"How grievous are the wounds the rule of law has sustained over the past seven and one-half years?" FSI Director Coit D. Blacker asked at the beginning of FSI's fourth annual conference, Transitions 2009. This year's conference, coming on the heels of the U.S. presidential election, focused on opportunities for change offered by historic transitions at home and abroad. The Nov. 13 invitation-only event was attended by 370 Stanford scholars, outside experts, policymakers, diplomats, and leaders from business, medicine, and law, bringing together some of the sharpest minds in the country to formulate and discuss recommendations for U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and other world leaders.

The day-long conference was structured around a morning and an afternoon plenary, with a luncheon address by Oxford professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow Timothy Garton Ash. In his address, "Beyond the West? New Administrations in the U.S. and Europe Face the Challenge of a Multipolar World," Garton Ash urged concerted action on four projects of visionary realism: global economic order; development, democracy, and the rule of law; energy and the environment; and banishing nuclear weapons. Garton Ash also called for relaunching a strategic partnership among the United States and the 27-member European Union, not as a partnership against other nations, but as an alliance that would reach beyond the West to develop new and effective communities of shared purpose.

The morning plenary, "U.S. Transition 2009: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?" brought FSI Director Blacker together with Stanford President Emeritus and constitutional law scholar Gerhard Casper, Center on Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research Director Alan M. Garber and FSI senior fellow and former State Department policy planning director Stephen D. Krasner. Their varying but esteemed backgrounds allowed for a truly interdisciplinary discussion of the policy challenges, priorities, and prospects facing the new American president. "We have just lived through the most extraordinary claims to unbound power since the days of Richard Nixon," said Casper. "This rejection of the rule of law, just like the images of Abu Graib, will be present in the minds of many with whom we have to deal the world over."

The afternoon plenary, "Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threat," featured Stephen J. Stedman, FSI senior fellow and director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Studies; Bruce Jones, director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University; and Carlos Pascual, director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. The three discussed their ambitious new project, Managing Global Insecurity Project (MGI) (MGI), which aims to provide recommendations and generate momentum for the next American president, the United Nations, and key international partners to launch a strategic effort to build the global partnerships and international institutions needed to meet 21^st century trans-border challenges and threats. One key recommendation is to expand the current G-8 to a G-16 of established and rising powers by including China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and major Muslim nations such as Indonesia, Turkey, and Egypt.

Interactive breakout sessions in the morning and afternoon allowed participants to engage in debate with Stanford faculty and outside experts. Breakouts covered such diverse topics as combating HIV in low-resource countries, rethinking the war on terror, leveraging the EU to promote democracy and human rights, whether the U.S. should promote democracy, transitions in African society, working in a global economy, and overcoming barriers to nuclear disarmament.

America's standing in the world has been damaged by eight years of unilateralism and it must cooperate with rising powers to tackle emerging transnational threats, according to a major research project to be unveiled Thursday, Nov. 13, at a conference hosted by Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

The directors of "Managing Global Insecurity Project (MGI)" (MGI) from Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), New York University and the Brookings Institution will use the conference to present their "plan for action" for the next U.S. president.

"President-elect Obama should take advantage of the current financial crisis and the goodwill engendered by his election to reestablish American leadership, and use it to rebuild international order," said CISAC's Stephen J. Stedman. "Part of that is to recalibrate international institutions to reflect today's distribution of power. If you could find a way for constructive engagement between the G-7 and Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa-that reflects the reality of world power today-you could actually animate a lot of cooperation."

Stedman, Bruce Jones from New York University's Center on International Cooperation and Carlos Pascual from Brookings will discuss concrete actions for the incoming administration to restore American credibility, galvanize action against transnational threats ranging from global warming to nuclear proliferation and rejuvenate international institutions such as the United Nations.

"You find in American foreign policy a blanket dismissal of international institutions, especially regarding security," Stedman said. "But if you eliminate them, you don't have a prayer of recreating the kind of cooperation that exists in the U.N. There actually is a pretty good basis of cooperation on which to build."

The nonpartisan project also will be presented Nov. 20 at a high-profile event at the Brookings Institution that will feature leaders such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Brookings President Strobe Talbott. That in turn will take place on the heels of the upcoming G-20 emergency summit to discuss measures to stave off a global recession and give a greater voice to developing nations. MGI's "plan for action" includes a series of policy papers on hot-button topics such as economic security.

"The big thing we talk about is if you institutionalize cooperation with the existing and rising powers you can hope to build a common understanding of shared long-term interests," Jones said. "If you approach issues only through the lens of the hottest crises, you will find different interests in the very short term on how [problems] are handled."

Transitions 2009

The 20-month-long project, which incorporated feedback and direction from nonpartisan U.S. and international advisory boards, dovetails closely with the theme of FSI's fourth annual conference: "Transitions 2009."

"There has rarely been a moment more fraught with danger and opportunity, as new administrations in the United States and abroad face the interlocking challenges of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, hunger, soaring food prices, pandemic disease, energy security, an assertive Russia and the grave implications of failed and failing states," FSI Director Coit D. Blacker said. "This conference will examine what we need to do to prepare our own citizens for the formidable challenges we face and America's own evolving role in the world."

Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow, will deliver the conference's keynote address, titled, "Beyond the West? New Administrations in the United States and Europe Face the Challenge of a Multi-Polar World."

Blacker, who served in the first Clinton administration; Stephen D. Krasner, who worked in the current Bush administration; medical Professor Alan M. Garber; and Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper will open the conference with a reflection on the past and future and the watershed moment presented by Obama's presidency. The conference also will include breakout sessions with FSI faculty such as "Rethinking the War on Terror," led by Martha Crenshaw of CISAC; "Toward Regional Security in Northeast Asia," chaired by former Ambassador Michael J. Armacost, acting director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; and "Is African Society in Transition?" led by economist Roz Naylor of the Program on Food Security and the Environment.

Long-term security

For MGI project leaders Stedman, Jones and Pascual, the zeitgeist of the moment is America's relationship with the emerging powers. "The good news from an American perspective is, despite the financial crisis, despite everything else, sober leadership in China, India, Brazil and elsewhere understand, in the immediate term, there is no alternative to American leadership, as long as [it] is geared toward cooperation and not 'do as you please-ism,'" Jones said. "On the other side, the financial crisis highlights that U.S. foreign policy has to come to terms with the fact that it does not have the power to dictate outcomes. It has to build cooperation with emerging powers, with international institutions, into the front burner of American foreign policy." More broadly, international cooperation must be built on what Stedman calls the principle of "responsible sovereignty," the notion that sovereignty entails obligations and duties toward other states as well as to one's own citizens.

In addition to MGI's "plan for action," the three men have coauthored Power and Responsibility: International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats, to be published in 2009. The book criticizes both the Bush and Clinton administrations for failing to take advantage of the moment of U.S. dominance after the fall of the Soviet Union to build enduring cooperative structures. "We're in a much tougher position than we were five years ago and 10 years ago," Jones said. "There still is an opportunity, but time is getting away from us."

If revitalizing international cooperation fails, Jones said, transnational threats will gain the upper hand. "We will not be able to come to terms with climate change, transnational terrorism, spreading nuclear proliferation," he said. "U.S. national security and global security will deteriorate. [We] have a moment of opportunity to do this now."

The Initiative on Distance Learning (IDL) has for six years offered courses on international security issues to Russian regional universities via distance-learning technologies. Thanks to a seed grant from the Whitehead Family Foundation, the Freeman Spogli Institute’s IDL program is currently pursuing a promising collaborative project with the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) and the University of Pretoria, which will adapt the IDL program for use in institutions of higher education in South Africa. In the interdisciplinary spirit of FSI, the project affords IDL the opportunity to work with Stanford’s Center for Innovations in Learning, the School of Education, and the Woods Institute for the Environment, forming the eLearning Initiative in South Africa, or ELISA.

ELISA offers an opportunity to adapt the IDL delivery model and academic content to meet the interests of its South African audience, while allowing all three institutions to pursue their common interest in the potential for hand-held mobile devices to enhance the experience for learners in a distance-learning milieu. In South Africa, mobile communication devices have the ability to supplant computers as the technology of choice in higher education, offering advantages of desktop computing while eliminating connectivity barriers. We hope to demonstrate the power of mobile phone devices in improving teaching and learning, providing an important leverage point in student educational empowerment. The project will help our team design cell-phone-based teaching, learning, and assessment activities; evaluate their effectiveness; and yield information to help build a knowledge base for those actively working to integrate technology into higher education.

Mobile, hand-held technologies are nearly ubiquitous in South Africa, making it an ideal environment to assess their efficacy in teaching. More students have access to a cell phone (99.4 percent) than have an e-mail account (0.4 percent) in the Unit for Distance Education at the University of Pretoria1. Wireless technologies are allowing many developing countries to “leapfrog” ahead of developed countries by adapting mobile and flexible communication technologies, rather than investing in costly land-line infrastructures. Distance-learning educators need to take advantage of this new technology, in order to explore ways to enhance the learning process for receptive students.

This is particularly important in South Africa, which plays an increasingly prominent leadership role in addressing the political and economic development issues facing the African continent and the global community. Dedicated to training a cadre of leaders to approach pressing issues from multiple perspectives, South Africa has undertaken educational curriculum reform over the past 15 years. Educators are seeking to make education more widely available to all levels of society: reforming institutions of higher education, experimenting with innovative technology to reach students in remote areas, and participating in distancelearning courses within Africa and from abroad.

Mobile technologies have the potential to bridge the “digital divide,” offering the functionality of minicomputers, with less expense and greater portability. Students who might otherwise not be able to attend classes gain access to course materials, assignments, and learning interactions on demand. Students can use text, graphics, and video to express their ideas through mobile devices. Students can receive guidance and work plans from faculty or collaborate with fellow students; faculty can record their students’ work for analysis and grading. IDL welcomes this chance to study the ability of mobile devices to supplant computers as the technology of choice in higher education in South Africa.

ELISA will offer its first course to Tshwane University of Technology students in 2006, and expand the program in subsecquent years.

The Office of the President and the Stanford International Initiative announced on February 1, 2006, the award of eight new grants totaling $1.05 million to multidisciplinary Stanford faculty teams. The grants are the first to be awarded from Stanford’s new Presidential Fund for Innovation in International Studies (PFIIS) created in 2005.

“The world does not come to us as neat disciplinary problems, but as complex interdisciplinary challenges. The collaborative proposals we have selected for this first round of funding offer great potential to help shed light on some of the most persistent and pressing political issues on the global agenda today—issues acutely important to our common future.” john hennessy, stanford president

The fund supports interdisciplinary research and teaching on three overarching global challenges: pursuing peace and security, improving governance at all levels of society, and advancing human well-being. Priority was given to teams of faculty who did not typically work together, representing multiple fields, and choosing to address issues falling broadly within the three primary research areas of the Initiative. Projects were to be based on collaborative research or teaching, involving faculty from two or more disciplines, and, where possible, from two or more of the University’s seven schools.

“The International Initiative’s Executive Committee was encouraged to receive more than 35 proposals of an impressive caliber and, after careful review, to award the first project and planning grants, totaling $1.05 million, to eight deserving faculty teams.” Coit D. Blacker, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute and chair of the Executive Committee“The International Initiative’s Executive Committee was encouraged to receive more than 35 proposals of an impressive caliber and, after careful review, to award the first project and planning grants, totaling $1.05 million, to eight deserving faculty teams,” stated Coit D. Blacker, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute and chair of the Executive Committee.

The projects qualifying for first-round funding of approximately $1.025 million are the following:

• Governance Under Authoritarian Rule. Stephen Haber and Beatriz Magaloni, political science; Ian Morris, classics, history; and Jennifer Trimble, classics. Will examine the political economy of authoritarian systems and, by drawing on methods from history, archaeology, political science, and economics, determine why some authoritarian governments are able to transition to democracy, stable economic growth, and functioning political institutions, while others prove predatory and unstable.
• Addressing Institutional and Interest Conflicts: Project Governance Structures for Global Infrastructure Development. Raymond Levitt, civil and environmental engineering, and Doug McAdam and Richard Scott, sociology. Will examine the challenges of creating effective and efficient public/ private institutions for the provision of low-cost, distributed, and durable infrastructure services to underserved populations in emerging economies, drawing on engineering cost management, organizational and institutional theory, political science, political sociology, and transaction cost analysis.
• Combating HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa: The Treatment Revolution and Its Impact on Health, Well-Being, and Governance. David Katzenstein, infectious diseases, and Jeremy Weinstein, political science. Based on the 2005 commitment by the Group of 8 donors to put 10 million people infected with HIV/AIDS on treatment within five years, will research the impact of this treatment revolution on health, wellbeing, and governance in Sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on South Africa and Zimbabwe. Seeks to develop a systematic protocol for the collection and analysis of biomedical and social science data.
• Evaluating Institutional Responses to Market Liberalization: Why Latin America Was Left Behind. Judith Goldstein, political science; Avner Greif, economics; Stephen Haber, political science; Herb Klein, history; Grant Miller, medicine; and Barry Weingast, political science. Will research the dynamic interaction between inequality and Latin American institutions, formal and informal, in explaining the poor performance of Latin American countries over the past two decades, seeking in particular to explain why liberal institutional reforms, such as trade liberalization, have failed to yield expected economic benefits.
• Feeding the World in the 21st Century: Exploring the Connections Between Food Production, Health, Environmental Resources, and International Security. Rosamond Naylor, FSI/economics; Stephen Stedman, FSI/political science; Peter Vitousek, biological sciences; and Gary Schoolnik, medicine, microbiology and immunology. Launches new research and teaching program at Stanford on Food Security and the Environment (FSE), with an initial priority on two research areas: 1) Food Security, Health, and International Security; 2) Globalization, Agricultural Trade, and the Environment. Seeks to address the problems of global food insecurity and hunger, the “silent killer” of our time, affecting more than 1 billion people globally. Research and teaching will focus on the interconnections between food security, agricultural production, infectious diseases, environmental degradation, and national and international security, with the aim of advancing human well-being by identifying linkages, policy interventions, and new forms of political cooperation.
• Political Economy of Cultural Diversity. James Fearon, political science, and Romain Wacziarg, Graduate School of Business. Will research the effect of cultural diversity on economic and political performance, examining specifically the role of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity on economic growth, the free flow of trade and capital across borders, governance, development of democratic institutions, and political stability. Will develop novel measures of ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences within countries and use these to assess their causal impact on important political and economic outcomes.

Two planning grants were also awarded, as follows:

• Global Health by Design. Geoffrey Gurtner, plastic and reconstructive surgery; David Kelley, mechanical engineering; Thomas Krummel, surgery; Julie Parsonnet, medicine, health research and policy; and Paul Yock, medicine, bioengineering. Will design a project to examine how new technology can be used to develop effective, affordable, and sustainable methods and devices to prevent disease in the world’s poorest countries.
• Ecological Sanitation in Rural Haiti: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Sanitation and Soil Fertility. Ralph Greco, surgery, and Rodolfo Dirzo, biological sciences. Will develop a plan to test the efficacy of ecological sanitation in decreasing disease and enhancing soil fertility in rural Haiti.

“It is abundantly clear that addressing some of the most significant problems on the global agenda will require imaginative thinking, bold approaches, and interdisciplinary collaboration,” Blacker said. The projects will produce new field research and protocols, conferences, research papers, books, symposia, and courses. Additional annual project awards totaling roughly $1 million each will be made in the fall of 2006 and in 2007.

The International Outreach Program at Stanford University (IOP) began as a pilot joint venture between FSI and the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL), under the auspices of the Stanford International Initiative. IOP was designed to serve as a bridge between Stanford University and international universities and educational institutions, especially in Africa, South America, and Asia. The program’s mission is to facilitate teaching and other outreach collaborations in each of the three primary themes of the International Initiative—security, governance, and human well-being—and international collaborations in other relevant areas. During the initial startup phase, IOP facilitated collaborations between Stanford and universities in South Africa (ELISA— eLearning Initiative in South Africa, focusing on using mobile devices to support Stanford courses on International Security and the Environment) as well as in China (adapting innovative computer-based learning materials to teach biology to undergraduate students).

A third collaboration facilitated by IOP brings together Stanford experts from the School of Education with professors and researchers from the Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) in Santiago to address the issue of teacher education. While Chile has enacted wide-ranging social and economic reforms to improve the well-being of its citizens, and has been a leader across Latin America in improving educational quality and access, the country still faces challenges with its teacher training institutions and professional development activities.

UC is collaborating with IOP on a proposed $10 million, five-year program to allow Stanford experts and graduate students to work with their Chilean counterparts to design and test new mechanisms to deliver state-of-the-art teacher professional development programs in literacy and mathematics. The group of Stanford experts include Coit D. Blacker, Guadalupe Valdes, Shelley Goldman, Rachel Lotan, Aki Murata, Duarte Silva, and Martin Carnoy.

Another project between Stanford and UC explores the joint development of new models for initial teacher education. In July 2006, Rachel Lotan, director of the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP), joined Reinhold Steinbeck, IOP co-director, to meet with members of UC’s School of Education in Santiago. UC is particularly interested in working with STEP on addressing some key issues confronting initial teacher education—pedagogic content knowledge; linkages between theoretical and practical dimensions of teacher training; and the strategic character of university-schools linkages for providing contexts for teacher training. The planned collaboration would include training sessions of teacher educators and program administrators from Universidad Católica at Stanford and in Santiago and would also utilize distance-learning technologies.

IOP is exploring a new collaboration between Stanford and UC’s new center for international studies led by Dr. Juan Emilio Cheyre, a noted reformer of the Chilean Army. Michael A. McFaul, deputy director of FSI, and Katherine M. Kuhns, director of FSI’s Initiative on Distance Learning (IDL), met with Cheyre and other university leaders in July 2006.

IOP is enthused about facilitating this potential collaboration, which would allow Stanford to make a major contribution toward capacity building in teacher education and international studies at UC and across Chile.

Several years ago, a high-level Israeli official asked me to tell him everything I could about how the Israelis might find their Palestinian Mandela. His question was interesting and appropriate but also troubling because the Afrikaners didn’t really “find” Mandela. It took several months before the answer came to me. Show me the Palestinian to whom you Israelis are willing to lose, and I will to show you your Palestinian Mandela.

My friend had overlooked the fact that Mandela and the African National Congress had won in South Africa. The decisive element in the so-called miracle was that white South Africans had, in one way or another, accepted this outcome and had made it, if not their victory, then certainly something other than their defeat.

Much has been written about the many factors that drove the process forward, but no one would deny that Mandela’s leadership played a decisive role. Although he was offered his freedom numerous times if he would just give up the struggle against apartheid, it was a deal that only a quisling would make. Made of sterner stuff, Mandela refused to make the fundamental concession that the Afrikaners sought.

De Klerk’s decision to release Mandela unconditionally came in response to the unrest that had rendered the country ungovernable. De Klerk had hoped to engage Mandela in a lengthy process of negotiation in which he could be coaxed into making critical compromises. Nevertheless, after many ups and downs, it was de Klerk, not Mandela, who made the fundamental compromises.

How did this unbelievable turn of events come about? I think that a fundamental shift took place in the way de Klerk saw Mandela. De Klerk came to power thinking that Mandela was the only African who could make the concessions needed to keep Afrikaner South Africa afloat. Slowly, he came to see Mandela instead as the African who could give Afrikaners a future they could live with.

Mandela let no opportunity pass to talk about the place of white South Africans in the new South Africa. He emphasized time and again that majority rule did not mean the domination of the white minority by a black majority. Seeking a “middle ground between white fears and black hopes,” Mandela laid the very foundation for peace—“We do not want to drive you into the sea”—because there would be no peace unless white South Africans heard and believed his words.

In virtually every statement, Mandela presented a vision of the future in which white South Africans would be appreciated and respected. Those who heard him felt that they, their family, and their community could have a satisfying and secure life in what he was describing. Rather than offering concessions that would prop up the old, Mandela was offering a future to many who had begun to doubt that they had one.

It is worth noting that Mandela had no particular liking or even personal respect for de Klerk. Their relationship was often rancorous, especially at crucial moments toward the end of the negotiations. Indeed, Mandela went so far as to say publicly that de Klerk was “not fit to be a head of a government,” and yet his worst nightmare was that de Klerk might not be there when he needed him. Mandela confessed, “Whether I like him or not is irrelevant. I need him.”

Israelis need to find a Palestinian Mandela, and Palestinians need to find an Israeli Mandela. However, the Mandela they need to find is not the leader who will make the concessions they seek but the one to whom they can make the concessions they say they cannot offer. Mandela was this kind of leader: His actions and unequivocal words gave witness to a future that Afrikaners could embrace without fear.

Progress toward peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is not stalled because no one can envision the final settlement. Every thoughtful observer knows that some rough approximation of the Clinton formula is the only deal possible. The question is not so much what is needed—this much is known. The real question is who will lead us there.

Over the last 100 years, the average global surface temperature has warmed ~0.75°C (~1.4°F) and is projected to rise at an escalating rate over the next century. This rate of warming is significantly larger than the rate of sustained warming over the 6,000 years it took for the globe to warm about 6°C from the last ice age to our current warm interglacial period. Extrapolating the more recent warming trend, we see that a 7°C/1000 years rise in temperature is some seven times faster than in the last 18,000 years. As the planet warms, the rate will continue to escalate.

Not only are wild species and their ecosystems having to adapt to rapidly warming temperatures but they also have to cope with other human-caused problems, such as pollution, land-use change, and invasive species. The synergistic effects of these stresses are greatly affecting the resilience of many species and ecosystems. Noticeable changes have been measured in species over the last 30 to 40 years while the global temperature increased around 0.5°C. As the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group I of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC explained, the global temperature could rise over the next 90 years as much as 6.4°C if we stay on our current energy path—allowing few species to adapt without severe disruptions. Hundreds of studies have found that wild animals and plants on all continents are already exhibiting discernible changes in response to regional climatic changes.

CHANGES IN RANGES

As the globe warms, species in North America are extending their ranges north and up in elevation, as habitats in these areas have warmed sufficiently to allow colonization. The movements of species forced by rapidly rising temperatures, however, are frequently slowed or blocked by other human-made stresses, such as land-use changes. Consequently, moving populations have to navigate around, over, or across freeways, agricultural areas, industrial parks, and cities.

Species near the poleward side of continents (e. g., South Africa’s fynbos) and near mountaintops will have no habitats into which they can disperse as their habitat warms. Species living in these areas will be further stressed by species from farther inland or farther down the mountain moving into their habitats. Indeed, many species currently on islands, on the poleward side of continents, and near the tops of mountains could easily go extinct unless humans move them to another location and make sure they survive there.

From pre-historic to more recent times, species have been found to move independently from other species in their ecosystem, depending on their unique metabolic, physiological, and other requirements. Such independent movement could tear apart communities and disrupt biotic interactions such as predator-prey relationships.

Progressive acidification of oceans due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is also expected to have negative impacts on marine shell-forming organisms (e.g., corals) and their dependent species. Indeed, by 2100 ocean pH is very likely to be lower than during the last 20 million years.

CHANGES IN TIMING

Species on every continent are shifting their timing, such as frogs breeding earlier, cherry blossoms blooming earlier, and leaves turning color later. Over the last 30 years, around 115 species that have exhibited significant changes (plants and animals) in locations around the globe were found to be changing the timing of a spring event earlier by around five days per decade.Only six out of the 115 species (~5%) showed a later timing change.

EXTIRPATION AND EXTINCTION

The escalating rise in average global temperatures over the past century has put numerous species in danger of extinction. “Functionally extinct” species, or species highly likely to go extinct, include those that cannot move to a different location as the temperature increases due to either lack of available habitat or the inability to access it. Without human assistance the probability of these species going extinct is quite high.

Money, land, personnel, or political will are not available for such adaptive endeavors to occur. Also absent is the long-term commitment to translocate even half of the functionally extinct species we know of today. Consequently, many scientists predict that we are standing at the brink of a mass extinction that would be caused by one very careless species.

Roughly 20 to 30 percent of known species are likely to be at increasingly high risk of extinction if global mean temperatures exceed 2–3°C above pre-industrial temperatures (1.3–2.3°C above current). Somewhere between 340,000 and 570,000 of 1.7 million identified species could be committed to extinction primarily due to our negligence.

If we do not change our present trajectory of carbonemitting energy, the global average temperature could warm by 4°C, committing more than 40 percent of the known species to eventual extinction. That is an unethically high price to pay.

What can we do? LOTS! Just as each vote counts, what each of us does adds up to help the Earth win. Some suggestions: drive fuel-efficient cars; stop using incandescent light bulbs in your home or office; when replacing your roof install an insulating one; use highly energy-efficient windows, heaters, air conditioners, and appliances when remodeling. Use material that does not need to be shipped long distances and make sure those materials are harvested sustainably. Buy as much locally produced food as possible, and, last but by no means least, support government officials who are not afraid to take the lead in solving this problem.

 

FINDINGS OF THE FOURTH ASSESSMENT REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL CLIMATE CHANGE

This time around, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports have bluntly stated Findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that humans are indeed causing the globe to warm and the warming is more rapid than it has ever been in the last 18,000 years. In unusually direct language, Working Group I stated that recent warming is “unequivocal” and that humans are very likely to be a major cause in the past several decades at least. Increased heat waves and more intense hurricanes were also said to be associated with this warming trend.

The warming trend is already greatly affecting wild plants and animals Working Group II noted. If we do not kick our carbonbased energy source habits in the not-too-distant future, then the probability of having global average temperatures rise 4°C by 2080–2100 is higher than comfortable, given that the increase could very well directly and indirectly cause more than 40 percent of the species on our planet to be committed to extinction unless humans intercede. Peter Altman of the Natural Environmental Trust, with thoughtful oversight by various authors of the IPCC, constructed this telling graphic (above).