leaning towards conservation
08 May 2009 Leave a Comment
in environment, essay Tags: conservation, environment, essay
“if you have something to say, write an equation. if you have nothing to say, write an essay” - Unknown
The use and enjoyment of natural resources are everybody’s concern. Enough food, clothing, materials to make things, energy for homes, factories, and transportation, pure water, fresh air, elbow room in natural surroundings be it for sport or for contemplation, and other resource products to sustain life and make it worth living — Everyone wants enough of these good things for their own family and those who will come after. Also, at least in a democracy, the ultimate decision on how to use resources is everybody’s responsibility.
In exercising their responsibility however, the people more often than not have to rely on specialists of various kinds. There are complex technologies of forestry, mining, oil and gas extraction, water development, and other fields that largely determine how much of a resource product is available and how it can be used. There are complicated economic factors that influence production and consumption and help determine who pays the cost and who reaps the benefits. There are other important, sometimes highly technical considerations including those of political and social organizations and population growth.
Specialist and layman are mutually dependent in the modern world and have a lot to learn from each other particularly in the field of resource conservation and development. In no field certainly is there a greater need of bringing the two together. The informed section of the general public, to which issues regarding the environment are addressed – and these are obviously issues of wide interest and significance – is itself a large and diverse group for in this day in age of specialization, one field’s authority is another field’s layman.
Most of the literature regarding the perspectives on conservation does not suggest any one best set of answers. Many of the contributors in fact pointedly avoid any definition of the key word. Some see the central problem in terms of the “good life”, some in terms of technology or economics, and some from intermediate positions. Yet clearly, the core of what they are talking about is something real that they can communicate to each other and to any reader willing to meet them halfway.
Jaundiced observations on the conservation movement remarked ‘conservation’ as such an ‘abstruse subject that many people were for it no matter what it meant.’ There is great truth in that caustic remark, as it puts a finger on a major strength as well as a minor weakness of the conservation idea. We see the world as always being well-served by peoples’ high developed genius for knowing when to rise above strict definitions, logic, and consistency in going about public business. One of the costs of this pragmatic knack is that it enhances the importance – and the difficulty – of distinguishing the significant developments of the past from the trivial and the transient. In using the past as a springboard for appraising the present and the future, hard questions arise from all sides!
Studying different perspectives of the conservation of natural resources by the forward thinkers of this field helps explore some of these hard questions. For example, what forces during the past 50 years have shaped concepts of conservation and attitudes toward it? What have been the really important issues and trends in land and water, minerals and energy, outdoor recreation, and fish and wildlife management? How have resource development policies and programs affected the economy, political climate, and social structure – and vice versa? Most important of all, what guidance does the record of the past offer for the future? We shall surely need all the guidance we can get, in a period when the growth of cities increases in total population, and continuing advances in technology will intensify or otherwise change the already familiar resource problems and doubtlessly bring some entirely new ones.
So then, population; technology; people’s needs, standards, and preferences; economic and political behaviour – all of these are no less involved than the resources themselves. To get a full view of conservation is to look, from a certain angle, at the whole of our modern civilization.
Late Great Human Race
09 May 2008 1 Comment
in environment, essay Tags: environment, essay
“If you have something to say, write an equation. If you have nothing to say, write an essay”
It is a discerning understanding that extinctions occur. Ninety-nine percent of all the creatures that have ever lived are now long gone. But it seems a ludicrous question to ask if humans could one day also pass into history.
We are accustomed to seeing ourselves as the dominant species on the planet, and we are. We have harnessed the awesome power of the atom, built massive canals that link oceans, sent humans to the Moon, etc. We build great cities housing millions and have dramatically boosted crop production, enough to feed millions more.
Our societies are powerful, complex and advanced. Our cities are mass concentrations of people and machinery, sucking resources from all corners of the globe to meet our daily needs. We think nothing of drinking a morning brew of Brazilian coffee beans, reading a New York magazine made from trees felled from Madagascar, buying Hokkaido salmon for dinner, sipping on Australian wine, or driving cars powered by fossil fuels extracted from deep beneath the sea and refined on the far-off shores of Malaysia.
But it is because our cities are so populous and complex, and our supply chains so numerous and extensive, that we are so vulnerable. Cyclones and hurricanes devastate population centres as never before (most recently Cyclone Nargis). This is partly because we have so many more people and so much more property to damage – we have so much more to lose. Thus, our cities now take longer to heal. It’s the same with floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Even snow and hail storms now exact a higher toll in damages and require more recovery time.
We are “masters” of the planet. But though we may well marvel at our dominance (from time to time), we are still subject to the vagaries of nature. Natural disasters humble cities, bring death and destruction on a mass scale and make areas uninhabitable for years. Our proud and sophisticated technologies repeatedly tremble and fail in the face of nature’s violent onslaughts.
We may be capable of bending nature to our will, but we do not live beyond it. We are subject to nature, and we need it to survive. Although we rely on nature, we take it for granted. And so powerful and numerous have humans become that we are now affecting our natural world. This effect is no longer local like polluting a river, it is global. We are changing the Earth’s climate. Precisely what proportions of climate change is natural and how much is caused by anthropogenic activities is really a moot point, but it is clear that our actions are accelerating the process.
The general scientific consensus seems to be that while it’s not really possible to link any particular storm to global warming, as there are numerous other factors involved, hotter sea surface temperature does create bigger storms and change weather patterns significantly. If climate change is going to upset our weather patterns as dramatically as scientists forecast, we must prepare for them. To disregard alarming numbers is unwise and to ignore them because they do not fit with preconceived notions is arrogant. To dismiss them because we don’t like what we hear is suicidal. Climate change is no longer a topic of debate. It’s something you prepare for – like your retirement (but if that’s looking too far ahead for our demographic, how about planning a big overseas trip?)
If natural disasters and extreme weather become the norm as the climate changes, the consequence will be casualties and cities will become uninhabitable. Shortages in food and water could occur where none previously existed. Humans are incredibly adaptive and have overcome many challenges in the past. It may be unlikely that our great cities will tumble, and our species will pass into history, but some cities may indeed fail and be abandoned, and many people perish.
We do not have to be facing extinction for things to get ugly.
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