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Come back to this page each day to read another entry from Frederick R. Gehlbach's almanac of suburban natural and unnatural history, "Messages from the Wild," which chronicles the world of a forested ravine in central Texas.
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On this day in 1999, the Earth's human population is estimated to reach six billion and still growing! A journalist interviews local folks about the event. The report is that although things won't be the same, we won't feel it much in my community. I shudder. While hearing the conflicting messages of wild population cycles versus rampaging human population growth, I consider how suburbia's wealth of energy buffers it from direct experience and hence understanding. Much of nature is as foreign to my human neighbors as are the people from third world countries whose numbers explode -- those from whom we take the energy we use to distance ourselves. |
Frederick R. Gehlbach is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Baylor University. His ecological studies have taken him from New Zealand to Slovakia and, in the Americas, from Alaska and Newfoundland to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. His research interests include the life-history strategies of small owls, small burrowing snakes and urban wildlife ecology.
From MESSAGES FROM THE WILD: AN ALMANAC OF SUBURBAN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY by Frederick R. Gehlbach, Copyright © 2002. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.
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