Latest Annalee Newitz Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• If we return abruptly to a Miocene-like climate, it's reasonable to think that we would experience a lot of extinctions, and maybe even a mass extinction in the long term. Would the life on Earth be radically different? Of course we can't say for sure, but I think a lot of it would look familiar. Like a lot of people, I worry a lot about whether marine mammals would survive, especially whales. Ocean acidification is one of the major killers in climate change events, and that makes the ocean a very inhospitable place.

  Annalee Newitz

  Ocean, Marine, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• In terms of fiction, there are a number of writers who are thinking about the future of the environment whose work complements mine. Kim Stanley Robinson's novel 2312 is a great example, as is Tobias Buckell's novel Arctic Rising.

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Numbers, Example

  Source: therumpus.net

• Imagining the world without us is a recipe for despair and paralysis. I actually think it's more helpful to imagine the world before us, to look back at those unstable ecosystems of the Triassic and realize that were in another phase of unstable ecosystems. Knowing that, demystifying our situation as it were, makes it easier to think about solutions. We are not looking into the unknown. The only thing unknown about the situation is how we're going to fix it, and when.

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Ecosystems, Knowing

  Source: therumpus.net

• We are headed to a radically new Earth, at least from our perspective. But from the planet's perspective, this is nothing new. As the geologist Peter Ward is fond of pointing out, we are actually heading back to a time kind of like the Miocene. The Miocene ended about 5.5 million years ago, and it was the last time that the planet had no icecaps.

  Annalee Newitz

  Years, Perspective, Earth

  Source: therumpus.net

• I disagree that we need to contemplate eliminating ourselves in order to move forward. Sure, I think a good dystopian story can serve to steer us on the right path toward a better world. But we also need stories that offer solutions to our problems that are realistic, and workable today.

  Annalee Newitz

  Moving, Thinking, Order

  Source: therumpus.net

• Humans are a great survivor species but our survival will be pretty grim if all of the plants and animals we depend on die out. That's why any human survival strategy has to include a plan to maintain our environment roughly in the state that it's in now.

  Annalee Newitz

  Animal, Survival, Survivor

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think that humans are also set up to survive. We're not as small as rats, but we make up for that by being intelligent enough to make our own hiding places and to adapt to new habitats, even if they are changing very quickly. We have an enormous population, and can afford to lose billions of people without suffering very much as a species. Indeed, some would say losing five billion people would be good for the planet - I disagree with them, but can't deny that we would do just fine if there were two billion of us or even one billion.

  Annalee Newitz

  Intelligent, Thinking, Two

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think small animals can escape from many kinds of natural disaster more easily. There are just more places for them to hide, and more ways for them to find safe habitats. So this means that rats are set up to rule the Earth, but most of us already knew that. Now you know why.

  Annalee Newitz

  Mean, Animal, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• Amphibians are dying out like crazy, and frogs and salamanders may be largely extinct by the end of the twenty-first century. Imagine an animal that begins its life in the water, but ends it on land - already, that's pretty weird. But, also, a lot of them are incredibly tiny and look wildly improbable. They have funny little toes, they stretch their throats into weird bubble shapes when they croak, and some of them are poisonous to the touch. I think kids from the twenty-second century might mythologize amphibians the way kids today mythologize dinosaurs.

  Annalee Newitz

  Crazy, Kids, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• Survivor species tend to have huge populations, so they can afford to lose many individuals and still survive as a species. They also tend to be small. If you're small, you need less food - which is great in a situation where famine is everywhere.

  Annalee Newitz

  Population, Needs, Survivor

  Source: therumpus.net

• The early Triassic was a period when the planet was recovering from the worst mass extinction it had ever known - that was the end Permian extinction, where climate change caused in part by mega-volcanic eruptions wiped out ninety-five percent of life on Earth. It took about ten or twenty million years for the planet's ecosystems to stabilize. During that time you saw a lot of weird, out-of-balance ecosystems where, for example, crocodile-like predators ripped the crap out of each other along the coasts.

  Annalee Newitz

  Mass Extinction, Years, Ecosystems

  Source: therumpus.net

• In fact, the early demographer Thomas Malthus believes that the only way the human population would ever check itself was by running headlong into a disaster, like a pandemic or famine. Sometimes we get so frustrated with the slowness of human political processes that we wish a giant flaming rock would solve the problem for us.

  Annalee Newitz

  Running, Believe, Rocks

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think in the long run, it will be better for us if we solve our problems without suffering through some terrible disaster. I like the idea of change without Apocalypse.

  Annalee Newitz

  Running, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: therumpus.net

• Sometimes it's hard to take everyday concerns seriously when you think about vanished ecosystems that existed 300 million years ago and were eradicated by giant explosions. My goals haven't changed, because my goal has always been to save the world!

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Years, Ecosystems

  Source: therumpus.net

• I try to be realistic and pragmatic. I have a lot of hope for humanity as a species, but obviously as individuals we can be extremely flawed. We may have to go through some very terrible times in the near future, even if we ultimately survive as Homo sapiens.

  Annalee Newitz

  Humanity, Trying, May

  Source: therumpus.net

• Even though I now know that it's likely the Earth will suffer through mega-volcanoes or meteor strikes that could take out millions or billions of people, I feel less anxious about it because I actually understand what the threats are. There's nothing like researching something exhaustively to make it less terrifying.

  Annalee Newitz

  Volcanoes, People, Suffering

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think it's the process of demystification, and realizing that we are not talking about some supernatural nightmare - we're talking about a natural process that the planet has gone through before, and which animals have survived before.

  Annalee Newitz

  Animal, Thinking, Talking

  Source: therumpus.net

• To be fair, if we are having a mass extinction, we're in the early stages of it. I think it's knowing facts like that which has made me less fearful about the future. Mass extinction is a long, complicated process that we are just now beginning to understand - and likewise, we are just beginning to understand how we might prevent one.

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Mass Extinction, Knowing

  Source: therumpus.net

• A lot of environmental and biological science depends on technology to progress. Partly I'm talking about massive server farms that help people crunch genetic data - or atmospheric data. But I also mean the scientific collaborations that the Internet makes possible, where scientists in India and Africa can work with people in Europe and the Americas to come up with solutions to what are, after all, global problems.

  Annalee Newitz

  Mean, Technology, Talking

  Source: therumpus.net

• Using virtual world, a scientist in Japan can conduct an experiment using a special facility in California, watching the entire thing via a live stream - and possibly controlling the experimental equipment remotely. We can use that same kind of technology to control a robot on Mars.

  Annalee Newitz

  Technology, California, Japan

  Source: therumpus.net

• GMO agriculture will probably save the world in this century. But in the developed world, where few people are haunted by the specter of famine, people are free to fetishize heirloom tomatoes and worry about the provenance of what sits on their dinner tables.

  Annalee Newitz

  Gmos, Agriculture, Worry

  Source: therumpus.net

• The fact is that humans have been shaping the genetics of what they eat for thousands of years. Genetic engineering simply speeds up the process that used to take generations. Preventing people from getting things like golden rice or disease-resistant cassava destroys human life, and does not spare the environment in any way.

  Annalee Newitz

  Engineering, Years, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• That said, a lot of people buy products with "green" in the brand name, but make no attempt to understand what it would really take to live sustainably. I think one of the most pernicious examples of magical environmental thinking is the anti-GMO movement.

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Names, Gmos

  Source: therumpus.net

• There are plenty of publicly-funded organizations and nonprofits that are trying to develop GMO crops that could help feed people in developing nations by producing disease-resistant or drought-resistant strains of staple crops like cassava or bananas.

  Annalee Newitz

  Organization, Gmos, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• Cities should function more like ecosystems, or even metabolisms. When we build, we should be thinking about how we can integrate into the ecosystems around us, but without sacrificing all the niceties of civilization like good restaurants, concert halls, and high-speed Internet access. I'm saying that partly tongue-in-cheek, but I'm also deadly serious. The future of technology is sustainable ecology.

  Annalee Newitz

  Sacrifice, Thinking, Technology

  Source: therumpus.net