Bill McKibben. If you haven’t heard of him you should familiarize yourself immediately. McKibben is an environmentalist, a writer, and a legend. He’s a New York Times best selling author and founder of 350.org, a world climate movement that spawned the largest ever unified global rally on October 24, 2009. His latest book is called “Eaarth” and it will probably make your head explode.
McKibben's book, "Eaarth"
Last week I got to see McKibben live in action in Boston, speaking about climate change (aka humanity’s biggest FAIL ). It was a fantastic talk (nerd-alert side note: I got to meet him and he signed my copy of “Eaarth!”) Anyway, to those who have already embraced the biggest problem affecting humanity today, the talk was a refreshing bit of truth. To those who aren’t as familiar with the current climate situation, well, you probably left the event feeling just a bit queasy and unsettled.
I’d like to summarize his words by going back in time. Since the last ice age, for the past 10,000 years, life on earth has existed within a constant and predictable climate. Our plants, with many years of evolution and adaptation behind them, have become accustomed to growing at the same temperate throughout that time. That’s 10,000 years, same temperature. Over the past 100 years, temperatures across the world have gone up by 1 degree. Now, off-hand that number may not seem a like a lot, but if you do the math and understand that evolution is a slow process, then 1 degree in a hundred years is quite a spike. And it’s only a fraction of what’s to come, when scientists today predict that temperatures will rise Continue reading
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