The Green Fuse

Book excerpt: A widely respected ecological scientist and activist draws on the poet's image and his own environmental research to demonstrate the many interconnections among the world's ecosystems. John Harte takes us from Alaskan salmon runs and the Florida everglades to South Pacific coral reefs and the bleak Tibetan plateau. The result is that rare book that bridges the cultures of science and art. Lyrical, vivid portraits of natural wonders and the threats to them are combined with precise scientific accounts of natural processes and their disturbances. The Green Fuse will show nonscientists the fascination of ecological detective work and renew scientists' love for the beauty of the world under their microscopes. Harte's stories illuminate, without sermonizing, the damage to natural systems brought about by technological hubris and calculated political ruthlessness. "The green fuse" symbolizes the basic unity behind natural diversity. But a fuse may also be the weak link in an overloaded system or the slow burning wick on an ecological bomb. As The Green Fuse reminds us, the energies that created human liberation from nature can also be those that lead to the human destruction of nature. A widely respected ecological scientist and activist draws on the poet's image and his own environmental research to demonstrate the many interconnections among the world's ecosystems. John Harte takes us from Alaskan salmon runs and the Florida everglades to South Pacific coral reefs and the bleak Tibetan plateau. The result is that rare book that bridges the cultures of science and art. Lyrical, vivid portraits of natural wonders and the threats to them are combined with precise scientific accounts of natural processes and their disturbances. The Green Fuse will show nonscientists the fascination of ecological detective work and renew scientists' love for the beauty of the world under their microscopes. Harte's stories illuminate, without sermonizing, the damage to natural systems brought about by technological hubris and calculated political ruthlessness. "The green fuse" symbolizes the basic unity behind natural diversity. But a fuse may also be the weak link in an overloaded system or the slow burning wick on an ecological bomb. As The Green Fuse reminds us, the energies that created human liberation from nature can also be those that lead to the human destruction of nature.