EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

Loss of biological diversity has accelerated to such a degree that most biologists consider this age to be the Holocene Extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that the global rate of species being lost is now occurring 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than at any other time during the past four billion years. Our planet could lose as much as 25% of its species within 30 years. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Biodiversity Assessment affirms that more than 31,000 plants and animals are presently threatened with extinction. Understanding and valuing biodiversity—measured by ecosystems, species and genes—is an essential step to slow this onslaught. Read on…

No doubt about it, the Earth is heating up thanks to our reliance on and profligate use of carbon-based fuels. Many solutions have been proffered and almost all focus on lowering the amount of energy we consume and shifting to alternatives—particularly solar, wind and nuclear power—that produce much less or no carbon emissions. But what about more creative ways of cooling the planet? Read on…

Lift up your arm. Hold it in front of you. Look at the distance from the elbow to the finger tip. Feel that weight and heft. Now, imagine that this mass of your body actually belonged to someone else.

Literally. You owned all the other real estate, but that stretch of arm was actually not you. Because that’s exactly the truth.

Genetic analysis of our gastrointestinal tracts find it home to more than a hundred thousand billion (that’s a ten with fourteen zeroes) individual microorganisms from more than 36 species.

And this is just the beginning. We now know that more than 90% of the cells in our bodies are nonhuman. Added together, in mass, these cells would stretch from elbow to fingertip. But their real power extends even further. Read on…

Work is central to our lives as human beings. It can be essential for physical survival to provide basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter and fuel—and is for many an essential requisite for emotional survival. While work is a part of most people’s experience, when that work is purposeless and dehumanizing rather than creative and uplifting, it causes unhappiness worldwide. Read on…

In early June, a heavy cushion of wet air hangs over the isolated backwaters of Chalan Beel in northwestern Bangladesh, signaling the start of the seasonal, torrential monsoons. As the skies darken, Ratna Khatun and her cousins Shakila and Rupali file up a plank and into a sheltered deckhouse, several other enthusiastic children scurrying behind. The girls take their seats in the front row, which has been reserved for the most studious. Read on…