WEBVTT

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I'm going to start with a quote
by the Dalai Lama,

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"Today, more than ever before,

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life must be characterized
by a sense of universal responsibility

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not only nation to nation
and human to human

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but human to other forms of life."

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That's what I'm here to talk about;

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I'm passionate
about wildlife conservation,

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thus, other forms of life.

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In the last ten years,
I've done everything I can

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to learn as much as I can about it.

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I've read books, I've talked to experts,

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I've gone to conferences,
and traveled the world.

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I wanted to see for myself
what's going on in these places.

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I visited chimpanzees in Uganda,

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I visited mountain gorilla
families in Rwanda.

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Everywhere I go, the root cause
of the dwindling numbers of these species

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is human population pressure.

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A recent visual example
I saw of this is in Uganda,

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with farms going up the hillside

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right to the boundary
of Bwindi National Park,

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part of the last remaining habitat
for the mountain gorilla.

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Let's talk about population.

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We're at 6.7 billion people
in the world today,

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expected to rise to nine or ten billion
just in the next 40 years.

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The problem is we've already got
a billion people

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who don't have enough to eat.

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What is it going to be like
when we increase the pressure,

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the human population pressure,

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by another 50%?

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So, I think, what we are going to have
are more conflicts, more wars

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over scarcer resources,

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less drinking water per person.

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We're going to have less food per person,
more disease, and suffering.

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It's difficult to comprehend,
but that's suffering on a global scale

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when we are talking
about billions of people.

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I know this is sobering to think about.

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Is this a future we want to leave
for our children and grandchildren?

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I don't think so either.

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So let's steer towards a better future.

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Thomas Berry wrote
that our great work for our generation

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is to learn to live on the planet
at least benignly.

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Why would we do that?

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One reason we would do that
is that our fellow living things,

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who happen not to be human,

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don't have a representative in Congress;

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they don't have a lobbyist in Washington,

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they don't have a voice at the table,

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and yet, they are completely dependent
for their survival on our good will;

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much like children.

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Let's talk about our country's population
and our wildlife.

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We had about five million people
in our country around 1800

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and about 290 million people in 2000
- more now, of course.

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At a conference, I met a scientist,
Andrea Laliberte,

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who had done fascinating work

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comparing wildlife sightings
in the 1700 and 1800 in our country

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to how wildlife range today
in our country.

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This chart, the pinkish areas
- I'm not sure how it looks here -

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are where we used to have black bears.

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The yellow areas are
where they still are today

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- you see there's been
a lot of recession there.

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This is the gray wolf;

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we used to have gray wolves
running all over our country;

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- the pinkish areas you see on the chart -

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not so today.

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We used to have grizzly bears
running over about half of our country;

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as you see, they've receded,
and we don't have them.

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This was just 200 years ago.

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That yellow island-like area

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- that would be
the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

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Let's look at a summary map:
take a look at the right here -

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red is good, green is bad,
white is very bad.

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You see that we've lost
a lot of species in our country;

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those white areas mean
that all of wildlife that was looked at,

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- in this case, in the 1800s -

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it's gone from our country.

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Do you think is normal
not to have wildlife

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running around us
all the time in our country?

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That's not normal.

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Let's bring it home, here,
to the Front Range of Colorado; tonight.

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We used to have wild bison; they're gone.

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We used to have gray wolves; they're gone.

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We used to have--
- sorry, my clicker's little sluggish -

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grizzly bears;
could've been right outside.

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They're gone.

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We used to have lynx, the cat; gone.

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Maybe they are not leaving.

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(Laughter)

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We used to have black-footed ferret,

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very dependent on prairie dog
for their survival; gone.

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We used to have

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this beautiful, little bird:
the mountain plover; also gone.

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This is sobering information,
so what can we do?

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We can choose a better future.

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Let's apply the empathy

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that we have for our cats,
dogs, and other pets

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to endangered species
like this chimpanzee,

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but all endangered species.

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Let's have fewer children;
that's one of the most powerful--

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(Applause)

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- Thank you! -

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(Applause)

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- I didn't expect that response. -

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That's one of the most powerful things
that we can do in the United States;

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if we want to have kids,
great; let's have two.

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If want to have
more than two kids, let's adopt.

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What else can we do?

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Well, we won't go there.

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So, what else can we do?

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We can help educate girls and provide
economic opportunity to women

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in developing countries.

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(Applause)

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Amen!

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When we do that, those ladies choose
to have to have smaller families,

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and we have more nutrition,
more health care,

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more education for their kids,

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and the impact
on the global population is huge.

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Finally, what we can do

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is we can give more to our planet.

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We can give half
of our donations, let's say,

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to people and people-related causes,

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and half of our donations to the planet,

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to ocean conservation,
to wildlife conservation.

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I want to mention, by the way,
that today, we only give about 2 to 5%

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of all giving that goes to environment
and wildlife as a category.

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You've been very patient
with sometimes, a difficult topic;

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I just want to say
that the thing to think about

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is do we change,
as a species, what do we do,

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so that our fellow living beings
who happen not to be human

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can thrive alongside of us

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a 100, 500, and 1,000 years from now.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)