I first read Al Gore’s ‘Earth in the Balance’ in the mid or late 90’s. I recall being affected by it then. The paperback I had then is long gone, donated to a friend or a library on some move years ago, but recently I was moved to get a new copy and read it again, now with an additional foreword added by Gore in 2006.
Gore notes in the foreword that ‘we have radically transformed the fundamental relationship between humankind and the Earth’- a reality that is nearly ever present on my mind as I formulate my advocacy at Pedestrian Space and currently develop my urban geographical research- particularly in light of the fact of our increasingly urbanizing habits as a species and what that means for our survival and potential thriving.
Gore writes that ‘Since 1992, four prestigious scientific panels have presented new compendiums that provide staggering amounts of data and have created the strongest consensus imaginable’ on the ‘evidence of the tremendous changes we are wreaking on the planet’. Those panels include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The National Academy of Sciences, The U.S. Global Change Research Program & the Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment.
Additional studies were published in Nature, Science, Geophysical Research Letters & NASA, all providing evidence of the overwhelming amount of damage & pollution we are causing to the planet, jeopardizing the very ecosystems that we rely on.
And this foreword was written in 2006.
As we know, even more staggering evidence has accumulated since then.
We are not lacking the science, evidence, and research. It exists in voluminous amounts. We are lacking the will to change.
Even as I enjoy moments of life and work, I am ever aware of what Gore writes in the introduction- ‘I also now had a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself.’
‘Each of us must take a greater personal responsibility for this deteriorating global environment; each of us must take a hard look at the habits of mind & action that reflect and have led to this grave crisis.’ ~Al Gore in ‘Earth in the Balance’
-Annika, at Pedestrian Space
