The Green Fuse: An Ecological Odyssey - Softcover

Harte, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520205510 ISBN 13: 9780520205512

Publisher: University of California Press, 1996

Synopsis

A widely respected ecological scientist and activist draws on the poet's image and his own environmental research to demonstrate the many interconnections among the world's ecosystems. John Harte takes us from Alaskan salmon runs and the Florida everglades to South Pacific coral reefs and the bleak Tibetan plateau. The result is that rare book that bridges the cultures of science and art. Lyrical, vivid portraits of natural wonders and the threats to them are combined with precise scientific accounts of natural processes and their disturbances. The Green Fuse will show nonscientists the fascination of ecological detective work and renew scientists' love for the beauty of the world under their microscopes.

Harte's stories illuminate, without sermonizing, the damage to natural systems brought about by technological hubris and calculated political ruthlessness. "The green fuse" symbolizes the basic unity behind natural diversity. But a fuse may also be the weak link in an overloaded system or the slow burning wick on an ecological bomb. As The Green Fuse reminds us, the energies that created human liberation from nature can also be those that lead to the human destruction of nature.

About this title

Review:

You might envy John Harte his job--bopping from Indonesia to Alaska, Greece to Australia, Costa Rica to Madagascar--were it not for the downside: Harte, a scientist, devotes himself to the study of damaged ecosystems. When he makes his way to the Brooks Range, it's to analyze growing nitrogen levels in its alpine lakes; when he heads to the Amazon, it's to observe firsthand the consequences of tearing up a patch of rainforest. Plenty of well-meaning jeremiads touch on such matters, but Harte offers a program for doing something about the world's current messes. Remarking on the 1992 Rio Summit, in which the United States made a notably poor showing, Harte suggests that the First World cough up the bucks so that the Third World can clean its backyard, reasoning, "Sure, those incentives will cost the rich natives money, but so will the ... loss of valuable genetic material."

From the Inside Flap:

"John Harte is one of the nation's great scientific treasures. The Green Fuse demonstrates his broad understanding of ecology and the scientific method. More important, this work reveals his uncommon gift for translating complex scientific concepts into language that can be understood by all. His keen narrative describes how ecologists are coming to understand global environmental ills throughout the world. And his moving prose about the beauty and wonder of our fragile world allows all of us to understand more fully what is at stake."—Undersecretary for Global Affairs Timothy E. Wirth, Department of State

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0520205510
• ISBN 13: 9780520205512
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 156
• Illustrator: Kamp Len