Prescription for a Healthy Planet

Bad news about the environment sometimes seems so pervasive that a natural tendency for some of us is simply to ignore the problems and hope they’ll go away.

They won’t, says Rob Jackson ’83 in The Earth Remains Forever: Generations at a Crossroads (University of Texas Press, 2002). But Jackson isn’t just another bearer of more bad tidings. Instead, he shows how recent responses to potential environmental tragedies can provide models—and hope—for the future.

The book outlines a number of dilemmas that plague humankind—overpopulation, biological and ecological diversity, ozone depletion, and global warming, among others—many of which will continue to become more complex as we face an evermore populous future. To make matters worse, these problems often have compound causes, some of which may not be obvious at first glance. For example, after Jackson cites possible environmental reasons for increases in melanoma in the U.S. from 1974 to 1986, including ozone depletion, he points out that large population shifts from the rustbelt to the sunbelt occurred during the same time—not simply stronger sunshine but more people out in it.

An environmental scientist, Jackson approaches his subject from a rationalist viewpoint, but even though the book is peppered with statistics, it never bogs down in data. He keeps things lively by playing incidents and sequences of discoveries as narrative rather than exposition. The exposure of chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) as a major culprit in ozone depletion reads a bit like the treatment for a fact-based enviro-thriller, complete with an international cast of eminent scientists and policymakers, with the fate of the world in the balance.

Jackson spends some time on the CFC issue because he believes that the outcome—international agreement to control and finally ban CFCs—“offers considerable promise for the handling of future global environmental problems.” The three reasons, he says, that banning CFCs worked were the compelling scientific evidence that CFCs damaged the ozone, the obvious threat CFCs pose to human health, and the presence of a technologically feasible solution. He also explains why none of us alive today are likely to see the ozone hole finally close for good.

Citing numerous examples of corporate, government, and international efforts to ameliorate environmental ills, Jackson holds out hope that humans will adopt a reasoned stance of stewardship over the natural world. At the same time, Jackson believes that we are at a critical juncture, where decisions today—or lack of them—can and will have momentous effects in years to come. “It takes more than idealism and a spirit of cooperation to succeed,” he writes. “The hard work, creativity, and sacrifice needed to solve today’s problems can come from each of us.”

Jackson, who earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from Rice, is an associate professor in the Department of Biology and the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University and is director of Duke’s Program in Ecology and its new Environmental Stable Isotope Laboratory. In 1999, he was one of 19 scientists honored at the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering from the National Science Foundation. About six years ago, Jackson established the Janus Scholarship at Rice, an annual student award that encourages research from multiple perspectives into environmental issues.

—Christopher Dow