Applied ecology

A tribute to Professor Eugene Odum, the world's most respected ecologist, who passed away on August 10 2002.

Unhygienic - or just small-scale? (long version) - first published in The Ecologist Special Report June 2001. Republished in Rivista di Biologia (Biology Forum) Vol. 94 No. 3, September / December 2001 pp. 511-533. This essay explores the way in which food hygiene regulations are pushing small, safe, traditional high quality food producers out of business by imposing inappropriate and wildly expensive requirements - while industrial food producers reap the benefits.

The need for an ecological world view - "The 'technospheric' world view of modernism needs to be replaced with a new 'ecological' world view - but to achieve this, green thinkers must concentrate on the great principles that unite them, not on the doctrinal minutiae that divide them. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 18 No. 4 / 5, 1988.

The ecology of health - modern health services have failed to deliver the promised goods, argues Edward Goldsmith. He attrributes this failure to the "chemical warfare" approach to treating disease and our decision, as a society, to subordinate health needs to the imperatives of the economy and industry. Originally published in The Ecologist Vol 10 Nos. 6/7, July-September 1980, then in La Medecine à la Question 1981 (France). A revised version was later released in 1988 as Chapter 4 of The Great U-Turn.

False perspective - review of A Perspective of Environmental Pollution by Martin W. Holdgate, Cambridge University Press. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 9 No. 8/9, November / December 1979.

Can pollution be controlled? - this is a discussion of the multitude of pollutants, chemical and radiological, that are being pumped into the environment in the name of progress and development, and the failure of regulators to tackle the growing problem as to do so would challenge the principle of never-ending economic growth that threatens the entire biosphere. It was originally published in The Ecologist Vol. 9 Nos. 8 / 9, October-December 1979. This revised version appeared in 1988 as Chapter 5 of "The Great U-Turn".

The future of tree diseases - What has caused the epidemics that are currently decimating our trees? The factors involved are intimately linked to economic development - and the only hope for our trees lies in de-industrialisation. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 9, Nos. 4-5, August 1979.

Can prosperity be brought to Fatehpur? - Article by Edward Goldsmith published in the Ecologist Quarterly No. 2, summer 1978. Poverty is caused, not by lack of goods and money, but by the destruction of ecological capital. It follows that the solution to poverty is not 'development' but to rebuild ecological capital.

The sanctity of life - a leading article for The Ecologist Vol. 1 No. 15, November 1971. Republished in The Doomsday Funbook (Jon Carpenter Books, February 2006). "We have been taught since childhood to fear anything connected with death and decay. A corpse fills us with horror, while the scavengers that eat it and the bugs and bacteria that decompose it are among the most despised of creatures. Yet death and decay are as essential as life and growth - one would not be possible without the other ... "

Is pesticide science based on false assumptions? - a leading article for The Ecologist Vol. 1 No. 5, November 1970. Republished in The Doomsday Funbook (Jon Carpenter Books, February 2006). "The scientist is under attack. His image is deteriorating fast. No more do we see a benevolent sage whose infinite wisdom is leading to man's conquest of nature, to the elimination of disease, poverty, misery and everything else that afflicts us. Instead, to more and more, he has become an ogre who, to satisfy his own curiosity, is concocting vile poisons that are bound to get us all in the end ... "