We are stealing nature from our children. Now, when I say this, I don't mean that we are destroying nature that they will have wanted us to preserve, although that is unfortunately also the case. What I mean here is that we've started to define nature in a way that's so purist and so strict that under the definition we're creating for ourselves, there won't be any nature left for our children when they're adults. But there's a fix for this. So let me explain.
Krademo prirodu od svoje dece. Kad to kažem, ne mislim da uništavamo prirodu koju bi oni želeli da im sačuvamo, mada je i to, nažalost, slučaj. Ono što mislim pod time je da smo počeli da definišemo prirodu na način koji je tako puritanski i tako strog da, prema definiciji koju stvaramo, uopšte neće ostati prirode za našu decu kada budu odrasli. Međutim, postoji rešenje za ovo. Dozvolite da objasnim.
Right now, humans use half of the world to live, to grow their crops and their timber, to pasture their animals. If you added up all the human beings, we would weigh 10 times as much as all the wild mammals put together. We cut roads through the forest. We have added little plastic particles to the sand on ocean beaches. We've changed the chemistry of the soil with our artificial fertilizers. And of course, we've changed the chemistry of the air. So when you take your next breath, you'll be breathing in 42 percent more carbon dioxide than if you were breathing in 1750. So all of these changes, and many others, have come to be kind of lumped together under this rubric of the "Anthropocene." And this is a term that some geologists are suggesting we should give to our current epoch, given how pervasive human influence has been over it. Now, it's still just a proposed epoch, but I think it's a helpful way to think about the magnitude of human influence on the planet.
Trenutno, ljudi koriste polovinu sveta da bi živeli, uzgajali useve i drva, da bi napasali svoje životinje. Ako biste sabrali sva ljudska bića, imali bismo težinu deset puta veću od svih divljih sisara zajedno. Krčimo puteve kroz šumu. Dodali smo male plastične čestice pesku na plažama okeana. Izmenili smo hemiju zemljišta našim veštačkim đubrivima. Naravno, promenili smo i hemiju vazduha. Tako, kada sledeći put udahete, udahnućete 42 posto više ugljen-dioksida od onog koji biste udisali 1750. godine. Sve te promene, kao i mnoge druge, nekako su se grupisale pod nazivom „antropocen“. To je termin koji neki geolozi predlažu da treba dati našoj trenutnoj epohi, uzimajući u obzir koliko ju je ljudski uticaj prožimao. To je i dalje samo predlog za epohu, ali mislim da je to koristan način za razmatranje dimenzija ljudskog uticaja na planetu.
So where does this put nature? What counts as nature in a world where everything is influenced by humans?
Na čemu je priroda sa tim? Šta se računa kao priroda u svetu u kome ljudi utiču na sve?
So 25 years ago, environmental writer Bill McKibben said that because nature was a thing apart from man and because climate change meant that every centimeter of the Earth was altered by man, then nature was over. In fact, he called his book "The End of Nature."
Pre 25 godina, ekološki pisac Bil Makiben rekao je da, jer je priroda nešto odvojeno od čoveka i jer klimatske promene podrazumevaju da je čovek izmenio svaki centimetar na Zemlji, priroda je gotova. Zapravo, nazvao je svoju knjigu „Kraj prirode“.
I disagree with this. I just disagree with this. I disagree with this definition of nature, because, fundamentally, we are animals. Right? Like, we evolved on this planet in the context of all the other animals with which we share a planet, and all the other plants, and all the other microbes. And so I think that nature is not that which is untouched by humanity, man or woman. I think that nature is anywhere where life thrives, anywhere where there are multiple species together, anywhere that's green and blue and thriving and filled with life and growing. And under that definition, things look a little bit different.
Ne slažem se sa ovim. Jednostavno se ne slažem. Ne slažem se sa ovom definicijom prirode, jer, u suštini, mi smo životinje, zar ne? U smislu, razvili smo se na ovoj planeti u kontekstu svih drugih životinja sa kojima delimo planetu, kao i sa svim drugim biljkama i mikrobima. Zato mislim da priroda nije ono što je netaknuto od strane ljudskih bića, muškarca ili žene. Smatram da se priroda nalazi svuda gde uspeva život, bilo gde da ima više vrsta zajedno, gde god da je zeleno i plavo, gde buja, ispunjeno je životom i gde raste. Pod ovom definicijom, stvari izgledaju malo drugačije.
Now, I understand that there are certain parts of this nature that speak to us in a special way. Places like Yellowstone, or the Mongolian steppe, or the Great Barrier Reef or the Serengeti. Places that we think of as kind of Edenic representations of a nature before we screwed everything up. And in a way, they are less impacted by our day to day activities. Many of these places have no roads or few roads, so on, like such. But ultimately, even these Edens are deeply influenced by humans.
Razumem da postoje određeni delovi prirode koji nam se obraćaju na poseban način. To su mesta kao što je Jeloustoun, Mongolska stepa, Veliki koralni greben ili Serengeti. To su mesta koja smatramo rajskim predstavnicima prirode pre nego što smo sve upropastili. Na neki način, na njih manje utiču naše svakodnevne aktivnosti. Mnoga među ovim mestima nemaju puteve ili ih imaju nekoliko i tako dalje, slično tome. Ipak, u krajnjoj liniji, čak i na te rajeve ljudi duboko utiču.
Now, let's just take North America, for example, since that's where we're meeting. So between about 15,000 years ago when people first came here, they started a process of interacting with the nature that led to the extinction of a big slew of large-bodied animals, from the mastodon to the giant ground sloth, saber-toothed cats, all of these cool animals that unfortunately are no longer with us. And when those animals went extinct, you know, the ecosystems didn't stand still. Massive ripple effects changed grasslands into forests, changed the composition of forest from one tree to another. So even in these Edens, even in these perfect-looking places that seem to remind us of a past before humans, we're essentially looking at a humanized landscape. Not just these prehistoric humans, but historical humans, indigenous people all the way up until the moment when the first colonizers showed up. And the case is the same for the other continents as well. Humans have just been involved in nature in a very influential way for a very long time.
Uzmimo Severnu Ameriku, na primer, s obzirom na to da se tu srećemo. Pre oko 15 000 godina, kada su ljudi prvi put došli ovde, započeli su proces interakcije sa prirodom koji je doveo do istrebljenja mnoštva krupnih životinja, od mastodonta do velikog kopnenog lenjivca, sabljastih mačkaka, svih tih zanimljivih životinja koje, nažalost, više nisu sa nama. Kada su te životinje izumrle, znate, ekosistemi nisu mirovali. Ogroman efekat talasa preobrazio je travnate površine u šume, promenio je sastav šume od jednog do drugog stabla. Čak i u ovim rajevima, čak i na tim mestima savršenog izgleda koja kao da nas podsećaju na prošlost pre ljudi, u suštini gledamo u humanizovani predeo. Nisu u pitanju samo praistorijski ljudi, već i istorijski ljudi, domoroci, sve do trenutka kada su se pojavili prvi kolonizatori. Isti je slučaj i sa ostalim kontinentima. Ljudi su jednostavno umešani u prirodu na vrlo uticajan način tokom veoma dugog perioda.
Now, just recently, someone told me,
Nedavno, neko mi je rekao:
"Oh, but there are still wild places."
„O, ali još ima divljih mesta.“
And I said, "Where? Where? I want to go."
Rekla sam: „Gde? Gde? Hoću da odem tamo.“
And he said, "The Amazon."
A on je rekao: „Amazon.“
And I was like, "Oh, the Amazon. I was just there. It's awesome. National Geographic sent me to Manú National Park, which is in the Peruvian Amazon, but it's a big chunk of rainforest, uncleared, no roads, protected as a national park, one of the most, in fact, biodiverse parks in the world. And when I got in there with my canoe, what did I find, but people. People have been living there for hundreds and thousands of years. People live there, and they don't just float over the jungle. They have a meaningful relationship with the landscape. They hunt. They grow crops. They domesticate crops. They use the natural resources to build their houses, to thatch their houses. They even make pets out of animals that we consider to be wild animals. These people are there and they're interacting with the environment in a way that's really meaningful and that you can see in the environment.
Odvratih na to: „O, Amazon. Upravo sam bila tamo.“ Sjajno je. Nacionalna geografija me je poslala u nacionalni park Manu, a to je u peruanskom Amazonu, ali to je veliki komad prašume, neraskrčen, nema puteva, zaštićen kao nacionalni park, zapravo, to je jedan od najraznovrsnijih parkova na svetu. Kada sam stigla tamo svojim kanuom, šta sam drugo našla nego ljude. Ljudi žive tamo stotinama i hiljadama godina. Ljudi tamo žive i ne obigravaju oko džungle. Imaju značajnu vezu sa predelom. Love, uzgajaju useve, pretvaraju ih u domaće. Koriste prirodne resurse da grade svoje kuće, da pokrivaju svoje kuće. Čak i pretvaraju u kućne ljubimce životinje koje mi smatramo divljim. Ti ljudi su tamo i u uzajamnom su dejstvu sa sredinom na način koji je zaista značajan i koji možete videti u sredini.
Now, I was with an anthropologist on this trip, and he told me, as we were floating down the river, he said, "There are no demographic voids in the Amazon." This statement has really stuck with me, because what it means is that the whole Amazon is like this. There's people everywhere. And many other tropical forests are the same, and not just tropical forests. People have influenced ecosystems in the past, and they continue to influence them in the present, even in places where they're harder to notice.
Bila sam sa antropologom na tom putovanju i rekao mi je, dok smo plovili rekom: „Nema demografskih praznina u Amazonu.“ Ta izjava mi se zaista urezala, jer to znači da je ceo Amazon takav. Svuda ima ljudi. Mnoge druge tropske šume su iste, i to ne samo tropske šume. Ljudi su uticali na ekosisteme u prošlosti i nastavljaju da utiču na njih u sadašnjosti, čak i na mestima gde ih je teže primetiti.
So, if all of the definitions of nature that we might want to use that involve it being untouched by humanity or not having people in it, if all of those actually give us a result where we don't have any nature, then maybe they're the wrong definitions. Maybe we should define it by the presence of multiple species, by the presence of a thriving life.
Dakle, ako sve definicije prirode koje bismo hteli da upotrebimo koje podrazumevaju netaknutost od strane čoveka ili nepostojanja ljudi u njoj, ako nam sve one zapravo daju kao rezultat da uopšte nemamo prirodu, onda su to možda pogrešne definicije. Možda bi trebalo da je definišemo prisustvom mnoštva vrsta, prisustvom života u usponu.
Now, if we do it that way, what do we get? Well, it's this kind of miracle. All of a sudden, there's nature all around us. All of a sudden, we see this Monarch caterpillar munching on this plant, and we realize that there it is, and it's in this empty lot in Chattanooga. And look at this empty lot. I mean, there's, like, probably, a dozen, minimum, plant species growing there, supporting all kinds of insect life, and this is a completely unmanaged space, a completely wild space. This is a kind of wild nature right under our nose, that we don't even notice.
Ako ćemo tako, šta dobijamo? Pa, neku vrstu čuda. Odjednom, priroda je svuda oko nas. Odjednom vidimo gusenicu monarha kako gricka biljku i shvatimo da je tu, na praznom placu u Čatanugi. Pogledajte to prazno zemljište. Mislim, tamo verovatno postoji minimum desetak vrsta biljaka koje tu rastu, podržavajući živote najrazličitijih insekata, a to je potpuno nekontrolisano mesto, sasvim divlji prostor. To je vrsta divlje prirode koja nam je pred nosem, a koju čak i ne primećujemo.
And there's an interesting little paradox, too. So this nature, this kind of wild, untended part of our urban, peri-urban, suburban agricultural existence that flies under the radar, it's arguably more wild than a national park, because national parks are very carefully managed in the 21st century. Crater Lake in southern Oregon, which is my closest national park, is a beautiful example of a landscape that seems to be coming out of the past. But they're managing it carefully. One of the issues they have now is white bark pine die-off. White bark pine is a beautiful, charismatic -- I'll say it's a charismatic megaflora that grows up at high altitude -- and it's got all these problems right now with disease. There's a blister rust that was introduced, bark beetle. So to deal with this, the park service has been planting rust-resistant white bark pine seedlings in the park, even in areas that they are otherwise managing as wilderness. And they're also putting out beetle repellent in key areas as I saw last time I went hiking there. And this kind of thing is really much more common than you would think. National parks are heavily managed. The wildlife is kept to a certain population size and structure. Fires are suppressed. Fires are started. Non-native species are removed. Native species are reintroduced. And in fact, I took a look, and Banff National Park is doing all of the things I just listed: suppressing fire, having fire, radio-collaring wolves, reintroducing bison. It takes a lot of work to make these places look untouched.
Tu postoji i zanimljiv mali paradoks. Ova priroda, ovaj nekakav divlji, zapušteni deo našeg gradskog, prigradskog, izvangradskog poljoprivrednog iskustva koje se neopaženo odvija, moguće da je još više divlja od nacionalnog parka, jer se nacionalnim parkovima vrlo pažljivo upravlja u 21. veku. Kratersko jezero u južnom Oregonu, meni najbliži nacionalni park, prelepi je primer predela koji izgleda kao da izlazi iz prošlosti. Međutim, brižljivo ga kontrolišu. Jedan od problema koje trenutno imaju je izumiranje belokorog bora. Belokori bor je prelep, harizmatičan - rekla bih da je to harizmatična, velika biljka koja raste na velikoj nadmorskoj visini, a sada ima sve te probleme sa oboljenjima. Pojavila se gljivica koja izaziva rđu, bube koje izjedaju koru. Da bi se izborila sa time, služba za održavanje parka je zasadila u parku sadnice belokorih borova otporne na rđu, čak i u oblastima kojima inače upravljaju kao divljinom. Takođe, na ključnim mestima postavljaju sredstva za zaštitu od insekata, što sam videla poslednji put kada sam tamo pešačila. Ovako nešto je zapravo učestalije nego što biste pretpostavili. Nacionalni parkovi se intenzivno kontrolišu. Održava se određeni broj i struktura divljih životinja. Suzbijaju se požari. Započinju se požari. Uklanjaju se vrste koje nisu domaće. Iznova se dovode domaće vrste. Zapravo, pogledala sam, nacionalni park Banf radi sve te stvari koje sam navela: suzbijanje i podsticanje požara, stavljanje radio-ogrlica na vukove, ponovno dovođenje bizona. Potrebno je mnogo truda da bi ta mesta izgledala netaknuto.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
And in a further irony, these places that we love the most are the places that we love a little too hard, sometimes. A lot of us like to go there, and because we're managing them to be stable in the face of a changing planet, they often are becoming more fragile over time.
Što je još veća ironija, ta mesta koja najviše volimo su mesta koja ponekad previše volimo. Mnogo nas voli da ide tamo, a kako njima rukovodimo tako da budu stabilna nasuprot planeti koja se menja, često vremenom postaju krhkija.
Which means that they're the absolute worst places to take your children on vacation, because you can't do anything there. You can't climb the trees. You can't fish the fish. You can't make a campfire out in the middle of nowhere. You can't take home the pinecones. There are so many rules and restrictions that from a child's point of view, this is, like, the worst nature ever. Because children don't want to hike through a beautiful landscape for five hours and then look at a beautiful view. That's maybe what we want to do as adults, but what kids want to do is hunker down in one spot and just tinker with it, just work with it, just pick it up, build a house, build a fort, do something like that.
To znači da su to apsolutno najgora mesta na koja možete odvesti decu na odmor, jer tamo ne možete ništa da radite. Ne možete da se penjete na drveće. Ne možete da pecate. Ne možete tamo usred nedođije da zapalite logorsku vatru. Ne možete da ponesete šišarke kući. Ima toliko pravila i ograničenja da je, iz dečje perspektive, to najgora moguća priroda, jer deca ne žele da pešače kroz prelepi predeo pet sati i zatim da gledaju lep vidik. To je možda ono što mi želimo kao odrasli, ali deca žele da samo čučnu na nekom mestu i petljaju sa njim, samo da rade na njemu, podignu nešto, naprave kuću, izgrade tvrđavu, rade tako nešto.
Additionally, these sort of Edenic places are often distant from where people live. And they're expensive to get to. They're hard to visit. So this means that they're only available to the elites, and that's a real problem. The Nature Conservancy did a survey of young people, and they asked them, how often do you spend time outdoors? And only two out of five spent time outdoors at least once a week. The other three out of five were just staying inside. And when they asked them why, what are the barriers to going outside, the response of 61 percent was, "There are no natural areas near my home."
Pored toga, ova rajska mesta često su udaljena od mesta gde žive ljudi, a i skupo je doći do njih. Teško je posetiti ih. To znači da su dostupna samo eliti, a to je pravi problem. Organizacija za očuvanje prirode sprovela je anketu sa mladim ljudima i pitali su ih koliko često provode vreme napolju. Samo dvoje od petoro je provodilo vreme napolju makar jednom nedeljno. Preostalih troje od petoro je samo ostajalo unutra. Kada su ih pitali zašto, koje su prepreke izlaženju napolje, 61 procenat je odgovorio: „Ne postoje prirodne oblasti u blizini moje kuće.“
And this is crazy. This is just patently false. I mean, 71 percent of people in the US live within a 10-minute walk of a city park. And I'm sure the figures are similar in other countries. And that doesn't even count your back garden, the urban creek, the empty lot. Everybody lives near nature. Every kid lives near nature. We've just somehow forgotten how to see it. We've spent too much time watching David Attenborough documentaries where the nature is really sexy --
To je suludo. To je očigledno netačno. Mislim, 71 posto ljudi u SAD-u živi na oko 10 minuta pešačenja do gradskog parka. Sigurna sam da je slično i u drugim zemljama. Tu se čak ne ubraja vaša bašta u dvorištu, urbani potok, prazno zemljište. Svi žive u blizini prirode. Svako dete živi blizu prirode. Samo smo nekako zaboravili kako da je vidimo. Proveli smo previše vremena gledajući dokumentarce Dejvida Atenboroa gde je priroda stvarno seksi -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
and we've forgotten how to see the nature that is literally right outside our door, the nature of the street tree.
i zaboravili smo kako da vidimo prirodu koja nam je bukvalno pred vratima, prirodu drveta na ulici.
So here's an example: Philadelphia. There's this cool elevated railway that you can see from the ground, that's been abandoned. Now, this may sound like the beginning of the High Line story in Manhattan, and it's very similar, except they haven't developed this into a park yet, although they're working on it. So for now, it's still this little sort of secret wilderness in the heart of Philadelphia, and if you know where the hole is in the chain-link fence, you can scramble up to the top and you can find this completely wild meadow just floating above the city of Philadelphia. Every single one of these plants grew from a seed that planted itself there. This is completely autonomous, self-willed nature. And it's right in the middle of the city. And they've sent people up there to do sort of biosurveys, and there are over 50 plant species up there. And it's not just plants. This is an ecosystem, a functioning ecosystem. It's creating soil. It's sequestering carbon. There's pollination going on. I mean, this is really an ecosystem.
Evo primera: Filadelfija. Tu se nalazi zanimljiva uzdignuta železnička pruga koju možete videti sa zemlje, a koja je napuštena. Ovo može zvučati kao početak priče o Haj Lajnu na Menhetnu, a prilično su slični, osim što ovo još nisu razvili u park, mada rade na tome. Za sada, to je još neka vrsta tajne divljine u srcu Filadelfije, a ako znate gde se nalazi rupa u žičanoj ogradi, možete se popeti do vrha i možete naći ovu potpuno divlju livadu koja lebdi nad gradom Filadelfijom. Svaka od ovih biljaka izrasla je iz semena koje se samo tu zasadilo. Ovo je potpuno autonomna, samovoljna priroda, i baš je usred grada. Slali su ljude gore da sprovode neke vrste bioloških istraživanja i tamo ima preko 50 vrsta biljaka. Tamo nisu samo biljke. To je ekosistem, ekosistem koji funkcioniše. Stvara zemljište. Izoluje ugljen-dioksid. Tu se odvija oprašivanje. Mislim, to je stvarno ekosistem.
So scientists have started calling ecosystems like these "novel ecosystems," because they're often dominated by non-native species, and because they're just super weird. They're just unlike anything we've ever seen before. For so long, we dismissed all these novel ecosystems as trash. We're talking about regrown agricultural fields, timber plantations that are not being managed on a day-to-day basis, second-growth forests generally, the entire East Coast, where after agriculture moved west, the forest sprung up. And of course, pretty much all of Hawaii, where novel ecosystems are the norm, where exotic species totally dominate. This forest here has Queensland maple, it has sword ferns from Southeast Asia. You can make your own novel ecosystem, too. It's really simple. You just stop mowing your lawn.
Naučnici su počeli da nazivaju ovakve ekosisteme „neobični ekosistemi“ jer u njima često dominiraju vrste koje nisu domaće, a i zato što su veoma čudni. Jednostavno ne liče ni na šta što su ranije videli. Toliko dugo smo odbacivali sve te nove ekosisteme kao beskorisne. Govorimo o iznova izraslim poljoprivrednim poljima, plantažama drveća koje se ne kontrolišu svakodnevno, uopšte o sekundarnim šumama, o čitavoj Istočnoj obali, gde je, nakon što se poljoprivreda preselila zapadno, izbila šuma. Naravno, to su i manje-više čitavi Havaji, gde su neobični ekosistemi norma, gde egzotične vrste sasvim dominiraju. Ova šuma ovde ima kvinslendske javore, ima oštre paprati iz Jugoistočne Azije. Možete da napravite i sopstvene neobične ekosisteme. Zaista je jednostavno. Samo prestanete da kosite travu.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Ilkka Hanski was an ecologist in Finland, and he did this experiment himself. He just stopped mowing his lawn, and after a few years, he had some grad students come, and they did sort of a bio-blitz of his backyard, and they found 375 plant species, including two endangered species.
Ilka Hanski je bio ekolog u Finskoj i sam je sproveo taj eksperiment. Samo je prestao da kosi svoj travnjak i nakon nekoliko godina je doveo nekoliko studenata koji su sproveli neku vrstu biološkog istraživanja u njegovom dvorištu i pronašli su 375 vrsta biljaka, uključujući dve ugrožene vrste.
So when you're up there on that future High Line of Philadelphia, surrounded by this wildness, surrounded by this diversity, this abundance, this vibrance, you can look over the side and you can see a local playground for a local school, and that's what it looks like. These children have, that -- You know, under my definition, there's a lot of the planet that counts as nature, but this would be one of the few places that wouldn't count as nature. There's nothing there except humans, no other plants, no other animals. And what I really wanted to do was just, like, throw a ladder over the side and get all these kids to come up with me into this cool meadow. In a way, I feel like this is the choice that faces us. If we dismiss these new natures as not acceptable or trashy or no good, we might as well just pave them over. And in a world where everything is changing, we need to be very careful about how we define nature.
Dakle, kada se nađete tamo gore na tom budućem Haj Lajnu Filadelfije, okruženi tom divljinom, okruženi tom raznolikošću, tim obiljem, tom živahnošću, možete pogledati sa strane i videti igralište za lokalnu školu, a ovako to izgleda. Ova deca imaju... Znate, pod mojom definicijom, postoji dobar deo planete koji se računa kao priroda, ali ovo bi bilo jedno od nekoliko mesta koje se ne ubraja u prirodu. Tu nema ničeg osim ljudi, nema drugih biljaka niti životinja. Ono što sam zaista želela je da prebacim merdevine sa strane i dovedem svu tu decu da se popnu sa mnom na tu livadu. Na neki način, smatram da je ovo izbor sa kojim se suočavamo. Ako odbacimo tu novu prirodu kao neprihvatljivu, bezvrednu ili lošu, mogli bismo i da je prekrijemo asfaltom. U svetu u kome se sve menja, treba da vrlo pažljivo definišemo prirodu.
In order not to steal it from our children, we have to do two things. First, we cannot define nature as that which is untouched. This never made any sense anyway. Nature has not been untouched for thousands of years. And it excludes most of the nature that most people can visit and have a relationship with, including only nature that children cannot touch. Which brings me to the second thing that we have to do, which is that we have to let children touch nature, because that which is untouched is unloved.
Da je ne bismo krali od svoje dece, moramo da uradimo dve stvari. Prvo, ne možemo definisati prirodu kao ono što je netaknuto. To svakako nikad nije imalo smisla. Priroda nije netaknuta hiljadama godina. To isključuje većinu prirode koju većina ljudi može posetiti i sa kojom se mogu povezati, uključujući samo prirodu koju deca ne mogu da diraju. To me dovodi do druge stvari koju moramo da uradimo, a to je da dozvolimo deci da dodirnu prirodu, jer ono što nije dodirnuto, to nije ni voljeno.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
We face some pretty grim environmental challenges on this planet. Climate change is among them. There's others too: habitat loss is my favorite thing to freak out about in the middle of the night. But in order to solve them, we need people -- smart, dedicated people -- who care about nature. And the only way we're going to raise up a generation of people who care about nature is by letting them touch nature.
Na ovoj planeti se suočavamo sa vrlo tmurnim izazovima životne sredine. Klimatske promene su među njima. Tu su i druge promene - gubitak staništa mi je omiljena stvar oko koje paničim usred noći. Da bismo ih rešili, potrebni su nam ljudi - pametni, posvećeni ljudi - kojima je stalo do prirode. Jedini način na koji ćemo podići generaciju ljudi kojima je stalo do prirode je tako što ćemo im dopustiti da dotaknu prirodu.
I have a Fort Theory of Ecology, Fort Theory of Conservation. Every ecologist I know, every conservation biologist I know, every conservation professional I know, built forts when they were kids. If we have a generation that doesn't know how to build a fort, we'll have a generation that doesn't know how to care about nature.
Imam ekološku teoriju tvrđave, konzervacionu teoriju tvrđave. Svaki ekolog kojeg znam, svaki konzervacioni biolog kojeg znam, svi stručnjaci za konzervaciju koje poznajem gradili su tvrđave kada su bili deca. Ako imamo generaciju koja ne zna kako da napravi tvrđavu, imaćemo generaciju koja ne zna kako da brine o prirodi.
And I don't want to be the one to tell this kid, who is on a special program that takes Philadelphia kids from poor neighborhoods and takes them to city parks, I don't want to be the one to tell him that the flower he's holding is a non-native invasive weed that he should throw away as trash. I think I would much rather learn from this boy that no matter where this plant comes from, it is beautiful, and it deserves to be touched and appreciated.
Ne želim da budem osoba koja će reći ovom detetu, koje je na specijalnom programu odvođenja dece iz siromašnih krajeva Filadelfije u gradske parkove, ne želim da budem ta koja će mu reći da je cvet koji drži strani invazivni korov koji treba da baci kao đubre. Mislim da bih radije naučila od ovog dečaka da, bez obzira na to odakle biljka potiče, ona je lepa i zaslužuje da se dodirne i ceni.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)