We're One Of The Most Highly Regulated

Recycling Helps Make People Feel Involved, And In Some Cases Can Be Useful. Although You've Got To Do Careful Life History Studies Of What You're Recycling. If All You're Doing Is Recycling - If You've Got Three Automobiles, And 10 Children, And A 7,000-square-foot Dot-com Palace And Second Home Up In The Mountains That Has To Be Heated - The Recycling Isn't Making Much Difference.

Organisms Are Starting To Move In Response To Climate Change All Over The Place. Bees Are Disappearing And We Don't Have Many Of The Native Pollinators Left To Replace Them. We're In Deep Trouble; There's No Question About It. But Ecologists Tend To Think Of Something That's Going To Be Bad In Ten Years As Very Fast, And Of Course, Politicians Only Think Of Things In A Two-, Four-, Six-year Cycle.

Stanford May Be The Best University In The World, But You Can Get All The Way Through Here Without Knowing Where Your Food Came From, Without Being Able To Say Where We Came From, Without Being Able To Give A Coherent Description Of Why The Climate Is Changing And Why We Should Be Concerned About It. So I Started Teaching A Course In Human Evolution And The Environment That's Open To All Stanford Students, No Prerequisites.

I Don't Think Scientists Can Dictate From Above What We Should Do, Because It's Not A Matter Of Scientific Decision. If You Want To Have Everybody Living Like A Beverly Hills Millionaire, Then 2 Billion People Might Be Too Many. If We Want To Have A Battery-chicken Kind Of World, With Everybody Having An Absolute Minimum Diet, You Might Be Able To Support 10 Billion.

Your Children Should Have It Impressed Upon Them That Their Adult Life-style Will Bear Very Little Resemblance To Yours And That They Should Now Be Acquiring Knowledge, Skills, Values, And Tastes That Will Sustain Them In Less Materially Affluent Circumstances. On The Other Hand, The Fresh Insights And Imaginations Of Your Children May Help You Find A Viable Future While There's Still Time.