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It’s called the environmentalist’s paradox, and it’s the sort of existential question almost everyone has pondered. If, as many suggest, we humans are steadily draining our planet of its natural resources, why does humanity seem to be thriving?

Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne, BSc’01, MSc’04, PhD’10, led a team charged with answering this question. Their research produced four thought-provoking hypotheses now found in an article published recently in the journal BioScience.

The article has drawn the attention of such publications as Scientific American and The Guardian, both of which outlined Raudsepp-Hearne and her team’s conclusions.