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Environmental Literacy

12/22/2013

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Naturalist Readings

A number of years ago, some organization or other circulated a questionnaire asking what a person in the environmental field should read.  They were attempting to establish a basic literacy framework, and the answers they got were pretty basic. Most respondents listed history, literature, philosophy, and sacred texts such as The Bible. Some listed The Federalist Papers – to which I would add The Antifederalist Papers to do justice to two great and competing trends in American Government.

Aside from that provision, I find this answer appropriate on one level, yet bemusing. How sad that we cannot count on modern day professionals to have basic literacy. At the same time, none of the listed texts, aside from a few obscure passages in The Bible, deal with conservation at all. Therefore, I have reimagined the process. After one has a basic literacy in literature, history, science, the humanities, etc. what works make a person environmentally literate.  Here are my top ten, and they are approximately in order of importance. Feel free to comment, suggest your own list, etc.

Walden (or Life in the Woods) – Henry David Thoreau

The American Seasons (four volume series) - Edwin Way Teale (Pulitzer Prize)

A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold

The Future of Life – Edward O. Wilson

Desert Solitaire – Edward Abby

The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen

The End of Nature – Bill McKibben

Refuge, An Unnatural History - Terry Tempest Williams

Silent Spring – Rachel Carson

The Forest Unseen – David George Haskell (Nominated for Pulitzer Prize)



2 Comments
Ray Zimmerman link
12/22/2013 07:44:43 pm

Had there been more space, I might have included The Outermost House, Henry Beston's classic about a year spent living among the dunes and marshes of Cape Cod. I certainly should ha e listed something by John McPhee such as Encounters with the Arch Druid, or The Control of Nature, or his four volume series on the Geology of North America.

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Ray Zimmerman link
12/30/2013 09:05:00 pm

Had there been even more room, I might have included Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, or Life and Death of the Salt Marsh by John and Mildred Teal, or even The Immense Journey by Loren Eiseley.

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