FRUSTRATIONS OF A CAREER SPENT WATCHING THE BASELINES SLIDE

Born into three billion, human population reached five by my first lecture, six by first promotion, and seven when I gained Professor. I plan to give my last lecture at eight and could live to see ten billion – I am living a life accelerated around the dangerous curve of exponential growth. As population grows, not only does our daily demand for resources become scorching, but the historic tally of previous disruption becomes crushing – impacts are cumulative.

I teach that population growth is the number one environmental problem. I travel to the Andes, Antarctica, and Alaska, Costa Rica and California. I take students everywhere I can. I teach them that sustainability is the environmental objective, but I wonder which of what we have is sustainable. I believe today’s population already exceeds Earth’s carrying capacity, as global ecosystems are in ubiquitous decline.

That which we have at our fingertips is slipping away, as it did from my Father’s, and his Father’s. We call that loss shifting baselines. Examples include less undeveloped land, thinner eroded soils, degraded rivers and oceans, growth in dispersed plastics, accumulation of toxins, and loss of wildlife. We pump empty the carbifers (aquifers of hydrocarbons) and craftily learn to drill through the carbitards (aquitards of gas). We leave behind less freshwater, more saltwater. Each generation gets less purity and more trash, lots more trash. Each sees only a portion of the slide. We eat chips, as we fish down the food pyramid.

What can we tell our students? Enjoy what you can see during your time to see it? Lessen your impacts, while the human steamroller flattens biodiversity? Use the cheap gasoline? Photograph the lions and the sharks now? Buy a new car and build a garage? Get in the van?

Greatly reduced acid rain since 1990 is a fine lesson. Chances of seeing deer, bear, and eagles have improved in my neighborhood. Crepuscular rays of hope can be seen in policies enacted during my lifetime, but time is not on our side. These lessons we must teach, but wider, faster, and better than ever. Exponential population growth coerces us. The monumental challenge: How can we convey these lessons with enthusiasm, encouraging optimism? Such is the crushing challenge we face in the classroom. We had better teach well, if we want success, cooperation, the best environment possible for our grandkids.