Odum ecology
In 1962 the writer and marine biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, an investigation into the widespread use of pesticides, in which she denounced that the poisons used were accumulating in the food chain, with enormous risks to human health and terrible effects on flora and fauna: “Dusts and sprays are now almost universally applied to farms, gardens, forests and homes. Non-selective chemicals that have the power to kill all insects, the “good” and the “bad” ones, to calm birds singing and fish jumping in streams, to cover leaves with a deadly film and then remain on the ground. All this even though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects,” he wrote. Some authors had previously suggested that modern pesticides posed dangers, but none wrote with Carson’s eloquence.
However, due to the difficult family financial situation (his father and sister died, so he had to take care of his mother and nephews) intensified by the American Great Depression, Carson had to suspend his studies and start writing articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun and the Atlantic Monthly, as well as radio scripts for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).
Fundamentals of ecology odum pdf
Perhaps the passage of time has made Alexander von Humboldt a lesser known figure than other great names in science, but he was a great naturalist, pioneer and adventurer who laid the foundations of what would later become modern ecology. Influenced by the vision of figures such as Kant and Goethe, he saw nature holistically, as a whole, and was a strong advocate of human rights, human equality and free speech.
Humboldt thought that the overall impression (Totaleindruck) gained from the system was essential. Therefore, he needed to experiment in the laboratory (e.g., on galvanism, and he did so, sometimes painfully, on his own body) and to go to places where nature expressed itself strongly (the tropics above all). He tried to obtain the overall impression by helping his senses with the use of measuring instruments and drawing, attentive to the organism but also to everything around him. He saw nature as a whole, an immense network of interrelationships. He was the first to warn of the effect of forests on the climate and of “the already incalculable and potentially catastrophic consequences if the world continued to be so brutally disturbed”. This is very advanced thinking for the time, since the dominant anthropocentrism believed that man improved nature and beautified it with cultivation and constructions. He had observed the retreat of Lake Valencia in Venezuela due to human causes and many other cases in Europe that disproved this optimism about the role of man.
Father of ecology
Eugene Pleasants Odum, biologist (Newport, New Hampshire, USA, September 17, 1913 – † Athens, Georgia, USA, August 10, 2002), was one of the most important proponents of contemporary ecology.[1] He is referred to as “the father of the ecological ecosystem.”[2] He and his brother Howard T. Odum wrote the popular ecology textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology (1953). The Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia was named in his honor.
By 1970, when the first Earth Day was organized, Odum’s conception of the living Earth as a global set of interlocking ecosystems became one of the key ideas of the environmental movement that has since spread around the world. However, he was an independent thinker who sometimes criticized the slogans and fashionable concepts of the environmental movement.
Odum’s will stipulated that, after his death, his 26 acres (110,000 m²) on the Middle Oconee River in Athens, Ga. be sold and developed according to plans he submitted before his death. He often showed friends and colleagues hand-drawn plans for his vision of this green community. The plans included that more than 50 percent of the property would be protected green space and walking trails managed by the Oconee River Land Trust. Proceeds from the sale of the land would go to the Eugene and William Odum Ecology Fund, after $1 million was earmarked for a UGA professorship in Odum’s name. The land was sold to builder John Willis Homes, who is honoring Odum’s wishes at Beech Creek Preserve.[4] The land was sold to the developer, John Willis Homes.
History of ecology
Perhaps the passage of time has made Alexander von Humboldt a lesser known figure than other great names in science, but he was a great naturalist, pioneer and adventurer who laid the foundations of what would later become modern ecology. Influenced by the vision of figures such as Kant and Goethe, he saw nature holistically, as a whole, and was a strong advocate of human rights, human equality and free speech.
Humboldt thought that the overall impression (Totaleindruck) gained from the system was essential. Therefore, he needed to experiment in the laboratory (e.g., on galvanism, and he did so, sometimes painfully, on his own body) and to go to places where nature expressed itself strongly (the tropics above all). He tried to obtain the overall impression by helping his senses with the use of measuring instruments and drawing, attentive to the organism but also to everything around him. He saw nature as a whole, an immense network of interrelationships. He was the first to warn of the effect of forests on the climate and of “the already incalculable and potentially catastrophic consequences if the world continued to be so brutally disturbed”. This is very advanced thinking for the time, since the dominant anthropocentrism believed that man improved nature and beautified it with cultivation and constructions. He had observed the retreat of Lake Valencia in Venezuela due to human causes and many other cases in Europe that disproved this optimism about the role of man.