A Citizen's Guide to Ecology
Slobodkin, professor emeritus of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, provides a calm voice amid the rancor often arising in discussions of ecology. "I have two goals," he writes. "One is to enhance appreciation of the pleasure and beauty to be found in nature. Another goal is to help individual citizens understand the real and unreal assertions about existing problems and impending disasters in nature." Dismissing ecological fanatics and faddists, he focuses on "real ecological problems that require solutions," in particular, global warming and endangered species. "If ecologists are very successful," he says, "they will help maintain the pleasant and livable properties of the world. If not, the world will change in unpleasant ways." (122)Editors of Scientific American