What animals are thinking and feeling, and why it should matter | Carl Safina | TEDxMidAtlantic (2)

She nursed for a couple of moments, she came back to the window,

and she released a cloud of milk that enveloped her head

like a cloud of smoke.

(Laughter)

Somehow, she had the idea of using milk to represent smoke.

And when we use one thing to represent another, we call it art.

(Laughter)

The things that make us human are not what we think.

What makes us human is that we are the most extreme.

We are the most compassionate; we are the most violent.

We are the most creative, and we are the most destructive animals

ever to appear on this planet.

But we are not the only animals that love one another.

We are not the only ones who care for our mates or for our children.

Albatrosses routinely fly six to ten thousand miles

to bring back one meal for their chick.

They live on the most remote islands in the world,

and those islands are covered with plastic trash.

Into the sacred chain of being that gives life from one generation to the next

is our garbage.

Here is an albatross chick, who was about six months old.

It was about to start flying. It died.

It was packed with red cigarette lighters.

This is not the relationship we are supposed to have with the world,

but we, with our big, celebrated brains, don't use them.

Yet, when we welcome new life into the world,

we welcome them with pictures of animals.

We don't paint cell phones and work cubicles on nursery walls.

(Laughter)

We want to say, "Look who is here with us!"

And yet, every one of those,

every one deemed worthy of being saved on Noah's Arc,

is in mortal danger now, and the flood is us.

We started with a question: "Do they love us?"

We need to get outside ourselves a little bit and ask:

"Do we have what it takes

to simply let life on Earth continue?"

Thank you.

(Applause)