(This letter has been submitted to the Chapel Hill News. We publish it here today to acknowledge Earth Day.)
Humankind inhabits a tiny celestial orb that is miraculously set among of sea of stars. As far as we know, life as we know it exists nowhere else in the Universe. In the light of […]
Author Archives: editor
Earth Day letter to an editor
April 22, 2008 – 5:08 pm
Life as we know it being put at risk
March 25, 2008 – 9:24 am
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 22 March 2008.)
The chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change was in Raleigh last month to speak at the Emerging Issues Forum and to receive a six-figure award for his distinguished service.
My good fortune was to join the panel chairman, Rajendra K. Pachauri, and others […]
Leaders refuse to see what’s happening
February 13, 2008 – 10:33 am
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 12 February 2008.)
Scientific evidence is springing up everywhere that indicates the massive and pernicious impact of the human species on the limited resources of Earth, its frangible ecosystems and life as we know it.
Guided by mountains of carefully and skillfully developed research regarding climate change, top […]
Our gift to children is a murky future
January 6, 2008 – 2:22 pm
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 6 January 2008.)
The leaders in my generation apparently wish to live without having to accept limits to growth of seemingly endless economic globalization, increasing per capita consumption of scarce resources and skyrocketing human population numbers worldwide; their desires are evidently insatiable; they choose to believe anything […]
Clarity of vision on environment needed
December 8, 2007 – 5:00 pm
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 2 December 2007.)
Congratulations are due Nobel Prize Winner, Al Gore. By raising awareness of the scientific consensus on climate change, he favors a good enough future for our children. At least to me, the “powers that be” are in denial of reality and unwilling to openly […]
World Food and Human Population Growth, by Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D.
October 20, 2007 – 3:49 pm
We’ve added to the Sustainability Southeast home page a new narrated multimedia presentation by Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D. Hopfenberg describes how food supply drives human population growth, and how human population growth adversely affects our environment and our ability to sustain our culture.
Click to view Hopfenberg’s presentation
It’s time for leaders to tackle problems
August 25, 2007 – 3:01 pm
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 15 August 2007.)
Bravo to Winston Kirby for his CHN letter of August 8th, “Candidates ignore pressing problems”. Many too many politicians and corporate CEOs are ignominiously disregarding consistent and overwhelming scientific evidence of global warming and other pernicious forms of climate change. Everyone understands the […]
Humans still face looming challenges
May 14, 2007 – 1:18 pm
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 13 May 2007.)
May 27 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson, a woman of distinction who is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and brave scientists in modern history.
Some people have called Carson the mother of the contemporary environmental movement. She […]
Reality and illusion compete for our attention
February 13, 2007 – 4:44 pm
(Steven Salmony wrote this Guest Column for the Chapel Hill News, 11 February 2007.)
Each human culture presents its many members with knowledge of reality and with longstanding, adamantly held perceptions that are illusory. For example, unverified cultural transmissions can give rise to widely shared distortions of the world whenever mistaken impressions are consensually validated as […]
Population growth overwhelms planet
January 12, 2007 – 9:40 am
(This letter was published in the Chapel Hill News, 10 January 2007.)
Time magazine’s Person of the Year is YOU. That’s right. You and me and every other person on the planet have been chosen as “person of the year” in 2006. We are becoming aware of people power, we are told.
This could mean that almost […]
