In 1977, George Argus at the Canadian Museum of Nature invited the author to join his Rare and Endangered Plants Project in Ottawa (see posts Enlightenment and Biogeography). Both Patrick and Andrew were born at the Ottawa General Hospital.
Move forward to today.
I discovered a copy of a short commentary by George in the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Journal tucked away in my bookcase. The title is Technological Barriers.
‘The computer seems to be the ‘magic bullet’ that will solve our communication problems and will permit us to turn around the environmental crisis in the next decades. The use of Geographic Information Systems to put our problems into some kind of geographic perspective, holistic modelling to see the big picture and expert systems to train cadres of ‘village ecologists ‘ who will keep watch on the ecosystem in which they live. I don’t believe it will work.’
‘Remote Sensing is an effective way to gather data on a macro scale level. The need however for extensive ground truthing and continuous examination of assumptions cannot be overemphasized.‘
‘In the face of problems such as world overpopulation, our undeterred rush towards more and more consumerism now being clothed in ‘green rhetoric’, the continued exploitation of the natural world, and the measure of everything in economic terms, the technological barriers to environmental information seem trivial.’
‘Although these technological barriers are not completely clear, I have a feeling that their solution will involve grappling with three other problems: politics, education and money.’
Heather and I have fond memories of our time in Ottawa. From a work perspective, it produced two publications. The Rare Vascular Plants of Nova Scotia, and the Rare Vascular Plants of Saskatchewan.
Today, I look across the road at the flowering horse chestnut tree. I remember George, the beekeeper and willow (Salix) expert, being impressed by the diversity of bees on the tree (see post The Bookshelf )
I believe that George’s comments on technology are even more true today.
References
G. W. Argus, 1992, Technological Barriers, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Journal, v 20, p.175-177.
R. V. Maher, David White, George Argus and Paul Keddy,1977,The Rare Vascular Plants of Nova Scotia, 37 pp, Syllogeus 18, Published by the National Museum, Ottawa.
R. V. Maher, George Argus and Vernon Harmes, 1978, The Rare Vascular Plants of Saskatchewan, 42 pp, Syllogeus 19, Published by the National Museum, Ottawa.
Ernest Blair Experiment 