Mankind: The Drain on the Ecosystem?

Workers can be seen rushing to and from the office or the factory, traffic snarls on interstates and highways, while industry and business bustles on a daily basis; our cities are populated with people living their lives, oblivious to the needs of the land, the seas, the very planet itself. As population centers continue to expand, the basic needs they have in order to survive and function are being depleted by a growing and ignorant citizenry. These are the foundation to the arguments raised by William E. Rees in "Life in the Lap of Luxury as Ecosystems Collapse". "Accelerating global change," he writes. "[H]as shown that the earth cannot keep an infinitely expanding population in the lap of luxury" (682).

In warning that those in the cities are ignorant of their impact, as delineated by a formulaic standard of "4 or 9 hectares per capita to support their consumer lifestyles" (679), Rees echoes the dire warnings presented by Rachel Carson, a biologist who once worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in the second chapter of her 1962 publication of Silent Spring entitled "Obligation to Endure". Carson wrote that man, in a relatively short period of time, has "acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world" (663). Both Rees and Carson warn of people not fully comprehending the impact they each make on the earth.

As more and more people live in urban areas, they become less connected with the land around them that actually ensures their survival and viability. Rees explains that "the ecological footprint is the total area of land and water required to produce resources that the population consumes . . ." (679). Rees then writes that "Separating billions of people from the land that sustains them is a giddy leap of faith with serious implications for ecological security" (679). In this way, Rees implies, people will be unable to comprehend the need to protect the environment until they learn to do more to ensure the environment that serves them is itself protected. Carson has a more dire belief than Rees, stating that the damage done is "irrecoverable" (663) and irreversible. She decries how it is "ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something as seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray" (665).

Rees feels that wealthy nations have been protected so far by their purchasing power in global markets, going further by stating it is "questionable whether that isolation can be maintained for long" in face of growing demand and collapsing ecosystems (680). Of course this takes as fact that ecosystems are collapsing. Ironically, Carson seems to be that we are overproducing, and the unsustainability of our current ecological management system is the blame (665).

However, Rees has some thoughts on what to do about this situation we find ourselves in. "The time has come for us to take seriously that each of us lives in a bioregion," Rees comments. ". . . and that our urban ecological footprints should be contained as much as possible within our local bioregions" (681). In this way, the author believes that if we do this, we could not only benefit by being more self reliant, but that it would also be "more socially rewarding and ecologically benign" (681).

Despite the warnings by Rachel Carson that the penchant for man to change their environment too rapidly, on a scale that is not nature's own, is irreversible (664), and despite the belief by Rees that "cities . . . are sites of intense consumption of material and production of wastes" (679), he seems to think that change is possible, that man can learn to live in a way more attuned to nature and the needs of the land. The earth, more resilient than most environmentalist (such as Carson) will give it credit, has a way of working around the cards it is dealt. Though not advocating "business as usual" and irresponsible behavior, and whole heartedly agreeing with the needs cited by Rees to consider our "bioregions" and the impacts we make, I believe the arguments of global warming and climate change and economic footprints veer too far afield and do disservice both to the earth and man.

What is needed, is for man to recognize real dangers to the environment, real irresponsible actions, real needs to clean up past mistakes, and move forward. There is no harm in using things such as the artificial carbon collection "trees" around industrial areas (and reuse the collected CO2 for other needs such as fuel for space exploration). There is great advantage to cleaning up the environment and reducing our impact on real pollutant issues such as the Pacific Gyre, or The Great Garbage Patch. What is important is to address chemical sites that have been left on the side of the road from the burdensome and paperwork clogged Superfund site cleanups. If we all work together on real problems and let the politically and emotionally crazed environmental cause du jour fervor die down, we can have real conversations and come up with real solutions.

Works Cited

Carson, Rachel. "The Obligation to Endure." The Arlington Reader. Ed. Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. 2nd ed. Boston; Bedford/St. Martin, 2008. 663-668. Print.

Rees, William E. "Life in the Lap of Luxury as Ecosystems Collapse." The Arlington Reader. Ed. Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. 2nd ed. Boston; Bedford/St. Martin, 2008. 678-682. Print.