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Whether he's discussing how to reconcile economy with ecology, why a warmer world will result in more poison ivy, why Britney Spears gets more hits on Google than global warming does, or why we might need to start eating jellyfish for supper, David Suzuki points the direction we must take as a society if we hope to meet the environmental challenges we face in our still-young century. Covering suburban sprawl, sustainable transportation, food shortages, biodiversity, technology, public policy, and more, The Big Picture not only identifies the problems we face but proposes solid, science-based solutions. These engaging essays look beyond environmental challenges to examine the forces that are preventing real change from occurring. Together they tell the story of a species struggling to come to grips with its own biological nature, a nature we must ultimately embrace to live in balance with the systems that sustain us.
Whether he's discussing how to reconcile economy with ecology, why a warmer world will result in more poison ivy, why Britney Spears gets more hits on Google than global warming does, or why we might need to start eating jellyfish for supper, David Suzuki points the direction we must take as a society if we hope to meet the environmental challenges we face in our still-young century. Covering suburban sprawl, sustainable transportation, food shortages, biodiversity, technology, public policy, and more, The Big Picture not only identifies the problems we face but proposes solid, science-based solutions. These engaging essays look beyond environmental challenges to examine the forces that are preventing real change from occurring. Together they tell the story of a species struggling to come to grips with its own biological nature, a nature we must ultimately embrace to live in balance with the systems that sustain us.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the book
Excerpts from The Big Picture by David Suzuki and Dave Robert Taylor
Human hormones mess with male fish
Most people alive today were born after 1950. To these people, our modern world is just the way things have always been. Imagining life without TV, radio, telephones and the internet is next to impossible. Teenagers probably have a hard time imagining life without text messaging! And it's true, human reach is now profound. We are the most integrated, interconnected and mobile species that has ever existed on this planet. Some of these interconnections produce marvelous results. We get to know other cultures. We understand more about history and each other. We can easily chat with friends and family on the other side of the world. But we have to remember that, although we are connected with each other more than ever, we are also intimately connected to the rest of the natural world. These connections can manifest themselves physically, such as through global warming. But they can also manifest themselves biologically—and in some surprising ways. Recently, researchers writing in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that male fish became feminized" when exposed to human hormones. Some of the fish, a type of fathead minnow, produced early-stage eggs in their testes while others actually developed tissues for both reproductive organs. How would fish be exposed to female human hormones? Through treated or untreated municipal wastewater, of course. It seems that widespread use of birth control pills has elevated the amount of estrogenic substances going into our waste stream. Remember, things that go down our toilets don't just disappear. They can actually survive simple sewage treatment processes and end up in our rivers, lakes and oceans. Reports of fish feminization due to human female hormones are today fairly well documented—but long-term studies of what impact this can have on fish populations have not been done. For this latest study, researchers actually added the synthetic estrogen found in contraceptive pills to a remote lake in northern Ontario in amounts that are normally found in human wastewater. They did this for three years, and monitored the results over a period of seven years. The results were startling. As expected, the male fish developed some feminized characteristics, such as producing proteins normally synthesized in females. But what really disturbed the scientists was how populations of the fish crashed to near extinction levels by the end of the experiment. Feminization of the males combined with hormonal changes to the females apparently damaged their overall reproductive capacity to the point that the fish were unable to maintain their population. Conclude the researchers: The results from this whole-lake experiment demonstrate that continued inputs of natural and synthetic estrogens and estrogen mimics to the aquatic environment in municipal wastewaters could decrease the reproductive success and sustainability of fish populations." This spells trouble. Most of us have probably never heard of the fathead minnow, but these fish are a vital food source for well-known and popular sport fish that people have heard of—such as walleye, lake trout and northern pike. They are also well-studied and often used in toxicology testing because they have short life cycles, adapt well to lab conditions and are representative of a large family of fish. The authors of the report describe the fathead minnow as a freshwater equivalent of the miner's canary." In other words, what happens to the fish, as with the bird, could happen to humans in...
Table of Contents-
Table of Contents 1.What we don't know can hurt us: Science and the dangers of ignorance 2.Smarter than your average planet: Interconnections in the biosphere 3.Getting to know the Joneses: Protecting the diversity of life on Earth 4.Solidarity for Mother Nature: Natural services and economics 5.Hot hot heat: Global warming and climate change 6.You can't get there from here: Car culture and global transportation 7.Jellyfish - it's what's for dinner: Feeding the planet in the 21st century 8.Children of a lesser god: Technology and a culture of consumerism 9.Lights, camera, sound bite: Social change and the media 10.Public policy for a sustainable planet
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