State of the Living Planet

摘要

Back in the 1940s a bedrock scientific study about sustainability was published by Ruth Patrick, then fairly newly arrived at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. In the academy's history, the study should loom larger than Jefferson's fossils or the botanical specimens of Lewis and Clark that were deposited there before the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution.Ruth Patrick, today an amazing 105 years old, specialized in freshwater ecology (limnology) and in particular the group of algae, diatoms, that produce exquisite silica boxes. Undertaken at the behest of the Sun Oil Company, the study concluded that thenumber and kind of species in a stream or river reflected not only its natural conditions (physics, geology, and chemistry) but also the stresses created by human action in the watershed.