Mary Wood

Steppin' Out of Babylon: Radio Interviews

Mary Wood is a Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Oregon School of Law. She calls the issue of climate change a "planetary emergency" and a matter of survival. Her idea is that it is crucial for the U.S. Government to hold the environment in public trust for the future of our children. Wood states that since it’s unclear whether we’re now past the “tipping point of no return”. Our best hope at survival is to act like we haven't past it and continue to try to lessen the negative effects of climate change. However it is clear that we will be over the tipping point very very soon if we don’t radically reduce our carbon emissions. Climate scientists are saying our carbon pollution will produce a “transformed planet” and it is a threat to humanity and to civilization as we know it. Wood challenges every parent to look their children in the eyes and know that our actions NOW will affect our children and all of life on the planet as we know it.Wood wants to re-frame the issue and say that the environment is a legal trust that the government and people hold for future generations. The air, the atmosphere, the forests, the wetlands and the wildlife are protected natural assets, held in perpetuity and managed by the government so these resources can support the children in this country and in the world in perpetuity. Carbon dioxide and methane are the two main contributors to climate change and we can certainly control those if we choose to. We can do this by moving away from burning fossil fuels and use wind and solar and other renewable sources to create the energy we need for survival. Scientist warn we are “looking the tipping point in the eye”. The seas can’t absorb any more carbon. They are releasing carbon now as well as is the melting permafrost in Alaska. The seas are so acid the shellfish can no longer survive, there are “dead zones” in the ocean stretching tens of thousands of miles, every single big commercial fishery in the world is at the point of collapse. “Our ways” of our modern industrial society are the primary cause of all this.Our legislators are negligent and uninformed and acting very irresponsibly—consciously or not. Regulators are not doing their jobs. We need to inform ourselves and actively pressure the agencies to be well informed and act in the interests of all of us. There is no sign they will change without massive public pressure. Wood is urging people to join with others all over the world who are already volunteering to be “climate victory speakers” and educate people about the facts and what we still have a chance to do. We have to write, write, write and call, call, call our representatives!!!! True sustainability is “doable”. We can live off the interest of the environment, not the capital.Recorded June, 2009