Biodiversity

This is the sixth edition of The State of the World Atlas, published in
1999. The maps and cartograms included report data that range from
Nutrition, Refugees, and Unemployment, to Gender Equality, Reproduc-
tive Rights, and Global Warming.
The map selected for the exhibit illustrates biodiversity, pointing out
protected land areas, biosphere reserves, and threatened species. Unfor-
tunately, as a result of the harmful impact of human activity, Earth is
unable to keep up in the struggle to regenerate, therefore loss of biodiver-
sity and extinction risks are direct consequences of the absence of proper
political action aimed at the protection and preservation of Earth’s flora,
fauna, and source water.

“The only biodiversity we’re going to have left is Coke versus Pepsi. We’re
landscaping the whole world one stupid mistake at a time.” Chuck
Palahniuk
Climate Change
Part of a series of maps promoted by National Geographic, the map
illustrates the scientific evidence of climate change and global warming.
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report claims that “the current warming
trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely to
be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceed-
ing at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.” Most
climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming
trend is human expansion of the "greenhouse effect" which has devastat-
ing consequences to the point that the UN has warned of the concrete
possibility that the course of climate change may be irreversible. Visit
ngm.com/climateconnections and nor.org/climateconnections for
further information on Earth’s changing climate.

“Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Deforestation
This map reveals the forest distribution in the Unites States
through a visual comparison of data from 1700 and 1970. A
pattern of forest degradation is clearly evident. To reverse
the process, reforestation should be implemented as well as
acknowledgment of industrial livestock production as a
driver of forest loss should be a primary concern. However,
while waiting for a prompt and efficient intervention, the
loss rapidly continues worldwide.

“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a

Renaissance painting to cook a meal.” Edward Osborne
Wilson
Henri David Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods
Known as a politically oriented poet-philosopher and a non-conformist thinker, the American
Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862) established his reputation as a prophet for ecological thought and
the value of wilderness, representing a radical version of sufficiency in the history of ecological
utopias. In his view, nature is the mother of humanity, a creator of life and beauty. Seeking
solitude and self-reliance, he moved to the woods by Walden Pond, outside Concord Massachu-
setts, where he lived alone for two years in a self constructed cabin before returning to society.
Through his example, he sketches an alternative society and depicts a lifestyle based on a
simplification of life, stripped of materialism, so that humanity can return to its deepest core,
and recover a more worthwhile happiness in the appreciation of nature. Throughout the book he
expresses his concern for the damage caused by current human activities to the natural environ-
ment as a consequence of the urbanization of the nineteenth century and the “spiritual poverty”
of his contemporaries, who become their own slave masters. He then articulates the idea that
humans are part of nature and that we function best, as individuals and societies, when we are
conscious of that fact.
The edition here presented is limited to 100 copies for sale in the United States, 750 for England,
and 35 presentation copies.

“Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould
myself?”
“Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human
race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.”