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Conceivable Ecodisasters and the Reykjavik Imperative*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Nicholas Polunin
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Extract

An ecodisaster is here characterized as ‘any major and widespread misfortune to, or seriously detrimental change operating through, Man's or Nature's habitat—whether or not it is engendered by Man himself, and whether or not it affects him directly’.

From this wide perspective but leaving aside such ‘old favourites’ as world famine and nuclear holocaust, and not yet dealing with population swarming and biotic invasion, are selected the following half-dozen items as being particularly pertinent: (1) Build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide; (2) Disappearance of more and more of the life-support system; (3) Water shortage and salt build-up with continuing irrigation; (4) Loss of genetic diversity; (5) Increasing complexity of human existence and health-hazards; and (6) The Beirut syndrome of human slaughter.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 1979 , pp. 105 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1979

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References

REFERENCES

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