Ask most citizens worldwide to identify the most pressing issue facing humanity as a whole and they will likely respond with global warming. However, there is another environmental catastrophe looming: the degradation of the global communications environment. The parallels between the two issues are striking: in both cases an invaluable commons is threatened with collapse unless citizens take urgent action to achieve environmental rescue. The two issues are also intimately connected: solutions to global warming necessitate an unfettered worldwide communications network through which citizens can exchange information and ideas. To protect the planet, we need to protect the Net.

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