Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment [Hardcover]

Donald G. Kaufman (Author), Cecilia M. Franz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995 | ISBN-10: 0787204609 | ISBN-13: 978-0787204600 | Edition: 2nd

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 584 pages
• Publisher: Kendall Hunt Pub Co; 2nd edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787204609
• ISBN-13: 978-0787204600
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,948,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars optimal environmental education, September 15, 2000

By 

Andrew Schneider (Canton, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment (Hardcover)

I feel lucky to have been a student of Dr. Kaufman's Environmental Biology class at Miami University. This textbook was the first and perhaps only in which I was excited to get to the basement of Brill Science Library in order to bury my nose in its every page. Dr. Kaufman and his Biosphere 2000 have forever altered the course of my life and I feel it can, if taught right, have the same impact on any truth seeking student of the world. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Peace.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very well written textbook for environmental educators., October 8, 1997

By 

Steve Eshbaugh (Montana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment (Hardcover)

This book is one of many environmentl education books I've looked through and it appears to be the best of the lot. The book is well thought out including fascinating pieces written by students. If you're teaching an environmental science class you must review this book.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is why everyone hates environmentalists...., February 2, 2004

By 

A Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment (Hardcover)

Sanctimonious, pompous, preachy - divides the world into two groups: those who are "biocentric" (that is, they share certain religious views, like the "all animals are our brothers and have inherent rights equal to humans"), and those who are contemptuously labelled as part of the problem. In one highly insulting (and highly illogical) passage, they even purport to prove "scientifically" (?) that "biocentric" people are at a higher state of evolution than everyone else. Apparently it has never occurred to these people that evaluating one's motives for wanting a cleaner environment is not the way to get everyone working together for the common good. The first rule of negotiation is "separate people from the problem" - but this book isn't interested in the problem, it's interested in blaming people. That's my first complaint - the pages and pages of whining because humankind is the way it is. (Imagine a criminal justice or sociology or any other kind of text spending two chapters on why the problem proves that people are bad and how we're all responsible and how the problem will go away when we all voluntarily start behaving the way we ought!)

My second complaint is that its solutions are stupid, counterproductive, and don't work. If everyone wants a clean environment but nobody wants to make huge changes to their lifestyle, it seems illogical to focus one's energy on trying to get people to stop driving and stop having children. There are only two ways to get people to do something (regardless of the nature of the problem): overwhelming force or persuasion. Guilt trips don't work and environmentalists haven't GOT overwhelming force, so they need to stop preaching and start looking for solutions. The San Diego Trolley works, on its tiny scale - find out how to make it work on a great big scale. Want to save a tree? Figure out how to get people to buy flooring and paper made with bamboo - stuff grows like a weed. Sustainable farming is a dead end: I've done it, and there are a million problems they don't talk about - but hydroponics gets pesticides (and bioengineering) out of the environment, can feed the world, and has the potential to do so at a PROFIT. In other words, stop these stupid, dead-end techniques that haven't worked and try applying the same problem-solving models that all other sciences and industries use to brainstorm new ideas.

The environment is too important for this sort of bull. We don't need (and most people do NOT want) preaching and religious dogma. We need to come together to ask, what new ideas can we come up with? How can we work WITH, instead of AGAINST, human interests? How can we embrace economic and political and social behavior as the natural part of nature that it is, instead of treating it like a disease that can be eradicated? People don't really want to repeal the Industrial Revolution. They want new solutions, not to be told to go back to the way things were. We gave up farming by hand for a reason. This book is a big part of the problem, because where it should be talking about how to create "options for mutual gain", instead it's talking about everyone outside of their own narrow interest as a potential enemy, rather than a potential ally.

By the way, the business model language I used comes from "Negotiating A Complex World" (Starkey, Boyer, Wilkenfield). They also talk about why nobody really wanted from the start to implement Kyoto but everyone wanted to LOOK like they were serious about Kyoto, to shut up the environmentalists. Pressure tactics and guilt trips and moralizing ain't gonna work, you guys. Time to figure out what will....