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The concept of grumpiness is discussed, and I suggest that matters of concern to scientists range from the everyday grumpiness common in the wider community, which includes issues which are serious matters of concern to many, through misgivings about the way science and in particular the field sciences are currently practised, to deeply held concerns about the longer term viability of the biosphere. Progress, or the lack of it, in addressing major environmental issues over the last half-century is discussed. It will be necessary to balance pessimistic messages with positive news about successes if members of the broader community are to remain active proponents working to reduce the ecological footprint of the human race.

Adam, P. 1998. Biodiversity-the biggest of big pictures. Pp 6-14 in Is the biodiversity tail wagging the zoological dog? Edited by Lunney, D., Dawson, T. J. and C. Dickman, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Adam, P. 2000. Morecambe Bay saltmarshes; 25 years of change. Pp 81-107 in British saltmarshes. Edited by Sherwood, B.R., Gardiner, B.G. and Harris T. Linnean Society of London, London.
Adam, P. 2010. The study of natural history-a PPP. Pp 1-15 in The natural history of Sydney. Edited by Lunney, D., Hutchings, P. and D. Hochuli, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Adam, P. 2012. Our own worst enemies? Pp 69-78 in Science under siege: zoology under threat. Edited by Banks, P., Lunney, D. and C. Dickman, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Anker, P. 2001. Imperial ecology. Environmental order in the British Empire, 1895-1945. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Ayres, P.G. 2012. Shaping ecology: the life of Arthur Tansley. Wiley, Chichester.
Aldred, J. 2013. Seabirds affected by second wave of sticky pollution ‘could number thousands’. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/17/seabirds. Accessed 21 May 2013.
Allen, T. F. H. 2007. Foreword. Pp xiii-xiv. in Comparative plant ecology. A functional approach to common British species. Grime, J.P., Hodgson, J.G. and Hunt, R. Castlepoint Press, Dalbeattie.
Arup, T. 2013. Australia seeks to limit ocean ‘geoengineering’. The Sydney Morning Herald 16 May 2013 p.10.
Beckford, M. 2012. I won't limit population to 70m, May declares. The Telegraph (UK) September 12-18, p.9.
Bryant, K.A. and Calver, M.C. 2012. Adaptive radiation in Australian journals in the Arbustocene ERA: an empty niche for JANCO. Pp 140-149 in Science under siege, zoology under threat. Edited by Banks. P., Lunney, D. and C. Dickman. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Bullough, O. 2013. The last man in Russia, and the struggle to save a dying nation. Allen Lane, London.
Campbell, M. and Pancevski, B. 2013. Spain shrinks as crisis puts babies on hold. The Sunday Times. 7 April 2013. thesundaytimes.co.uk./sto/news/world_news/Europe/article1241915.ece. Accessed 21 May 2013.
Cardinale, B.J. and eight others. 2011. The functional role of producer diversity in ecosystems. American Journal of Botany 98: 572-592.
Carson, R. 1962. Silent Spring. Houghton Miflin, New York.
Carrington, D. 2013. Insecticide firms in secret bid to stop ban that could save bees. The Observer. 28 April 2013 p.5.
Coaldrake, P. and Stedman, L. 2013. Raising the stakes. Gambling with the future of universities. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.
Crossley, M. 2013. Credential creep a luxury too far. http;//newsroom,unsw.edu.au/news/general/credential-creep-luxury-too far. (originally published in The Australian 16 Jan 2013)
Crowther, M.S., Lunney, D. and Parnaby, H. 2012. Are impact factors another key threatening process for Australian fauna? Pp 134-139 in Science under siege, zoology under threat. Edited by Banks, P., Lunney, D. and C. Dickman. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Ehrlich, P. 1968. The population bomb. Ballantine Books. New York.
Eichhorn, M. 2013. Rant and rave. The Bulletin of the British Ecological Society. April 2013, 60-61.
Elith, J., Simpson, J., Hirsch, M. and Burgman, M.A. 2013. Taxonomic uncertainty and decision making for biosecurity: spatial models for myrtle/guava rust. Australasian Plant Pathology. DOI 10.1007/s13313-012-0178-7
Ely, A. 2013. Knowledge and innovation for sustainability. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Evans, G.R. 2010. The University of Cambridge. A new history. I.B. Tauris, London.
Goldsmith, E. and Allen, R. 1972. A blueprint for survival. The Ecologist 2(1) (http://www.the ecologist.info/page 34. html).
Goodell, J. 2010. How to cool the planet. Geoengineering and the audacious quest to fix the earth's climate. Houghton Miflin Harcourt, New York.
Gould, S.J. 2003. The hedgehog, the fox, and the magister's pox. Harmony Books, New York.
Goulson, D. 2010. Bumblebees. Pp 415-429 in Silent summer. The state of wildlife in Britain and Ireland. Maclean, N. (ed). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Harper, S. 2013a. Population challenges for the 21st century. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Harper, S. 2013b. Size, density, distribution and composition of future populations. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 8 April 2013.
Hill, C. 2013. BES journals compliant with RCUK's new open access policy. The Bulletin of the British Ecological Society. April 2013, 64-65.
Hilmer, F.G. 2013a. Raiding tertiary to pay secondary makes no sense. www.smh.com.au/comment/raiding-tertiary-to-pay-secondary. Accessed 17 April 2013.
Hilmer, F. G. 2013b. Strong stance against university funding cuts. Email memo to all staff at UNSW, 16 April 2013.
Holdgate, M.W. 1999. The green web: a union for world conservation. Earthscan, London.
Hulme M. 2013. ‘A safe operating space for humanity’: do people's beliefs need to change. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Hutchings, P. 2012. Death of life sciences a personal perspective. Australian Zoologist 36: 242-246.
Huxley, E. 1993. Peter Scott. Painter, naturalist. Faber & Faber. London.
Ineson, P. 2013. Global change: working together on the evidence base. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Jameson, C. M. 2012. Silent Spring revisited. Bloomsbury, London.
Jasanoff, S. 2008. Speaking honestly to power. www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/id.3599.central.true.ccs.print/bookshelf.aspx. Accessed 29 May 2013.
Krauss, C. 2013. US gas exports pose problems. Portfolio 87: 44-47.
Lovelock, J. 2000. Homage to Gaia: the life of an independent scientist. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Lear, L. 1997. Rachel Carson: witness for nature. Henry Holt, New York.
Lindenmayer, D.B., Likens, G.B., Franklin, J.F. and Muntz, P. 2009. Opportunity in the wake of natural ‘disasters’. Science 324: 463.
Maclean. N. (ed) 2010. Silent summer. The state of wildlife in Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Manning, P. 2012. What the frack? Everything you need to know about coal seam gas. NewSouth QuickEs, Sydney.
Marris, E. 2011. The Lorax. Nature 476:148-149.
Martyr, P. 2012. Taken for granted. Funding arts and humanities research in Australia. Quadrant. no 490, 74-80.
Marshall, A.J. (ed). 1966. The great extermination. A guide to Anglo-Australian cupidity, wickedness & waste. Heinemann, Melbourne.
Martin, P. 2013. Still the lucky country, but some work too many hours. The Sydney Morning Herald 29 May 2013 p. 2.
Mason, C.F. and nine others. 2003. The role of herbicides in the erosion of salt marshes in eastern England. Environmental Pollution 122: 41-49.
Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J and Behrens, W.W. 1972. The limits to growth. Earth Island, London.
Mooney, H.A. 2009. The ecosystem-service chain and the biological diversity crisis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 335: 31-39.
Morris, E. 2007. From horse power to horsepower. Access 30: 2-9.
Mullen, J. 2013a. Paying the price for R and D slowdown. The Land 14 March 2013, p. 25.
Mullen, J. 2013b. R and D dollars down. The Land 28 March 2013, p. 22.
Murphy, P. 2013. The rise and fall of our bureaucratic universities. Quadrant no 496: 48-53.
Oreskes, N. and Conway, D.M. 2010. Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Press, London.
Olshansky, S.J. and nine others. 2005. A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century. New England Journal of Medicine. 352: 1138 -1145.
Owens, S. 2013. Great expectations? Science and environmental sustainability. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Phillips, N. 2013. Scientists wasted 400 years chasing cash for research projects. The Sydney Morning Herald. March 21, p. 14.
Pielke, R.A. 2007. The honest broker: making sense of science in policy and politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Recher, H.F. 2013. What makes this old scientist grumpy. Pp x-x in Grumpy Scientists: The Ecological Conscience of a Nation. edited by D. Lunney, P. Hutchings, and H. F. Recher, Royal Zoological Society New South Wales, Mosman, NSW, Australia.
Roberts, C. 2012. Ocean of life. How our oceans are changing. Allen Lane, London.
Sands, T. 2012. Wildlife in trust. A hundred years of nature conservation. Elliott and Thompson, London.
Schwarzenbach, A. 2011. Saving the world's wildlife. WWF - the first 50 years. Profile Books, London.
Scruton, R. 2011. Green philosophy. How to think seriously about the planet. Atlantic Press, London.
Sheldrake, R. 2013. R &D critical. The Land. March 21, 2013 p.27.
Smith, D. 2011. Dick Smith's population crisis. The dangers of unsustainable growth for Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Suter, K. 1999. Fair warning? The Club of Rome revisited. http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab.rome/default.htm
Turner, J. 2013. Hectoring won't persuade the MMR-deniers. The Times 27 April 2013 p.25.
Turner, J.S. 1948. Foreword. Pp v-vii in Curtis, W.M. Biology for Australian students. Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Tyler, C.R. and Goodhead, R.M. 2010. Impacts of hormone-disrupting chemicals on wildlife. Pp 125-140 in Silent summer. The state of wildlife in Britain and Ireland. edited by N. MacLean. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Webb. L.J., Whitelock, D. and Brereton, J.L.G. (eds) 1969. The last of lands.Conservation in Australia. Jacaranda, Milton.
Woolf, M. 2013. Vegans can milk equality rights. The Sunday Times. 7 April 2013 p.9.
Zimmer, C. 2013. Bringing them back to life. National Geographic 233 (4): 28-43.
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Contents

Data & Figures

References

Adam, P. 1998. Biodiversity-the biggest of big pictures. Pp 6-14 in Is the biodiversity tail wagging the zoological dog? Edited by Lunney, D., Dawson, T. J. and C. Dickman, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Adam, P. 2000. Morecambe Bay saltmarshes; 25 years of change. Pp 81-107 in British saltmarshes. Edited by Sherwood, B.R., Gardiner, B.G. and Harris T. Linnean Society of London, London.
Adam, P. 2010. The study of natural history-a PPP. Pp 1-15 in The natural history of Sydney. Edited by Lunney, D., Hutchings, P. and D. Hochuli, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Adam, P. 2012. Our own worst enemies? Pp 69-78 in Science under siege: zoology under threat. Edited by Banks, P., Lunney, D. and C. Dickman, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Anker, P. 2001. Imperial ecology. Environmental order in the British Empire, 1895-1945. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Ayres, P.G. 2012. Shaping ecology: the life of Arthur Tansley. Wiley, Chichester.
Aldred, J. 2013. Seabirds affected by second wave of sticky pollution ‘could number thousands’. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/17/seabirds. Accessed 21 May 2013.
Allen, T. F. H. 2007. Foreword. Pp xiii-xiv. in Comparative plant ecology. A functional approach to common British species. Grime, J.P., Hodgson, J.G. and Hunt, R. Castlepoint Press, Dalbeattie.
Arup, T. 2013. Australia seeks to limit ocean ‘geoengineering’. The Sydney Morning Herald 16 May 2013 p.10.
Beckford, M. 2012. I won't limit population to 70m, May declares. The Telegraph (UK) September 12-18, p.9.
Bryant, K.A. and Calver, M.C. 2012. Adaptive radiation in Australian journals in the Arbustocene ERA: an empty niche for JANCO. Pp 140-149 in Science under siege, zoology under threat. Edited by Banks. P., Lunney, D. and C. Dickman. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Bullough, O. 2013. The last man in Russia, and the struggle to save a dying nation. Allen Lane, London.
Campbell, M. and Pancevski, B. 2013. Spain shrinks as crisis puts babies on hold. The Sunday Times. 7 April 2013. thesundaytimes.co.uk./sto/news/world_news/Europe/article1241915.ece. Accessed 21 May 2013.
Cardinale, B.J. and eight others. 2011. The functional role of producer diversity in ecosystems. American Journal of Botany 98: 572-592.
Carson, R. 1962. Silent Spring. Houghton Miflin, New York.
Carrington, D. 2013. Insecticide firms in secret bid to stop ban that could save bees. The Observer. 28 April 2013 p.5.
Coaldrake, P. and Stedman, L. 2013. Raising the stakes. Gambling with the future of universities. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.
Crossley, M. 2013. Credential creep a luxury too far. http;//newsroom,unsw.edu.au/news/general/credential-creep-luxury-too far. (originally published in The Australian 16 Jan 2013)
Crowther, M.S., Lunney, D. and Parnaby, H. 2012. Are impact factors another key threatening process for Australian fauna? Pp 134-139 in Science under siege, zoology under threat. Edited by Banks, P., Lunney, D. and C. Dickman. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW.
Ehrlich, P. 1968. The population bomb. Ballantine Books. New York.
Eichhorn, M. 2013. Rant and rave. The Bulletin of the British Ecological Society. April 2013, 60-61.
Elith, J., Simpson, J., Hirsch, M. and Burgman, M.A. 2013. Taxonomic uncertainty and decision making for biosecurity: spatial models for myrtle/guava rust. Australasian Plant Pathology. DOI 10.1007/s13313-012-0178-7
Ely, A. 2013. Knowledge and innovation for sustainability. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Evans, G.R. 2010. The University of Cambridge. A new history. I.B. Tauris, London.
Goldsmith, E. and Allen, R. 1972. A blueprint for survival. The Ecologist 2(1) (http://www.the ecologist.info/page 34. html).
Goodell, J. 2010. How to cool the planet. Geoengineering and the audacious quest to fix the earth's climate. Houghton Miflin Harcourt, New York.
Gould, S.J. 2003. The hedgehog, the fox, and the magister's pox. Harmony Books, New York.
Goulson, D. 2010. Bumblebees. Pp 415-429 in Silent summer. The state of wildlife in Britain and Ireland. Maclean, N. (ed). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Harper, S. 2013a. Population challenges for the 21st century. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Harper, S. 2013b. Size, density, distribution and composition of future populations. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 8 April 2013.
Hill, C. 2013. BES journals compliant with RCUK's new open access policy. The Bulletin of the British Ecological Society. April 2013, 64-65.
Hilmer, F.G. 2013a. Raiding tertiary to pay secondary makes no sense. www.smh.com.au/comment/raiding-tertiary-to-pay-secondary. Accessed 17 April 2013.
Hilmer, F. G. 2013b. Strong stance against university funding cuts. Email memo to all staff at UNSW, 16 April 2013.
Holdgate, M.W. 1999. The green web: a union for world conservation. Earthscan, London.
Hulme M. 2013. ‘A safe operating space for humanity’: do people's beliefs need to change. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Hutchings, P. 2012. Death of life sciences a personal perspective. Australian Zoologist 36: 242-246.
Huxley, E. 1993. Peter Scott. Painter, naturalist. Faber & Faber. London.
Ineson, P. 2013. Global change: working together on the evidence base. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Jameson, C. M. 2012. Silent Spring revisited. Bloomsbury, London.
Jasanoff, S. 2008. Speaking honestly to power. www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/id.3599.central.true.ccs.print/bookshelf.aspx. Accessed 29 May 2013.
Krauss, C. 2013. US gas exports pose problems. Portfolio 87: 44-47.
Lovelock, J. 2000. Homage to Gaia: the life of an independent scientist. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Lear, L. 1997. Rachel Carson: witness for nature. Henry Holt, New York.
Lindenmayer, D.B., Likens, G.B., Franklin, J.F. and Muntz, P. 2009. Opportunity in the wake of natural ‘disasters’. Science 324: 463.
Maclean. N. (ed) 2010. Silent summer. The state of wildlife in Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Manning, P. 2012. What the frack? Everything you need to know about coal seam gas. NewSouth QuickEs, Sydney.
Marris, E. 2011. The Lorax. Nature 476:148-149.
Martyr, P. 2012. Taken for granted. Funding arts and humanities research in Australia. Quadrant. no 490, 74-80.
Marshall, A.J. (ed). 1966. The great extermination. A guide to Anglo-Australian cupidity, wickedness & waste. Heinemann, Melbourne.
Martin, P. 2013. Still the lucky country, but some work too many hours. The Sydney Morning Herald 29 May 2013 p. 2.
Mason, C.F. and nine others. 2003. The role of herbicides in the erosion of salt marshes in eastern England. Environmental Pollution 122: 41-49.
Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J and Behrens, W.W. 1972. The limits to growth. Earth Island, London.
Mooney, H.A. 2009. The ecosystem-service chain and the biological diversity crisis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 335: 31-39.
Morris, E. 2007. From horse power to horsepower. Access 30: 2-9.
Mullen, J. 2013a. Paying the price for R and D slowdown. The Land 14 March 2013, p. 25.
Mullen, J. 2013b. R and D dollars down. The Land 28 March 2013, p. 22.
Murphy, P. 2013. The rise and fall of our bureaucratic universities. Quadrant no 496: 48-53.
Oreskes, N. and Conway, D.M. 2010. Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Press, London.
Olshansky, S.J. and nine others. 2005. A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century. New England Journal of Medicine. 352: 1138 -1145.
Owens, S. 2013. Great expectations? Science and environmental sustainability. Presentation at ‘Global change and biosphere interactions’. British Ecological Society and York Environmental Research Institute. University of York. 9 April 2013.
Phillips, N. 2013. Scientists wasted 400 years chasing cash for research projects. The Sydney Morning Herald. March 21, p. 14.
Pielke, R.A. 2007. The honest broker: making sense of science in policy and politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Recher, H.F. 2013. What makes this old scientist grumpy. Pp x-x in Grumpy Scientists: The Ecological Conscience of a Nation. edited by D. Lunney, P. Hutchings, and H. F. Recher, Royal Zoological Society New South Wales, Mosman, NSW, Australia.
Roberts, C. 2012. Ocean of life. How our oceans are changing. Allen Lane, London.
Sands, T. 2012. Wildlife in trust. A hundred years of nature conservation. Elliott and Thompson, London.
Schwarzenbach, A. 2011. Saving the world's wildlife. WWF - the first 50 years. Profile Books, London.
Scruton, R. 2011. Green philosophy. How to think seriously about the planet. Atlantic Press, London.
Sheldrake, R. 2013. R &D critical. The Land. March 21, 2013 p.27.
Smith, D. 2011. Dick Smith's population crisis. The dangers of unsustainable growth for Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Suter, K. 1999. Fair warning? The Club of Rome revisited. http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab.rome/default.htm
Turner, J. 2013. Hectoring won't persuade the MMR-deniers. The Times 27 April 2013 p.25.
Turner, J.S. 1948. Foreword. Pp v-vii in Curtis, W.M. Biology for Australian students. Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Tyler, C.R. and Goodhead, R.M. 2010. Impacts of hormone-disrupting chemicals on wildlife. Pp 125-140 in Silent summer. The state of wildlife in Britain and Ireland. edited by N. MacLean. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Webb. L.J., Whitelock, D. and Brereton, J.L.G. (eds) 1969. The last of lands.Conservation in Australia. Jacaranda, Milton.
Woolf, M. 2013. Vegans can milk equality rights. The Sunday Times. 7 April 2013 p.9.
Zimmer, C. 2013. Bringing them back to life. National Geographic 233 (4): 28-43.
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