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Sustainability Reading list February 1, 2008. Click Here

This is a recommended reading list from my lecture and published articles on sustainability and the Resource Buffer Theory. It includes a wide variety of books and articles from over the last century (most of them recent!) that help understand the threats to human, ecological, or environmental sustainability by overpopulation, dependence on oil, carbon dioxide effect on atmosphere, and in particular, the assymetrical distribution of resources (or support systems) as cited in several talks and papers of related topics and titles, April 10th, 2008. Click Here

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"Revisiting the Thornthwaite and Mather Water Balance " JAWRA 43(6):1604, 2008. Click Here

ABSTRACT: This technical note clarifies confusion currently present in research using and/or citing the 1955 and 1957 editions of the Thornthwaite and Mather Water Balance (or Budget) owing to corrections to errant tables in the 1955 edition made by the authors for the 1957 edition. Confusion over the two editions and the formulas used have clouded the results of research, management, and educational publications ever since, resulting in frequent misunderstanding of the method’s utility as well as how its results compare with other frequently used methods for estimating evapotranspiration..Click Here

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"Climate, Weather, and Global Warming " Short essay February, 2007. Click Here

ABSTRACT: There is no abstract for this brief 650-word essay, prompted by a letter to the Editor complaining about "twelve feet of global warming" in her front yard, referring of course to the heavy lake effect and nor'easter snowfall earlier in Febuary, 2007.Click Here

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"Conservation" Unpublished short essay May, 2005. Click Here

ABSTRACT: Setting of conservation in the Twentieth Century, five prominent - and different - individuals who played roles in the movement, definitions, problems, and opportunities There is no abstract for this brief 500-word essay..

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"Watershed Functions " Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 33(1):1; and published in Water Resources Journal (UNESCAP), pp. 32-41. Sept., 1997 [This is the original text, but the fiugres have been updated to those in “Forest and Wildland Watershed Functions,” invited Chapter 1in A Century of Forest and Wildland Watershed Lessons, George G. Ice and John D. Stednick, editor s. Pages 1-18; 2004.] CLICK HERE

ABSTRACT: Watershed functions that dominate the hydrologic environment are identified and discussed. Hydrological and ecological functions are considered in relation to the storm and annual hydrographs, and to water quality. Two integrative watershed responses to these functions are also articulated. Since most of the Earth's water is in storage, consideration of the hydrologic cycle as movement between water storage sites enhances this functional and response characterization of the watershed which, in turn, suggests guidance and direction for the restoration of watershed functions.

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"The Critical Role of 'Unused' Resources " Water Resources Bulletin 31(4):589: 1995. This is the first in a series of articles dealing with a broad view of natural resources, their distribution, and sustainability. CLICK HERE

ABSTRACT: The complement to an often-observed, well-documented, and widely-accepted environmental principle about the distribution of resource use is observed. Together, the complement and principle comprise an original theory about resource distribution: The Resource Buffer Theory suggests a context for consideration of several current issues including long range population growth, resource use, and species survival.

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"Lessons from the Past to Sustain the Future" Keynote address presented at Tri-Society meeting - NYS Sections of Society of American Foresters, The Wildlife Society, and American Fisheries Society - at Liverpool, NY, February 3, 2005. CLICK HERE

ABSTRACT: An innovative way to consider the vast ‘unused’ portion of our natural resources reveals a common and universal ecological pattern. It is characterized by the bulk of the resource being a cushion “in the background,” a seemingly endless supply of the resource. Not so. Those ‘unused’ masses of our resources are buffers essential to life on the planet: they provide back-up protection for life in all its forms. The observed atomic-to-cosmic blueprint demands our attention. This paper connects the dots between the nature of nature, natural resources, population, and sustainability. To achieve sustainability resource management policies and practices must be based on the nature, value, and preservation of the buffers consistent with all the implications – demands and challenges – of a growing human population.

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"The Resource Buffer Theory: Connecting the Dots from Conservation to Sustainability" article prepared for and presented at the Environmental Protection Agency and US. Forest Service' "Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium," September, 2004 in Denver, Colorado. Published in: Aguirre-Bravo, Celedonio, et. al. Eds. 2005. Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium: Unifying Knowledge for Sustainability in the Western Hemisphere ; 2004 September 20-24; Denver, CO. Proceedings RMRS-P-000. Ogden , UT : U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Station. Available in PDF format. Journal of Ecological Anthropology 9:76-81 2005. Revised and expanded paper "A Road to Sustainability" scheduled for publication Environmental Practice, Summer, 2007. CLICK HERE The following is a generic abstract:

ABSTRACT: Review of conservation history and scientific developments help s us understand relationships between humans, environment, and sustainability. Applying “conservation” to natural resources and practical resource management occurred early in the Twentieth Century; practical economic definitions of conservation and natural resource followed. Resource surpluses underpin the luxury of conservation in which we currently bask. We are not paying attention to the fact that accumulated natural science discoveries about wide-ranging resource distribution – so specialized that many scientists are unaware of each others’ works – are remarkably alike. The pattern – the Resource Buffer Theory – demands recognition, understanding, and emulation to ensure humankind’s survival. Buffers are vast amounts of resources that are as essential to species survival as are the few units of the resource utilized by individuals; despite their vastness, they often display delicate limits. The terrestrial resource buffers to which we have access and on which we depend are Hardin’s global commons. Maintaining a large biodiversity buffer is paramount. The distribution of carbon – the stuff of life and a critical linkage between the hydro- energy- and biospheres – contradicts the pattern, indicative of Planet Earth’s overpopulation. Consequent global change events are signaling us that humankind’s oblivious violation of the ubiquitous environmental pattern provides an unparalleled challenge to our survival. Faced with the imperative of sustainability, we need to connect the dots, to control the Earth’s human population and activities including resource use and waste, and to understand and thereby proactively emulate the Resource Buffer Theory in our natural resources management policies and practices.

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