1
United Nations Population Fund, “The State of the World Population,” United Nations, New York, 1991.
2
For cogent arguments on the relationship between rapid human population growth and environmental destruction and/or human suffering (warfare, economic despair, human rights violations, low quality of life), see P. Kennedy,
Preparing for the Twenty-first Century
(New York: Vintage, 1993); Population Crisis Committee, “Human Suffering Index,” Washington, D.C., 1987â93, annually; P. Harrison,
The Third Revolution
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1992); and R. D. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,”
Atlantic Monthly
, February 1994: 44â76.
3
E. O. Wilson,
The Diversity of Life
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
4
E. O. Wilson, “Rain Forest Canopy: The High Frontier,”
National Geographic
, December 1991: 78â107.
5
Food and Agriculture Organization, “The Forest Resources of the Tropical Zone by Main Ecological Regions,” report to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development by the Forest Resource Assessment 1990 Project, FAO, Rome, 1992.
The FAO results are described in P. Aldous, “Tropical Deforestation: Not Just a Problem in Amazonia,”
Science
259 (1993): 1390. When the loss rate was described in terms of percentages of whole forest areas, FAO found:
Region
| % of Forest Lost Annually
|
---|
South America
| 0.6
|
Southeast Asia
| 1.6
|
Central America
| 1.5
|
6
A. Gentry, presentation to the Neotropical Montane Forests: Biodiversity and Conservatism meeting, New York Botanical Garden, June 21â25, 1993.
7
For a detailed discussion of the conflicting economic and ecological interests at play in the Amazon, see J. de Onis,
The Green Cathedral: Sustainable Development of Amazonia
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
8
D. Skole and C. Tucker, “Tropical Deforestation and Habitat Fragmentation in the Amazon: Satellite Data from 1978 to 1988,”
Science
260 (1993): 1905â10.
9
Centers for Disease Control, “Lyme Disease SurveillanceâUnited States, 1989â1990,”
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
40 (1991): 417â20; and T. F. Tsai, presentation to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Honolulu, December 10â14, 1989.
10
M. Kirsch, F. L. Ruben, A. C. Steere, et al., “Fatal Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome in a Patient with Lyme Disease,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
259 (1988): 2737â39; and J. F. Bradley, R. C. Johnson, and J. L. Goodman, “The Persistence of Spirochetal Nucleic Acids in Active Lyme Arthritis,”
Annals of Internal Medicine
120 (1994): 487â89.
11
A. C. Steere, E. Taylor, G. L. McHugh, and E. L. Logigian, “The Overdiagnosis of Lyme Disease,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
269 (1993): 1812â16.
12
A. C. Steere, R. L. Grodzicki, A. N. Kornblatt, et al., “The Spirochetal Etiology of Lyme Disease,”
New England Journal of Medicine
308 (1983): 733â40.
13
A. C. Steere, “Lyme Disease,”
New England Journal of Medicine
321 (1989): 586â96.
14
A. G. Barbour and D. Fish, “The Biology and Social Phenomenon of Lyme Disease,”
Science
260 (1993): 1610â16.
15
H. S. Ginsberg, “Transmission Risk of Lyme Disease and Implications for Tick Management,”
American Journal of Epidemiology
138 (1993): 65â73.
16
J. F. Levine, M. L. Wilson, and A. Spielman, “Mice as Reservoirs of the Lyme Disease Spirochete,”
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
34 (1985): 355â60; J. G. Donahue, J. Piesman, and A. Spielman, “Reservoir Competence of White-Footed Mice for Lyme Disease Spirochetes,”
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
36 (1987): 92â96; J. Piesman, T. N. Mather, G. J. Dammin, et al., “Seasonal Variation of Transmission Risk of Lyme Disease and Human Babeosis,”
American Journal of Epidemiology
126 (1987): 1187â89; S. R. Telford, T. N. Mather, S. I. Moore, et al., “Incompetence of Deer as Reservoirs of the Lyme Disease Spirochete,”
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
39 (1988): 105â9; and T. N. Mather, M. L. Wilson, S. I. Moore, et al., “Comparing the Relative Potential of Rodents as Reservoirs of the Lyme Disease Spirochete
(Borrelia burgdorferia),” American Journal of Epidemiology
130 (1989): 143â50.
17
D. J. White, H. G. Chang, J. L. Benach, et al., “The Geographic Spread and Temporal Increase of the Lyme Disease Epidemic,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
266 (1991): 1230â36.
18
Crucial clues to the history of the emergence of Lyme disease were provided by a study of the 1980â81 appearance of the disease in Ipswich, Massachusetts. See C. C. Lastavica, M. L. Wilson, V. P. Berardi, et al., “Rapid Emergence of a Focal Epidemic of Lyme Disease in Coastal Massachusetts,”
New England Journal of Medicine
320 (1989): 133â37.
19
A. Spielman, “The Emergence of Lyme Disease and Human Babeosis in a Changing Environment,” presentation to the Workshop on New Diseases, Woods Hole, MA, November 7â10, 1993.
20
O. L. Phillips and A. H. Gentry, “Increasing Turnover Through Time in Tropical Forests,”
Science
263 (1994): 954â58; and S. L. Pimm and A. M. Sugden, “Tropical Diversity and Global Change,”
Science
263 (1994): 933â34.
21
This has been, and continues to be, a very lively debate that directly affects global treaties still in negotiation. What kind of refrigerants were in American kitchen appliances, the allowable carbon monoxide emissions for Italian cars, incineration policies for Japanese plastics wastes, and forestry plans for Southeast Asia all impinged upon scientific interpretations of available data on ozone depletion and global warming.
As a result, mountains have been written on the topic, and it is well beyond the scope of this book to scrutinize the data at the root of the debate. For a flavor of that debate, see A. Gore,
Earth in the Balance
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1992); J. F. Gleason, P. K. Bhartia, J. R. Herman, et al., “Record Low Global Ozone in 1992,”
Science
260 (1993): 523â36; J. Oerlemans, “Quantifying Global Warming from the Retreat of Glaciers,”
Science
(1994): 243â45; A. Tabazadeh and R. P. Turco, “Stratospheric Chlorine Injection by Volcanic Eruptions: HCI Scavenging and Implications for Ozone,”
Science
260 (1993): 1082â86; G. Taubes, “The Ozone Backlash,”
Science
260 (1993): 1580â83; M. D. Lemonick, “The Ozone Vanishes,”
Time
, February 17, 1992: 60â68; J. B. Kerr and C. T. McElroy, “Evidence for Large Upward Trends of Ultraviolet-B Radiation Limited to Ozone Depletion,”
Science
262 (1993): 1032â34; and E. M. Pokras and A. C. Mix, “Earth's Precession Cycle and Quaternary Climactic Change in Tropical Africa,”
Nature
326 (1987): 486â87.
22
For a detailed discussion of global warming and its expected impact upon potential disease, see T. E. Lovejoy, “Global Change and Epidemiology: Nasty Synergies,” Chapter 25 in S. S. Morse, ed.,
Emerging Viruses
(Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1993).
23
In addition to interviews, details for the section were drawn from the following sources: W. N. Bonner,
The Natural History of Seals
(New York: Facts on File, 1990); R. Dietz, C. T. Ansen, P. Have, and M. P. Heide-Jørgensen, “Clue to Seal Epizootic?”
Nature
338 (1989): 627; M. Domingo, L. Ferrer, M. Pumarola, et al., “Morbillivirus in Dolphins,”
Nature
348 (1990): 21; M. A. Gracher, V. P. Kumarev, L. V. Mamaev, et al., “Distemper Virus in Baikal Seals,”
Nature
338 (1989): 209; C. B. Goodhart, “Did Virus Transfer from Harp Seals to Common Seals?”
Nature
336 (1988): 21; J. Harwood, “Lessons from the Seal Epidemic,”
New Scientist,
February 18, 1989: 38â42; S. Kennedy, J. A. Smyth, P. F. Cush, et al., “Viral Distemper Found in Porpoises,”
Nature
336 (1988): 21; S. Kennedy, J. A. Smyth, S. J. McCullough, et al., “Confirmation of Cause of Recent Seal Deaths,”
Nature
325 (1988): 404; B. W. J. Mahy, “Seal Plague Virus,” Chapter 17 in Morse, ed. (1993), op. cit.; C. Orvell, M. Blixenkrone-Möller, V. Svansson, and P. Have, “Immunological Relationships Between Phocid and Canine Distemper Virus Studied with Monoclonal Antibodies,”
Journal of General Virology
71 (1990): 2085â92; A. D. M. E. Osterhaus, J. Gröen, P. DeVries, et al., “Canine Distemper Virus in Seals,”
Nature
335 (1988): 403â4; S. Pain, “Dolphin Virus Threatens Last Remaining Monk Seals,”
New Scientist
, November 3, 1990: 22; I. K. G. Visser,
Morbillivirus Infections in Seals, Dolphins and Porpoises
, Doctoral Thesis, University of Utrecht, Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre, Zeehondencreche Pieterburen, Netherlands, 1993; and J. Webb, “Dolphin Epidemic Spreads to Greece,”
New Scientist
, September 7, 1991: 18.
24
In the Baltic salmon faced extinction in 1993â94 because of just such a mixture of events. The Baltic is heavily polluted, having been a major Soviet dumping ground for more than four decades. Salmon caught in the Baltic or nearby rivers, streams, and lakes are heavily contaminated with chlorinated hydrocarbons.
Since 1993 Baltic salmon mothers have been behaving strangely, swimming improperly when pregnant and laying eggs that hatch fish which can't swim. More than 90 percent of fish hatched since the fall of 1993 have died.
The Baltic salmon species, it turns out, are newly infected with a parasite,
Gyrodactylus
, that may have succeeded in emerging into the Baltic salmon population because of the fish's pollution-induced immunodeficiencies.
25
The estimated death tolls were as follows:
26
For a sampling of Colwell's findings, see R. R. Colwell, J. Kaper, and S. W. Joseph, “
Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus
and Other Vibrios: Occurrence and Distribution in Chesapeake Bay,”
Science 198 (1977): 394â96; R. R. Colwell, M. L. Tamplin, P. R. Brayton, et al., “Environmental Aspects of V. cholerae in Transmission of Cholera,” in R. B. Sack and Y. Zinnaka, eds., Advances in Research on Cholera and Related Diarrhoeas (7th ed.; Tokyo: K.T.K. Scientific Publishers, 1990), 327â43; R. R. Colwell, J. A. K. Hasan, A. Hug, et al., “Development and Evaluation of a Rapid, Simple Sensitive Monoclonal Antibody-Based Coagglutination Test for Direct Detection of V. cholerae 01,” FEMS Microbiology Letters 97 (1992): 215â20; and A. Hug, S. Parveen, F. Qadri, and R. R. Colwell, “Comparison of V. cholerae Serotype 01 Isolated from Patient and Aquatic Environment,” Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 96 (1993): 86â92.
27
S. Pain, “Water Hides a Host of Viruses,” New Scientist, August 19, 1989: 28.
28
Hundreds of examples could be cited. For just one illustrative case, see Centers for Disease Control, “Multistate Outbreak of Viral Gastroenteritis Related to Consumption of OystersâLouisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and North Carolina, 1993,”
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
42 (1993): 945â47.