Class Aug. 28: Ways of Thinking about nature and society

This class introduces the material in text pages 3-12, discussing different perceptions of the "environmental problem." I phrase his as a descriptive and prescriptive question: what is and what ought to be the relationship between nature and human society.

Of course, this presupposes that they are separate, a sense of anthropological "exceptionalism", and certainly there is plenty of evidence around us that humans are exceptional among the animals, and that they have separated themselves from nature, or, at lest, out from under the control of nature. Instead, we use our technology to control nature (or try to).

Harper opens (and ends) his book with a discussion about the uncertainties over environmental problems, just how bad are they? (p. 7: Ecocatastophe or Ecohype?). He describes this as the Cassandras (doomsayers who see system break down coming, in food supply, pollution, species loss, global warming, etc.) vs. The Pollyannas (which I’ll call the techno-optimists), who believe that human ingenuity and technology can overcome such problems (or, at least adapt to them).

For the exam: Be sure to be able to differentiate between these two schools of thought; since some are is mentioned by name, be able to place Julian Simon in the right school. Later we’ll talk about two famous cassandras, Anne and Paul Erhlich.

September 4: The main point today was to build a roster of the arguments from the Cassandras and Pollyannas. The list is extracted from the text, pp 7-11. And goes like this:

Pollyannas:

• Dire predictions made especially at the start of the modern environmental movement in 1960s and 1970s have simply not come true.

• Human ingenuity and innovation, sometimes in direct response to resource scarcity, can compensate for ecological limits. Julian Simon argues that the true scarcity is the scarcity of human ingenuity, and that more people means more ideas. [later we’ll discuss the fact that even with more people and more consumption, the price of most raw natural resources has remained steady or even fallen over the past few decades. The Pollyannas would say this is proof that we are not pressing against environmental limits].

• Some significant improvements, in food production, cleaner air and water, and efficiencies in human uses of energy, water and other resources have been achieved and are often neglected by the Cassandras.

• Earth systems are like recycling systems, and have the ability to absorb and restore human pollutants and recover from other human impacts.

Cassandras:

• Point out that the nature of human impact on earth systems is larger than ever in human history (more people, more consumption, and new technologies.) new technologies mean new threats that ecosystems have not evolved with and may not be able to adapt to, like synthetic, toxic chemical compounds released by industrial processes.

• The sheer magnitude of the impacts of human activities now adds up to "global change" and the positive trends cited by Pollyannas are mostly local improvements.

• These is simply less "nature" out there, less wilderness, fewer species and stocks of fish, etc., which means that we have fewer options (for humans migration, expanded agriculture, etc.) and that the earth systems for cleansing and recovery are less and less able to cope with the human load.