Transcripts For CSPAN3 Warren 20240704

Good evening. Welcome here to the saint julien. Thank you all for coming. Im asking cash. Cash from the boulder bookstore. And we appreciate everybody coming out. And im sure dr. Hern does, too. So i want to do a brief introduction before we bring him out. Dr. Warren hern, a boulder physician and epidemiologist who has conducted an anthropological academic Graphic Research in the peruvian amazon among the peabo, a native of amazonian people. Since 1964. He professor adjunct in the department of anthropology at the university of colorado, boulder and is a member of the clinical faculty at the university of colorado anschutz medical campus. His Scientific Research and reports concerning human ecology, human fertility, demography, population matters and abortion have been published in a wide variety of International Scientific journals. In 1973, dr. Hern was the founding medical director of the first private nonprofit Abortion Clinic in colorado. Which opened in boulder in november 1973. And he opened. And he opened his private medical Practice Boulder abortion. On january 22nd, 1975. So almost was that 38 years ago, almost to the day for 48 years, 48 years . Yes. Dr. Hern is the chairman and of the Holy Cross Wilderness defense fund, which stopped the homestake to water diversion project, would have destroyed the holy cross by diverting most of the wilderness water to the lawns and golf courses of Colorado Springs and aurora. Dr. Hern been a professional photographer for 70 years, specializing photojournalism and natural subjects. 67 of his photographs are featured in his new book, eco eco vegas, a deep diagnosis. Diagnosis to save the earth and the are really quite amazing in book. The boulder bookstore is proud to offer dr. Hearns book at this event, so the book is discounted 10 off tonight at the table over there. And dr. Hearn will sign after his talk and. Hell be signing at the table over there. But i want to welcome dr. Hearn. A round of applause for. One of boulders finest citizens, dr. Warren hern. What. Thank you, are from all. Thank you so much. There are a lot of people that i love in my life that are here and i thank you for being here. Yeah, i think i want to thank you all for being here. Thank you. That introduction and im honored that you take the time out of your life for the evening to. Be here to learn about my book and which, you know, i hope you find interesting. And were going have a good time. Talk about this a little bit. I have so wonderful friends here that i cant call them all out sensei. He mentioned arson mentioned the the clinic that we opened here in 1973. I want to point out, marilyn is here. Marilyn was, a member of the board of directors for that clinic. Marilyn wanted to stand up for sick. So i want to honor her. Shes been with us that time. So. The first thing id like to do is to thank the boulder bookstore for sponsoring this event. This is a very, very important event for certainly for me and i and i hope that you all feel that you spent your will in coming to hear this this thing. And so the other thing is that i want to thank kirby olson and the st hotel for the really superb work and arranging all of this, making sure this happens right. And its very impressive job theyve done and i want to thank them for it. Yes, they really fantastic. I want thank dean burke and camp. Please stand up. Dane. Dane is publisher. He represent rutledge routledge. And this book wouldnt have happened without his constant support and, encouragement and help. So eternally grateful for dean. His superb publisher and, writer and and a knowledge of the literary and publishing. So thank you for being here. Dean and the other thing i want to do is, as thank the off duty Boulder Police who are here to protect all of us. They they risk their lives every day. And its it is quite strange that in boulder, colorado, we have to have a heavily armed police to protect us in a book event. But here we are. And they then the original intent of this, of course, because of the work that i do in my day job and helping women have safe abortions, im on the hit list and a number of my colleagues have been assassinated, including one of my best friends. So we didnt want to make an opportunity for somebody to get famous evening, and we dont want to be part of tomorrow mornings mass shooting news. So here we are and well protected and very secure and. And i thank you for for being here. The what i want to do here is first i want to talk a little bit about how this book happened, why i wrote it and and how i got to some of the ideas that are in the book. And im going to talk about the im going to give some examples within that the the the origins this book really long, long time ago you read about some of them in the book. The first third of the book is about experiences that i had in my life that helped me get to the point of seeing what im talking about in this book. And it is a truly horrible idea that the human species become malignant process on the planet. Its much more complicated than that. But in any case. But i began looking at some of these issues back in the sixties when i was a medical student and when i was also studying Public Health for the first time in North Carolina in 1968, 69, following medical school work in amazon, two years of the peace corps physician in brazil and observations in this country as well as latin america. And so i describe some of that in the book. Ill touch on it a little bit here. So thats the first third of the book. The second third of the book is manifestations of this malignancy were talking about, both in the local small habitat level and the global. So we go with the zoom lens from the trails and the forest in the wilderness to what doing to the planet. So thats scope and obviously there are lots of examples and information there, but you have to leave out a lot of stuff. But to get the idea then the third part of the book is analysis and policy choices and going to touch on that to im going to begin by showing some slides to of a little bit of an introduction, im then going to read a section of the book that gives a very interesting, i think, microcosm example of what we would call a cultural ecology and an anthropology. The way that human beings interact with their environment and their cultures are adapted to the environment what they do about that. And here we a situation where its not just people, indians with whom i work and began work in 1964 and still work with them family now at this point but but theyre there being subjected to the forces of western and the Industrial Society and how these things turned out and that particular little part of the amazon and then im going to show the rest of the slides would give you a little bit more graphic idea of how i got to this idea and you see my my observations and reasoning and then at that point im going to show you some the species that we are threatening threatening as a species. And the last part will be a poem that the book that i wrote years ago after i made a backpacking trip and the part of the Holy Cross Wilderness that had the had not been affected by this this dam project and went to the place where father and i used to go to fish. 75 years ago, 70 years ago. And so think that so you get a little bit of sense, a snapshot. So so what id like to is begin and i hope i can run this a complicated machine here. Okay. Ive a lot of world class scientists come with this kind of problem. So heres the title of title cover of the book. Dean shows us this photograph, which was similar to one that i had seen and wanted in the book earlier. And i think its very expressive of the anguish of the wildlife, other species and let me first explain that the title figures is my new name for the human species. It means the man who devours, the ecosystem and. Thats what we are doing. And a deep diagnosis save the earth. What an idea. This is. Im making a diagnosis. This is not an analogy. Nobody ever died from an analogy. So this is diagnosis and theres a prognosis and there are things we can do. But in any case, so the the point is that we are now no longer homeless sapiens sapiens wise wise man. Were not wise. Obviously were the most misnamed species. The planet. And we are a new species which is really essentially a planetary or a super organism that has the malignant characteristics. Thats what were doing now to go on from here, the first thing im going to do, theres a theres a preface that has several quotations. And the first one is a an anthropologist named lauren eisley. And theres some some work in the book that that shows a little bit how i got acquainted with some of his stuff. He wrote something incredibly eloquent that really summarizes what were talking about a long time ago. Lets see, what, 60 years ago or Something Like that. And here, an isolated statement it is with the coming of man that a vast whole seems open in nature, a vast black whirlpool, faster and faster, consuming flesh, stone soil minerals, sucking down the lightning wrenching power from the atom until the ancient sounds of nature art are drowned, and the cacophony, something which is no longer nature, something instead, which is and knocking at the worlds heart, something demonic and no longer plan escaped as it may be spewed out of nature, contending in a final giant game against its master. One of my friends was the great photographer porter, who was a master photographer. I began his career as a physician a chemical engineer, helped to go kodachrome brilliant photographer. If you see the sierra club calendars, thats the legacy of eliot porter. We were good friends and we were we were talking about this idea one time while visiting him and to ski in new mexico a long time ago. And eliot, listen to this. He says its too simple well. We talked about parsimony in. Parsimony and scientific basis and. Then he made the saving man is an apparition. The next is from our son fernando when he was in the fourth grade. And what are your Elemental School in boulder . And we were had been talking about pollution, all those sorts of things. And i was giving fernando a ride in the car because it was a very cold winter day. And so often we walked, but not always. And sitting back there in the little seat they have four kids. And he started were making ourselves extinct. Fourth grade, we just had a president of the United States for two years who couldnt possibly understand that idea. Next quote, walter hickel, John Kennedys secretary of the interior and had been governor of alaska and hes famous for saying we cant just let nature wild. Makes me think of the Current Governor of ohio who declared the other day that methane is a Green Energy Source again. So margaret rankle is a for the New York Times who i do not know personally, but who writes eloquently for the New York Times. A lot of variety subjects. And one of her columns i saw we have been waging unceasing war against nature for entire history of humanity. You will read about that in my book book. So whats problem . Uncontrolled Global Warming. A loss of global ocean warming and acidifying ocean atmospheric pollution accumulating trash and all toxic waste and the environment continuing growth of the human population. 8 billion and counting. Thats short list. The list of horribles does not. Why this is happening . What is the origin . What are the dynamics of these events changes . How long has been going on . So those are some of the questions i ask and try to answer in the book. Now lets go to the microcosm that spoke about small scale deforestation in the amazon basin and. Then we can subtitle this human ecology ecological consequences. So this is from a section, the book in chapter 13 as a fourth Year Medical Student in 1964, i worked for six months in the peruvian amazon basin. During part of that time i conducted health study of a native amazonian people Indian Village called paul cochin, which is located which was located on an oxbow lake, a culture and getaway called near the l. A. River, the main tributary of amazon, the lake and ancient River Channel of the meandering ogallala was separated from the river in current channel by band of low ground. About 100 meters wide. The people lived a subsisting economy as they had thousands of years fishing in the river and lakes, gathering and hunting in the forest and forest materials worker in the canoes wood for houses and other necessities. There was not much, and that was gained by selling food or Forest Products to passing boat crews or merchants. But paul kocher had a small herd of cattle, an animal native to the amazon, and not adapted to survive. There without human assistance. Why. At the hospital where i had worked a medical student running the hospital for a while, a german who had was a refugee communist, east germany was an administrator here she hated communism she saw that you people are natives as ripe targets for communist infiltration subversion and domination and her determination to keep from happening. She decided to capitalists out of the people unaware that as you people and other native americans had carried out capitalist trading arrangements with other tribes for thousands of years before the idea of capitalism occurred to anyone in europe and that many of their societies held true Communal Property ownership. Her plan for turning the ship into capitalist was to give them a herd of cattle with one bull whose was maximo, and several cows. The plan was for maximo and his women to make lots little calves that the people could at a profit and then pay back the hospital then they would get milk from the cows get calcium and other from the milk and sell the milk milk at a profit. They would then what it was like to be happy capitalist use the better to fend off the scourge communism and the heart of the peruvian. But to take care of this herd. The people of camp culture had to cut down a lot of old growth forests next to the river. So the cattle could have pasture. Not to worry that the forest was protecting the village from the hard current of the river and provided the people power culture with many resources. There were several problems this plan. First the ship people were unable to drink milk most their digestion wasnt suited for it and they didnt like it. Most adult humans beings cant drink milk. Second, they got a lot of calcium anyway by eating fish every morning that had been heavily scored with a machete for assaulting it, thereby making the tiny bones digestible. The people didnt need milk for calcium, which also got from other foods. Third, maximo the wrong name on. Many minimo would have been better since none of the got pregnant. He wasnt up to it. No passion was a major problem. However, it was the deforestation caused by making a pasta for the cattle who werent much use in the first place, cutting down the trees next to the river made it easier for the river to erode the bank on the brava or cut bank. The channel is deep and the water is swift. This is what happened to the deforested and it threatened the village. The Forest Products needed by. People in the village were no longer available. A few steps away, the forest gone. Marks were more was shipped back up to the hospital by dugout canoe, which constantly filled to overflowing during the three day journey upriver after digesting his diet of plantains, his final and dignity was that he was turned into a very tough joy to rascals. But the hospital dining room, the cows were sold to river merchants. The better to find virile suitors. The erosion process accentuated by the deforestation, accelerated the process of a changing River Channel. Elimination of the band between placid lake and the river, elimination of the lake, after which the village was name and which contained lots of fish further erosion of the village land on the banks of the river. Severe flooding that made the village and ultimately relocation of the village to somewhat Higher Ground upstream where priceless forest containing many animals and other resources were destroyed by commercial logging. The relocation was made feasible by a series of other decisions dominated by money for within community lands. There was a section of high ground upstream by culture that was for hunting in the wet season because it was not intended. Men went there with bows and spears and sometimes shotguns to deer, white live peccary colored peccary or large rodents such as the agouti birds and other game for food. This was critical resource because fishing difficult to impossible during high water season in 1974. During one of my every five Year Research visit to our culture, i learned that some of the village authorities made a deal to sell the timber on the high ground up the river for a few dollars. I them that this was a bad deal for many reasons first it would eliminate their hunting ground. Second, the deforestation of this could produce a more severe of erosion and River Channel that could threaten the village. Third, i told them that the machines that would be brought in for cutting the timber cost unimaginable hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The timber was worth a lot more than they received, which was about enough to buy a few minutes worth of gasoline for one of the machines. But the deal was made. Five years later. My research scheduled for culver and other sciences and Health Studies village. On arriving learned that some of the people had already moved Higher Ground where the timber was being taken and heres what it looked. You know theres there theres the culprit theyre actually the owners the culprit. Okay. Im sure women. Okay, heres what heres what it looks like. So so the timber that was taken included rare and valuable tropical hardwoods worth millions of dollars, some of the trees, had trunk diameters of up to three meters. They were centuries old in 1983, returning for another trip through 1984. Our quarters were in the village health. Most of the newly relocated village site. This was remarkable well because all of the bird species formerly inhabited the now missing came to this place. There were hundreds of bird species, many of them extremely rare. We saw them all day and heard them all night in time. What i had predicted happened the deforestation and power culture and new village, Light Pollution allowed the river to erode the bank quickly. A power culture was lost as a place of residence and power yan had to be extended further back into the forest as the riverbank supporting houses was eroded and fell into the river hunting and fuel would now required Long Distance travel. This is a picture of power culture in the new village from the air in 1992, the village now rests on a levee or a bench in portuguese, left by ancient ukulele. River flows centuries ago when average flows were higher at the local level. The human settlement was severely affected. The river. But because changes were occurring all along, oak and its tributaries because of similar deforestation, the net effect was to increase rapid runoff of water during both the wet and dry season so that the amplitude of the river hydro graph became more severe. The highs were higher and the lows were lower the River Channel straightened along its course as the swift cut through the belters meander loops gradation occurred more sediment was carried off from deforested into the river. The sediment aggregation and the riverbed became higher. The river and currents increased in speed, flooding in the wet was more severe and long lasting damaging. Important food crops and the dry season. The deforestation that less water was retained when. It did rain, it was hotter and there was less rain. Heat caused the rain clouds to pass over rapid. Runoff after rain meant that the forest drier and when slash and burn techniques were applied to make gardens as had been the custom for thousands years, the fires quickly got out of control and burned much larger areas than intended. This produced a positive feedback loop with more deforestation less retained moisture, more rapid higher ambient temperatures, poorer crop yield, more flooding, etc. This is a picture of the ogallala floodplain in 1964 that i took on a flight with the missionary pilot and you can see here me get my pointer here i can get it here okay know i cant see this but anyway. Here you see, heres the kla and then are the remnants of old. Well, this loop is called a delta. Okay. And then. So they they, they cut the loop that is cut off, becomes a lake or what the catch were called a closure and so then, now we have a situation and this this is a picture taken in 1990 for showing the deforestation that occurred along the well to, any other part. And so now then the river cut through here and make it straighten out. The river, we have all these other negative. Higher water flows and the rainy season result in the river cutting off of delta or meander loop, showing above and the result of increasing and flow volume and positive feedback loop. Okay, now, now im going to go to a couple other slides that show whats happening in the derivative. This is on a tributary of the okay on the pinkie, which are some of the villages that i studied. And you can see here deforestation. Well, what sorry. You can see the wrong button you you know its very i high tech stuff anyway so here we have deforestation and is why the riparian zone i mean by riverside this is the most complex part of the ecosystem because its the frontier between the wood river and the forest. Now we have more or very severe deforestation the should people didnt do this the peruvian government is encouraging people to go to the amazon whats garden of eden you just walk around pick the off the trees. Well, the people from the high sierra and the altiplano and the coast live in areas where there are no trees. And so if theres trees, theres something wrong with it, weve got to cut them down. Okay. So, so they go and they they cut down the forest on these very severe dissected slopes and you cant grow anything there as to total waste and this is part of the problem now. Now, lets go on to the next here. So my point there is that this is a gradual process thats a positive feedback loop. And this is one of the one of the parts of destruction, the amazon now to go on. So back to our main theme, one of which is uncontrolled growth of the human population. And in this slide, this is done by my friend becky hassan is a fellow demographer egyptian and and this slide here you have the last 9000 years which shows rate of the growth of the human population right here. So this little wiggle is the black death, which took out a third of the human population in the 15th century. Then then the bottom, the bottom scale is over 2 million years. And you can see it goes straight up at that point. Now, lets were moving faster, like going through an art gallery on a motorcycle here. Okay. But but anyway, so here im at North Carolina studying Public Health. And one of the courses that i took had to do with urban geography and an so forth. Well, and one of the books here, it shows a high image of the morphology, the shape and the growth of the city of baltimore over over a period of 150 years. And i at this and im a train im a physician. Ive trained in pathology. This looks exactly like a cancer. Thats what a cancer looks like. Okay, next slide now another even better example is from london. Same period of time in a textbook about urban geography and. You see here london in 1819 50 same pattern exists expanding metastatic and invasive growth. This is a five city cluster in North Carolina. Same pattern. This is colorado front range growth,. 1937 to 1997 with the first one is the 1937 the 1957, 1977, 1997. Same pattern is independent of geography, culture, baltimore growth 200 years 1792 to 1992. Same pattern this is these are malignant images here we have a malignant melanoma which has a three dimensional irregular border. And as you can see, was one of the characteristics of malignant whats known as irregular borders that are raised as a three dimensional kind of thing. And and one of the characteristics of cancer is that the more irregular the border and the particular tumor in particular, the more aggressive the tumor, the higher the rate of growth, the aggressive the tumor. Now, look at these five images. Two of them represent cities. The others are cancer. Can you tell the difference. The one on the left is pulmonary adenocarcinoma. The the next one over on the right is the metastatic malignant melanoma. The third image is baltimore. The fourth one is metastatic malignant melanoma. And the last one is the five city cluster, North Carolina. I looked at this stuff. I well, i cant repeat what i said. Anyway. That but as a polite company. But i was i was astounded and horrified by this because look at this as this. What i really think it and in the book i describe this evolved so im going back now to medical school and the first four of these characteristics of cancer were described in in book by anderson and pathology rapid uncontrolled growth invasion and destruction of adjacent normal tissues ecosystems metastases which mean distant colonization de differentiation, excretion, toxic substances and progression metastatic lesions grow faster. There is a long list of more characteristics now that we have some characteristics of cancer in each two of the first four characteristics are cancer until proven otherwise cancer to grow until the host organism. What is the host organism for humans . The biosphere tumor growth rate declines just before the host organism dies. The human population, all the characteristics of a malignant pathologic process on the planet has the same mathematical growth characteristics of a malignant process with a mathematician here can tell you about that has all the characteristics of a super organism that is malignant and is doubling every 40 to 50 years. Now theres a great catalan ecologist named ramon margulis, who had the great pleasure of meeting in barcelona, and margulis book on perspective, ecological theory, foundational published 1968. One of the first things i read i was working on this and here is margulis picture of negative feedback loop the pressure and the eco system increases until finally there is a decline, a negative feedback. Okay now here is the population growth and crash of kebab deer in the khyber plateau in the early 19 or 20th century and the one of the things that happened. At this point in the early so i dont have i dont have a clicker with both hands anyway. The hairs were Theodore Roosevelt said, we have to protect best deer here in the United States. And they took out all the predators, the coyotes, you know, the jaguars they i mean, the panthers, pumas, everything, everyone, everything that would kill a deer. And so this is what happened to the deer population. It went through the roof. And then you the carrying capacity shown in the dotted line, then the deer population crashed and it went below the carrying capacity. This is the population biologist schematic sketch of uncontrolled growth were followed by a crab population crash. And then theres a comparison with one in which the population around the carrying capacity. This is where we are right at the top of this right there. Okay, thats where we are. Now. And math, anthropology and other sciences. You have adaptation, adaptation, adaptation, sort means getting along way to get survival through cultural adaptations humans have removed normal ecology. You go limits to population growth and expansion. Humans have created positive loops that eliminate limits, growth and make problems worse. These are malignant patients. In my formulation, we had a wonderful, brilliant journalist named eric and. One of the things that he said was the cause of problems is its so you turn on the air conditioner, which uses energy and makes the hotter. So my definition of home, i cant forget the man devours ecosystem, the new human species carp because is a rapacious, ubiquitous, predatory, ominous echo phage process. Engage in occurs the conversion of all plant animal, organic and inorganic planetary material into human biomass, or is adaptive adjuncts and support systems, pogo said we have met the enemy and he is us the next another quote. Okay, not yet. Okay. They havent in humans and in cancer can think and we can decide to be a cancer choices. We know what to do well we do. The answer is in down at this time a species we are choosing. So is in the eighth grade or son who had been listening to some of this at home and then goes to the class and Casey Middle School eighth grade. Okay 13 years old came from class and one day and ask me what what will be the limiting factor for the human is there more upward important question that that he puts a finger right on the button so now i want to show you a few pictures of some of the species and places we are endangering. And im just going to go through this quickly because were behind my here. But here pink furry slippers and all across wilderness. Heres a greater sage grouse. And Northern Colorado in a mating ritual. This is a peruvian south american jaguar. The i took in 1985. All these are my photograph in 1985. We cover the sierra wildlife calendar. These are scarlet and green shoulder macaws and minor national park. This is culture totoro, one of the archetypal folks in that part of the pristine jungle. This is the green ibis on the shore of the lake. This is a red hal, a monkey. This is a lion in africa the Lion Population down to ten or five or 10 . What it was 100 years ago. Heres a photographer of the anemone fish and the coral reefs of the Great Barrier reef. This blue footed was with join me his blue pate since he had decided that i was his next erotic attraction and he was trying to convince me to make make these are marine iguanas photograph taken my my wife or dogs whos a superb divers in here they will go extinct as the oceans warm these are a waved albatross and of the islands of galapagos, an extraordinary beautiful bird was a fascinating and beautiful mating dance. And here two lovers are touching each other. These are king penguins on the shore of the south georgia and the south atlantic near antarctica, which is being destroyed. This is a great egret and the swamp a cypress swamp. And louisiana this is an Ice Sculpture in the weddell sea near antarctica. This is the walrus Hospitality Committee who came over to see the gringos were visiting there, their place, you know. And they say a lot of us these this is one of my favorite photographs from my life. These are ivory goals in their courtship. This is in the norwegian arctic off the island of, svalbard, spitsbergen. Im sorry, this is a polar bear waiting for the next seal, or maybe a gringo will fall the ship. Theyre here are kittiwakes in front of the monaco glacier off spitsbergen that glacier. Now, this picture was in 2014. The glacier now is one fourth of that size. Here are gentoo and chinstrap penguins jumping up an iceberg near the island of south georgia so it secured uranium leaves in the Holy Cross Wilderness. Bull and Rocky Mountain national park, west cross creek, a beautiful, isolated Holy Cross Wilderness. Sandhill cranes taking off in boats. Goodale apache Sandhill Crane coming right at me and the buckskin apache for aspen and then the bird male park in north and northern new mexico. Red aspen, right by our home up in the mountains in colorado, the maroon bells, magellanic penguins, absolutely charming creatures came over to check out the visiting gringo on, the island and the strait of magellan, where magellan first saw them. And this is a an imperial cormorant with flaps down and the landing coming in for landing and to make it with nesting material just out of the airport. This is a wandering albatross with the wingspan in the world off the coast of south georgia is the way of the albatross. Again absolutely stunningly beautiful birds on and now now were going to wind this up now im going to take you back to the of this. Here i am sitting by Homestake Creek watching the fish, figuring where to cast my line. In 1955, on a trip that i made with father in 1955, the before i graduated high school and we had gone up to Homestake Lake at 1955, which was a Pristine Lake left by the glaciers and, which was undisturbed and absolutely gorgeous, where i always wanted to be able to take my own children and and now this this was turned into an irrigation ditch for the city to in Colorado Springs. And took to water bluegrass and golf courses. Now at the end of the book and the epilog is a poem that im going to read to you and well be done. So this poem and i went on i went on this backpacking trip by myself up into the headwaters of Homestake Creek above, the what is now the reservoir above, what used to be Homestake Lake, where my dad and i used to go fishing and the beaver dams and the area right above the the lake and. So this i wrote, i went on this trip by myself. I went i walked over there and i could look down on this area that we used to go, where we used to go fishing. And i, i was by myself. I caught some fish. I thought about stuff. I a book with me to read. And when i got back home, i wrote this poem, which is called great bringer death to paradise. Crossing the creek on a log. I look down to steady myself. The water runs deep and clear below it so cool to drink Nothing Better in the world i am going to a place and then to a place. The past to see the truth. Of what is gone and and what is there to know. To feel the pain. To see the work of the great bringer of death. The paradise. The bank is steep, the thicket hides the sleeping place each step and act of faith takes all my strength the mountain doesnt care, the past rises of the bowl bottomed by a blue lake, serene and bewildered, knowing it is wild i watch the sky for that sudden lethal crackle creeping grealy across from to cliff as i creep slowly panting late painfully across the littered careless stones im lightning beat down, down, down the other side theres a lake theres two. Thats not the one im heading for. Im heading for another. And yet a ravaged place beyond. Now find a quiet place and find a bluff. Look out to see the splendid mountains and the monument to greed a fish is hungry i am here. I am fed a cannibal fish for small eggs yet another native noble prey blazed with. Blazed courage colors of the fall shall go or stay and rest enjoy the comfort of this cause down, down i go down a cliff to the floor to sue to see the wretched remains of what i knew rocks be bone bleached bones skeleton shorn of tops, gray swamp and sparse mud death has come to paradise beneath the half filled crater and the memory only lives meadows brooks beaver works triples, ponds, tall grass ooze, a boys dreams, a fathers loving teaching teaching. For me, whether in time working ways to make a carpet for living. Death come to paradise untimely death as though it is told before the universe winds the bringer of death to impatient takes its toll back to the tattered remains of paradise a quiet lake. So quiet here your heart body to stay alive each chipmunk squeak each chirp each note, every bird, every ripple of. The lake up there on the mountainside, somewhere in the timber coyotes shimmering falsetto echoes down the mountainside, splashing off the rocks in a waterfall of rippling sound, a primeval chorus, the mountain god, how in jungle an animal togetherness we are here to know their language i would give much a golden brown, a hungry trout all and knowing where to look mouth open wide for prey prowls the shallow end of my lake only for a moment one small trout swirls all the water in that glassy lake. He will survive there, does he . No, than i morning sun shines through the velvet of two buckthorn they quietly step up on up the Steep Mountain above me and disappear what is this strange creature that advances on it . Making these wheezing, gurgling sounds . If there can think, what would they think . Resting, looking. I am still for a moment the bucks emerge brows looking relaxing once hold my breath, dont move they watch me then go about brows atop the past omen a hawk just wings steady not a sound but wind hes gone by a turned upon a lone coyote stalks hop bounces back the other way to catch his quarry has his prey rips and tears head, head lifting up its satisfied lies down and eye and licks himself what is the world trouble to a coyote . Only appears in the way of the great bringer of death to paradise. Death is coming to. Paradise to. The. I think you have to see that that place is one of the origins of that but. So i apologize for being so emotional its very difficult for me to think about that stuff. So this not a pure intellectual endeavor as you can see. Okay. Yeah. Now, so thats the main part of what did i say . And id like see if there anybody with any questions that i can try to answer. Im worked with, in and at the. Desert water anything that gives you hope. Is there anything that gives me hope . Well, lets put it this way. First of all, i think that, as i say, we can think and we can decide not to be a cancer. And i think that there are and lots of people out there trying to do the right thing. And i think there are a lot of young people understand this. There are quite a few older, older people who understand it also. But i think that the challenge is to, as to elect people in public officials, mutual. I someone you know i said again the challenge is as a society is to leaders who understand that this is an existential crisis the diagnosis is cancer and thats a bad diagnosis. The prognosis very poor, but we can change what we do i dont know whether this can be changed. I dont know. I think that i have a number of colleagues are very important and influential scientists whove been talking this for decades. And we are i think that weve had in colorado, the great good fortune of having some wonderful, fantastic political leaders from Boulder County all the way to governor to national federal. Weve also had some clinkers. Weve had some great people in congress who are trying do something about this with some limited access, success. I think that if you look at how the republicans struggle to elect their leader a few weeks ago, it was a towering of political incompetence, sniveling cowardice and and and mad hostage taking. Its hard to have confidence that we have or institutions can really respond to this you know you have putin to start a world war war World War Three and in brazil you had bolsonaro whose objective was to destroy the amazon and he destroyed a lot of it so even though the brazilians kicked him out a third of his already gone, i think that we have an existential crisis im sure that youve all heard that. I think this is really true. I the problem may be much worse than. We thought and i think as a society we must make as all human societies must make these changes right were out of time. And i think that i cant overstate that. And im a basically positive, optimistic person. And i would like to say there is hope and we can change that im not so sure i think that the main thing is that we can make ourselves aware of the problems and the interconnectedness of all of this and try to make the changes. And i think that our own political system is not very responsive. The new chairman of the Energy Committee in, the senate is joe manchin, whose family fortune comes from fossil fuel. You know, like i said, the governor of ohio just declared that methane a green energy. I mean, come on. I mean, the laws of physics and biology matter to these people. So im so sure you know what the answers are and and just how much hope there is. But i do think that we are headed for the cliff and some people have their foot on the accelerator. Yes oh, mr. Her and i appreciate your message this evening is the first time i met you and your opinion so i was curious know i realized that we really control over but we can control what the population does to the earth so to speak. Yeah i. I was just mr. And i was just curious to know we really cant control population, but we can control what the population does to the earth. What is your opinion on how we can do that successfully . Well, in the first place, the second part of your statement is certainly true with with it, we can control what we consume and how we manage our resources. And that is absolutely critical. And i think that we have lots and lots of good ideas about how to do that, whether we do it is another question. The statement we cant control population may be true, but we the the tools that we have at hand are really not very complicated. We can help people control on a voluntary their own fertility with access, contraception and all kinds of fertility measures that include abortion, sterilization. And obviously the reason were by heavily armed police right now as a talking about control hello. Can you hear me no. Oh oh. Just better. You hear me now . Yes. Okay. So. One of the things that i talk about in the book as a the critical need to limit the stop population growth as long as the population is growing, there is no of solving these problems. And the demographers try to reassure us by saying the rate of population growth is slowing, well, it is except that the base is so large and in cancers that the cancer slows its growth just before the host organism. So this is not comforting quite aside from the fact that a lot of the that demographers say some of whom my best friends are not true. And so i think that we cant accept the idea that theres no possibility of limiting population growth with a very tiny fraction of the us military budget, we could give voluntary fertility. Every family on the planet but it would have to include all the methods, not just a few things. One of my very dear friends, a guy named malcolm potts, who is the president , first president of International Plan for an federation back in the sixties, a british physician very erudite and, accomplished, helped program and thailand and back in the seventies. And they they their average number of live births per woman from 7 to 1. 2. And so i mean this was a spectacular success and there are those successes. It can done. But but you know i was i was the delegate to the International Conference on population and and development and cairo egypt in 1994 for the american Public Health association. And i gave a on the the Public Health aspects of unsafe abortion and the world and talked about how many tens of thousands of women, hundreds of thousands of die from unsafe abortion in childbirth every year. And the muslim brotherhood, the ones that killed anwar sadat, got right in my face. And so are you ready to die because i talked about abortion. Well we cant do much about that and i think that so theres i mean im a physician ive been taking of people and women in particular for decades and decades. Ive met very few who want to have more than one or two children. And and if they can have access to some of fertility control, they take it. But theres tremendous resistance to that. And in the case of abortion, the united their opposition is violent. Their policy, the anti abortion fanatics, the policies to kill the doctors, and they do they say do it or tell do will kill you. And they do. Five of my colleagues have been assassinate a bunch of other people who helped them have been assassinated and one of my best friends was shot to death in the lobby of his Lutheran Church because he said it needs security at church. It wouldnt bother church. Okay. So theres i mean, theres is a violent fascist and they all they control the republican party. So i mean, thats one of the two major parties in the country. I how do you find hoping that is difficult for me to see. But i want to say that, as i said, we have and we can make different. Yes, they i warren, if you could talk to us a little about this journey, which your poem does beautifully, but also what clearly started out is were looking at the maps early as a in analogy became and more not a metaphor, but a reality. And youve been you saw that very early on. Yes. A decades before many others, although yes. Some of your fellow scientists did. But i wonder if you can talk about. That is a reality as you say, people die from metaphors. And the fact is that people are dying from climate change. Yes. And i just wonder if you could talk about that transit for yourself, too. Now were at a point in the world where more people can that. Its an excellent question. Long, complicated answer something which in book. But i would say that when i when first encountered these these ideas and it was from various sources and i began to realize i was looking at what was clearly malignant process and also looked at all the literature on the use of metaphor in formulation of scientific hypotheses. Its a very rich history, but the metaphor is different from an analogy which does not have the same role. But for example, metaphor has been very important. And they talk about rutherfords use of the metaphor of the system develop his idea of, the the morphology of atom masses back to 100 years ago now. But i would say that when i first started thinking about this and i started visualizing this and i started writing about it and trying to formulate, you know, i was really horrified by the of i think this is an important serious idea and i discovered that other people have thought about it but they dismissed it as an analogy but i began to see all the characteristic that you list for malignant process and. We had all of them. It wasnt just one or two. And so trained as a physician and i began to say, you know and you are a physician you have something a patient is sick. You say, well have to rule out this somebody has right law a quadrant pain in your abdomen you know you rule out appendicitis you rule out ovarian you know cold cystitis you have all these other different diagnoses that you rule out. And when looking at this okay i mean in fact i heard a lecture by ian mcharg this, great scottish ecologist, talking about and quoting isely as saying isely was flying over the country and he looked down. He said, what would a person amount of space say looks like . And they said, well, looks like the earth has some kind of a disease. Aha. Wait a minute. If if were a disease, whats the model which . We have perished disease, metabolic disease, neoplastic disease, infectious disease, etc. Which one would right away the neoplasm is what like, oh, im sorry, i have a lot of italian blood. But anyway, so and i think that so obviously the obvious thing was the characteristics that i mentioned of gavage cancer rapid uncontrolled growth invasion destruction adjacent tissues was over at that point i began to see that this is a real diagnosis and that was very terrifying when kind of kind of got onto this. I was so upset. I do anything to sell it, sit in a chair, think about it for three days. What this mean for us . Know who would who would listen to me . Why would anybody listen to what i say, im just a doctor. Im not a scientist. You know, what do i know . You know . But i mean, this. So i began it and every place i looked. I found evidence of this and you know, you still want you see you can see it happening many places. And so seeing is believing and believe me and seeing. So i mean, you either aware of this, you can see these patterns or not. I would like to be proven wrong. I say that in the book. I dont know whether this is true. I hope its not because its a terminal diagnosis and the you know, there are many wonderful things in this earth that i have enjoyed and i want other people to continue to enjoy. But we have killed off 95 of all the wildlife and the world and a lot of that in the last hundred 50 years or so. And then were doing, you know, every day every day is a torrent of bad news. Theyre building a railroad, the southern mexico, with the one most pristine parts of central america. You know, they in ecuador, they have this natural reserve like a Mountain National park, and theyre putting Oil Drilling Platforms the middle of it. And it goes on on. And so if you see the news, you see that. So im saying that that all this fits this pattern to what i can see. Thats my path is thats my theory. I would really like to be proven wrong, but to be proven wrong. We have to do a lot of things very differently and getting there is a political problem. Yes, but warren, i heard part two of your interview, one with National Public radio. I think it was. And this morning on kgo. And you write, they are so used to that. Im really interested. The general media pick them up. So i dont know how to get to that, but its really im you understand why you encourage that. Im sure. I want you interested. What im interested in the general media picking up your interviews so that people will discuss your idea. Well i thank you. I appreciate that. And i hope they do. Its a its a long shot. And i think that well, this is this being here, part of the process of making people aware this i understood the cspan been covering this. I havent talked to but maybe they are. And i think that the book is being widely and distributed and and advertised by routledge. And i think that the publisher has done their part is extraordinary. But somebody in major media has to pick this up and say is worth reading and. And so one of the good things that happened was we have mark beck off here in boulder whos a great person and wellknown and a very eloquent and mark has a column in psychology. Mark saw the review. You know that was done by the see you by. Evans clemens about my book and mark called me up want to do a and an Interview Form about my book and he did was published here and psychology today and he said i saw him this education and he said there gets lot of hits i mean its getting a lot of circulation if you go on the internet, its you put the homa conference in there, youll see a lot of pledge. I dont know. I think that its hard to know whether people are really going to take this seriously. And some people do. And some people dont. We have many Important News that people really dont take seriously and for which there is no adequate political response. So thats all i can say. I agree with you and i hope it happens. Doctor. Yes, james. Yes. Dr. Hearn, what do you prescribe for the healing of this disease of the planet . If you could prescribe something, they would follow the course of treatment that you recommend whats whats your solution . Even though . Solutions are the problem. Well, excellent question im not sure about the answer. The only thing that i can say, as i point out in the book that our our total dependance on fossil fuels has to end we have to stop using fossil fuels for energy as a suicide pact. The we have to stop raising animals for food. And i document the book the enormous amounts of space used for cattle pasture, for example, its this amount. Its about the size, the total area of africa or south america. I mean, this astounding some brilliant scientists and and stanford have done a number of studies showing the human transformation of the of the earth and the where we we amount to about. 01 percent of the biomass in the planet and were wiping out the rest of it. So i think that we have to look at our first of all, i mean, we look ourselves and who we are, what we are as a species and and think about how can we change. Were doing and you know, one of the things is to stop using fossil fuels. Well, the counterpoint that is an incredible movie by jeff gibson and Michael Moore planet of humans, which i recommend nobody or see and jeff through and shows all these efforts to use alternative sources which use enormous amounts of energy to create and regard the the digging for rare earths and stuff like that so thats not necessarily the for it we one of the things that must happen for us to survive is that the numbers of humans who on this planet must diminish. And if we dont make decision zones that are humane and rational to, help people limit their fertility and diminish the number of humans nature will do it for us because we are an epidemiologic term, we are a monoculture crop, and were very to diseases. We just had what is really a a relatively mild epidemic of covid certainly mild for the people who died of it. And having experienced myself not mild, but compared to smallpox and a lot of other stuff, pretty mild. But we are a candidate for Something Like that. Well, wipe out, you know, hundreds of millions of human being, the Global Warming as going to rapidly get to the point where human beings are not adapted to the level of heat and theyre going to be dying by very large numbers, i think we we are in a desperate situation and we really have to figure out the way to do that. And all of us have our homes, we have our lives to live and our and we need things in our daily lives. We can no longer out and raise our own food. You know, and paddle up the river to catch fish. I mean, were were stuck. So its going to take a lot of ingenuity and i dont think that i know the answer. You yourself are a brilliant architect and you Design Energy efficient buildings. Thats part of the answer. I happen live in old house that as you know Energy Deficient there was built in the times when they the contractors, you know, the builders would say instead of 16 theyre 16 inch center studs and the walls and bow say, what do you feel like having the stuff you want there . I mean i mean, it was like, you know, they a sewer system not understanding the water and runs downhill. I mean so so all this stuff comes under your house and, theyre going to the sewer to me. We have to figure out how to build our. Are our cities, our homes, ways that are more innovative, more and i mean there are lots of brilliant people who have given many volumes and to this question, one of them is my friend lester brown, who used to run the world watch institute. Lester, as you know, we can read that lester wrote and it extraordinarily good. Here we are okay. I mean theres a long list of a billion people just i dont have the answers and my purpose in book was not to provide the answers to the questions, but to raise the questions and show us what we are as a species. At this point in history, its alarming. And im afraid i can only make a few suggestions. Okay. Thank you very much. Youre welcome. Can we take more question back here . Okay. Thank you so. Give give a round of applause for dr. Hearn as you have. Probably