But We Can Still Breathe. We Haven't Awakened, Generally, To The Sense Of Urgency That Does Exist.