On January 24, 2004, Mark submitted a letter to Mother Earth News about population and construction, two topics he’d read about recently in that publication. An editor there quickly informed him that his letter would be published and then invited…
Tag: Articles
To Mother Earth News, Re: Population and Construction
I was recently given a gift subscription to Mother Earth News. I read my first issue (December/January 2004) from cover to cover and found it to be a fantastic publication. I look forward to being a longtime reader. I have,…
To Natural History, Re: Population Ecology
Cheers to Katharine Milton (“Something to Howl About,” 10/03) for illuminating the importance of two critical facts about population ecology — that “prudent” parasites do not kill their hosts, and that population size fluctuates in response to the availability of…
To Scientific American, Re: Contradictory Stance
Your recent special issue on neuroscience (September 2003) shows, unsurprisingly and with few exceptions, a striking uniformtiy of voice and vision about the topic. The cover declares the issue to be about “Better Brains: How Neuroscience Will Enhance You” (emphasis…
To Scientific American, Re: Technological Fixes
On the whole, your balanced view of technology (SA Perspectives “Get Real,” 4/03) seems appropriate. However, when you suggest that to stop research is to give up trying to make the world a better place, you tend toward your own…
To Scientific American, Re: Biodiversity
If a human population’s death rate or a nation’s commercial bankruptcy rate increased 17 times, it would be considered an unparalleled disaster. To consider this extreme-low-end estimate of the increase in the current extinction rate — not to mention larger…
Perspectives on September 11, 2001
Following are links to selected external writings on the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Note that these readings almost invariably do not fully reflect the particular perspective taken by Sostenuto, but they do provide valuable information…
To Scientific American, Re: Earth’s Orbit
In addition to the potential problems noted for the idea of using gravitationally slingshot asteroids to shift Earth’s orbit and thereby foster life in the face of the sun’s increasing luminosity (“Save the Earth,” June 2001), Kepler’s third law ensures…
To Scientific American, Re: Population and Food
A well established principle of population ecology is that an increase in food availability generates an increase in population, as surely in a lynx population which finds an abundance of hares as in a human population that purposefully increases food…
To Scientific American, Re: Human Exceptionalism
Tearing down the wall of human exceptionalism, a set of false conceits that inhibits us from genuinely understanding our place in the world, has always strengthened the pursuit of natural truth. In “The Culture of Chimpanzees,” authors Andrew Whiten and…