<\/p>\n
Earth\u2019s atmosphere, as<\/span> it exists, is both a profound statistical anomaly and the very thing that makes human life possible. Human activity is upsetting that natural balance, but there\u2019s hope\u2014and everyone needs to pitch in.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what leading voices in the world of climate science, art, and activism told us during the first session of RE:WIRED Green, coming together to tell the same basic story: We\u2019re lucky to exist, and we\u2019re messing it up, but all is not lost.<\/p>\n Earth existed for billions of years and experienced multiple mass extinction events before modern humans showed up. That\u2019s according to Kenneth Lacovara, a paleontologist at Rowan University who recovered some of the largest dinosaur skeletons on the planet. Humans have been around only 0.006 percent of Earth\u2019s history, while human civilization has been around for only a fraction of that. But we can learn from the time before we existed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe past is real,\u201d said Lacovara. \u201cWe can touch it, we can pick it up, we can crack it open and study it. You can put it in a museum for all to see.\u201d The conditions that led to humanity\u2019s evolution, and human civilization, were not inevitable, according to Lacovara.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you take the time to learn the language of the rocks, they will learn to whisper to you. And all around the world they say the same thing: \u2018It didn\u2019t have to be this way,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWe got lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n Previous mass extinctions were caused by volcanoes and asteroids. This time, it\u2019s different. \u201cNow we are the asteroid,\u201d said Lacovara. \u201cBut we don\u2019t have to be. There\u2019s still time to avoid the worst of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Camille Seaman, a photographer known for her photos from the arctic and antarctic regions that document the ways in which Earth\u2019s environment is changing, echoed Lacovara.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandfather thought it was very important for us as grandchildren to know what it meant to be a good human being,\u201d said Seaman. \u201cBefore he died he said to me: \u2018You are billions of years in the making. You are born in this time, of this time, and there is no one like you. You have survived slavery, genocide, and disease. Your job is to figure out what you can do that no one else can do, and to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Seaman sees her work on those terms.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand that my job, as an artist, is to build greater compassion, empathy, and understanding of our world and all of those we share with it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut most importantly, my job as an artist is to inspire you.\u201d<\/p>\n Camille Seaman speaks onstage during RE:WIRED Green 2022.<\/p>\n <\/span>Photograph: Kimberly White\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earth\u2019s atmosphere, as it exists, is both a profound statistical anomaly and the very thing that makes human life possible. Human activity is upsetting that natural balance, but there\u2019s hope\u2014and everyone needs to pitch in. That\u2019s what leading voices in the world of climate science, art, and activism told us during the first session of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1212980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1212979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}