Entering the Conversation

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concerning conservation, preservation, and ecological health.

" 'Nature knows best ' is shorthand for the ... array of substances and reactions that are essential to life."

"people are caught in the clash between the ecosphere and the technosphere."

"A free lunch is really a debt."

Barry Commoner, in Walker, pp. 497, 499- 500.

Media as a purveyor of information:

• Ozone losses (11-11-91) Washington Post editorial
• Unfriendly Skies, Jessica T. Mathews, (2-9-92)
• So What if its Getting Hot? William Booth, (8-22-91)

authors | Siry | Wilson | Walker

Environmental Problems

Fifteen dolphins beached on a North Carolina Beach, 8-21 to 23, 05

• Forests, Scapegoats and Global Warming, George Woodwell, (2-11-92)
• Legacy of Pollution, Blaine Harden, (12-15-91)
• Big, Bad Beef, Jeremy Rifkin, (3-13-92)
• Folk Remedy may Wipe out Tigers, Malcolm W. Brown (9-22-92)
• Still Killing Whales, Colman McCarthy, (6-29-91)
• Loss of Genetic Diversity Imperils Crop Advances, William K. Stevens, (6-25-91)
• The Extinction Crisis, William Allen, (1-19-91)
• Sounding the Alarm on Threats to Earth, Harry Sayen, (4-22-92)
• What do these stories have in common?

Their opinions.

What are the five most serious environmental problems?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Keep track of the above stories and their current or contemporary counterparts:

What does the media say are serious problems:

Author's views

selected (edited) by Melissa Walker of Emory University:

"No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects of humanity immeasurably diminished."

(H. Sayen: ¶ 24, p. 33 in Walker)

 

"What's being lost now isn't going to come back," he said. "You start dropping species out of an ecosystem and the ecosystem is going to go bust."

(W. Allen, ¶ 20, p. 30 in Walker)

 

Dr. Day "And it's all too easily taken for granted."

(W. K. Stevens, ¶ 28, p. 28, in Walker)

"The project is urgent. The cost of the delay could be the world's forests, the biotic wealth they contain, the environmental services they perform and a possibly irreversible contribution toward making the earth too hot to live on."

(George Woodwell, ¶ 11, p. 17, in Walker)

other opinions.

"Depending on how you view the world, the academy's [National Academy of Sciences] report can be a little comforting, or extremely disturbing."

(Wm. Booth, ¶ 21, p. 15, in Walker)

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Waiting for scientific certainty...

"...learn to act in the presence of substantial doubt. The sensible way to do that is by taking relatively low cost steps to reduce the risk of highly unpleasant outcomes--in the same spirit we buy insurance."

Jessica Tuchman Mathews (¶ 8, p. 12, in Walker)

What you choose to do, and decline to do, will make all the difference in your life, and the life of the planet.

J. V. Siry

verities

Other opinions.

E. O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life, chapter Storm over the Amazon.

Authors on this site

Vocabulary

problem, a perceived difference bewteen an existing and a desired state of affairs, situation, or condition.

purveyor, one who offers a service or merchandise in exchange for a fee.

see: real vs. ideal.

see: problem solving.