Amidst record-high temperatures, deluges, droughts and wildfires, leaders are convening for another round of United Nations climate talks later this month that seek to curb the centuries-long trend of humans spewing ever more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
For hundreds of years, people have shaped the world around them for their benefit: They drained lakes to protect infrastructure, wealth and people. They dug up billions of tons of coal, and then oil and gas, to fuel empires and economies. The allure of exploiting nature and burning fossil fuels as a path to prosperity hopped from nation to nation, each eager to secure their own energy.
People who claimed the power to control nature and the energy resources around them saw the environment as a tool to be used for progress, historians say. Over hundreds of years, that impulse has remade the planet’s climate, too — and brought its inhabitants to the brink of catastrophe.
CONTROLLING THE ENVIRONMENT
Mexico City traces its roots to a settlement centuries ago on islands in the midst of Lake Texcoco. These days, most of the lake is gone, drained long ago to make room for the building and growth that today has more than 22 million people sprawling toward the edges of the Valley of Mexico.
Getting water in the arid valley — a
