David W. Orr

Much to my chagrin, when I emailed a link to an essay by David Orr to all my friends it yielded no replies.  I even checked my sentbox a day later, to make sure I really sent it.  So, now I'm posting the link here.  It's a very interesting article.


http://www.davidworr.com/more.php?articleid=22


Here are some quotes: 


"If today is a typical day on planet Earth, we will lose 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a second. We will lose another 72 square miles to encroaching deserts, as a result of human mismanagement and overpopulation. We will lose 40 to 100 species, and no one knows whether the number is 40 or 100. Today the human population will increase by 250,000. And today we will add 2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of carbon. Tonight the Earth will be a little hotter, its waters more acidic, and the fabric of life more threadbare. The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity. It is worth noting that this is not the work of ignorant people. It is, rather, largely the result of work by people with BAs, BSs, LLBs, MBAs, and PhDs."


"My point is simply that education is no guarantee of decency, prudence, or wisdom."


"The advance of knowledge always carries with it the advance of some form of ignorance."


"It makes far better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants."


"But learning, as Loren Eiseley once said, is endless and "In itself it will never make us ethical [people]." Ultimately, it may be the knowledge of the good that is most threatened by all of our other advances. All things considered, it is possible that we are becoming more ignorant of the things we must know to live well and sustainably on the Earth."




Anyway, I hope you read it.  Or at least skim through it.