Nature and Human Society The Quest for a Sustainable World (1997) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Introduction
Introduction
Pages 1-8
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
The extent and variability of life on Earth is referred to as "biodiversity." Sci' enlists in many disciplines have engaged in extensive exploration of biodiversity. Many exciting advances in understanding have occurred in the last decade, since the National Forum on BioDiversity was held in Washington, DC, in 1986, un' der the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Insti' tution.
|
From page 2... ...
The material in this book is not an official report of the Board on Biology or the National Re' search Council and any opinions expressed are solely those of the individual fo' rum participants. The second forum provided a venue for the world's leading experts in the biodiversity sciences ranging from agronomy to zoology to discuss their under' standing and future scientific directions.
|
From page 3... ...
, biological diversity increased greatly. The Mesozoic Era began with the most extensive extinction event recorded, the great majority of all living species disappearing forever, and ended with the most recent extinction event, that at the end of the Cretaceous Period, the third and final geological period into which the Mesozoic is divided.
|
From page 4... ...
With the accelerated growth in the human population, there were some 130 million people by the time of Christ, about 500 million in early Renaissance times, and about 1 billion at the start of the 19th century, when an English clergyman named Thomas Malthus was warning of the danger that population growth might outstrip our ability to feed ourselves. Our numbers had grown to 2.5 billion by 1950 and then the growth really underwent great acceleration: over just 50 years, 3.5 billion people have been added to the human population, and we shall enter the 21st century with more than 6 billion people spread throughout the world.
|
From page 5... ...
To build a world that is sustainable one in which animals, plants, fungi, microorganisms, and people will be able to continue to exist peacefully, harmoniously, and sustainably over the long run will require every ounce of wisdom, science, common sense, and affection for one another that we can possibly muster. Anyone who denies this conclusion is simply misinformed or uninterested in our common future; since you, dear reader, know better, you are obligated to tell them that they are wrong, to comport yourself, your business, your country, your neighborhood, your church, your National Academy of Sciences, or any other organization in which you are involved, in such a way as to help to make the future a pleasant, abundant, and prosperous reality instead of an increasingly devastated, homogeneous, and exhausted one.
|
From page 6... ...
That report, more than any other, popularized the concept of sustainable development and began to delineate the issues debated at Rio de Janeiro's Earth Summit in 1992, on which the future of all countries, all companies, all institutions, and all of nature ultimately depend. In putting together the concept of sustainable development with that of biodiversity, we have come to see that to preserve, nurture, rebuild, restore, and refresh the increasingly modified living systems that support us, we have one primary tool and that tool is biodiversity.
|
From page 7... ...
As David Suzuki points out vividly, our response to the ecological crises we face is not appropriate, given the enormity of those crises; but we are facing thousands of ecological Pearl Harbors today, mostly without even noting them, much less making any effort to avert them. His powerful analogy presenting the state of the world's ecology as though we were all passengers in a huge car going as fast as possible toward a brick wall and just sort of chatting amiably as it speeds along, with most of the people in the world actually locked in the trunk: that's something to think about!
|
From page 8... ...
To the extent that this forum has contributed to that goal, it should be judged a success and a helpful building block along the way to a sound and sustainable future.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.