I have met few individuals over the years who possess the combination of skills that Bob possessed. He had a passion for nature that was obvious and his ability to communicate that passion in poetry was wonderful. From time to time I still pull out and read his words in the small book that he co-authored about deciduous forests.
Most people continue to view humans as being apart from the rest of nature.
Until that attitude changes, environmental degradation will continue globally even though we will continue to work on problems and fix a few of them. I don't believe that there has been any single event in the field of Ecology that I could identify as having provided the impetus for the current interest in issues related to the environment. Unlike most other fields that had their origins in biology, ecology is a discipline that came onto the scene later in the century. There were a number of pioneers in the field but the ones who influenced me the most were the Odum brothers, Eugene and Howard. Eugene published his now famous ecology text in the 1960's and his influence was soaring during the years that I was in graduate school.