Word: maye
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...something else is going on, and I think Malthus may have sensed it coming. As long ago as 1679, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (the Dutch inventor of the microscope) speculated that the limit to the human population would be on the order of 13 billion--remarkably close to many current estimates. For our position in the natural world is once again undergoing a sea change. We are not the first nor are we the only species to spread around the globe, but we are the first to do so as an integrated economic entity. Other species maintain tenuous genetic connections...
...tide is running back toward Malthus. We are emerging from a 10,000-year vacation from nature still not fully realizing that our own survival hinges on reducing the damage we do to Earth's natural systems. We may not drive ourselves to the complete oblivion of biological extinction, but I fear that the Malthusian specters of famine, warfare and disease will rise in the comparatively short run (the next few centuries), coupled with an accelerating loss of human cultural diversity and, ultimately, quality of life...
...decades. If that were to happen now, expanding oceans might flood coastlines and generate fiercer storms. And as weather patterns changed, some places could get wetter and some dryer, and the ranges of diseases could expand. Civilization has seen--and endured--such changes in the past, but they may come much more swiftly this time, making it harder to withstand the jolts...
...sharks, grotesquely stripped of their fins by poachers who had slashed them off to sell to the soup markets of Asia and had cast the living animals back into the sea to die. Around the world, the numbers of some shark species have declined as much as 80%. Some may already be practically extinct; the survivors in the current generation may be too few to replace themselves...
Still, the days of abundance are gone. The image of cheap and wholesome seafood available to everyone is fading into memory and myth. Already a single tuna can cost more than most automobiles. Soon some oysters may be as rare and costly as pearls...