The Silver Lining: The Benefits of Natural Disasters.

About this book

Floods fires volcanic eruptions earthquakes hurricanes--we are quick to call them natural disasters. But are they? Did the great fires that swept Yellowstone in 1988 devastate the park or did they just ravage our image of the park as a fixed unchanging national treasure? This lucid lively book reveals the shortsightedness behind conceiving of such events as disastrous to nature. Indeed Seth Reice contends such thinking has led to policies that have done the environment more harm than good--the U.S. Forest Services campaign against natural forest fires and the Army Corps of Engineers flood prevention program are examples. He points out ways in which we can better address the wide range of environmental problems humanity faces at the dawn of the new millennium. Reice argues in terms refreshingly nontechnical yet scientifically sound that the traditional equilibrium paradigm--according to which stability produces healthier ecosystems than does sudden sweeping change--is fundamentally flawed. He describes a radically different model of how nature operates one that many ecologists and population biologists have come to understand in recent years: a concept founded on the premise that disturbances help create and maintain the biodiversity that benefits both the ecosystem and ourselves. Reice demonstrates that ecosystems need disturbances to accomplish indispensable tasks such as the production of clean air and water. He recommends changes in environmental management to incorporate the essential role of natural disturbances. This book shows that every tornados funnel cloud every forest fires billowing cloud of smoke has tremendous benefits for the ecosystem it impacts. As anyone concerned with mans impact on the environment will appreciate this is the clouds real silver lining.