Restore! Biocapacity and Beyond (eBook)

Living Within a Finite Biosphere

Nancy G. Kling (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020 | 1. Auflage
190 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-1316-6 (ISBN)

Infos

This is not another book on climate change. Rather, it is an examination of the overarching issue of our collective failure to live within the limitations of the ecological systems and resources provided by our planet Earth. This book provides an accessible, science-based explanation and assessment of vital ecological and environmental issues. It is intended for anyone interested in these subjects and does not require a strong background in science. The book provides just enough explanation of certain areas of ecology and the earth sciences to make a detailed discussion of each of Earth's fundamental biogeochemical cycles and critical natural resources easy to digest and interesting. Understanding how these ecological cycles operate paves the way for a deeper appreciation of how human activities are impacting each of these cycles and resources. Without a working literacy of the earth sciences describing our ecological systems and a command of the broader sustainability issues, we are vulnerable to misinformation and intentional disinformation.

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The underlying premise of this book is as follows, taken from the first paragraph: "e;Every substance and raw material required for our existence comes from Earth's biosphere, and all depleted or discarded substances and materials are returned to the biosphere as waste to be assimilated and recycled by Earth's ecological systems. These materials and processes are literally our life support systems. They are also the foundation upon which all economic activity and every other human endeavor are based. Consequently, Earth's ability to provide these essential materials and to regulate these critical processes establishes the limit for all human enterprise."e; The book is an accessible scientific explanation and assessment of Earth's fundamental biogeochemical systems and natural resources. The book provides a detailed explanation of the functioning of the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, water, methane, and phosphorus cycles, along with critical natural resources such as water, soil, rare earth minerals, phosphates, reactive nitrogen, and arable land. Along with the explanation of each cycle and resource, you will find a detailed explanation of how human activities are disrupting each of these ecological cycles and depleting and damaging these resources. Through the course of the book, the reader learns that linear economic growth, a wide assortment of injurious land-use practices, and population momentum are the primary global drivers that have led us to collectively exceed the biogeochemical boundaries of our Earth systems. The book closes with the principles of the steady-state economy of H.E. Daly, along with economic and natural resource accounting models that could provide the tools for quantifying and accounting for the environmental impacts of human enterprise. We are at a juncture in the history of our planet and our species where we must return to thinking about our economy and sustainability as fully interdependent factors and begin to measure our economic progress in ways that account for our environmental and social impacts. Now that we can measure, we can manage. The road to a healthier environment will be paved with a shared vision of a world where we recognize natural capital as valuable, or some some cases, more valuable, than economic capital and begin to treat it as such in the choices we make at every level of human enterprise.

Textauszug

INTRODUCTION

This is not another book about climate change. Rather, it is an examination of the overarching issue of our collective failure to live within the limitations of the ecological systems and resources provided by our planet Earth. Ecological systems and resources support all life on our planet and include all the materials consumed by living organisms, along with the processes that recover, cleanse, regulate, and recycle those materials. Stated another way, every substance and raw material required for our existence comes from Earth’s biosphere, and all depleted and discarded substances and materials are returned to Earth’s biosphere as waste to be assimilated and recycled by Earth’s ecological systems. These materials and processes are literally our life support systems. They are also the foundation upon which all economic activity and every other human endeavor are based. Consequently, Earth’s ability to provide these essential materials and to regulate these critical processes establishes the limit for all human enterprise.

There is an elephant in the room we have been reluctant to acknowledge. Our elephant is defined by our unrelenting and immoderate (i) extraction and consumption of natural resources, (ii) production and consumption of manufactured products and services, (iii) population growth momentum, and (iv) production of waste and pollution, all buttressed by an economic system that rewards the preceding activities by failing to monetize the negative impacts they generate. It is no wonder we have been reluctant to acknowledge our elephant, as discussions of these unsustainable activities can be charged with emotion and political animus. To compound the problem, most of us have but a rudimentary understanding of the earth sciences that explain the functioning of these ecological resources and systems, so we tend to repeat the talking points from the position we have adopted. There is no denying that the underlying science is challenging; still, I am confident that by the time you have finished reading this book, your appreciation of the operation of Earth’s essential systems and resources will have deepened. Without a working literacy of the earth sciences describing our ecological systems and a command of the broader sustainability issues, we are vulnerable to misinformation and intentional disinformation. It is our informed, clear, and compelling voices directed at policymakers, along with our enlightened personal decisions, that together have the power to produce change needed to restore equilibrium to our disrupted natural systems.

Regrettably, for an assortment of political, cultural, and financial reasons, those individuals with the most influential voices in our society have historically forsaken many of these overriding sustainability concerns. These influential, but silent, voices tend to belong to individuals with leadership roles in government and some of our most significant corporate organizations. It is difficult for these voices to acknowledge that we are living beyond the capacities of the biologic, geologic, atmospheric, and hydrologic systems of our planet, if they have no intention of initiating remedial action. It is difficult for these voices to acknowledge that increasing levels of production and consumption of manufactured products and services cannot be supported indefinitely by Earth’s resources and systems, if they fear that asking us to consume less will hurt their wallets. It is particularly difficult for these voices to acknowledge that we have more people living on our planet than the planet can adequately support, if they fear that cultural and religious concerns that swirl around population discussions could endanger their leadership positions. My indictment notwithstanding, I am relieved to observe the embryonic beginnings of a public conversation about the broad environmental impacts of continued population growth and our current livestock agricultural practices. The United Nations and numerous nonprofit organizations have been trying for decades to take a leadership role in these broader sustainability concerns. At the end of the day, it will become evident that sustainable practices in industry and agriculture are possible without becoming unprofitable. Furthermore, it will become evident that we can have prosperity without increasing production, consumption, and the number of consumers on the planet. The more consequential question is, when will that day occur?

We are disturbing the natural systems and resources of our planet in several fundamental ways: (i) we have disrupted the generally balanced condition of the natural biogeochemical cycles of our biosphere (e.g., water cycle, carbon cycle, oxygen cycle, climate cycle, methane cycle, phosphorus cycle, and nitrogen cycle), (ii) we have degraded many critical natural resources, such as land, water, air, soil, and other resources essential for human life, (iii) we have diminished many of our nonrenewable resources for which we have no replacement, (iv) we are experiencing a global pattern of population growth momentum, giving rise to unsustainable levels of consumption of goods and services, and (v) we have continued to support industrial livestock agriculture that turns out to be one of the most environmentally destructive business sectors. This book will explore each of the above subjects, but will avoid delving any more deeply into the political, cultural and financial reasons behind the absence of these subjects from the public discourse—we will leave that for the political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists.

Humans have been modifying the natural biogeochemical cycles of this planet from the very beginning of our existence as Homo sapiens (the species to which all modern humans belong), but the scale of our impacts since the Industrial Revolution has been profound and transformative. Except for a handful of political holdouts, most environmental scientists concur that our current consumption of resources, disruption of the natural biogeochemical cycles, and creation of waste and pollution are not sustainable. The same clock that is running down with regard to climate system disruption is also running down with regard to the capacity of the natural systems and resources of this planet to sustain our population, both current and projected.

Even for those of us with no vested interest in quieting public discourse surrounding these larger sustainability issues, we should not forget how laborious it has been for us as a global society to fully process the message about fossil fuel emissions and climate system disruption. If our collective brains have struggled to fully comprehend what we, our governments, and our policymakers need to do to reduce the harm from fossil fuel emissions, how can we possibly grasp the notion that fossil fuel combustion is only the tip of the sustainability iceberg? Some scientists have hypothesized that the flip side of our hardwired fight-or-flight mechanism is our inability to process the risk of events distant in time and place—that we are hampered by a kind of cognitive nearsightedness for such remote consequences. Perhaps our unsustainable activities constitute so weighty a problem that we can only perceive a small portion of it at any given time and assume that small portion constitutes the crux of the problem. It reminds me of the ancient Indian parable of the five blind men and the elephant, where each man characterizes the entire elephant to be just like the small area of the elephant he discerns with the touch of his hands. I intend to address the most serious of these sustainability issues, provide an accessible explanation of the underlying science, and create an economic framework to enlarge the scope of our public discourse. Let’s take a good, hard look at our entire elephant.

We will begin by reviewing some basic principles of ecology in Chapter 1. In addition, we will define and discuss the notions of sustainability, carrying capacity, and biocapacity. In Chapter 2, we will explore the components of some of the generally balanced biogeochemical cycles we have managed to disrupt. We will also examine some of the critical resources we are consuming or damaging faster than they can regenerate or otherwise be replaced. As we examine each ecological cycle and resource, you will see how humankind has impacted the biological, chemical, and geological functioning of each cycle or resource. Chapter 3 will continue this analysis, but will concentrate on the biogeochemical systems that produce substances implicated in creating greenhouse effects. In Chapter 4, we will take a look at population dynamics—past, present, and projected. As indicated earlier, this is a sticky subject; still, we will examine how the composition of specific population groups is changing, and how these demographic changes are impacting the ecological resources and systems that sustain us. In Chapter 5, we will take a look at the widespread and harmful effects of livestock agriculture, a significant producer of methane emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, water pollution, eutrophication, water scarcity, and deforestation. We will explore how these impacts affect the functioning of our biogeochemical cycles and natural resources. Armed with an increased understanding of ecology and the earth sciences, we will turn our attention in Chapter 6 to some of the cutting- edge sustainability technologies. These advanced technologies promise to offset a portion of our environmental degradation, disruption, and depletion, and perhaps even buy us some time to take the actions necessary to prevent us from further exceeding the biocapacity of our planet. In the final chapter, I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.7.2020
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Technik
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-1316-X / 109831316X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-1316-6 / 9781098313166