Nature and Human Society: The Quest for a Sustainable World (1997)

Summary: From earliest times, human beings have noticed patterns in nature: night and day, tides and lunar cycles, the changing seasons, plant succession, and animal migration. While recognizing patterns conferred great survival advantage, we are now in danger from our own success in multiplying our numbers and altering those patterns for our own purposes. It is imperative that we engage again with the patterns of nature, but this time, with awareness of our impact as a species. How will burgeoning human populations affect the health of ecosystems? Is loss of species simply a regrettable byproduct of human expansion? Or is the planet passing into a new epoch in just a few human generations? Nature and Human Society presents a wide-ranging exploration of these and other fundamental questions about our relationship with the environment. This volume explores the accelerated extinction of species and what we stand to lose- medicines, energy sources, crop pollination and pest control, the ability of water and soil to renew itself through biological processes, aesthetic and recreational benefits- and how these losses may be felt locally and acutely.