This is an excellent editorial that really covers all the bases. Thank you for your thoughtful reporting, and for ending on a hopeful note.

excellent article!

"Sometimes a working day as an environmental reporter can feel like watching a slow succumbing, an endless cataloguing toward the end of the world as we know it. I don't mean that the Earth will keel over and die—hardly. But the Earth may be very different in just a hundred years than the place we inherited: species are vanishing and ecosystems are being ravaged..."

i think "a hundred years" is a very optimistic outlook. these issues will force major changes in much less than 100 years. Change within the Earth System can be gradual, but when forced by perturbations such as human activity, change occurs very quickly and in non-linear fashion. early models of climate did not take this perspective - this why so many of the previous estimates for change have been way off - summer sea ice melt before the "big melt" in 2007, for instance was 100 years earlier than predicted in IPCC worse case scenario. by constantly pushing the timeline for environmental change into the distant future "imagine the world in 100 years..." we are ignoring the existing alterations and immediacy of the need for transition.

"The answer is simple: we—the human species—are failing on every major environmental problem,"

is it "we the human spp" or industrial society? how many rain forests have you cut for $? how many ocean fisheries have you fished into extinction? how many plastic bags do you produce per day?

i do not think it is justifiable to include all humans into the same category. there are those of us who teach/write and contribute to environmental education and media, who grow our own food, who make our own energy, who clean up the garbage from our beaches, who restore urban wasteland, etc. "we" are not failing - industrial society, capitalism, mainstream environmental organizations and our governance systems are failing.

see - http://submedia.tv/endciv/

very nice ending - thanks for writing!

Bravo for admitting that environmentalism is a self-centered human endeavour that has little to do with the reality of life on Earth. Nature will be just fine whatever we do. This is about us. I have to admit, I actually think that unsustainability is a vital part of the whole system and, thus, that Homo sapiens are just, and will continue, doing what nature does best (short term utilisation of opportunities because the future is totally unpredictable). I suspect it will end in tears for humanity, but nature is a struggle for life and it's probably about time that we were reintroduced to this. I hope that all those that have seen what humans are capable of doing to animals in the documentary film earthlings (available to watch free online in various places)are able to accept that something has to change, and if that means the extinction of homo sapiens, so be it.

Great article but the part about consumerism being a western thing should be retired IMHO.

It's a wealth thing. All human beings are driven to display their status. The emphasis should be on what we spend our money on--environmentally benign status symbols. We can no more repress our instinctive proclivity to seek status than we can the one for sex, and the two urges are mutually dependent. We have found ways to prevent making babies while having sex, we can find ways to express status without destroying the planet.

Great article, Jeremy. Especially love this paragraph:

A cultural shift is needed to focus less on shopping and empty materialism, and more on community and experience. Our obsessive consumerism—where we see our self-worth in the product we buy and not, in fact, who we are—is not only an illness of the industrial west, but has spread throughout much of the world. We must ask ourselves does endless consumerism make us better friends, partners, parents—does it make us better people? I imagine such a shift would also allow us to finally implement smart solutions to feeding the world's people and providing clean water to every individual. It's shockingly immoral that at a time when someone can open their iPhone and watch the latest episode of Lost on the subway, we still cannot feed the world.

Hit the nail on the head. First we must want to change - must see the need, before it's too late to turn things around.

Great article!

I on the other hand don`t see any hope in the future. People don`t want to change simply because they don`t know in what kind of trouble the world is.
The mainstream media does not cover this at all and probably wont any time soon. Most people heard about a glacier melting somewhere but don`t know what biodiversity means.
These people rich or poor but ignorant when it comes to preserving nature or simply pollute less these are the same people who have more children.
Please don`t overestimate the average world citizen when it comes to understand that something has to change today.

I`m sorry i wish i could be somewhat more optimistic.

Lourdes Martins

Excellent article

Accidental irony by Google adsense, as if to show true state of the world, and there really isn't hope unless you're a roach or a jellyfish: as I revisit the article, a big advert with hot sexy dancer, suggesting I invest in eucalyptus plantations in Brazil!

I've also come across Earth Day media piece, merrily saying it's a good day for selling appliances.
So tho few may battle for environment, odds stacked against them, and one step forward, nine back.

Asia's Serious Environment Problem

The economic progress made in Asia comes at the expense of the pollution of environment. The industry economy grows quickly; but pollution becomes more serious. Unfortunately, the great majority of people here are insensitive to the pollution.

Many Asian countries are imitating the West's high pattern of consumerism. Asian people hope to own private car, motorcycle, and big house.hope to consume large power source as western nations. Many Asian governments is making effort to realize this aim. Asia is producing a large amount of cars and motorcycles, cement and brick, exploiting many coal mines, ore mines and oil field, And building large multi-story buildings and highway, enlarging blindly more and more land area of cities and towns. Large area of lands are damaged by the exploitation of natural resources.

Car and motorcycle are increasing greatly. The population in Asia is multitudinous "4000000000", which is fifteen times of the population of the US. Asia is short of cultivated land. In spite of this case,Many Asia government is developing the private car industry greatly. The construction of new highway will take up large areas of land. Traffic accidents increase greatly. In 2003 200,000 people died in traffic accidents in China.

Building development is in confusion. Building technique is primitive and large amounts of materials are consumed. China building poured 50% of the world's cement and steel. Building a house will consume more cement brick and decorative colorful brick in China than the western nations. But these houses make little use of insulation letting heat flow out in the winter and letting the heat in during the hot summer months. House repairs are more difficult, too. Most Asian People concern beauty of own house very much, but don't concern about environment round the house. They spend large money on their own house,but they are stingy in spending money on the environment around their house.

Garbage removal is primitive. Most Asian People don't know the classification of garbage. Waste plastic bags are visible everywhere. Most Asian People like to use plastic bags and batteries just once and then throw them away. Governments pay great attention to surface-beauty of city., spending much money on the apperance of city. But they pay little attention to garbage classification and waste treatment. Large amounts of garbage are made by large consumption.

River is polluted by chemical fertilizer,pesticide,herbicides,chemical synthetic detergent(washing powders),industry waste water,human excrement and urine,garbage. Waste water, excrement and urine flow directly into river without any treatment. Most of rivers in Asia are unsuitable for drinking. Many Asian people are harmed by drinking water in polluted river.

Education in protecting environment is blank. People are lack of understanding and concept of protecting the environment. Many Asian countries are poor, but they are not frugal.Most Asian People are concerned about the beauty of house but don't concerned about the beauty of the environment.Most Asian People are concerned about their own health but don't care about environmental health. They like to inject and swallow more medicines,eat more wild animals, but they don't realize that the polluted food, water and air are threatening their health greatly.

The population in Asia is multitudinous, 4.0 billion people in Asia,(perhaps 4.5 billion people in Asia,china:1.5billion.india:1.2billion), fifteen times the population of the US. Asia is short of cultivated land. The actual situation demands that Asia doesn't imitate the West's high consumption. Asia should develop electronic information consumption. Should develop economizing energy industries. If not, the Asia would ruin their own environment,in further more, affect the global environment.

Many Asian countries don't realize that pollution is their most dangerous enemy.

----------------------------- like green.like science.like internet. I adore a life which is simple but rich in spirit..oppose high consumption.

ADDRESS:people hospital.huangchuan County.henan Province.china.
My hot post:http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?tid=509645&extra=page%3D1
my blog:http://blog.ifeng.com/1244026.html
telephone:008613598583618

Brilliantly written, Rhett. Mongabay continues to inspire with thought provoking articles, and this is one of the best I've seen.

I do so agree that we are not short of solutions - including something as simple as changing our diet to a less meat intensive one, which could have a dramatic impact on the world's ecosystems. What we need is, and pretty urgently, is the will to change.

Earth Day is coming up fast and this is surely a time to take stock on where the planet is headed. The US Gulf oil spill has highlighted the fact that truckloads of money and expertise may not be enough to solve local disasters (admittedly this is a major one) much less the kind of planetary species extinction highlighted above.
In the rush for consumerism as depicted in films such as "Sex in the city 2", many have lost sight of what really matters. All the wealth in the world can't compensate for the vast habitat and species destruction that have already made the lives of real people that much poorer.
If the world were a patient in intensive care it would not only need TLC but a good dose of Reality Therapy along the lines of "these are the options that must be taken up if you want to survive". Denial in the form of Climate skeptics and so on is becoming increasingly absurd and unsustainable.The future can be rescued through individual and collective will and the instinct for survival which is innate.