Is 10-40-50 the answer?
This has been a very poignant article for me and it has ballooned beyond my wildest imagination. From an easy interview with the writer, a friendly and familiar conduit; to a quirky photo-op in the attic collections of the Natural History Museum in Paris … to the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine!
I knew the NYT magazine from my time studying and working in Boston and Miami — a marker of the liberal aspiration to writing, knowledge, art, curiosity and quality all rolled into one elegant and stimulating package. But all so far from the grit of degrading tropical coastal coasts that I’ve toiled in for the next 25 years, with people struggling to make it through the growing crises into the future.
The article comes after 2 years of riding a rapidly cresting wave carrying me to the front of the global discourse on conservation and sustainability. As the wave curls I ride it, buoyed by the exposure of the article, by rising to the forefront of an intergovernmental platform, by realizing that the message I’ve been nurturing (with others) these last 2 years seems to be resonating.
But will it gain traction?
With 6 other scientists studying the poles, mountains, deserts, the ocean, our writer culled extraneous words to leave behind the bare bones of the fear and loss we face as what we know and love disappears, and as we search for motivation to continue. And our photographer captured the worry lines and fixed stares in harsh textured black and white.
My question is not how to save my system, but how to find positive pathways out of this valley of gloom, to use whatever nature and evolution may hand us from their ever-hidden boxes of tricks, in support of the people today and to come most impacted by the historical greed and blindness of some people on this planet.
My message is that the culprit is clear — its us — and I don’t mean all of humanity, as we’re not all the same. Most who will read the magazine story have a level of affluence that is complicit in the consumption that has denuded this planet. Most have blindly listened to corporations, businesses and the politicians they finance, that say ‘buy this’, ‘buy more’, ‘grow’. Many are already shifting personal choices to have less impact, which is good, but it is only the full reformulation of our political economies — by breaking the system that we are fortunate to benefit from — that will ‘bend the curve’ of declines and enable the planet and all people to flourish again.
The most wealthy 10% of humans are THE PROBLEM. It’s not the billions in Africa or Asia, many of whom are hungry, under-consume and have a low quality of life. It is not total population. At fault is just part of the global population, and our rabid consumption. The top 10%. While fewer people on the planet would make a difference (someday) … lower consumption will make an even greater difference, TODAY.
An emerging mantra I see is that we should strive to live like the middle 40%, raise welfare and incomes in the bottom 50%, and reduce over-consumption and redirect wealth from the top 10%, to make all this possible and sustainable. And it can be done! It just takes valuing the right things, building trust, and total commitment.
So that is what my eyes are fixed on looking into the camera … at you … at all who look at the photo — with sadness for the beauty I’ve seen in the past, the dead coral in my hands a direct sign of it. But more with determination to lift the veils over our eyes, put there by the greed of some, but simply the ignorance of most.
Yes we must!
See the original article.
See the cover archive.
