The Delicate Balance, Part 2: Less is More
The same kind of technology that created most of today's environmental problems is equally capable of finding ways to correct them and, more importantly, mitigate the damage that current processes generate. The problem is not to generate more energy...
The Delicate Balance, Part 2: Prevention is Better than Remediation
Politically, environmental protection is a hard sell. What makes the grass roots environmental movement different is prevention. How to prevent waste from getting into the environment, whether via air, water, or soil.
The Delicate Balance, Part 2: Species Loss
Humans have altered the habitats of life forms from microscopic to whale-sized. General estimates of species loss is tens of thousands of species per year.
The Delicate Balance, Part 1: The Human Imprint
The last half century or so has seen the impact of human enterprise on the environment escalate beyond the collective impact of humans over the previous four billion years. Human endeavors have changed the composition of the atmosphere, changed the...
The Delicate Balance, Part 1: Ecological Globalization
The industrialized world is responsible for most of the environmental devastation of the twentieth century. But an emerging middle class in countries like China and India have the potential to take an unprecedented toll on the environment because of...
The Delicate Balance, Part 1: The Cost of Science, Technology, and Population Growth
The impact of modern science and technology on the biosphere is profound. The earth's natural ecosystems have the ability to cleanse the water; recycle wastes, turning them back into nutrients; pollinate crops; generate and maintain soils and more, ...
The Delicate Balance, Part 1: Technology is Not Always the Answer
The Biosphere 2 experiment attempted to create a human engineered self sustaining environmental system. The experiment served to illustrate how little is understood about the workings of our natural ecosystems services.
Ecology: Biosphere 2: The Mechanics of a Closed System
Biosphere 2 was built as a living laboratory to help explain how humans interact with the earth's systems and gauge their impact on the environment. The structure, located in the Arizona desert, relies on huge inputs of energy, sophisticated electro...
Waste, Part II: Nuclear Waste: The Final Solution or the Ultimate Problem?
The suitability of Yucca Mountain as the site for a long term repository for high level nuclear waste has not found universal acceptance. Concerns have been expressed concerning potential groundwater contamination, seismic stability, and transportat...
Ecology: Biosphere 2: Studying Extinction First-hand
The accidental introduction of a common greenhouse ant into Biosphere 2 resulted in the loss of their pollinators. The impact of the loss was felt immediately in the miniature biosphere. The size of the earth and the redundancies that exist in the s...