Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life

The biosphere is sending out warning signs related to its fragility. Humans continue to ignore these signs, partly because we prefer short-term decisions to long-term ones. For example, Wilson recalls an encounter with a hydrologist at Texas Tech University. Extensive agriculture exists in the Texas Panhandle, with water for irrigation coming from an aquifer. Aquifers recharge slowly. When Wilson asked the hydrologist what would happen when there was no more water in the aquifer, which would take place over the next two decades, the hydrologist’s response was, “Oh, we’ll think of something” (171). The world is already facing a water crisis, in part driven by the draining of aquifers. This water crisis has played a role in recent conflicts in the Middle East and will continue to destabilize other parts of the world.

Human consumption cannot continue to increase with conventional agricultural practices, because the net primary productivity (NPP) of the planet is nearly at capacity. If we continue to make short-term decisions that focus on individual needs, which are destroying the natural world, Wilson emphasizes that “we are setting ourselves up for a self-inflicted disaster” (173), which even “human ingenuity” will not fix. Wilson ends the chapter by hinting that there is a “safe option” that will allow us to save both biodiversity and humanity’s future.