Dale Easley's Favorite Quotations
| Environmental Awakening |
| Odell, Rice |
| An interview with James Dunn, an environmental geologist and
president of Dunn Geoscience Corp: "I have long been impressed with the
fact that it has only been within the past 100 years or so that any major
civilization has been able to reverse a trend of environmental
degradation. The industrial societies have done relatively well, not
perfectly, of course, but better that anyone in the past.
"The manicured farmlands of central and northern Europe and the United States and Canada are evidence of this. In those areas, we find contour plowing, steep slopes left in woods or natural grasses, grassed waterways, and general soil improvements to be the prevalent situation,. In addition, the forests of these areas have expanded for the past 100 years or so. In the eastern United States in particular, the forests in whole states have better than doubled in size." "We had the good fortune to have large quantities of unused land and time to correct many of our mistakes. The currently less-developed countries, to a large extent, have no such luxury." The situation is entirely different in Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia, South America, and Central America, Dunn says: There, deadly and accelerating environmental degradation is the rule. But had we traveled in the United States and Europe 100 to 200 years ago, we would have seen similar signs of widespread degradation. What does this tell us? First, it is apparent that virtually no poor society has ever been able to improve its environment. But it seems equally clear that wealth alone is not enough. Nor is understanding the problem enough. The Spartan general, Pausanias, in the 5th century B.C., described the accelerated sedimentation in the Maender River in western Turkey and accurately related ir to deforestation and erosion of the local mountains. Thus the knowledge of causes was not enough in the wealthy society of Greece to reverse their own environmental degradation. Other great and wealthy societies in the past could not solve such problems either. Consequently, in addition to wealth, it is clear that technology is needed to reverse the trend." Historically, says Dunn, the processes of degradation "have proven virtually impossible to change without advanced technology in combination with major socioeconomic improvements in the lot of the populations which created the problems." Even with economic strength, says Dunn, "the wealthy nations simply do not have enough money to help by redistributing their wealth. The answers lie in applied technology." [pp.~.45-46] |