Assignment 1: Discussion Questions Due by Thursday, September 12, 2013, read the discussion question for the week and post your responses to both of them. Responses should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, formatted in Arial 10 point font, 1.5 spaced. Must use the current APA standards when formatting paper. All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources and Grading Criteria: Grading Criteria Maximum Points Demonstrated an understanding of the topics being discussed. 4 Met the criteria for the correct responses to the assigned questions. 4 Participation Criteria Used vocabulary relevant to the topics under discussion. 4 Participated in the discussion by asking a question, providing a statement of clarification, providing a point of view with rationale, challenging a point of discussion, or making a relationship between one or more points of the discussion. 4 Justified ideas and responses by using appropriate examples and references from texts, websites, and other references or personal experience. 4 Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources, displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation. 4 Total 24 Essay Format – please use following format in your response and clearly identify each question separately in BOLD font. Discussion Question For a company with several subsidiaries, would it be easier to maximize shareholder value in the face of capital constraints by shifting capital among the affiliates? If in that same company 60% of the financial manager's time is devoted to managing working capital, how will an increase in inventory costs affect the production capacity? (Should the financial manager devote more or less time to managing working capital in this instance?)  -H inreresting sacks of calories, and that its impact along the wa/,'Hence, rvhen it finally reach- the smell of sLrnbaked pine needles on a breezl June af- cs the forest floor, ir seeps in inscead of bouncrng offtne smell or sunDaKeq Plne neeqles on a oreezl rune al- cs the torest tloor, lt seeps rn lnstead ot bounclng otf. ternoon me'rel't' matches the scent that comes from But if vou cut down the rrees for fields, or for roads, or rhose conrler-shaped :rir freshenets that dangle tiom for houses, or for anything else that's not as permeable, 'lour reln'iov mirror, more of rhat water rolls straight into a srream, curring Lec's lsstrme, in orher words, rhat you've done so-c- channels, carrl,ing sift, causing floods. thing rott.'n and God has rurn.'.1 1ou inro an economist. And that leaves no li?rer in rhe ground ro seep out Norv rou hare ln .rssignmcnt: \\'hat should be .lonr come rhe hor davs of summer. \\re've known rhis a long *ith rhc one-rhir,l of the errrh's rime: the AJiron,lr.L p",L rL" !-t5 ilssunr!'. firr rh.-.lLrr;rrion of rhis ar- "lf v,ru'rc been out in a rainsrorm undcr i mtjor ticic, thar ...

1. Assignment 1: Discussion Questions
Due by Thursday, September 12, 2013, read the discussion
question for the week and post your responses to both of them.
Responses should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document,
formatted in Arial 10 point font, 1.5 spaced. Must use the
current APA standards when formatting paper.
All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules
for attributing sources and Grading Criteria:
Grading Criteria
Maximum Points
Demonstrated an understanding of the topics being discussed.
4
Met the criteria for the correct responses to the assigned
questions.
4
Participation Criteria
Used vocabulary relevant to the topics under discussion.
4
Participated in the discussion by asking a question, providing a
statement of clarification, providing a point of view with
rationale, challenging a point of discussion, or making a
relationship between one or more points of the discussion.
4
Justified ideas and responses by using appropriate examples and
references from texts, websites, and other references or personal
experience.
4
Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated
ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of
sources, displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
4
Total

2. 24
Essay Format – please use following format in your response
and clearly identify each question separately in BOLD font.
Discussion Question
For a company with several subsidiaries, would it be easier to
maximize shareholder value in the face of capital constraints by
shifting capital among the affiliates?
If in that same company 60% of the financial manager's time is
devoted to managing working capital, how will an increase in
inventory costs affect the production capacity? (Should the
financial manager devote more or less time to managing
working capital in this instance?)
-H
inreresting sacks of calories, and that its impact along the
wa/,'Hence, rvhen it finally reach-
the smell of sLrnbaked pine needles on a breezl June af- cs the
forest floor, ir seeps in inscead of bouncrng offtne smell or
sunDaKeq Plne neeqles on a oreezl rune al- cs the torest tloor, lt
seeps rn lnstead ot bounclng otf.
ternoon me'rel't' matches the scent that comes from But if vou

3. cut down the rrees for fields, or for roads, or
rhose conrler-shaped :rir freshenets that dangle tiom for houses,
or for anything else that's not as permeable,
'lour reln'iov mirror, more of rhat water rolls straight into a
srream, curring
Lec's lsstrme, in orher words, rhat you've done so-c- channels,
carrl,ing sift, causing floods.
thing rott.'n and God has rurn.'.1 1ou inro an economist. And
that leaves no li?rer in rhe ground ro seep out
Norv rou hare ln .rssignmcnt: 'hat should be .lonr come rhe
hor davs of summer. re've known rhis a long
*ith rhc one-rhir,l of the errrh's rime: the AJiron,lr.L p",L rL"
!-t5 ilssunr!'. firr rh.-.lLrr;rrion of rhis ar- "lf v,ru'rc been out
in a rainsrorm undcr i mtjor
ticic, thar ro rou !il.s arc ,.crricil ,ir"lks ."n.1'.: ,..", Iou know
how iong rou can sr.r.rherc bc-
of fiber, rhat a forest carries no more tbre vou get wet," says
Leslie Sauer, .r principal of the
spiritual or at'sthetic value rhan a park- ecological-design firm
Andropogon Associates. "The
ing lor, thac woodland crearures are un- w?rer passcs through a
lot ol obstlcles, which reduce
*ith rhc one-rhird of rhe errrh's r_ rime; the Adirondack Park,
rhe
drr land rhat is colcred bl fbr-
|
- |
fitsr large experimenr in conser-
e-sti irq c.rn ctrr it all .{own, s:rle '1. y -1r{ varion in chc
e'asrern United

4. i t r l l , o r . l o r n r r h i n g i n b e - t I I l ^ ^
/ S r a c e s , u , a s c r e r r e d i n p a r c b v
rwecn-bur onlr'.ii rou can de- / / 11 f| T- downstate business
intrests fear-
fend vour i....ions ivirhout ap- Y Y L LdV ful rhat mountain
logging would
peJf ro sfnurnent. Botrom line ,^ I drv up che Hudson River and
o.lr'. pfs"rs. f
I rhe Eiie C"r,J. Bur now we un-
rlii::,Iril:ri'liii1T LTOOCt [;ril6::Jirll"$brorln; fbre't: .:re
tillrng.rcross v -D' land war.'rshed is compacr.,d or
Asr.r,.lrii.r. S,'urh Am,:iic.r. rnd -l- oaved o'er. .'.r sr',.";;.
North America. Some of the I .. n i:::i-'T:::*,ti:l;.'::,1:i;
c h a n g c s a r e p e r r n a n e n t : w , o o d s
I ) d
l e s s u s e f u l . C h a n n " l a r e c t t
turned into subdivisiori or shop- y_
9a-
.
deep.r and deeper, tlooding I'e-
p t n g m a l r . ) o m c o I I n e m J r e T - ! c o m e s m
o r c t r e q u . n r , r v a r e r
*:rr},ffi:v*::.::iiil trorest / hit;{fff:",iffi{il
on, in order to supplv p;rper. Er- to do all rhese things for fiec,"
cepr fbr chose places rr herc des- ECO-CIIISTS NOW Sauer
poinrs our. ''e can'r af-
pcrat€ peesenls are clearing out ford to maintain the inliastruc-

5. small holcs co grow food, rll this .GREE ''ITH ECOLO- rure
we have nsvl-x1d lvs ,:31-
activit is juscified by rhe profit rainly can'r afford anr.more."
moti'e. people ar"
-aki.,g
,r,on- TIISTS: FORESTS ARE N"- rirrt iiio. .".""r1r. ,g*"a
:i.ili.T:,1l,:rl*"":#:"T: 'oRrH NroRE sr.NDrNc
il"ltl;f;:"j:"';::"':::#""'' than Sl billion to protec the w.a-
nomic decisions good or bad? IHAN LOGGED. tersheds around
irs reservoirs.
'hat is a fbtest really worth" Not because it liked the rrees,
For a long rime environ;nen- By Btq_ MCKIBBEI{ but because
a rrearment plant ro
talisrs tried ro sidestep this de- | | replace rhe work rhe rrees
were
bate. "ln the eighties, industrl L J doi"g for free would have
cost
began demanding economic quantificarion," sals San- 58 to 59
billion. If we restore forests, sat.s Sauer, we
dra Neilv, a policv analvst at the Maine Audubon Soci- can
avoid sorne of the same costs in other places.
ery. Neilv, rvho has just completed a surve't rhat at- Foresrs
provide a whole hosc of minoi products-
tempts to calculate the values of the stare's forests, from bark to
shrubs to berries to fruit-that supporr
sals, "'e r''ere afraid thar if lou weighed an industrial people
n'orldrvide. Acre for acre, living forests are ofren
park:rgainst a *etland, u'ed alrvays [ose. We didnt have more
valuable tharr the sum of their timber, especiall]'
the data.' But now the data are coming in. Biologiscs, because
they grow back quickly, Alan Drengson, drrec-
chcmisrs. ecological economists. and ochers have b.-grrn tor of
British Columbia's Ecoforestry Instirute, says,

6. compiling figures thac shorv just what the naural norld "Many
of our forests have a higher value in mush-
is rrorrh. From prairie to .i'serr to reei ro rrvcr, rher're roorns
.rnd ornamental pla.rtr, lik" salal brush and
shorving ho*'*oefullv uneconomical mart oi our deci- s*orJ
ferns, than in woody rnaterials. 'hen I rvas a
sions hale been. But ior now. we'll stick to forests. bov we used
to go out and gather ferns and sell them.
Daun broaks or0r mist-sIrouded old.growth Douglai iii: and
wsst6rn hsnlocks ir flashingtofl'5 oliniFic lletloral park,
Though ornamental ferns are not essensial, a stable rant.rge,
given rhar people care abour wheic rhey live,
climate probablv is. The clouds of carbon dioxide *e'e goes ro
those .r.eas that are able ro hang on ro more of
released since rve evolved into Homo d omobil$, Hona rvhat
people consider a superior quality of life," says
thrmostatens, and Homo waL'maiius are now poised to Thomas
Porver, an economist at che Universiry of
raise rhe tempetature four or five degrees Fahrenheir in
Monrana. His reporr. signed by 60 orher rrea econo-
the next century. Forget the way rhis heat rvill fiel- rnists,
concluded: "The Pacific Northwesr does noc
forget the sweat gluing ;'our shirt to your back-;rn.1 have ro
choose berween jobs and the environment.
consider only that magic bottom line. Economists hl'e QLritc
the opposite: A healrhy environment is a major
calculated, extremely conservatively, that global *,arm-
srimulus fi>r a healthy economy." So, for instance, Sony
itrg could knock 2 percenc off rhe world's gross pro.1- bLrilr r
pl.rnt in Springfield, rn Orcgon mill town ser in
uct over the next ccnrury by depleting resortrces.rnd in- l
bc.rurrifirl ere';r, that emplols J50 people starring xr
creasing cnergv use. Since foresrs and th.-ir sorls con- 59.50

7. 'rn
hour. "Thev rvanted a prisrine spot by rhe
rain immense amounrs of carbon that would orhcrw,ise riler,"
sevs fhe nrauor.
c o n r r i b r r t e t o r h e g r ( ( n h o u . e e f l e c t - p , r h
. r p . , , n c . r n . l E r r r l ' 1 , ' v r n c n r f i g r , . " . r " l l
o n l r , p , r r t , , I c h e s r , r ' r .
a half cimes as much as in the atmosphere, ;rccording to Thr-
rr"s llso torrrism, and phermeccuric.rls, and rhe way
George rrVoodwell, director of the Woods Holc Rt'- rltat l.rrge
fbresrs can moderare local climares. But.."-
i
Nol therc are big Ilcets of scmis picking th.'m up.'
seerch Center, on Cape Cod-
keeping the forests standing has
a quantifiable economic impact.
Recenrh, a universitl' ream as-
s c s s i n g t h e r v o r t h o F M e x i c o ' s
f b r e s t s f b r e v e r v t h i n g t r o m
tourism to nuts found thac their
highest value ri,as as a reservoir
of carbon that xould otherrvise
be released inco the atmosphere,
accelerating climate change. This
rule holds uue in many forests.
"If;ou have a Sitka spruce stand
in rhe Tongass lNational Forest,
i n A l a s k a l , i t m i g h t c o n t a i n
m o r e t h a n F i f r e e n t h o u s a n d
grams of carbon per square me-

8. ter," srys Woodrvell. 'And if it s
clear-cut, it contains verv litcle,"
especially because much of the
carbon is in the now unprotecred
soil. If new trees grolv. rher rvill
A *.rrt,',0
PI{ODUCTS-i:RO]1 I],RK
TO SHRUBS TO BF-RRIES
TO FRUIT-SUPPORT
PEOPLE WORLDWIDE.
.l..rn war.r, ser some wildlife. "The comparative ad-
heps it's rime co address rhe obvi-
ous: If inract fbrests can produce
such cconomic benefirs, whl do
s'e most often cut chem .1orvn in-
scca,,ll Ther.' lte scveral lnsgers.
some of rhem obvious and some
more obscure.
bu are holding rhe most basic
explanation in your hands. This
nation uses an enormous amount
of flber, fot paper and for tim-
ber, and we are using more oF it
all che rime, Itt rrue that w,e've
made tremendous gains in recy-
cling. In some parts of rhe do-
mesric paper indr.rsrry, savs John
R u s r o n o f t h e E n v i r o n m e n t a l
Defense Fun.1, the may'ority of

9. new mills coming on-line use re-
c y c l e d i n s t e a d o f v i r g i n f i b e r .
A n d t h e r e ' s m o r e p o t c n t i a l : I f
rhe United Srates could increase
slowly soak up carbon. But it will be a long rime befole its
reclcling rete liom the cu.rent 40 percent to 50
rhey contain even halF as much as the narive fbresr. pcrcent,
chat uould increase rhe world's supplv of 6ber
Still, the &ct thar forests are saving the $orld from lv -1
perccnr. Buc the depressing facrs oF exponenrial
rhe greenhouse effect doesn't do much lor the loc.rl grorvrh
.rppll here as in so manl places. Because rhe
economv. Ma!be l'ou re better off just cu$ing rhe trees *'orld s
populacion keeps growing, and because thar
down-or maybe not. A team of economists issued a population
uses greater amounts of paper and wood all
leport last December artempting to erplain the the time,
recvcling doesn't even allow our forests to run
"Northwesc paradox." As logging declined in the Pacif- in
place. "The demand for paper products is growing
ic Northwest during the past half-decade, the region so rapidly
worldwide thac even though we're adding
didr't turn into a new Appalachia, as some had predicr- lots of
new f.iber through recycling, we're still usrng
ed- Instead, its economy expanded more than thac of more lirgin
fiber everl'vear," says Reid Lifset, direcror
any other part of the nation. Oregon had irs lorvest un- of Yale
Unilersicy's Program on Solid Wasre Policy, An
emplol"rnent rate in a generation, as new high-tech jobs
intetnational consortium of book, nervspaper, and
more than replaced those lost in the partial ioresrry rrregazine
prrblishers rccently warned of upcoming pa-
shutdown. To figure out whv, economists had to factor per
shortagr's- In response, thev chose nor to print fen-

10. in the sillv, senaimental preferences of other Arneri- er of cheir
producr or co use smaller t,t'pe or thinner
cans-the facc that, for uharever bizarre reasons. th€l papet lrut
to demand thar the World Bank "encourage
wadted to live near some big old rrecs, drink somc er(tensi{e
inir-srrnenr in paper producrion."
ClockrNiEo from aboyoi oak "8pplo" galls in 0r08oni a0tumn in
Cande[, Mains, and in 0r0at Smoky 1{o[daing llational ParK,
. L D L 3 ( : r
Onc of the r!'.ls!)ns r.r'e use_.irnd .^'1*1s-5o rngcfi l:rl afrtr s.l
ing h" rvouldn't; rhen, in rhe tall, he limply'
fiber is rhat it's cheap, and one of the reasons it's cheap called rt
a mistake an.l asked fbr its repeal. The Con-
is that the economics that drive logging simplv fail to gressional
Research Service has alreadv concft:ded rhat
reflect any of the other values of foresrs, the legislacion could
cost raxpayers $25 million be-
Consider the public forests first. Many of che world's cause.
among other things, it overestimares the price
foresrs are public, under the control of governmenr of- the
timber *ill bring.
ficials. In this country, most of our national forests are The
Cle.rrwarer National Forest, in Idaho, whicn was
in thi Wesr, in the vasr domain of rhe U.S. Foresr Ser- "sahage
logged" a few vears ago, shows what this leg-
vice. Increasinglv, their financial management is corning
islative rnisrake will cosr. According ro Carl Ross of
under scrutiny. The Forest Service has spent the past the
nonprofir Save America! Foresrs, who rart phoros
decade trying to lend off the charges of American en- of rhe
denstation in his newsletter, "Thev did their

11. vironmenralists that irs "management strategr'"- so-c;rlled sah
age logging on a series of slopes, and che
which consists of paving lor the consrruction of roads result hls
been a series of mud avalanches rhroughout
co groves of cimber and then selling the logs ofT to the the
lbrcsr this frll. Whole srreams are complerelv de-
highest bidder-loses mone)' for rhe taxpayer. In the strolcd.
rnil.'s and miles of trout streams."
v:rst majority of cases che agencv has been forced co On pri.rc.'
forestland-which means most woods in
concede rhat the cost oF the roads far exc.-eds rhe re- the
sourhern and eastern Unired Srates-life is a lirrle
ceipts from f'"., s{es (and to ar-
gue, thereforg, ihit the roads and
clearcuts represeirt reireation op-
portuniries an,l * ildlife-habirat
improvemencs). But it's alwavs
insisted that because a ferv of rhe
forests in the Pacific Northwest
are able to sell thdir mammoth
trees fbr big bucks, rhe slstem as
a whole breaks even. The biggest
flaw in rhis argument, as Tim
Hermack, direcror of rhe Native
Forest Council, in Eugene, Ore-
gorr, poinrs out, is simple: The
Forest Service turns a profit be-
c a u s e i t s e t s a r a l u e o n t h o s e
publiclv owned rrees of preciselv
zero dollars. It didn't cost rhe
Forest Service anvthing to grow
them-Cod and the rnoist fog
o f f t h e o c e a n t o o k c a r e o f
t h a t - s o i t f i g r r r e s t h e m a s a
ttT^oPcrFr(.

12. NORTH'EST DOF-S
NOT HAVE TO (-HOOSE
BETWEEN JOBS ,ND
THE EN!'IRONNIENT.,'
more logical, No one values a
cree at zero. Bglrg trmber com-
P J n r e s w r r n t a r g e L n d u s r r l a l
forests clear-cut, sprav herbicide
from helicopters, grow, enJless
stands of small rrees, cur rhem
d o w n b e f o r e r h e " - r u r n i n c o a
true forest, and otherwise 'in-
tensively manage" their land to
p r o d u c e f i b e r w i t h o u t m u c h
thought lor the other values of
the forest. Part- this {lecause
no one pats big timber owners
t . . .sUCn aS reorgta-racrflc to Slote
c J r D o n o r I r l t e r w a t e r ; t h e ) c a n
m j k e a r " r u r n o n l u b t s e l l i n g
fiber Bur even that central failing
o f e c o n o m i c s d o e s n ' r e x p l a i n
whl the big companies almosr al-
ways choose to cut down small
trees ol'er aod over again insread
o f l e t t i n g t h e m g r o w i n t o b i g
t-

13. "free good" and rvhatever it clears from selling them foresrs
*hr're each individual tree would be worth far
off as profit. This is much closer co Mother Theresa mort'-and
lhere, by happy accident, the other values
than to Adam Smith. As Hermack points out, "ln pri- of the
foresr woLrld be more protected.
vate industrv anf accountadt who so drasticallv under- To
un.lcrstand rhat process, says Joachim Maier, an
valued his companli assets would be immediarely dis-
independt'nr foresrry consultant, you need to calculate
missed and might even go to jail." the future lalue of al asset
and thus determine whar
The debate over the value of publiclv owned lrees ro do *'ith it
now. If you have a stand of trees, you can
has sharpened in recent months. On the one hand, either cut it
down and invest the proceeds or ler ir
more and more gnssroots environmentalists are back- mature
until the rees are vety valuable. Once upon a
ing Hermack's iall for a "zero cut" in the national time. sars
Nlaier, foresters ftgured on
"
.rte of ,"r,rr.,
forests. They want those trees valued for euerything on their
investm€nt of 2 ot 3 percent. As a result,
from storing carbon to supporting local economies "thel got
financial rotations that were sirnilar to rhe bi-
with their sheer beaury On the other side, Republican ological
rorations." That is, trees and money grew at
members of Congress-defenders, theoreticallv, of lree rouqhll
the same rate, so lou could afford to warc to
enterprise-rushed through a bill last summer ro in- chop rhem
dorvn. In the 1960s and '70s, rhough,

14. crease the cut in national forests and curtail che right fbrcsrcrs
st.rrted basing their decisions on rerurns of al-
of citDens to prolest. Presidenc Bill Clinron signed the mosr 10
p.'rcent, reflecting rising interest rares. Forests
0lockwis€ trom abovor lmanita and sw;rd f€rn in 0r€gon; bNtd
cylroas in southsrn Florlda; Californir't nedwood tlatloral
Park; doo.dent old gr0wth in Itount Rairisr llationrl Park,
warhington; young poplar3 in th6 Great Snokt Morntrins,
r D r g o | l 1 i l c 9 6
srarted falling at t record pace so the rnoney could bur.
stocks, ocher companies, or new forests in Indonesia.
For several decades now, money has grown faster rhan
trees. Foresters hare thus been forced by the impeccable
"logic oI economics to turn the trees inro mone.r' as
quicklv as possible.
The w.hole picture is more complicared rhan that, of
course. Forest-products companies also need ro calcu-
late factors like supplving their own paper mills, rvhich
also have relenue targets to meet. And propertv cares.
income taxes, and competitive factors also influence .t-
c i : r o n s , . . r l s J o e l S s r n r o n . a s e n i o r m a n .
r g e m r n r
forester at Champion International, which orvns l.-1
million acres across the Northeast.
But che results of the various calculations have been
:. predietably depressing. From the air, much of norrhern
Maine resembles a dog with terminal mange, with vasr
clearcucs scretching off in every

15. direction, In some spots the au-
t u m n c o l o r s t u r n u p i n e a r l l
summer because the hardwoods
have been killed bv aerial doses
of herbicide designed to produce
pure stands of softwoods. Log-
ging roads run eleuwhere, tight
to the borders of Baxter State
Park, rhe state's big wilderness
tract, which is home to Mount
Katahdin. Recent lederal studies
of several lvlaine counties indi-
cate the extent of the damage,
says Mitch Lanskr', author of Ba-
ynd the Beautl Strrp, a scathing ac-
count of the state's industrial
forestry. Red spruce ti€es-a sta-
p l e o f t h e p a p e r a n d l u m b e r
m i l l s - h a v e b e e n c u t a t 3 . 7
times their rate of growth. That's
bad news if lorr're a black bear
T
T
I r Dtor.,-'.r cosl
THE FOREST SERVICE
.{NYTHINGTO GROW
TREES. GOD AND THE
FOG TOOK C.RE OF IHAT.
Even belore the current referendum campaign, the

16. huge timber companies thar control most of Maine's
forests had begun to respond to public outcries. Cham-
pion, for instance, launched a "sustainable forestrv
in,t,rtir" rh"r is setting goals fo, .u"ryiiing fro-
-"'-,, ,. -, -,-:-.ter quaiitv co atstherics. WhEn iri done, sals
Swanton,
"tt
,t'..;;pi"yt l^nd
-;ll
be classified--some for
high-r'ield management, some for ecological protection.
"We think we can manage our ownetship in wavs
rhat meet rhe needs of most people," he says. At leasc
a ferv enlironmentalists are hopeful that he's right.
Others .rre more skepcical. Neily, rhe policy anaivst lbr
,laine' Audubon, which has yet to decide if it will
back the refirendum, sums up rhe dilemma: "The in-
dustrv keeps looking for ways they can create rhe char-
acrerisrics of old growth-the habirat, the water quali-
t]', and so forch-wirhour having to grow a tree for a
long time." In other words, what
you need is time for a srand of
trees to grow into a foresa capa-
ble of doing ali rhe other things
we've discussed.
If the economics of forestr)' are
to change dramatically (dtamati-
cally enough that you'll be able
to view the results From a satel-
lite, just as you can monitor the

17. current deforesrarion), it will re-
quire major shifts in the way the
world does business. {e'll_rree{
to reirnburse the companles and
counirleS holding carbon-riih
ancient forests. In a few isolared
casel, thati srarted to happen on
a small scale. Wesrern utiliries,
for instance, have tried to com-
pensate for new coal-fired power
plants by plandng oi prorecting
hoping to inhabit a spruce forest or if loure a logger rrees in the
rropics. Developers might have to reparr
hoping to cut trees sometime in the firrure. upsrteam r'arersheds
before they build new projects.
As a resuit, Nlaine environmentalists are now chal- t'll all
need to pal zealous atrerrrion to wasre and 7
lenging the state's private logging indusrry almost as look for
alternatives to wood and paper. And we'll,! ,
strongly as western activists attack abuses on pLrblic need a
new forestry, one that manages borh private
lands. "Before we're done, people are going to recog- woodlots
and vast industrial forests for many values '7
nize that this is as important as the Pacific Northrvest," now
ignoted and that concentrates on growing high- 17
says Jonathan Carter, campaign director fot a referen- qualit'r,
older trees. i
dum chat, if approved this fall, would ban clear-cutting That
new forestry is slowly being born on a few larg-
in the core of the Maine woods, Though the timber in- er tracts,
such as the quarter-million acres the Menom-
dustrv began running television commercials artacking inee
Indians manage in northern Wisconsin, and in

18. the ban before it was officially put on the ballot, small-scale
demonstration forests easr and west. If you
Carter's ttoops still succeeded in collecting a record lvant a
sense of this forestry, stop bv Sarn Brown's
number of signatures in a one-day push. "People *ere rvoodlor
in Cambridge, Maine. "I grew up in hshing-
sranding Ln line all across che srare,l he says. "The peo- con
Stare, and my hetitage was in lumbering," he says.
ple are angrv, and rhev oughc ro be-rhe1'ue 'een
th. Brown rcpresents the fifth genererion o[ a rimber fami-
places desrrol'ed, the jobs lost." ll'; his farher worked rn the
Pacific Northwest with '
Clockwiso from rbovoi I slut makss itE toms in Tonnossoo;
forost filtratiotl systomg opsrat€ at full forcs in ltaln0,3
Debscon.ag Lakes; tho Middlg prong of ths Cr€at Smoky
Mountsins'Littl€ Rlysf; a[d r cricad0 in tho oregor Cord nants.
Weyerhaeuser, rhe grearesr industrial-fotestry giant of harvests
that thcy will not live to reap." Such injunc-
thern all. But Broqn move.l to Maine, bought 300 tions impll' a
million pieces of subtle technique, each
acres of land, and fell in wirh some "alternative fitted to the
palticulai soil and climate-how steep ro
foresters-local pcople who pecked th€ corn a differ- build a
road, where to put a culvert, when to turn your
ent r.r,ar'. I liked their results and their anitudc." back on the
woods for fear of harming muddr-s.rils.
A tinkerer bv nature. Btown has spent the last decade Thevre
rhe kind of techniques that David Brynn, the
delising small-'.q3lq machiner) rhar allows a foresrei to .o,rnry'
for"rt". fo, Addison Co.-rnry. trmont, trres to

19. work carefull1,, without compacting the soil or damag- teach to
small landowners. "It's tough-careful logging
ing surrounding rrees rhe way a full-size skidder-a doesn't leod
itself to large-scale mechanization," he
heavy tractor thar drags rlees our of the woods-often savs. "But
on these small-scale family forests, whose
does. His current model features a radio-controlled primary
purpose is often recreation or peace of mind,
winch mounted on a traile!, so the forester can gently it gives an
opportunity for people who consider them-
"tweak" logs out ro the road. "The challenge for me is selves
environmcntalists to become mor€ active parucl-
to develop a technology that's economically possible," pants in
rhe marketplace."
he says, "with a capital cost low enough that a logger As tlrey
become involved, though, they will need to
with some intelligence and drive can do good work make that
marketplace more realistic. They'll need to
without having to sell himself off to John Deere or the consider,
for instance, the example of Mel Ames, who
big banker." (For a small logging
cont!actor, the huge payrnents
on an 580,000 skidder can all
b u t r e q u i r e h i m t o c u t m o r e
trees, more carelessly, than he
might like to.) Wirh his low-
priced system, Brown says he's
more or less in control of his
destinl "l can practicallv live off
the interest," he insists. Brown
exlracrs just a half-cord to a cord
of wood oer acre per year, earn-
ing from S5C a cord for pulp to
$600 a cord for
"eneer-quality

20. wood. "I'm looking out the win-
dow right now at some ash rees
and some rock maples," he says.
"Somedav I'll be able to market
t h e m f o r a d e c e n t p r i c e . O r
s o m e o n e e l s e w i i l - r h e s e t r e e s
will live for a hundred and filiy
to two hundred years,"
( ( T
I
I LooK AT
MY WOODLOT LIKE
A STOCK MARKET
INVESTMENT-ONLY
THERE'S THINGS
LIKE HLINTING AND
FISHING AND CANOEING
THAT YOU DON,T
GET WITH AI.{Y
STOCK MARKET."
h e l p e d p u t h i s e i g h t k i d s
through college off his woodlot
in Atkinson, Maine. A forester
by training, he's been managing

21. the land for 50 years without
ever clear-cutting. He has ah,ral's
depended on high-value trees,
w h i c h g r o w s l o w l y a n d h a v e
dght, narrow rings.
The result is strong, atttactile
wood. "Prices are going up, cspe-
cially for quality wood," he sa1's.
"When you slarr cutting in a
stand, you'd better understand
w h i c h t r e e s a r e g o i n g t o b e
worth a lot in the future." As
l o n g a s h e a v o i d s e x p e n s i l e
equipment, he says, "a person
can make a liling"-and grou' a
forest with more wood per a.-re
than it contained a half-century
before. "I suppose I could have
Drei,gson, the Brirish Columbia acadernic who clear-cut it and
put the mone)' in the bank or the
helped iound the Ecoforestry Institute because no stock market,"
he says. If :c, he mrghr well be rrcher,
forestry school was inreresled in th" conc"pt, sa),.s the aDd the
land would certainly be poorer. "But I trv ro
new-forestry movement is "not big at all in terms of look at my
woodlot like a stock market investment.
wood volume, but in rerms of the number of people Onll there's
a lot of things like hunting and fishing
involved, it's grown significantly over the past five and
canoeing and lookiog at moose that you don't get
years." Many of the ne* comers turn to old-time with any stock
market."
forcsters who've been practicing the art for decades. All of r-rs
who make decisions about our own wood-

22. It's a litde like organic farming 20 years ago-and in- lots, about
the national forests, or even about the vast
deed, some of the same people who have been con- tracts of
industrial forest will need to shed some of the
fronting agribusines for
-"ny
years are now staading prejudices of the economist-the
supposedly logical
up to careless forestry. rigor that plevents us from thinking
about real costs
Wendell Berrl', the Kentucky farmer-essayist, writes a end real
benefits, short- and long-term, local atrd glob-
good deal about small woodlo$ in his most recent col- al. We'll
need to stop thinking so simplisticallv about
lection, Another Tum oJ tk Ctank.'A forest makes things forests,
need to try for arr understaading as rich, corn-
slowly," he writes. "A good folesr economy would plex, and
rnultifacered as the woods themselves. We'll
therefore be a patiena ecoDom)'. It would also be an un- hale to
remember that money sometimes grows on
selfish one, foi good foresrers'must always look toward trees,
but so do many other things. l
In rrrly rDring in tho Grsrt Snoky florntains, talso Eoiomon'5
8s.l:!rd lriuad Dhrcallr ccrDot ! illl3ido, clrbing orod0n.
T L D I B O : _ v 1 ' - J U N E 1 9 9 t
d^-Dnlil,ll-!lduaoWW^
BEFoRE sHE roox up the problem ofchemical pesticides in

23. Silent Spring, Rachel
carson (r9o7-r964) was already a respected scientist and a
bestselling author. After
earnlng a rnaster's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins
University in r932, she
spent her eady career as an aquatic biologist with the u.s.
Bureau of Fisheries and
its later incarnation as ihe Fish and Wildlife Service. ln r949,
she rose to the posi-
tlon of chief edttor of publications for the Flsh ana Witdiiie
Service anO puUtist"eO
th ree books about the ocea n: U ndcr the Sea-Mind fg4t), The
Sro iro, na U, 11951,
1nd
Tle Edee ofthe sea lg55). The second ofthese books won the
Natronar Book
l:rj: i11
sold so many copies that Carson was able to giu. up h"r-1oJnno
o"uot.ner tlme to writing.
With the publication ofher most famous work, Silent
Spring,Carson tooK on rheunfamiliar role ofsocial activist. The
ro n.m ef ta J i mpact or pesticides, fi:: Ti':iil"':n'rff
I'riiT,Tjhili.
trichloroethane, better known as DDT. Durirg and after Wo;ld
Wur. ff, OOf f.,..t U""nused throughout the worid to control
insects, remove disease threats, and increasefood production.
Carson traced the poisonous effects of DDT and other pesttcrdes
illlrgh 1l;.*"3rrt"m,
beginnrng with ptants and insects and ,"r,"f ,r,,,ry a f,rf,,b r r d
s , w i l d l i f e , d o m e s t c a n i m a l s , a n d f l n a l l
y t o p e o p l e , f o r w h o m , i r o o n

24. " r g r . a ,DDT was a carcinogen.
W h e n t h e b o o k w a s p u b l i s h e d , t h e c h e m i c
a i p e s t i c i d e i n d u s t r y l a u n c h e o a m a j o rc o
u n t e r s t r i k e a i m e d a t d i s c r e d i t i n g C a r s o n
. D e s p i t e t h e i r a t t a c k , t h e b o o r < o e c a m ea
p n . . n o m e n a l b e s t s e J l e r a n d c a u s e d m i l l i
o n s o f A m e r i c a n s t o r e e v a l u a t e t h e i r t a i t
hin technology, scientiflc progress, and the role ol gou"r.n r.n,-;
f,lJa".,,nr rn",r.i n t e r e s t s .
"^,4:":n
O'* ofbreast cancer in r964 before she could see the eflect that
her workhad on the woid. rn tg7z, largely because of sirent
spring, the Environmentar pro-
teciion Agency banned the use of DD
the Presidential Medal of Freedom. olr':t.n^1": !:":: ltt
posthumouslv awarded
ranked sitent Sp,ng as one"r,n" ;":: ;Jn:;n*,T:#;"J51[:H"ff:f
century.
Carson's accomplish menl in Silen,
ex po s i n g t h e d a n ge rs of pe,t i c i J l ; ;t:"' ;t;,:,::-
n:S"'"*ff*i:, 5::; i :l:::connected natural world, where chan
seen consequences for the enrire .9::^::-^:": llecies
havl far'reaching' unfore
her readers,n a .".n f r.,. " g"
ji;;; r"",.#;1 ;ni"il;"]ijiirl".* .:::ij",T:
R a c h e l € a r s o n
The abligatian to Endure

25. ( 1 9 6 2 )
€A . fii c1,,,a"1 AL'-'*i''t
Nu) Nnla'w+G,NV.;toto
4 1 9
6 . S c r E N c E A N D N A T U R E
42.,
publication ol Silent Spring to rnark the beglnning
of the r'odern envrTonmenta
movement.
C a r s o n ' s c l a l m a b o u t t h e d a n g e r s o f c h e m
i c a L s
l s p r i m a r i l y s u p p o r t e d b y f a c t s a n o
statistlcs. She tlnkt togtiht' a slries of historical
and sclenilfic facts to focus read'
ers attention on the negatlve consequences
ol uslng cnernlcals that rnost people
saw only in terrns oftheir positive effect '":'
T"u
"rrro*"
oF LrFE on earth has been a history
of intencrion between living

26. ,i"rr-""a,ft"" surroundings To a
large extent' the ohu::"].{-T and the
habits
.i,fr"
""rafr', ""*","tion
and its anirnal life have been molded
by the environment'
;;;;t th"--hnl" tput.' of "arthly
time' the.opposite effect' tn which life
actu-
il^;Jifi; it, ,.,r,ou"Jit-'gt,
has been relatively slight only lvithin.the
moment
of time represented by the ptesent century
has one species-man-acquired signil-
i.urrt po*". to alter the nature of his
world'
During the past quarter century this
power has not only increased to orre of clis-
-+"i.,g
Jus"it"d" bul 1lTTf::ili:1fi::: lt":,::iliT::: ":;rttrl;assaults upon
the er-rvironment ls tne
i""t"r.ti *a even lethal materials This
poilution is for the most part itrecover-

27. able; the chain of evil it initiates not only in
the world that must support iife but in
ir*, ,or"", is for the most part irreversible
ln this now universal contamination
of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and
little-recognized partners ot radr-
ation in changing the very nature of the world-the
very nature of its life Stron-
ar'"- ;, ,"f""r.irhrough nuclear explosions
into the air' comes to earth in rain or
drifts down as fallout, lodges in soil, enters
into the grass oI corn oI wheat glorl'n
ii.r",
""4t"
,t"," *t". ttp it' nbod" in the bones of a human
being' there fo remcin
r",ti'f-rt, a*,fr. Similatly, chemicaLs sprayed
on croplands or forests,or eardens lic
hrng in soil, entering into tivrng organisms'
passing from one to anothef in a chain
.io-.ir."t"u
""a
a""th Or they pas mysteriously by underground
streams until ther

28. "..'".r" ^"a,
through the alchemy of air and sunlight'
combine into new forms thal
kili vegetation, sicken catile, and work unknown
harm on those who drink from
;;:" ;"";" ,u"ttr. ,q, atr'"tt Schweitzerr
has said' "Man can hardlv even recosni:(
the devils of his orn'n creation """li,."t
ftt"a*d. of millions of years to produce the
life that now inhabits the
""r,il.o,r,
o{ time in which thar developing and evolving
and- diversifying lite
."^.t,"a-
""""ofadjustmentandbalancewithitssurroundings,Theenvironmen
t.'*"".-"
fu ,f-r"o,"t
"nd
tlirecting the life it supported' contained elements
that were
r. Albert Schweitzerr Cerman-Alsatian
theo- Prize in 1952 for his lifelong devotLon
to prLr'

29. i ' ' ; : 1 ; i ; ; ; ;
, ' , ' " ' c h o r a '
' n d
p h * ' v d i n g ' n e d c a r ' e n c e '
i n A r r .
. , ; , , r l b ? 5 I o o s ) , w h c w " n r r ' e o b e l P e a ' e
R A C H E L C A R s o N T H E O | L l a a r r o N r o E I v
D u F E
_ . f i l e i r s w e l l a s s u p p o r t i n g . C c r t a i n r o c
k s g a v e o u t d a n g e r o u s r a d i a t i o n ; e v e n $ , i
t h i n
::c light of thc sun, fron which all life dr:lrvs irs energy, fhcrc
rvcrc short-rvavc racli-
. :,,ns widr powcr to injure. Givclr time time not in ycars but in
n-rillennia-life
--liusts, and a balance has been reachecl. For timc is the
essenlial ingredient; but in
:l-,e moclern wolld rhere is no time.
The rapidiry o{ change and the specd rvith rvhich r-rerv
situations arc creared fol-
l the impetuous ar-rd heedless pace of rnan rathcr than the
deliberare pircc ofnatrue.

30. i.rJiiltion is no longer merely thc backgrouncl radi:rtion of
rocks, the bomb:rrdment
: crrsnic rl.rys, the ultraviolet of the sun rhat have existecl
before therc was any life
r eirfh; radratiolr is norv the unnatural creatior-r of man's
tampering witl-r ti-rc atom.
hc cherricnls to rvhich life is asked to make its 2ld1ustment are
no longer mercly the
--rlciurn and silica and copper ancl all the rest of the mincrals
wasl-red out of the rocks
:nJ carriecl in rivers to tl-re sea; they are the synthetic
crcrltions of niln's inentLlr
:rrn.l, brervcd in l-ris lirborarories, and having no counteryarts
in nature.
To :rdjust to tl-rese cl-remicals woulcl reqoirc titne on the scille
thirt is nature's; it 5
,..,u1.1 recluire not merely the ye:rrs of a man's life but tl-re
life of generations. And
: en this, wefe it by sone rnirircle possiblc, would be ftrtile, for
lhe neu' chenicals
:ome from ou. labontories in an endlcss stream; almost {ive
hunclred annually find
:hcir way into actual usc in thc Unitcti States alone. The figure
is staggering and its

31. rmplications are nof easily graspecl-500 nel, chernicals to
which the boclies of mcn
.l1J animals are requireLl somchorv to:rclapt eilch year,
chemicals tot:rlly oursiclc the
i m i t s o f h i o l o g i c e x p c r i c n c e .
Among thcm arc many that are used ir-r nran's war against
nature. Since the micl-
1940's over'200 b:rsic cl-remicals have been crcatecl fi)r use ir-
r killing insects, weetls,
ir.lcnts, ar-rd otl-rer org:rnisms tlescribed in the nodcrn
vernacular as "pests"; and they
.rre sold under sevenl thousand cliffcrcnt br:rncl n:rmes.
T h e s e s p r a y s , d u s t s , a n . i a e r o s o l s a r e n o
r v a p p l i e d a l m o s t u n i v e r s a l l y t o f a r m s ,
v a r . 1 e n s , f o r e s t s , i t n d h o r e s n o n s c l c c t i v
c c h c m i c a l s t h a t h a v e t h e f o w c r t o k i l l
e v e r y i n s e c t , t h e " g o o d " a n d t h e " b : r d , " t
o s t i l l t h e s o n g o f b i r d s a n d t h e l c a p i n g
o i f l s h i n t h c s r r c a m s ! t o c o a t t h c l e n v e s
w i t h a d e a c l l y f i l m , a n d t o l i n g . r o n r n
. o i l a l L t h i s r h o u g h t h e i n t e n d e d t a r g e t m
a y b e o n l y a f e w w e e c l s o r i n s e c t s . C a n
a n y c , n c b e l i e v c i t i s p o s s i b l e t o l a y t l o w

32. n s r r c h a b a r r a g c o f p o i s o n s o n t h e s u r f a c
c
o i t h e e a r t h w i t h o u t m a k i n g i t u n f i r f o r a l
l l i f c l T h c y s h o u l d n o t b e c a l l e d " i n s e c -
r i c i d e s , " b u t " b i o c i d e s . "
The rvhole process of spraying sccms caLrght up in iln endless
spiral. Since l)I)T
r v a s r e l e a s e c i f i r r c i v i l i a n u s e , : r p r o c e s
s o f e s c a l a t i o n h a s b e e n g o i n g o n i n w h i c
h e v e r
m o r e t o x i c m a t e r i a l s m u s t b c f o u r t l . T h i s
h a s h a p p e n e d b c c a u s c i n s e c t s , i n . r r r i -
urnphant vinclicarion of Darwin's principle o{ rhe survivaI of
thc fittest, have evolvccl
supcr raccs immunc to d-re particular insecricitle used, hcncc :r
de:rdlier one lus ahvays
to be .le ve l<4red-ancl ther-r a deacllier one than thar. It has
happer-red also becausc,
{or rcasons to be dcscribed later, destnrctive insects often
undergo a "flareback," or
4 t t
6 . S c l E N c E A N D N A T U R E

33. 4 2 2
resurgence, after spraying, in numbers greater than before. Thus
the chenical war is
neveL wo11, and all life is caught in its violent crossfire.
Along with rhe possibility of the extinction of mankind by
nuclear war, the
central problem of our age has therefore become the
contamination of man's total
environment with such substances of incredible potential for
harm-substances
that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even
penetrate the germ
cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which
the shape of the
future depends.
Some would-be architects of our future look toward a tin-re
when it will be pos'
sible to alter the human germ plasm by design But we may
easily be doing so lrow
bv inadvertence, for manv chemicals, like radiation, bring about
gene mutations. lt
is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by
something so seem-

34. ingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.
All this has been risked-for whatl Future historians may well be
amazed by our
distorted selme of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek
to control a few
unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire
environnent and
brought the threat o{ disease and death even to their own kindl
Yet this is precisely
what we have done, We have done it, moreover, for reasons tl-
rat collapse the moment
we examine them. We are told that the enormous and expandtng
use of pesticides
is necessarJ to maintain farm production. Yet is our real
problem not one of oc.'er-
p'roductionl Our farms, despite measures to relnove acreages
fron production and to
pay falmers not to produce, have yielded such a staggering
excess of crops that the
American taxpayer ir-r 1962 is paying out more than one billion
dollars a year as the
total carrying cost of the surplus-food storage program. And is
the situation helped
when one branch of the Agriculture Department tries to reduce

35. production while
nnother states, as it did in 1958, "lt is believed generally that
reduction of crop
acreages under provisions of the Soil Bank will stimulate
interest in use of cherni-
cals to obtain maximum production on the land retained in
crops."
All this is not to say there is no insect problem and no need of
control. I am
saying, rather, that control must be geared to tealities, not to
mythical situations,
and that the methods empLoyed must be such that they do not
destroy us along with
the insects.
The problem whose attempted solution has brought such a train
of disaster in
its wake is an accompaniment of our modern way of life. Long
before the age ol
man, insects inhabited the earth-a group of extraordinarily
varied and adaptable
beings. Over the course o{ time since man's advent, a smalL
percentage of the rnore
than half a million species of insects have come into conflict
with human welfare

36. in two principal ways: as competitors for the food supply and as
carriers of human
d i s e a s e .
Disease-carrying insects become important where human beings
are crowdeJ
together, especially under conditions where sanitation is poor,
as in time of natural
disaster or war or in situations of extreme poverty and
deprivation Then control oi
R A c H E L C A R s o N T H E O B L t c a f t o N f o E N D
u R E
some sort becomes necess2try. It is a sobering fact, hovcver, as
we shall presently see,
that the method of massive chenicai control has l-rad only
limitcd success, ancl also
threatens to worsen the very conditions it is intended to curb.
Uncler primitive agricultural condirior-rs the farrner had few
insect pnrblems. These ! 5
arose with the intensification of agriculture-the devotion of
immense acre:lgcs to
a single crop. Such a sysrem set the stage for explosive
increases in specific insect
populations. Single-crop farrniog does not t:rkc ndvantage of
rhe principles by which
nature works; it is agriculture as an engineer might conceive it
to be. Nature has

37. introduced great variety into the landscape, but m:rn has
displayed a p:rssion {or sim-
plifying it. Thus he undocs the built-in checks ancl balances by
which nature l.rolds
the species within bounds. Or-re imporrant natural check is a
limit on the arnount of
suitable habitat for each species. Obviously then, an insect rhar
livcs on wheat can
build up its population to much higher levels on a f:rrm devoterl
to whcat than on
one in which whcat is inrermingled with other crops to which tl-
re insect is not
adapted.
The same tl-ring happens in other situations. A generation or
more agoj rhe rowns
of large areas of tl-re United States linccl rhcir srreets with rhe
noble eln tree. Now
the beauty they hopeftrlly created is threatened rvith complere
destruction as disease
sweeps through the elms, carried by a beetle that would havc
only limited chancc
to buiid up large populations :rnd to spread from tree to tree i{
tl-re elms wcre only
occasional trecs in a richly diversified planting.
Another factor in the modern insect problem is or-re that must
be viewecl against
a background of geoLogic and human history: the spreading of
thousands of clifferent
kinds of organisms from their niltive l1omcs to invade new
lenitories. This world-
rvide migration l.ras been studied and graphically described by
the British ecologist
Charles Ekon in his recent book Tfu Ecolop o/ lmrasions.
During the Cretaceous

38. Period, some hundred million years ago, flooding seas cur
m:rny l:rncl bridges bctween
continents and living thir-rgs found themselves cor-rfinecl in
what Elton calls "coios-
sa1 separ:rte nature reserves." Therc, isolated from others o{
their kind, tl-rey dcvel-
lrped many ncw species. lVhen some of the land m:Nses were
joined :rgain, :rbout
15 million years ago, these species began to movc out into new
territories a move-
neDt fhat is not only still in progress but is now receiving
consicierable assistance
from man.
The inportation of plants is the primary ilgenr in rhe nodern
spread of species,
lor anirnals have almost ir-rvariably gone along with the plants,
quar2urine being ii
comparatively reccnt and not completely effecrive innovation.
Tl-re Ulrited States
Office of Plant lntroduction alone has introduced almost
200,000 species and vari-
etics of plants from l.rll over the world. Nearly half of the 180
or so major insect enc-
mies of plants in the United States are accidental imports from
abroad, and most of
them have corne as hitchhikers on plants.
L-r new territory, out of reach of the restraining hand of the
n:rtural enemies that
1 2 3
kept down its numbers in irs n:lrive land, an invadir-rg plant or

39. anim:rl is ablc to
6 . S c r E N c E a N D N a r u R E
1 2 1
become enormously abundant. Thus it is no accident that our
most troublesome
insects ale introduced species.
These itrvasions, both the naturally occurring and those
dependent on human
assistance, are likely to continue indefinitely. Quarantine and
massive chemical
can-rpaigns are only exffemely expensive ways of buying time.
We are faced, accord-
ing to Dr. Elton, "with a life-and-death need not just to find new
technological
means of suppressing this plant or that animal"; instead we need
the basic knowl-
edge of animal populations and their relations to their
suroundings that will "plo-
rlote an even balance and damp down the explosive power of
outbreaks and new
i n v a s i o n s . "

40. Much of the necessary knowledge is now available but we do
not use it. We train
ecologists il1 our universities and even employ them in our
governlnental agencrrs
but we seldom take their advice. !7e allow the chemical death
rain to fall as though
there were no alternative, whereas in fact there are n1any, and
our ingenuity couid
soon discover many more if givcr-r opportunity.
H a v e w e f a l l e n i n t o a m e s m e r i z e d s t a t e t h
a t m a k e s u s a c c e p t a s i n e v i t a b l e t h a t
w h i c h i s i n f e r i o r o r d e t r i n e n t a l , a s t h o u g
h h a v i n g l o s t t h e w i l l o r t h e v r s i o n L o
demand that which is goodl Such thinking, ir.r the words of the
ecologist Paul
S h e p a r d , " i d e a l i z e s l i f e w i t h o n l y i t s h e a
d o u t o f w a t e r , i n c h e s a b o v e t h e l i m i t s
of toleration o{ the corrupcion of its own environment . . . Why
should we tol-
e r a t e a d i e t o f w e a k p o i s o n s , a h o m e i n i n
s i p i d s u r r o u n d i n g s , a c i r c l e o f a c q u a i n -
t a n c e s w h o a r e n o t q u i t e o u r e n e m i e s , t h e
n o i s e o f m o t o r s w i t h j u s t e n o u g h r e l i e f
t o p r e v e n t i n s a n i t y ? W h o w o u l d w a n t t o l i

41. v e i n a w o r l d w h i c h i s j u s t n o t q u i t e
f a t a l l "
Yet such a world is pressed upon us. The crusade to create a
chernically sterile,
insect-free world seems to have engendered a fanatic zeal on the
part of nany spe-
cialists and most of the so-called contlol agencies. On every
hand there rs evr-
dence that those engaged in spraying operations exercise a
ruthless power. "The
regulatory entomologists . . . function as prosecutor, judge and
jury, tax assessor
and collector and sheriff to enforce cheir own orders," said
Connecticut er-rtomol-
ogist Neely Tumer. The most flagrant abuses go unchecked in
both state ar-rd fed-
eral agelrcies.
I t i s n o t m y c o n t e n t i o n t h a t c h e m i c a l i n s
e c t i c i c { e s m u s t n e v e r b e u s e d . I d o
c o n t e n d t h a t w e h a v e p u t p o i s o n o u s a n d b
i o l o g i c a l l y p o t e n t c h e m i c a l s i n d i s -
criminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant
of their poten-

42. tials for harm. 7e have subjected enormous numbers of people
to contact with
these poisons, without their consent and often without their
knowledge. lf the
Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be
secure against lethal
poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public
officials, it is surely
only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom
and foresight,
c o u l d c o n c e i v e o f n o s u c h p r o b l e m .
R A C H E L C A R s o N . T H E O a u c a r t o N r o E N
D U R E
I contend, furthermore, that we have allowed these chemicals to
be used with lit-
:le or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water,
wildlife, and man him-
.elf. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of
prudent concern for the
:ntegrity of the natural world that supports all life.
There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat.
This is an era of
.pecialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware
of or intolerant of
rhe larger frame into which it fits. lt is also an era dominated by
industry, in which
rhe right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom

43. challenged, Vv/hen the public
frotests, confronted with sorne obvious evidence of damaging
results of pesticide
applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. !7e
urgently need an end
ro these false assurancesr to the sugar coating of unpalatable
facts. lt is the public
rhat is being asked to assume the risks that the insect
controllers calculate. The pub-
lic must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present
road, and it can do so
only when in full possession of the facts. In the words of Jean
Rostand,2 "The obli-
gation to endure gives us the right to know."
U N D E R 5 T A N D I N c T H E T E X T
t . W h a t " p o w e r " h a v e h u m a n b e l n g s r e c e n
t l y a c q u i r e d t h a t , a c c o r d i n g t o
Rachel Carson, makes the current time period unique in the
history of fe
o n E a r t h ?
2 . W h a t d o e s C a r s o n m e a n b y " i n t h e m o d e
r n w o r l d t h e r e i s n o t i m e " l
3 . W h a t h a p p e n s w h e n i n s e c t s a d a p t t o p e
s t i c l d e s i n t h e i r e n v i r o n m e n t l C o u d
any pesticide, theoretica ly, not result ln an increased tolerance
for th2r np<ti-
c i d e a m o n g i n s e c t s l W h y o r w h y n o t l
4. What arguments in lavor of pesticide use does Carson
anticipatel How does
s h e b u i d r e s p o n s e s t o t h e s e a r g u r n e n t s i n

44. t o h e r t r e a t m e n t o f t h e s s u e s l
5. What role does single crop farming p ay in the rise of lnsect
populations)
Why is it dangerous, in Carson's view, to limit diversity in
specific natural
a r e a s l
6. Which ofthe dangers and rnysteries ofpesticlde use does
Carson object
to mostl
M a K T N G C o N N E c r r o N s
r . H o w d o l a r g e l n c r e a s e s i n h u m a n p o p u l
a t l o n s c r e a t e c o n d i t i o n s i n w h i c h
insects and other forrns of life must be controlled? low does
lVlalthus antic-
i p a t e t h e s e k i n d s o f p r o b l e m s i n h l s " E s s
a y o n t h e P r i n c i p l e o f P o p u l a t i o n "
k. tz+)l
z. Jean Rostaad: French bioLosist and playwrlght (1894 199?).
4 2 5
6 . S c r E N c E a N D N A T U R E
4 2 6
2. Exactly how does Darwin's principle ofnatural selection
(p 4ot explain

45. lnsects' adaPtatlon to Pesticldes?
3. How have Carson's vlews of nature
influenced later environmental wrlters
such as David Suzuki (p 427) and Al Core (p 454)?
W R r r r N G A B o u r r H E T E x r
t. Conducting extra researcn as necessary' describe an
environr'en-tal
threat to
the ecosysiem in the area in which you live How are the
lives of lnsects'
birds, fish, animals' and plants connected to each other'
and how are they
threatened I
z. Analyzecarson's use ofevidence in this selectlon What
claims does she
make, and how effectively does she support each onel
3. The international accord on pestlcides
reached in Stockholm' Sweden' tn
2oo4 contains thls "malarla exceptlon" in its restriction of
DDT:
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic PolLutants
(POPs) rec-
o g n i z e s t h a t i n s o m e c o u n t r l e s ' e s p e c i a l l

46. y t h o s e i n s u b S a h a r a n
A f r i c a '
D D T r e m a l n s a n m p o r t a r r t t o o l i n t h e w a r
a g a i n s t m a l a r i a
C o u n t r l e s
that ratlry the Convention may continue using DDT for
controlling
mos
q u i t o e s i h a t s p r e a d m a l a r i a T h u s , t h e C o
n v e n t l o n w i l l n o t
i n c r e a s e t h e
llkeLihood that people wjll be lnfected wlth malarla
Many environmental groups opposed this ex,ceptlon' but
supporters argued
that DDT had already prevented hundreds of millions of
people from dying
o f m a l a r i a a n d t h a t ' l f i t s u s e w e r e e n t i r e l y e
l i r n i n a t e d ' t h e h u r n a n ' o s t s l n
some ofthe wodd's poorest countries would be severe Write
an essay sup
p o r t i n g o r o p p o s i n g t h i s e x c e p t i o n ' b a s e
d o n t h e c a s e a g a i n s t
D D T t h a t C a r -
s o n o u t l l n e s l n " T h e O b l i g a t i o n t o E n d u r
e "