Sparing nature : the conflict between human population growth and earth's biodiversity / Jeffrey K. McKee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKee, Jeffrey Kevin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Population--Environmental aspects.

Population.

Biodiversity.

Physical Description:

xi, 210 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, [2003]

Summary:

Are humans too good at adapting to the earth's natural environment? Every day, there is a net gain of more than 200,000 people on the planet -- that's 146 a minute. Has our explosive population growth led to the mass extinction of countless species in the earth's plant and animal communities? Jeffrey K. McKee contends it has. The more people there are, the more we push aside wild plants and animals. In Sparing Nature, he explores the cause-and-effect relationship between these two trends, demonstrating that nature is too sparing to accommodate both a richly diverse living world and a rapidly expanding number of people. The author probes the past to find that humans and their ancestors have had negative impacts on species biodiversity for nearly two million years, and that extinction rates have accelerated since the origins of agriculture. Today entire ecosystems are in peril due to the relentless growth of the human population.

McKee gives a guided tour of the interconnections within the living world to reveal the meaning and value of biodiversity, making the maze of technical research and scientific debates accessible to the general reader. Because it is clear that conservation cannot be left to the whims of changing human priorities, McKee takes the unabashedly neo-Malthusian position that the most effective measure to save earth's biodiversity is to slow the growth of human populations. By conscientiously becoming more responsible about our reproductive habits and our impact on other living beings, we can ensure that nature's resources will make our lives not only supportable, but also sustainable for this century and beyond.

Contents:

1. Sparing Nature 1

2. The Scattered Seeds 18

3. The Human Wedge 38

4. Genesis of a Crisis 64

5. Germs of Existence 86

6. The Great Restrictive Law 112

7. Good to the Last Drop 133

8. Biodiversity in Action 150

9. Epilogue: The Keystone Species with a Choice 170.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-197) and index.

ISBN:

0813531411

OCLC:

49704742