The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered

Daniel Botkin's Discordant Harmonies (1990) was considered by many to be the classic text of the environmental movement. The book was the first to challenge the then dominant view that nature remained constant over time unless disturbed by human influence. Nature was believed to achieve a form and structure that would persist forever; if disturbed, it would recover, returning to that state of perfect balance. Discordant Harmonies argued that natural ecological systems are constantly fluctuating and our plans, policies, and laws governing the environment must change to reflect this new understanding. The ideas expressed in Discordant Harmonies, considered ahead of their time in 1990, are now timelier than ever. The belief in a balanced nature is alive and well, though those who hold it are constantly confronted by scientific evidence that stands in opposition. In The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered, Botkin brings Discordant Harmonies into the twenty-first century. The book is updated with new research and statistics, case studies on climate change, and a new introduction.

Table of Contents:
Introduction ; Preface to the 1990 edition ; Part I: The Current Dilemma ; Chapter 1: A View From a Marsh: Myths and Facts about Nature ; Chapter 2: Why the Elephants Died: Breakdown in the Management of Living resources ; Chapter 3: Moose In the Wilderness: The Instability of Populations ; Chapter 4: Oaks in New Jersey: Machine Age Forests ; Part II: Background to Crisis ; Chapter 5: Mountain Lions and Mule Deer: Nature as Divine Order ; Chapter 6: Earth as a Fellow Creature: Organic Views of Nature ; Chapter 7: In Mill Hollow: Nature as the Great Machine ; Part III: Evolving Images ; Chapter 8:The Forest in the Computer: New Metaphors for Nature ; Chapter 9: Within the Moose's Stomach: Nature as the Biosphere ; Part IV: Resolutions for Our Time ; Chapter 10: Fire In The Forest: Managing Living Resources ; Chapter 11: Salmon in Wild Rivers and Grizzlies in Yellowstone: Managing Wildlife and Conserving Endangered Species ; Chapter 12: Winds on Mauna Loa: How to Approach Managing the Biosphere ; Chapter 13 Life on a globally Warmed Planet ; Chapter 14: The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Nature in the Twenty-First Century ; Postscript: A Guide to Action ; Notes ; Index

About the Author :
Daniel B. Botkin is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Review :
2013 USA Best Book Awards Finalist "I can't think of another author who has had so great an impact on natural resource management as Daniel Botkin. His most recent book, The Moon in the Nautilus Shell, challenges us to rethink ecology in the same way the Origin of Species changed the approach to biology. Botkin's reality-based ecology calls us to practice good science and effective conservation in this time when it is needed most." -- Kerry Fitzpatrick, Wildlife Ecologist, Michigan Department of Natural Resources "Congratulations to Daniel Botkin on this remarkable book. How does our willingness to believe in a "balance of nature" affect all environmental thought? The question has never been more relevant or the answers here more profound. Best of all, they remain stories and never a sermon. Humans can be forgiven for believing in myths. However, it is time to be honest about why Mother Earth does not always behave the way we want. Solving environmental problems calls for candor-which is the beauty in the stories here. They are indeed earnest, and elegantly written. This remains a rare and masterful treatment of those environmental issues that somehow never go away." -- Alfred Runte, author of National Parks: The American Experience "Daniel Botkin's 1990 book, Discordant Harmonies, was the most important publication about the environment --and especially about mankind and Nature-- written in the second half of the twentieth century. It is one of three books that I keep constantly on my bedside table. His new book, The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered, is bound to play a similar role in the twenty-first century. This magisterial and beautifully written work weaves together threads from many disciplines -- from folkways and mythology and classical texts to the best of modern environmental science. Botkin tells it like it is, always objective, always fair, always tied to the facts." -- John R. Bockstoce, ethnologist and arctic historian "Dan Botkin engages us to think deeply about the relation between Man and Nature--a relation that he examines from a fascinating diversity of modern, historical, and cultural perspectives. His book reveals the extent to which human decisions are influenced by an inherent need for mythologies, and how societal progress increasingly depends on obtaining facts and data to check those mythologies. It provokes natural scientists to pay more attention to, and appreciate, the rich complexities and dynamic nature of ecosystems. Through a series of highly illustrative examples, Botkin demonstrates that healthy skepticism is critical in guiding scientific inquiry and in making resource management and policy decisions." -- Pierre Glynn, US Geological Survey, National Research Program "Dan's book is, essentially, a tribute to the knowledge we can gain from analyzing observed information about nature, in contrast to the knowledge we think is achieved through analyzing computer models of natural systems. Dan's writing about the search for scientific understanding of nature, and about conflicts between observations of what happens to creatures and places in the world when conservation strategies are based on symbolic models, is compelling and poetic." -- Joe Browder, an American environmental leader and first Conservation Director of Friends of the Earth Featured in Reports of the National Center for Science Education