|
We use 50 percent of the world's freshwater
supply. We consume 42 percent of the world's plant growth.
We are liquidating animals and plants 100 times faster than
the natural rate of extinction. Such numbers should make
it clear that the human impact on our planet has been, and
continues to be, extreme and detrimental. Yet even after
decades of awareness of our environmental peril, there remains
passionate disagreement over what the problems are and how
they should be remedied. Much of the impasse stems from
the fact that the problems are difficult to quantify. How
do we assess the impact of habitat loss on various species,
when we haven't even counted them all? And just what factors
go into that 42 percent of biomass we are hungrily consuming?
It is only through an understanding of the numbers that
we will be able to break that impasse and come to agreement.
Working on the front lines of conservation
biology, Stuart Pimm is on of the pioneers whose work has
put the 'science' in environmental science. In this book,
he appoints himself 'investment banker of the global, biological
accounts,' checking the numbers gathered by tireless scientists
in work that is always painstaking and often heartbreaking.
Pimm explains the numerical results in lucid prose. With
wit, passion and candor, he reveals the importance of understanding
where those numbers come from and what they mean. To do
so, he takes the reader on a globe-circling tour of our
beautiful, but weary, planet.
With Pimm as our indomitable guide, we travel
from the volcanic mountains and rainforests of Hawaii, to
the boreal forests of Siberia. We see a blue whale off the
Pacific coast of Mexico, where the blue oceans are slowly
turning to barren deserts. We go birdwatching high up in
the leafy canopy of the Amazon; from there we can see the
hundreds of smoke plumes busily working at deforestation.
At times, the view looks rather grim. But Pimm is no Cassandra;
he never preaches or scolds. Ever optimistic, this book
presents a world filled with mysterious beauty, the infinite
variety of nature, and an urgent hope that through an understanding
of our planet's environmental past and present, we will
be inspired to save it from future extinction.
Stuart L. Pimm, Ph.D., is a professor
of conservation biology at the Center for Environmental
Research and Conservation at Columbia University in New
York. He has been the recipient of a Pew Scholarship for
Conservation and the Environment and an Aldo Leopold Leadership
Fellowship. He appears on television regularly, recently
on such shows as ABC News with Peter Jennings, CNN,
and the Discovery Channel. Pimm is the author of
more than 150 scientific papers, as well as three books,
and numerous popular articles and book reviews in such publications
as New Scientist, The Sciences, Nature,
and Science.
|
