Environment: Ecology: The New Jeremiahs

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THERE has not been a topic for such worried conversation since James Baldwin forecast the fire next time. Suburban matrons predict the melting of the polar icecaps followed by catastrophic floods. Busy executives and bearded hippies discuss the presence of DDT in the flesh of Antarctic penguins. All sorts of Americans utter new words like ecosystem and eutrophication. Pollution may soon replace the Viet Nam war as the nation's major issue of protest.

It is, in short, the year of ecology, a word derived from the Greek oikos, meaning "house." In modern usage, ecology is the study of nature's house or environment, including man's complex dependence on a bewildering variety of other creatures and life processes.

Because of their grim warnings about man's environmental abuses, the once sheltered ecologists are turning into modern Jeremiahs. Who are they? In part, they are the descendants of yesterday's conservationists, who harried the U.S. into setting up national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. But there are significant differences. The old conservationists were nature lovers and esthetes who often seemed devoted to fencing off nature for themselves. Today's ecologists are scientists who know that all nature is interconnected and that any intervention has far-reaching effects. They are moved to action not only by considerations of beauty and sentiment but also by growing knowledge of the possibly disastrous consequences of unthinking intervention. The need for their expert opinions is being increasingly felt in Congress, the regulatory agencies and corporations, giving them an influence that promises to match or surpass that of the outspoken atomic scientists of the '50s.

During the past weeks, TIME has interviewed some of the top men in key branches of ecology. All agree that ecologists combat threats to the environment. They differ only in the kinds of actions they would take:

> George E. Hutchinson, 66, of Yale, specializes in limnology (the study of lakes) and in the puzzle of why closely related animals coexist without devouring one another. He is a quietist. "I tend to concentrate on things where I can be uniquely effective," he says, and his theoretical work in limnology has greatly aided the practical work of water-pollution control. Unlike some alarmist ecologists, Hutchinson thinks that mankind will survive its excesses. "But the cost to the satisfactions of life will be enormous. There is already a reaction to overcrowding in the cities—riots. The fact that people can't sit in a garden, watch birds around them—this is the real source of difficulty. We need more research not only on the minimal needs of people in cities but also on their optimal needs. What can we do to help them feel more truly human?"