Gov. Josh Green marked Earth Day on Monday by naming two University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa scientists to key environmental positions in his administration.
Charles "Chip" Fletcher, the interim dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, was appointed the special advisor for climate and resilience. Oceanography professor David "Dave" Karl was tapped to chair the governor's Advisory Committee on Marine Affairs.
The pair recently published a paper titled “Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and forge a just and sustainable future."
"It is in fact bringing together truths that have been discovered and connecting the dots on them and saying, look, folks, we have five planetary emergencies: pollution, disease, biodiversity loss, climate change, social inequality. And these all are interwoven and amplify each other," said Fletcher, the lead researcher.
"We march through these in the course of the paper and come to conclusions that unless we change our culture as a species, unless we change our economic model away from extraction and towards having a kinship to nature, we are putting at risk the planet and, importantly, our humanity," Fletcher added.
He worked on the paper for over four years with 17 co-authors, including Karl. The researchers hope the paper will instill readers with a sense of urgency about climate change.
"This is not about doom and gloom. We are not saying that it's too late, there is still time. And in the 300,000-plus years of our species, this decade, the decade of the 2020s is probably the most important period of time for determining the future," Fletcher said.
Karl said his optimism comes from the enormous capacity of human activity.
"Just look at the advances that have been made in the last century, and all the new things that are happening every day in science, technology, medicine — things that will improve the standard of living for everybody around the globe," Karl said.
Read their paper in the journal PNAS Nexus.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 22, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
