Published November 15, 2011
by iris_author
The following appeared in the Tuesday, November 15th edition of YFile.
Humans have been causing the extinction of species since the Pleistocene. Now they are poised to cause the disappearance of an entire ecosystem, says author and ecologist Peter F. Sale, who will be 
giving a seminar at York next week as part of the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability speaker series.
“Our Planet Does Not Have to Die: A Discussion of the Environmental Crisis” will take place Tuesday, Nov. 22, from noon to 1:30pm, at 519 York Research Tower, Keele campus. Sale will also talk about his new book, Our Dying Planet: An Ecologist’s View of the Crisis We Face (University of California Press). Books will be available for purchase and signing. Light refreshments will be served.
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Coral reefs as we know them could disappear from the Earth by 2050, all because of things we did to them, says Sale, assistant director of the Institute for Water, Environment & Health at United Nations University.
Left: Peter Sale
Our Dying Planet looks at how and why Earth is dying. But Sale emphasized that the book's most important message is that it doesn't have to be that way. Although catastrophe is looming, if people act right away, it can be avoided. A good future is possible for the world and for humanity, but the right decisions need to be made and the right actions taken.
As a coral reef ecologist, Sale has a unique perspective on the environmental crisis and he has four main points:
- We currently face a single, multifaceted, complex environmental problem, not a set of several smaller problems, and climate change is just one part.
- This problem is much more serious than most people realize; serious for people as well as for ecosystems like coral reefs or the Arctic.
- The decisions we make, and the changes in behaviour which we adopt over the next few years will determine which of several possible futures we will experience.
- While most of these futures are quite bad, it is still possible to reach a future in which people enjoy prosperous, culturally rich lives in a sustainably managed environment.
It remains to be seen if humans make the right choices and if those choices will be made in time to save coral reefs.
For more information, visit the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability website.
