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| Volume XI, No.2 Spring 2001 |
Remarkably, one of the most serious threats
to life on Earth is poverty. Not only is it correlated with illiteracy,
disease, and violence, but recent national events have made still
other facts more sobering: terrorism and religious zealotry flourish
in some of the most poverty-stricken regions of the world—regions
that show some of the highest rates of population growth. Poverty,
too, is a growing factor in the wholesale loss of plant and animal
species around the world.
According to the CIA Factbook 2001, the twentieth
century was marked by a rapid loss of nonrenewable resources, depletion
of forest areas and wetlands, and extinction of animal and plant
species. It is human nature to exploit available resources for
short-term gain without regard for the long-term consequences.
So, it is no surprise that those fighting for survival will do
what they can to support themselves and their families. The destruction
of the rainforest in Brazil and the loss of wild-life in east Africa
are but two examples. But as the naturalist E.O. Wilson has argued,
if current practices continue, one-fifth of all living species
will be lost by the year 2030. Clearly, a major initiative by the
industrialized world is needed. Unfortunately, the large number
of people living in poverty is not encouraging. Of the world’s
6 billion people, 1.2 billion live in what is considered extreme
poverty.
It is thus with hope for the future that we publish
Professor Stephen Young’s timely essay on the innovative
work that is being done in China to alleviate poverty. Halfway
around the globe, scores of people and organizations are working—one
community at a time—to reduce the ranks of the poor so as
to conserve the region’s resources. It is an approach that
deserves everyone’s attention.
The City of Salem is currently celebrating anniversaries
for two of its most distinguished native sons, Nathaniel Hawthorne
and Nathaniel Bowditch. Thanks to Professor Nancy Schultz, we are
able to join the celebration by publishing a review of The House
of Seven Gables, 150 years after its first publication. Accompanied
by Kim Mimnaugh’s striking photography, Nancy’s review
brings to life Hawthorne’s story and the prominent house
that still stands on Turner Street.
Nathaniel Bowditch, mathematician, astronomer,
and geographer, is perhaps a less familiar author, but is no less
fascinating. He, too, earned an international reputation during
his lifetime. His New American Practical Navigator is
200 years old and still in print. Bowditch’s reputation,
however, was built on more than his skills as a navigator and writer.
His early-American entrepreneurship is rivaled,
if at all, by Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson (see letter to the editor).
Please enjoy some of the best that Salem State
College has to offer.
— Margaret Vaughan
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Those who sail the world’s oceans
have more than a passing acquaintance with the name Nathaniel
Bowditch, author of The New American Practical Navigator.
First published in 1802 and still being printed with continual
updates, this indispensable volume contained the first complete
and accurate handbook of navigation tables along with additional
data on winds, tides, currents, and reliable mathematical techniques
for fixing location at sea.
— from “ Salem’s Stellar Scientist, Nathaniel Bowditch,” Sextant,
Volume VII, No.1, 1996, by Mildred Berma |
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