21 



Mrs. Unsoeld. Very good. Thank you. I will now yield to the gen- 

 tlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Furse. 



Ms. Furse. I would just like to ask, Madam Chair, if we could 

 have unanimous consent to leave the record open at the end of this 

 hearing because I do have some questions. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. It always is for two weeks. 



Ms. Furse. Right. Thank you. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. All right. Then the gentleman from northern 

 California, Mr. Hamburg. 



Mr. Hamburg. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I was really 

 moved by this testimony, and part of it is the very difficult econom- 

 ic situation in my district which I mentioned in my opening state- 

 ment, but even more than that, it is just kind of a gut concern I 

 have and a concern that I know is evident in this room that we are 

 destroying our biological heritage, and we don't get another shot at 

 this. I am very glad to hear Dr. Naiman talk about countries in 

 Europe which have gone to the brink and have seen — it reminds 

 me of the Pogo quote about if we don't change direction, we are 

 going to end up where we are headed. And I think, indeed, that is 

 our situation, and we really have no choice. 



And, you know, as passionately as our new President has talked 

 about our total need to change in many ways that we do business 

 in our society, there is surely no area where we need to change 

 more than in terms of this whole issue of watershed restoration. 

 And also our new President has talked a lot about the need to 

 invest in infrastructure, and I am all for good roads and bridges 

 and all these other kind of public works projects, but perhaps this 

 is the most fundamental infrastructure project because this is the 

 infrastructure of our lives. And if we don't repair this infrastruc- 

 ture, you know, all the roads and bridges are not going to, you 

 know, put Humpty back together again. So I was very moved by 

 the testimony. I thank you very much. 



I want to just ask Dr. Karr if you would expand a little bit on 

 your statement about the need for or the lack of societal literacy. 

 How do we teach our children, and how do we teach society? And I 

 think this is something that Congresswoman Unsoeld was trying to 

 get at. What are the ways that we can get this idea across broadly 

 enough so we can build the kind of political will and momentum 

 that we need to make this happen? Because, you know, all the 

 hearings in the world like this are not going to do it. We need to be 

 able to make this an issue that has national prominence and will 

 build a political momentum for it. 



Mr. Karr. As a society we have to recognize our dependence on 

 earth's life support systems. We can't infinitely substitute increas- 

 ingly complex and expensive technologies to replace the degrada- 

 tion in those life support systems. If I were to recommend one 

 thing for you to read, I would recommend that you read a book by 

 David Orr entitled "Ecological Literacy." It is a wonderful explana- 

 tion of the lack in our educational system of making people under- 

 stand those dependencies. 



Mr. Hamburg. Anyone else want to comment on societal literacy 

 around these issues? 



Mr. DoppELT. Yes. I will take a shot at it in a different way, that 

 I think that in part, given where we are today, we have to start 



