We need to see the Chesapeake beyond its water quality issues
We need to see the Chesapeake beyond its water quality issues
Karl Blankenship's Editor's Note, "A restored Bay is more than just clean water," (May 2011) is right on target.
Read together with the commentary, "Bay's restoration needs all of the sciences, including social ones," (May 2011) by the Bay Program's Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee on the need to include the social sciences in the Bay restoration effort, it points toward a growing realization that as important as reducing nitrogen and phosphorus may be, bringing back the Bay means more than water chemistry.
As the quote from Ann Swanson stated so eloquently, the Bay's magic lies in its landscapes, and in the people and animals that call those landscapes home.
I would add that in addition to the sciences and social sciences, we also need the humanities to help us understand what the Bay means, just as artists and writers have always helped us to better understand who we are and why we are the way we are.
Interestingly, when the year 2000 arrived and the British were asked to choose the most important person of the millennium, they did not pick Sir Isaac Newton or another breakthrough scientist or social scientist. They chose William Shakespeare.
Jack Greer
Retired assistant director, Maryland Sea Grant
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