Sustainability and policy - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 525

8.5.5 Ainalconclusion
One final conclusion (before Appendix 4 and matters for further consideration): it
is actually more an observation, and it is a personal one at that. Yet as the author
of this broad review and appraisal, it is something I feel entitled to make after
some 300 000 words and 90 or so diagrams. If we are to comprehend and address
climate change concerns and the implications for species, including our own, then
this understanding needs to come from science. It will not come from anywhere else.
Science in many nations, including a number of highly developed ones, is not as
valued as it might be and in some instances is positively under attack. Indeed, even
where it is supported it is increasingly being constrained. No Western university today
would allow a scientist a few years out to write a topic like Newton's Principia .Work
to develop bold new ideas outside of science institutions (such as a monk growing
peas) are also an anathema (so much for any modern Mendel influencing genetics).
Yet if we are to see our global society survive the coming century (albeit transformed)
without considerable suffering, let alone denuded of many biological and ecological
assets, then we are going to have to change the way we relate to both resource
use and (scientific and technological) knowledge. These are equally formidable, but
not impossible, challenges. If we fail . . . well, someone else can narrate doom and
disaster, at least as far as humans and many wildlife species are concerned. As for
the rest of the biosphere, it will remain. Of that I am very confident.
8.6 References
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Anon (2011) Editorial -The mask slips: The Durban meeting shows that climate
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Barnosky, A. D., Matzke, N., Tomiya, S. et al. (2011) Has the Earth's sixth mass
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CIA (2008) CIA: The World Factbook-2008 . Washington, DC: Central Intelligence
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The Decade since the 1972 UN Environment Conference . London: Earthscan -
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