Do We Need Nature?

An essay written for some contest. Illustrating primarily that having to stick to a "point" really bogs me down. In the final analysis a workmanlike but dull and uninspired premise carried through in an uninteresting manner. Don't say I didn't warn you. Unique in that I elect to argue an optimistic future outlook.

Synopsis

Human reliance on nature is clear in our most fundamental needs for air, water, and sustenance. The questions we face are what our role in nature is and whether our growing encroachment on the natural world ultimately threatens the survival of our societies. Modern history demonstrates that human activity impacts nature on a global scale, and requires that we account for how we manage our effects on ecology and progress towards a new level of conscious and planned control of our evolving presence on earth.

We find strategies for meeting these challenges in recent examples of human impact on global ecology. The issue of ozone depletion demonstrates our proven capacity to mitigate human threats to ecology through scientific research and international cooperation. Global warming presents a case where we have failed to achieve the consensus to create a clear strategy. This example invites us to develop new approaches that account for the broader implications of energy consumption, and assume the challenge of shaping an international energy policy.

These examples are far from definitive but represent the forefront of new trends in science, economics, and international policy as we come to terms with the reality the ecological impacts of human society. We stand at a unique place in history that will define how we need nature and how we will develop alongside it. It will require us to achieve new levels of scientific understanding, creativity, and imagination in envisioning our possible futures as individuals, as nations, and as a species.


Do We Need Nature?

Do we need nature? On its surface, this question seems trivial. The human race relies on nature to renew the air we breathe and the water we drink. Our management of natural systems provides virtually all of the nutrients we need for survival and health. We cannot yet create an artificial ecology on any scale that will sustain us indefinitely. The true question we face is what our role in nature is – and whether our growing encroachment on the natural world ultimately threatens the survival of our societies.

Throughout history we have often seen ourselves as existing in a separate order from the rest of nature. For the most part, burgeoning technological civilizations have viewed this separation as divine right, and comfortably equated expansion and human domination of nature as unambiguous hallmarks of progress. As little as two or three centuries ago our presence in nature was slight enough that this simple view was supportable. Now our population has crossed the halfway mark to ten billion and continues to climb. We realize potential consequences of our technologies in the effects of pollution on global ecology. We have unlocked the forces that bind the components of matter, forces so powerful that the threat of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands is a worldwide political concern, and nuclear power remains a center of controversy after more than half a century. We are manipulating the fundamental elements of life itself, with future implications we can only guess at. The scope and complexity of our role in nature requires that we look beyond platitudes enshrining or demonizing progress. Our definitions of success as a species must increasingly take into account how we manage known impacts of our actions, mitigate uncertain effects, and progress towards a new level of conscious and planned control of our evolving presence on earth.

Shaping this definition of success is a profound challenge that must go beyond the actions of isolated nations. Examples of our efforts to consciously manage global ecology are almost entirely limited to the last century. It is a young endeavor and as much a matter of economics and politics as science. But our efforts have yielded significant results that provide outlines for shaping future policy. Examining two examples of practical challenges from recent history and today will frame some of the lessons we have already learned and the questions it is vital we answer. The case of ozone depleting chemicals presents a model for global management of a recognized threat. The debate surrounding global warming and energy consumption provides an opportunity to review how we manage a situation where what consensus exists has failed to create a clear strategy for the future.

With ozone depletion, we see of how complex, unsuspected effects of new technologies can transform ecology on a global scale. The invention of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was unquestionably a boon. By replacing flammable and toxic solvents and coolants, CFCs saved countless lives and fueled technological growth. But these versatile compounds had effects that it is unlikely we could have predicted. In fact, it was only in light of ozone depletion that science came to understand the chemistry of the upper atmosphere. By the time an international consensus was reached that CFCs and related chemicals were involved in the destruction of ozone, their growing use had already resulted in the depletion of ozone at an alarming rate. All life relies on the ozone layer for protection from ultraviolet radiation, and the threats to human health, agriculture, and global ecology were profound.

Today we have made great progress in reversing ozone depletion. Focused, diligent research and international cooperation have characterized this progress. The lessons of the success of the Montreal Protocol, the international agreement that defined the strategy for combating ozone loss, deserve careful study and application to other ecological issues. By demonstrating definite impacts, asserting causes through clear and unbiased research, and coordinating the global community to cooperatively create and implement solutions, we demonstrated that the successful management of the consequences of human activity on ecology is possible.

The story of ozone depletion is far from over. Continuous diligence is necessary to maintain our successes. Like so many global environmental issues, continuing progress depends in part on increasing the prosperity and technological sophistication of developing nations. There is a cautionary note and a pragmatic lesson in this example as well. Prevention is often less costly and difficult than repair. Research into the potential impacts and synergistic effects of new technologies deserves a significantly greater priority than it currently receives. At the same time, it is the nature of modern civilization to use the technologies it develops. The possibility of unsuspected effects will always exist. Realistic strategies for managing ecology can balance threats and benefits by applying the tested prescription of consistent scientific research and active, ongoing international debate.

The subject of our use of energy resources and the hotly debated impact of industrial pollutants on global climate change is testing the limitations of this prescription. Many claim a scientific consensus that the release of so-called greenhouse gasses, particularly carbon dioxide, is directly responsible for an unnatural increase in global temperatures. Worst case scenarios for global warming predict rising sea levels, increases in disease epidemics, greater incidence of catastrophic weather, and potentially disastrous effects on agriculture. If true, these impacts represent a genuine threat to global stability. Yet there is a contentious and vocal debate on the reliability of these predictions and on the realism and economic feasibility of proposed solutions. A truly international strategy for the future has yet to be defined.

While ongoing research and computer modeling of climate are important, we have to accept that the study of global warming simply may not yield the same confidence that paved the way to the control of ozone depletion. Fluctuations in the ozone layer represent a relatively isolated ecology where science could define clear chemical interactions with a limited number of inputs. The complexity of climate is on another order of magnitude, and the range of human and natural variables goes far beyond the catalog of ozone depleting chemicals. There is potential for the debate over the exact impacts of these numerous factors to extend to the point that the issue of solutions becomes moot. Clearly, a broader approach to defining these problems is necessary.

The Kyoto Protocol, the most ambitious attempt so far to address the possibility of technology-induced climate change, largely limited the issue to the subject of greenhouse gas emissions. While this is perhaps a valid attempt to frame a manageable subject of international agreement, it also limits the debate to a single and uncertain problem. In reality the central issue of greenhouse gas emission, the use of fossil fuel energy resources, has much broader implications. Reasons for reducing air pollution are not limited to the possibility of climate change. Acid rain, air particulates and ground-level ozone represent serious threats to ecological systems and human health. On a longer time scale, there are serious concerns about the reliance of technological society on fossil fuels. The concentration of these energy resources in particular geographical locales creates geopolitical instability and increases economic disparities. Perhaps the most critical fact in the long term is that fossil fuels are simply not sustainable. Whether the crisis point of rising energy demands versus dwindling energy resources is decades or centuries away, the crisis will come unless we learn to manage our societies with renewable energy resources. Given the utter reliance of our civilization on energy resources, this fact represents a threat to human society at least as great as even the most pessimistic assessments of climate change.

In this context global warming may be seen as merely an element of a much larger need. What is sorely lacking in the current discussion is a truly credible attempt to shape an international energy policy. Leadership by the most powerful and technologically advanced nations is vital to raise the priority on reducing energy use through increased efficiency and the development of sustainable sources of energy with moderated ecological impacts. There is great promise in technologies of known potential like solar and wind as well as theoretical possibilities such as nuclear fusion. There is more justification than ever to increase resources to research and development in these areas, yet the economic impetus to change has not been clearly established. Creating economies that reward the long view and the promise of real innovation is clearly a critical challenge for the twenty-first century. It begins with acknowledging the limitations of one-issue approaches to energy use such as the Kyoto Protocol and inviting a more expansive global dialog.

History is not waiting for us to ponder the philosophical concerns of our place in nature or the rights and responsibilities we have as stewards of the natural world. Right now we confront broad issues like meeting increasing energy demands while reducing the footprint of technology on global ecology. At the same time more subtle technologies with far more uncertain and potentially invasive effects develop apace. Genetic engineering promises the possibility of reducing the resource demands of agriculture, providing powerful new tools for fighting disease, and creating novel biological systems for the production of industrial materials and fuels. But these technologies are without precedent and so the chance of unplanned impacts are unmeasured and unknown. There is cause for serious pause in considering this fact, as we are just now coming to terms with the reality of the truly global impacts of our presence on earth. We now have the ability and the obligation to think about how we impact nature across generations and into the future. The questions we face are not simple. The answers we arrive at will not be definitive or complete. Applying the lessons of the recent past to the problems we now confront is the only way to develop the science, international policy, and the language necessary for managing our developing relationship with nature in the current century and the centuries to come.

Answering the question of how we need nature and how we will develop alongside it will require us to achieve new levels of scientific understanding, creativity, and imagination in envisioning our possible futures as individuals, as nations, and as a species. Fortunately these are the very qualities that define humanity. We are uniquely qualified and positioned to meet the challenge of our place in nature - and in history.

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