How Does The Center Differ From Existing Environmental Organizations?

Whereas other organizations deal with the protection of the environment, the Dubos Center is primarily concerned with the interplay between human life and environmental situations.  It complements the defensive policies of the environmental movement by emphasizing the creative aspects of human interventions into nature.

Many environmental organizations focus their activities on  preservation, especially of the environment, whereas the Center believes that humankind can exist only by transforming and managing the environment.  Admittedly, many human interventions have been destructive, but many more have been constructive.  The Dubos Center publicizes the positive aspects of human activities to illustrate that "man can improve on nature" a phrase first  used by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

The Center acknowledges, of course, the importance of ecological constraints but its activities are carried out within a humanistic context because technological solutions to society's problems cannot be successful without concern for their humanistic aspects.