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Environment

Yale University Press

Contents

Contents..........................................................................................................ixInterconnections: Cross-Listed Selections for Chapters in Part One, Concepts and Case Studies.....................xxiiiWhy Environmental Studies?........................................................................................1The Design and Use of This Book...................................................................................6Overture: Nature and Human Perception.............................................................................9PART ONE Concepts and Case Studies1. Climate Shock..................................................................................................172. Species in Danger: Three Case Studies..........................................................................503. Nuclear Power: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the Future....................................................834. Biotechnology and Genetically Manipulated Organisms: Bt Corn and the Monarch Butterfly.........................1175. The Paradox of Sustainable Development.........................................................................1386. Deforestation..................................................................................................1727. War and Peace: Security at Stake...............................................................................2138. Globalization Is Environmental.................................................................................2489. What Is Wilderness and Do We Need It?..........................................................................28010. The Urban Environment: Calcutta and Los Angeles...............................................................311PART TWO Foundational Disciplines and TopicsI. BIOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS11. Biodiversity and Conservation Biology.........................................................................36212. Soil and Agriculture..........................................................................................41213. Air and Water.................................................................................................44914. Energy........................................................................................................49215. Toxicology....................................................................................................531II. HUMAN DIMENSIONS16. The Inner Life................................................................................................56017. Ethics, Philosophy, Gender....................................................................................59418. Poetry........................................................................................................62219. History and the Environment...................................................................................64920. Nature Writing................................................................................................676III. SOCIAL CONNECTIONS21. Politics and Public Policy....................................................................................71022. Law and Environmental Justice.................................................................................74623. Economics.....................................................................................................77424. Human Population..............................................................................................80725. Anthropology..................................................................................................831Coda26. Conviction and Action.........................................................................................859Web Connections...................................................................................................889About the Editors.................................................................................................897Acknowledgments...................................................................................................899Selection Credits.................................................................................................901Index.............................................................................................................915

Chapter One

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If an asteroid hurtling toward Earth would, with strong probability, strike this planet in forty years, raise sea levels permanently between six inches to sixteen feet, force up to one-quarter of all species into extinction, inaugurate plagues and disease, inundate parts of some nations, drown populated islands whole, render coasts uninhabitable, intensify hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes into record-breaking storms, cause frequent floods and landslides, and kill millions of people, then every government would work furiously to discover how that asteroid might be diverted or destroyed.

There is no such asteroid (as far as we know), and there is no international cooperation, therefore, to stop it. But all the rest in this scenario is very possibly true. It is just happening more slowly (and at this very moment) than the future impact of an asteroid. The cause is not one impending catastrophic event. It is our own burning of carbon. Ironically, solutions to the problems caused by burning carbon, though difficult to achieve, may, in fact, prove easier to discover than solutions for the impact of an asteroid.

Climate is not "weather" in the usual sense, or even global weather over long periods of time. Large, multiple earth systems, physical, chemical, and biological, produce world climate. These involve the atmosphere, land, oceans, and living organisms. For the first time ever, human activity is now measurably changing global climate.

Increased levels of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]), act as the chief vehicle for human impact on Earth's climate systems. (See Chapter 13, below.) The main source of these increased levels is human combustion of fossil fuels. Burning wood, forest fires, and slash-and-burn techniques to clear land contribute, too. For a thousand years prior to 1800, the atmospheric C[O.sub.2] level measured about 270 parts per million (ppm). In the past two centuries, this has risen sharply, at an increasing rate, to 370 ppm, as high as it has been for 420,000 years. Even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, these concentrations would remain for decades. Given increasing global energy use per capita and further population growth, greenhouse gas levels will rise more. No one knows when, if, or at what level they might stabilize.

Greenhouse gases trap heat. As C[O.sub.2] levels rise, the atmosphere also holds more moisture and energy. C[O.sub.2] is absorbed mostly by oceans and some by forests (these are called C[O.sub.2] "sinks"), but these sinks cannot absorb atmospheric C[O.sub.2] as fast as human activity now produces it. Many countries neither regulate nor regard it as an air pollutant. The Kyoto Protocol of 1998 is designed to reduce C[O.sub.2] emissions worldwide, but the Protocol has proved divisive. In late 2004 Russia ratified it. This triggered its observance by fifty-five signatory countries, which also happened to produce 55 percent of the world's C[O.sub.2] emissions. But the United States,...