Chapter II.

The Earth in Crisis

ENS 205 By Dr. Elsa Sattout

SIGNS & ECOCRISIS ANALYSIS

Content
I. Signs I.1. Climate change I.2. Biodiversity loss I.3. Habitat loss I.4. Pollution II. Ecocrisis analysis

III. Science & Technology

Signs of Ecocrisis

I.1. Climate change I.2. Biodiversity loss I.3. Habitat loss I.4. Pollution

I.1. Climate change

Carbon dioxide is now the highest it has been for at least 440,000 years China & USA are the greatest sources of greenhouse gases

Climate change
Madelaine Bunting: With a kind of savage justice, climate change is an issue which exposes the weakest link in the cultural mindset of Western capitalism: the collective capacity for selfrestraint in pursuit of a common good.

I.2. Biodiversity
1970-2003: 31% decline in terrestrial biodiversity

At the present rate of extinction:

12% of bird species 25% mammal species are likely to disappear in the next 30 years

Biodiversity: Mass extinction~!

Biodiversity losses continue to mount, and it is factually uncontroversial among biologists that we are now in the midst of the sixth great extinction in the Earths history: At least 1000 time faster than the normal background rate of preceding 60 millions years ago. So wed better say MASSACRE especially since this mass extinction, unlike all others, results overwhelmingly from the actions of a single species.

Extinction or Mass extinction?!!!

Humans currently nearing: 7 billion with about 250,000 more arriving every day
Comparing with number of our fellow mammals:

414,000 great apes 3,200 tigers 20,000 African lions Whale species: few hundred thousand Last four remaining rhinos in the wild were killed by poachers in 2008

David Quammen said:

Call me a pessimist, but when I look into that future, I do not see any lions, tigers, or bears.

Nor by any means, does the toll stop there.

Biodiversity count down

Although government promised to act [BUT NONE HAS YET], the decline and rate of decline in global biodiversity continues to accelerate (Butchart et al., 2010). If ecosystems collapse, so will economies and culture by UN-Secretary general So where is the reason, one wonders, of which human beings are so proud????

I.3. Habitat
Continuous rapid decline as development continues apace of WILD PLACES Not as that which is free of all trace of our interventionsbut as that which has not been entirely instrumentalized by human artifice, and as something to be cherished in ways that outrun all considerations of profit

Habitats lost
Rainforest
50% of the Earths forests have already been cleared Annual net loss of forests is now about 130 square miles

Coral reefs
Destruction of 25% of coral reefs, atolls and cays Over half of the remainder are in danger of degradation beyond recovery in the next 30 years

Habitat loss
Of the Earths ecosystems, 605 are already estimated to be degraded 1/3 of the Earths continental surface was left for the use of other life-forms By far the greater part was relatively impoverished or stressed ecosystems Habitats were converted to monoculture

Habitat: Human consumption

Human beings use 50% of the world fresh water Around 42% of its plant growth

Consumer demand for seafood has almost doubled in the past 20 years-just as wild fish stocks are crashing {Overfishing-depletion of fish stock}.

Habitat: Protection
40% of the Earths ecosystem need to be protected from significant human impact in order for them to remain viable Only 10% are currently in protected area

I.4. Pollution
Introduction of synthetic toxic chemicals into the environment Industrial dumping in less developed countries These are substances known to disrupt immune, endocrine and hormone systems of virtually all organisms Fresh water river polluted by fertilizers and slurry run-off, or degraded by large-scale dams

Pollution: Crises connection

Crises are all connected On average, one-quarter of all land animals and plants, or more than one million species, could well become extinct by 2050 as a direct result of climate change Threats to coral reefs from increasing seawater acidity, also resulting from global warming Staggering loss of topsoil: more than 25 million acres degraded or lost annually

Pessimism or reality
By 2150: the world will be inhabited by 11 billion people. All of whom will:
Continue to occupy space Drink water Burn energy Consume solid resources Produce wastes Aspire to material comfort and safety for themselves and 2.0 children and eat

Jared Diamond
There are about a dozen of major environmental problems, all of them sufficiently serious that if we solved eleven of them and did not solve the twelfth, whatever that twelfth is, any could potentially do us in

II. Ecocrisis analysis

Ecological crisis will be resolved when enough people face the realities personally and collectively. There is definitely an emotional dimension to such work, which is too often ignored; but clear thinking is also required.

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Ecocrisis
Behind the processes of driving human caused changes is pathological ethic and not an absence of ethic
The basic dynamics at work in ecocrisis make up the principal areas requiring eco-ethical renewal :we are too numerous, demanding and powerful [Erazim Kohak, 2000] A widely equation integrating these factors is: I= PLOT
I P L O T Impact Population size Lifestyle Organization of societies (Micro or Macro/ Institutionally or ideologically) Technology

Population
Population growth in 2012: 7 billion Expected in 2025: 9 billion.

Earths ecosystemic ability to produce food and absorb waste is already under severe strain

Lifestyle
Most people desire the American lifestyle Affluent consumption-that is, well beyond what is necessary for a mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy life is a problem overwhelmingly present in the so-called developed word. After certain level of income-further increases do not lead to any happiness

Lifestyle
Big gap between poor and rich The world is dividing into self-indulgent wealthy few, who can afford to consume irresponsibly, and they do, and the many others who are unhappy because they would like to-and who, we are driven to hope will not be able.

Why irresponsibly???
Because those who abuse the Earths resources by using far more than they need make up relatively tiny minority of all people 5% of the world people co-emit the largest proportion of greenhouse gases but consume nearly 40% of the Earths natural resources

Arne Naess
We must live at a level that we seriously can wish others to attain, not at a level that requires the bulk of humanity not to reach!

Technology
Appropriate, clean and affordable technologies have an important role to play in resolving the ecocrisis; but it cannot bear the weight of cornucopian dreams Technology is vanishingly unlikely to be able to compensate for uncontrolled expansion of either population or consumption.

Technology & Consumption

If cheap and non-polluting technologies simply used to license massive increase in consumption-if they were not accompanied by a successful attempt to control and reduce demand, thus consumption-then the end result would just be the same.

Cheap Energy: Is it the solution?

Abundant cheap energy could well be an absolute disaster from an ecocentric point of view, if it were used to advance even further human domination and exploitation of the planet-even if the profits were fairly divided up among the conquerors.

Earths dwellers (Kohak)

The Earth cannot be saved by even the most perfect technocratic scheme if ordinary citizens do not themselves realize the need for a basic change in the way we dwell upon this Earth, confront the, apostle of consumption and find the will to live in sustainable ways

III. Science & Technology

Belief in technological fixes is symptomatic of a wider faith in modern technoscience Actually, in recent decades that faith has been shaken by nuclear accidents and mad cow disease Technoscience is integral to both industry and government, with those two becoming ever closer.

Eye on Science
The belief that science arrives at the final or complete truth of anything is ultimately nothing than an article of faith, requiring sweeping prior assumptions that cannot themselves be scientifically tested. Nonetheless, the idea that science offers unique access to the truth has widespread rhetorical plausibility even among those whose interests are damaged by its exercise (Hegemony is the word for such incidents). When this plausibility is embodied in official institutions and the general culture it lends technoscience great political , social and cultural power.

Science of Ecology & Green tech

Science of ecology was a major inspiration for metaphysical and political ecology.

Science plays an important part in our awareness of the fact of ecocrisis. It supplies many indicators that supplement and support direct personal experience, and virtually all of the quantifiable and statistical ones. It is needed to underpin the limited but important role of green technology in alleviating that crisis.

Technoscience & Ecocrisis:

The value that proponents of science put on objectivity can contribute to the ecocrisis as much as, in another way, it can help by gathering, analyzing and presenting evidence.

WHY?? One reason is that an over-emphasis in this respect, and a corresponding devaluation of the value of the earth in its sensuous particulars and emotional meanings-things which do not survive being quantified, or commodified-is itself implicated in that crisis.
If it werent for ecology we would not be aware that we have an ecological crisis. (J. Baird Callicott)

Science in material dominated world

Societies are dominated by financial, commercial and fiscal imperatives Science is no more immune that any other human enterprise to the corruption entailed by selling your services to the highest bidder. Not only are the subjects of research largely dictated by their potential profits, but experimental results are themselves increasingly influenced by the interests of corporate funding. Example: Medical research where pharmaceuticals companies have a direct stake in the outcome of the published trials, but the same general point also applies to apparently disinterested science.

Could it be a way to make peaceful living for human population?

For as long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy & love". [Pythagoras]

Driving forces, Pressure, State & Impacts on the Natural world

Drivers e.g. Human expansion, industrial development, economic growth, etc.

Responses 1.Increase awareness & Education 2.Increase the surface areas of nature reserves 3. Sustainable use & management of natural resources (fish stock, water, etc.) 4. Rely on renewable energy (Solar, Hydropower, geothermal, etc) 5. NGOs Provide micro-fund to support local communities 6. Information exchange Technology transfer & cooperation

Pressures e.g. Deforestation, Introduction of Nonnative species, Mass tourism, Overexploitation of resources, etc.

State e.g. Habitat fragmentation, Soil erosion, resources depletion, etc. Impact e.g. Loss of species, ecosystem & habitat degradation, Soil damage, Economic loss, etc.