The Polar Bears of Dutchess County

by Hillary Harvey and photographs by Hillary Harvey, October 25, 2007

Amidst the hustle and bustle of global warming politics, there is an independent, cutting-edge, scientific research facility set in the tranquil woods outside the village of Millbrook. The Institute of Ecosystem Studies aims to place itself squarely in the midst of that debate. Debate may be the wrong word. As Jules and Maxwell Boykoff documented for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (Extra!, November/December 2004), the practice of covering opposing sides in the case of global warming actually creates a superficial balance and informational bias. The vast majority of scientists are in agreement about the reality, causes, and potential effects of climate change. And with its newly appointed President, Dr. William Schlesinger, IES’s climate research is set for an increased focus on global warming and its intersection with politics.

The 2,000 acres of IES was originally the Cary Arboretum, a collection of 14 farms purchased by Standard Oil heiress Mary Flagler Cary and her husband, Melbert in the 1930s. The ensuing estate was left in trust in 1967 and bestowed to the custodial care of the New York Botanical Gardens in 1971. Recognizing its potential, the organization proposed establishing an ecology center on the site and began an international search for an appropriate scientist to head it.

Dr. Gene Likens, known for connecting the relationship between fossil fuel combustion with the concentration of sulfuric and nitric acid in precipitation, leading to the identification of acid rain in North America, was hired to direct the institute, in 1983. (IES still gets 44 percent of its funding from the Mary Flagler Cary Durable Trust; the other 55 percent comes from research and federal grants and private philanthropic gifts.) As its name suggests, IES research comprises an ecosystem approach. Initiated by Likens, IES’s 20 resident and visiting scientists look at the sources and fates of things as they interrelate in the environment, focusing, too, on human impacts within the larger interaction web.