Developing Ecological Consciousness

DEVELOPING ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: PATHS TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
by Christopher Uhl - (ISBN 0-7425-3291-7)

Should we teach ecology as an academic discipline, value-neutral and devoid of emotional attachment? Biologist and author Christopher Uhl's answer is an emphatic "no." In Developing Ecological Consciousness: Paths to a Sustainable Future, he treats ecology as the integrative mother of all sciences, the understanding of which is so essential to our continued existence that it must be absorbed thoroughly as if through the pores of our skin.

Uhl's elegantly written book invites the reader to touch nature, visualize interactions, and relate ecology to personal experience. He does this through questions for reflection, such as "How do you feel knowing that there are hundreds of foreign chemicals in your body tissues?"; through practice exercises, such as sitting by a stream and coming up with 50 questions about the natural world you observe; through vignettes, such as an uncertain encounter with a panther in the Amazon; and through case studies, such as the energy and material necessary to produce a can of Coca-Cola[TM]. The net result is a book that is as much about spirituality and social systems as it is about biology and chemistry.