Nicholas School

Welcome to the Nicholas School!
by William H. Schlesinger, Dean

As we enter this new millennium, more than 6 billion people share the planet with us, and the world seems destined to add another 3 billion citizens during the lifetime of our current students. Our challenge will be to provide food, shelter, health, and peace to the expanding human population, while at the same time maintaining the fabric of biodiversity in the natural ecosystems that sustain life on this planet. To meet this challenge we need professionals trained in both in science and policy to understand and tackle environmental issues, both here and abroad.

The Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University is designed to train these environmental professionals--those who will work within the private and public sector to sustain the environment, and those who will work within academic and other research institutions to understand the human impact on our planet.
Web Link - Nicholas School

The Nicholas Environmental Notebook
"A 12-part series of commentaries on the state of the environment, designed to bring crucial environmental issues to the attention of the public and the decision-makers who will shape national policy for years to come. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see new commentaries and tell us what you think."
Web Link - Environmental Notebook

2005 Environmental Crossroads
A state-by-state guide to environmental issues and experts.
Web Link - Environmental Crossroads

Magazine
Web Link - dukeenvironment Magazine

John McPhee

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A Mountain

A small cabin stands in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, about a hundred yards off a trail that crosses the Cascade Range. In midsummer, the cabin looked strange in the forest. It was only twelve feet square, but it rose fully two stories and then had a high and steeply peaked roof. From the ridge of the roof, moreover, a ten-foot pole stuck straight up. Tied to the top of the pole was a shovel. To hikers shedding their backpacks at the door of the cabin on a cold summer evening - as five of us did - it was somewhat unnerving to look up and think of people walking around in snow perhaps thirty-five feet above, hunting for that shovel, then digging their way down to the threshold. Men from the Chelan County Snow Survey use the cabin in winter while they measure snow depths and snow desities, and figure how much runoff to expect at the time of thaw. Because of the almost unbelievable amount of snow that can accumulate in that part of the State of Washington, what they do there is a vital matter to the people below and even far beyond the mountains.

the opening paragraph
Part I - A Mountain
Encounters with the Archdruid
by John McPhee
1971

Web Link - The John McPhee Reader
Web Link - also - THe John McPhee Reader