“In real physical terms, we need to shift how we consume on the planet, because we have exceeded the limits.”

David Obura, Director of CORDIO East Africa, IPBES Chair, and Earth Commissioner, is featured in a New York Times piece, “The Scientists Watching Their Life’s Work Disappear,” covering seven scientists whose work focuses on the impacts of climate change on the nonhuman world. Obura’s image also appeared on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

David Obura has been studying coral reefs for more than thirty years and he, like many other researchers at Future Earth, see firsthand what many of us do not when it comes to the impacts of climate change. In a blog post reflecting on the New York Times article, David says:

“My message is that the culprit is clear — its us — and I don’t mean all of humanity, as we’re not all the same. Most who will read the magazine story have a level of affluence that is complicit in the consumption that has denuded this planet. Most have blindly listened to corporations, businesses and the politicians they finance, that say ‘buy this’, ‘buy more’, ‘grow’. Many are already shifting personal choices to have less impact, which is good, but it is only the full reformulation of our political economies — by breaking the system that we are fortunate to benefit from — that will ‘bend the curve’ of declines and enable the planet and all people to flourish again.”

Read more of David’s reflections.

Read the New York Times photo essay.