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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, the last day of calendar time in the twentieth century -- an early winter day in universal time -- I find that my society has sustained the longest period of economic growth in its history by increasing its fossil fuel use and, thereby, its atmospheric carbon emissions, ozone depletion, population growth, urbanization, cancer rate, and loss of wildland, to name only a few effects on the whole-Earth community. Yet this is the end of a century in which we have learned more about who we are, where we came from, and where we could be headed than in any other period of history. Clearly, we have major choices to make. Will we listen to the wisdom of wild elders? |
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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