Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria and the World's Peril

Welcome to the Anthropocene, the era in which one species—human beings—so utterly dominates the planet that all of the driving forces of climate, oceans, geology, air and every other life form on Earth are controlled by the activities of humanity. Most of the damage is thoughtless. Humans don’t decide to pollute, they just do so. People don’t make a choice to lower the numbers of oxygen-producing trees on the planet, they just chop them down without thinking about it.

Among the most dangerous of these thoughtless actions executed by our species is wild misuse of antibiotics. On September 21, the United Nations General Assembly is convening a special session to look at ways to curb use of precious medicinal drugs that are swiftly being outwitted by drug-resistant bacteria, making everything from a scraped knee to a bout of pneumonia far more dangerous and difficult to treat. But that focus, important as it is, remains limited to human use of chemicals and concern about their misuse to our species’ health.