In pursuit of economic growth, the United States and other developed countries are testing the tolerance of the natural world. The results include the loss of valuable ecosystems, global climate change and the degradation of the planet's ability to support life. Journalist William Becker argues that our mission in the 21st century should be to fix what we have broken in the natural world and to enlist healthy ecosystems in our pursuit of economic and physical security. Becker begins by sounding an alarm about the inability of the dams and levees we built over the last century to handle the severity of sea-level rise and record floods we see today. It's time, he suggests, to give floodplains back to rivers.
