By Sydney Engelhardt
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
People must learn how to live within the limits of nature because human population growth and the increase use of natural resources cannot be sustained at current levels, a Towson University professor argues in a new book.
Brian Fath, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Towson and the co-author of “Flourishing Within Limits to Growth: Following Nature’s Way,” said nature provides the lessons for how human societies can minimize their impact on the environment.
“The main message is we should be imitating how nature functions because nature has been able to flourish within these limits for a long time,” Fath said. “We need to do a much better job recycling and reusing things. Nature is complete in its cycle of material.”
Sven Erik Jøgensen, an ecologist, chemist and professor at the University of Copenhagen who is one of the book’s authors, said in an email that he wanted to write a book that provided solutions to the world’s environmental challenges. He said his previous books about the limits of growth, which were published in 1972, 1993 and 2002, did not come up with solutions to these problems.
Jøgensen said it was only natural for him to ask Fath because they both have the same interests.
The two main take away from the book are learning from nature’s natural limits and figuring out the economics, Fath said.
The book also looks at the economy, its effect on the environment and the importance of understanding price signals and externalities.
The book is intended for general audience and focuses on how humans can live within the limits of nature and flourish, Fath said.
“Flourishing Within Limits to Growth: Following Nature’s Way” is one of three books Fath wrote with Jøgensen.
Four other people joined the project before the book was published: ecologist Soren Nors Nielsen; Simone Bastaianoni, a professor of environmental and cultural heritage and chemistry at the University of Siena; Daniel A. Fiscus, a professor at Frostburg State University; and Federico M. Pulselli, a professor of environmental and physical sciences at the University of Siena.
“We all wrote it together,” Fath said. “It is common for academic books to have different chapters to be by different authors, but in this case we all wrote it.”
The authors worked together through email for the entire book. Fath did some of the editing and research for the book.
Fath said he has always been drawn to science. His father is a chemist and his brother is a biologist.
“Through school I was always interested in science,” Fath said.
He has a Bachelor’s in physics and aeronautics from Miami University in Ohio. Fath also has a Master’s in environmental science from Ohio State University and a Ph.D in ecology from the University of Georgia.
“I thought that I would go into something like aeronautics or engineering,” Fath said. “When I got to my master’s degree I realized I would rather do something with the environment.”
“He is one of the foremost experts on network analysis in the world, literally in the top 10 for ecological network analysis in the world, and perhaps in the top three,” Fiscus said. “He is a warm, friendly, kind person who makes time to assist others and provide service in myriad.”
Fath has few other book contracts without Jøgenson in the works.
“One of these years I would like to sit down and write one of my own book, my view of the world, my scientific view of the world,” Fath said.