People and Environment

A Global Approach

Gareth Jones

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317876649
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

People and Physical Environment, A Global Approach provides an introduction to the main areas of environmental concern for geographers, environmental scientists and planners at the beginning of the twenty-first century. These include:

• Pollution of the atmosphere and its impact on our climate;
• The exploitation of the oceans;
• Management and supply of fresh water;
• Degradation of the land, and
• Biodiversity, and the need to maintain genetic diversity.

The book argues that our knowledge and understanding of the environment is now so great that we can predict with considerable accuracy where the skills of science and technology need to be focussed in order to prevent severe environmental damage from occurring. Achieving successful management of the environment has become dependent upon active participation of a society prepared to pay for a high quality of life and the willingness of our elected politicians to legislate and enforce the very highest standards of environmental management. This book will be essential reading for students of geography, environmental studies/science and land use planners and will also contribute valuable information for climatology, biogeography, hydrology, land economy and forestry students.

1

The environment

We now know what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations, that men are only fellow voyagers with other creatures … This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship … a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise.

Leopold, 1949

The relationship between humans and the biosphere has been incredibly biased in favour of the latter for most of the time that our species has existed. Only in the last two and a half centuries has the balance begun to tip towards favouring ourselves, while in the most recent half century it seems that at times humans have become a new superbeing, so competent have we become in harnessing the resources of the planet. There are some signs that we may be causing some of the great natural planetary cycles to move out of balance but we are uncertain of the significance of these changes. This book looks at some of these changes, not so much from the perspective of an environmental scientist but more from the standpoint of a social scientist. The underlying concept of this book is that human nature is such that we can always be expected to place the well-being of our species first, for it is this concern with ourselves and of our family and of the society in which we live that makes us unique. It is the socio-economic and political structures that place us apart from all other species and it will be up to society to decide how to manage the resources of our planet both at the present and in the near future. To make the correct decisions we will need the best scientific knowledge and the most advanced technological skills. But the benefits of knowledge and skills can only be harnessed if society understands the problems it has caused and how they need to be managed. This book attempts to delve beneath the surface of some of the environmental problems that face us in the first years of a new century. It begins by examining the basic information required for an understanding of the environment. In particular, it looks at:

the role played by the environment in supporting life on Earth

changes in the meaning of the term ‘environment’

evolution of different biological components.

1.1 Why is the environment important?

It is difficult to accept that the species to which we belong, Homo sapiens, is the same species that existed 10,000 years previously or 1000 years ago or even 100 years ago, so rapid has been our ability to manage life on our planet. In comparison with our great grandparents who were born between 100 and 150 years ago, the achievements of present-day human beings are such that we appear to exist in a different world. Almost all the achievements attained during the twentieth century have been firmly based on science and technology. The century saw the development and perfection of electronic communication (first the telegraph, followed by radio, telephone, television and later still, digital communication using fibre-optic cables, satellites and culminating in the internet). Personal transport has been revolutionised as a result of the internal combustion engine, but the invention of the automobile has shown how overuse and misuse of an invention can result in pollution, congestion and the despoilment of our major cities. The twentieth century closed with considerable concerns being expressed over the virtues of genetically modified foods. It appears that despite the undisputable benefits that society has gained from technology, we tend to misuse or apply the benefits in an insensitive manner and, consequently, bring about new problems that require the application of further technological solutions. We seem trapped in a technology spiral, in which society avidly embraces the latest electronic wizardry or genetic modification with little thought for the implications the technology may bring. Our skills for predicting the impact of new technology on society and the natural environment are poorly developed. If only we had a fortune teller’s crystal ball that could help predict where the next environmental problem would arise!

It is sometimes hard to realise that our concern for the well-being of the ‘environment’ is a comparatively recent phenomenon and has existed only since the mid-1930s. While there can be few people living on the Earth today who have not heard of the term ‘environment’, its significance will vary greatly depending on the type of society the individual inhabits. For the developed world, the term was primarily used by science and academia during the first half of the twentieth century and it only came into common usage in the press, general literature and especially television from the mid-1960s. Rachael Carson’s book Silent Spring (Carson, 1963) did much to raise our awareness of ‘environment’ closely followed by the writings of Commoner (1971) and Ehrlich et al. (1973). For inhabitants of the developing world the term ‘environment’ was often subsumed into a much wider context involving the entire well-being of every living individual. Paradoxically, societies that are considered ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘primitive’ by western standards often show a far greater understanding and respect for the environment than that of western societies (Darling and Dasmann, 1972).

The widespread use of the term ‘environment’ has inevitably led to instances of its inappropriate use. This is particularly the case when the term is used by the popular press and general public. In a strict sense, the ‘environment’ comprises our surroundings, from which we receive all the stimuli and the resources necessary for life. In addition, we pass back all our pollutants into the environment in the expectation that they will be dispersed and diluted to safe levels. In reality, the environment does not exist. It is a ‘virtual’ layer that surrounds every living creature and provides an interface between the organism and the ‘biosphere’. The biosphere provides the essential components of life: water, air, food, a place to live and a place in which other members of our species can be found and with whom relationships can be forged. In essence, there is only one biosphere to provide a living space for all organisms that inhabit the planet. By contrast, every single plant and animal requires its own highly specific environment so that individual species requirements can be met. Some species can modify the environment to ensure that they exist in an optimum environment. However, for all organisms apart from humankind, the extent to which modification of the environment is possible is minimal. By contrast, our species is extremely capable of modifying its surroundings to suit our individual needs. We achieve this by using science and technology to manipulate the amount and type of resources we extract from the biosphere. By using resources we are able to modify our environment.

Examples of environmental modification made by successive generations of human effort would fill many volumes of books. The impact of human ingenuity on the biosphere and environment can be seen in the development of settled agriculture. The development of agriculture involved several major technological breakthroughs that allowed small family groups to become settled in one place instead of roaming across large areas of land hunting and gathering food. As soon as our ancestors had become settled, they encountered a variety of new problems. They had to rely on the same small area of land to supply all their requirements for food and water and also to take back their wastes in such a way that dangerous levels of pollution did not occur. In the early period of settled agriculture many families probably died from starvation, or were killed by water-borne diseases transferred from animal and human sewage, or simply reverted to nomadism when the early agricultural system failed. By trial and error, the system of settled agriculture was gradually perfected but it took many generations to make it a reliable system.

The example of the new agricultural way of life illustrates the fundamental problems faced by our ancestors and by us at present: the use of technical skills allows us to become more settled within a specific physical location but in order to remain there we must resort to greater and greater ‘management’ of our environment. By resorting to the use of technology to support our preferred lifestyle, we have manoeuvred our species into a situation where, to make further advances along our chosen lifestyle, we are required to make more use of technology. Already, of the 6 billion human inhabitants of this planet, 2.7 billion live in urban areas (World Bank, 2000). These urban dwellers live in a highly modified environment in which heating, lighting, provision of fresh water, disposal of sewage and garbage, means of acquiring food, method of transport, contact with people and type of day-to-day employment are all totally different from those of a person living in a wilderness environment (see Colour Plates A and B).

In the confusion of everyday life it is sometimes difficult to see what we have achieved or, indeed, to know exactly where we want to go! It is worthwhile reflecting on what we have achieved in terms of managing our environment and also to look forward in an attempt to see how our new technological skills will allow us to manage the environment in totally new ways. Reflection is usually a much easier task than trying to predict what may happen in the future. However, we need to look to the future so that we can identify environmental problems as soon as they begin to appear. New technology is introduced so rapidly that it is often impossible to identify environmental problems until they have become well developed.

Why have we allowed human society to become so reliant on technology? The answer, quite simply, is that reliance on technology has proved to be a very successful strategy. It has enabled a dramatic growth in population during the twentieth century from about 1.5 billion in 1900 to 6 billion people in 1999 (Cutter and Renwick, 1999) but by so doing has created a demand for food and natural resources that could only be met by an ever-greater extraction of resources from the biosphere. As a consequence, some parts of the biosphere have become overused and show signs of deterioration, notably the loss of forests throughout the world, soil erosion and pollution of land, water and air. Alongside the negative impact of human society on the environment there are other signs that we have discovered how to manage the environment in a sympathetic and sustainable fashion. We have planted vast areas of new forest especially in mid- and high latitudes; we have designated extensive areas of land as national parks, heritage areas and wilderness land while most countries now have extensive planning and environmental protection legislation that ensures we remove the most harmful components of our pollution output before it is released to the environment.

Despite all the achievements that have taken place in support of the environment and its non-human species it appears that as fast as we solve one problem another, bigger problem appears on the horizon. In the 1970s we were confronted with the problem of precipitation that was becoming increasingly acidic in reaction (Mannion, 1992a). The ‘acid rain’ killed soil fauna, damaged the roots of plants and killed aquatic life in rivers and lakes especially in northern latitudes. Rigorous control on air and water pollution emanating from industrial sources gradually overcame the problem of acid precipitation but its place was taken by the damage caused to the atmospheric ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used as propellants in aerosol sprays ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of black and white plates
• List of colour plates
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The environment
• 2. Changing perceptions of the environment
• 3. Politics and the management of the environment
• 4. The atmosphere and the environment
• 5. Environmental (mis)management of fresh water
• 6. Managing the oceans
• 7. Land degradation
• 8. Why retain biodiversity?
• 9. Looking forward to the next 100 years
• Bibliography
• Index