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Are We Stuck With "Blah, Blah, Blah Bang"?Andrew RevkinScience Reporter, New York Times For the first time in Earth's history, as far as we know, a life form - Homo sapiens - has become a planet-scale force and become aware of that fact. But a big gap remains between knowledge and response. The human reaction to certain risks can be summarized by, “Blah, blah, blah… bang.” Spikes in population and resource appetites have been sustained by technology and fossil fuels so far. But it's clear that the road toward a more stable, prosperous human population later in the century can be made smoother or bumpier depending on choices made now - including the choice to stick with business as usual. Andrew C. Revkin, an educator at Pace University, prize-winning author and journalist and the Dot Earth blogger for The New York Times, explores how people, from the White House to the Amazon are, and aren't, working to smooth the human journey. http://www.nytimes.com/dotearthAbout the LecturerWhile the media largely ignored the climate story until the last several years, Revkin spent more than 20 years immersed in this subject, producing more than 500 magazine and newspaper stories, two books, a prize-winning Discovery-Times documentary, “Arctic Rush,” and hundreds of posts on his blog. His reporting on the politic struggles over climate policy consistently led all competitors. In 2005 and 2006, he exclusively exposed efforts by political operatives to rewrite government climate reports in the White House and prevent NASA scientists from conveying their views on warming. His stories were quickly followed by the resignations of two presidential appointees. |
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