 A QUIET
STAND OF ALDERS "The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth All set neere to him long flourisheth." -- William Browne, c. 1613 |
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A QUIET
STAND OF ALDERS "The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth All set neere to him long flourisheth." -- William Browne, c. 1613 |
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Welcome to A Quiet Stand of Alders, the author
website of Stanley Rice, a science educator
and writer. If you care passionately about the natural world and its
evolutionary history, this website is for you. Here you will find essays about ecology, evolution; and ethical, political, and religious issues connected with them. I intend my approach as constructive, although I do not hold back from criticism when the facts demand it. At the same time, I want to preserve a context of peaceful meditation, such as you will find in a quiet stand of alder trees down by the river. Peace and zeal are the fire and ice of a scientist, an educator, an evolutionist, or a naturalist. About every two weeks, a new essay will be posted. You can find all of the old essays in the archives. I am embedded in the creationist and anti-environmentalist heartland of rural Oklahoma and will report to you from the front lines! I consider myself a missionary for evolution and ecology. Please feel free to contact me at the email below, or by posting comments on my evolution blog. Diversity July 13, 2010
My recently-released Green Planet: How Plants Keep the Earth Alive describes many of the things that plants do that make all of life possible. It is obvious, then, that we need to save them. But many plants do not need any help from us. They are already abundant and will keep growing even after the human economy and human population collapse. Trees will someday grow over all of our decomposing human structures. Why, then, do we need to save plants, which seem capable of taking care of themselves? It is not just plants that the world needs, but a diversity of plants. We need not just the abundant species, but the rare ones also. And it is the rare ones that are vanishing due to human activity. Many rainforest plant species are becoming extinct because of the destruction of the habitats in which they live. And if we do succeed in saving the habitats, we might only discover that global warming will cause these habitats to be unsuitable for the very species for which we have saved them. We also need to save genetic diversity that is within the populations of each plant species. What do we need the rare species of plants for? Many wild plants have already proven to be the source of pharmaceutical compounds, and of genes that have been used to protect our agricultural crops from diseases. And here is the point. We cannot know in advance which plant species may prove important to us, and which may not. Who could ever have guessed that chemicals from a little species of pink-flowered plant from Madagascar would contain a drug that saves children from leukemia? or that the Pacific yew would contain a chemical that helps to cure ovarian cancer? We cannot save only the important species; we have to save all of them, since we cannot know which ones of them are important to the human economy. When a rare species of plant becomes extinct, the world loses only a tiny bit of its capacity to produce oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide, hold down the soil, and contribute to the food chain. A tiny loss? But with this species is lost a treasure of genes, some of which just might be of immense importance to the human species. January-March 2008 April-June 2008 July-September 2008 October-December 2008 January-March 2009 (includes The Sabbath of the Earth) April-June 2009 (includes The End of Altruism and If Humans Vanished...) July-September 2009 (includes You Are an Ecosystem) October-December 2009 (includes Absurd Creativity and Fiscal Responsibility -- In Plants) January-March 2010 (includes Deep Time and Deep Intestines and The Evolution of Spite) April-June 2010 Populations, Evolution, and the Census My Neighbors’ Earth Spring, a Time of Renewal Trying to Interfere with Natural Selection Putting Us In Our Place |
  Honest Aba blog about evolution and related topics Books:  New York: Facts on File, 2007.  New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Upcoming Books: Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Encyclopedia of Biodiversity Life of Earth: Portrait of a Beautiful, Middle-Aged, Stressed-Out Planet Encyclopedia of Evolution (Revised Edition) Articles Presentations |
