Ecology

ECOLOGY

Ecology is the study of the relationship of plants and animals with
their physical and biological environment. The physical environment
includes light and heat or solar radiation, moisture, wind, oxygen,
carbon dioxide, nutrients in soil, water, and atmosphere. The biological
environment includes organisms of the same kind as well as other plants
and animals.

Because of the diverse approaches required to study organisms in their
environment, ecology draws upon such fields as climatology, hydrology,
oceanography, physics, chemistry, geology, and soil analysis. To study
the relationships between organisms, ecology also involves such
disparate sciences as animal behavior, taxonomy, physiology, and
mathematics.

An increased public awareness of environmental problems has made ecology
a common but often misused word. It is confused with environmental
programs and environmental science. Although the field is a distinct
scientific discipline, ecology does indeed contribute to the study and
understanding of environmental problems.

The term “ecology” was introduced by the German biologist Ernst Heinrich
Haeckel in 1866; it is derived from the Greek “oikos” (“household”),
sharing the same root word as “economics”. Thus, the term implies the
study of the economy of nature. Modern ecology, in part, began with
Charles Darwin. In developing his theory of evolution, Darwin stressed
the adaptation of organisms to their environment through natural
selection. Also making important contributions were plant geographers,
such as Alexander von Humboldt, who were deeply interested in the “how”
and “why” of vegetation distribution around the world.

The thin mantle of life that covers the earth is called the biosphere.
Several approaches are used to classify its regions.

BIOMES

The broad units of vegetation are called “plant formations” by European
ecologists and “biomes” by North American ecologists. The major
difference between the two terms is that “biomes” include associated
animal life. Major biomes, however, go by the name of the dominant forms
of plant life.

Influenced by latitude, elevation, and associated moisture and
temperature regimes, terrestrial biomes vary geographically from the
tropics through the arctic and include various types of forest,
grassland, shrub land, and desert. These biomes also include their
associated freshwater communities: streams, lakes, ponds, and wetlands.

Marine environments, also considered biomes by some ecologists, comprise
the open ocean, littoral (shallow water) regions, benthic (bottom)
regions, rocky shores, sandy shores, estuaries, and associated tidal
marshes.

ECOSYSTEMS

A more useful way of looking at the terrestrial and aquatic landscapes
is to view them as ecosystems, a word coined in 1935 by the British
plant ecologist Sir Arthur George Tansley to stress the concept of each
locale or habitat as an integrated whole. A system is a collection of
interdependent parts that function as a unit and involve inputs and
outputs. The major parts of an ecosystem are the producers (green
plants), the consumers (herbivores and carnivores), the decomposers
(fungi and bacteria), and the nonliving, or abiotic, components,
consisting of dead organic matter and nutrients in the soil and water.
Inputs into the ecosystem are solar energy, water, oxygen, carbon
dioxide, nitrogen, and other elements and compounds. Outputs from the
ecosystem include water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrient losses, and
the heat released in cellular respiration, or heat of respiration. The
major driving force is solar energy.

ENERGY AND NUTRIENTS

Ecosystems function with energy flowing in one direction from the sun,
and through nutrients, which are continuously recycled. Light energy is
used by plants, which, by the process of photosynthesis, convert it to
chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates and other carbon compounds.
This energy is then transferred through the ecosystem by a series of
steps that involve eating and being eaten, or what is called a food web.

Each step in the transfer of energy involves several trophic, or
feeding, levels: plants, herbivores (plant eaters), two or three levels
of carnivores (meat eaters), and decomposers. Only a fraction of the
energy fixed by plants follows this pathway, known as the grazing food
web. Plant and animal matter not used in the grazing food chain, such as
fallen leaves, twigs, roots, tree trunks, and the dead bodies of
animals, support the decomposer food web. Bacteria, fungi, and animals
that feed on dead material become the energy source for higher trophic
levels that tie into the grazing food web. In this way, nature makes
maximum use of energy originally fixed by plants.

The number of trophic levels is limited in both types of food webs,
because at each transfer a great deal of energy is lost (such as heat of
respiration) and is no longer usable or transferable to the next trophic
level. Thus, each trophic level contains less energy than the trophic
level supporting it. For this reason, as an example, deer or caribou
(herbivores) are more abundant than wolves (carnivores).

Energy flow fuels the biogeochemical, or nutrient, cycles. The cycling
of nutrients begins with their release from organic matter by weathering
and decomposition in a form that can be picked up by plants. Plants
incorporate nutrients available in soil and water and store them in
their tissues. The nutrients are transferred from one trophic level to
another through the food web. Because most plants and animals go
uneaten, nutrients contained in their tissues, after passing through the
decomposer food web, are ultimately released by bacterial and fungal
decomposition, a process that reduces complex organic compounds into
simple inorganic compounds available for reuse by plants.

IMBALANCES

Within an ecosystem, nutrients are cycled internally. But there are
leakages or outputs, and these must be balanced by inputs, or the
ecosystem will fail to function. Nutrient inputs to the system come from
weathering of rocks, from windblown dust, and from precipitation, which
can carry material great distances. Varying quantities of nutrients are
carried from terrestrial ecosystems by the movement of water and
deposited in aquatic ecosystems and associated lowlands. Erosion and the
harvesting of timber and crops remove considerable quantities of
nutrients that must be replaced. The failure to do so results in an
impoverishment of the ecosystem.

This is why agricultural lands must be fertilized.

If inputs of any nutrient greatly exceed outputs, the nutrient cycle in
the ecosystem becomes stressed or overloaded, resulting in pollution.
Pollution can be considered an input of nutrients exceeding the
capability of the ecosystem to process them. Nutrients eroded and
leached from agricultural lands, along with sewage and industrial wastes
accumulated from urban areas, all drain into streams, rivers, lakes, and
estuaries. These pollutants destroy plants and animals that cannot
tolerate their presence or the changed environmental conditions caused
by them; at the same time, they favor a few organisms more tolerant to
changed conditions. Thus, precipitation filled with sulfur dioxide and
oxides of nitrogen from industrial areas converts to weak sulfuric and
nitric acids, known as acid rain, and falls on large areas of
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. This upsets acidbase relations in
some ecosystems, killing fish and aquatic invertebrates, and increasing
soil acidity, which reduces forest growth in northern and other
ecosystems that lack limestone to neutralize the acid.

POPULATIONS AND COMMUNITIES

The functional units of an ecosystem are the populations of organisms
through which energy and nutrients move. A population is a group of
interbreeding organisms of the same kind living in the same place at the
same time. Groups of populations within an ecosystem interact in various
ways. These interdependent populations of plants and animals make up the
community, which encompasses the biotic portion of the ecosystem.

DIVERSITY

The community has certain attributes, among them dominance and species
diversity. Dominance results when one or several species control the
environmental conditions that influence associated species. In a forest,
for example, the dominant species may be one or more species of trees,
such as oak or spruce; in a marine community, the dominant organisms
frequently are animals such as mussels or oysters. Dominance can
influence diversity of species in a community because diversity involves
not only the number of species in a community, but also how numbers of
individual species are apportioned.

The physical nature of a community is evidenced by layering, or
stratification. In terrestrial communities, stratification is influenced
by the growth form of the plants. Simple communities such as grasslands,
with little vertical stratification, usually consist of two layers, the
ground layer and the herbaceous layer. A forest has up to six layers:
ground, herbaceous, low shrub, low tree and high shrub, lower canopy,
and upper canopy. These strata influence the physical environment and
diversity of habitats for wildlife. Vertical stratification of life in
aquatic communities, by contrast, is influenced mostly by physical
conditions: depth, light, temperature, pressure, salinity, oxygen, and
carbon dioxide.

HABITAT AND NICHE

The community provides the habitat – the place where particular plants
or animals live. Within the habitat, organisms occupy different niches.

A niche is the functional role of a species in a community – that is,
its occupation, or how it earns its living. For example, the scarlet
tanager lives in a deciduous forest habitat. Its niche, in part, is
gleaning insects from the canopy foliage. The more a community is
stratified, the more finely the habitat is divided into additional
niches.

ENVIRONMENT

Environment comprises all of the external factors affecting an organism.
These factors may be other living organisms (biotic factors) or
nonliving variables (abiotic factors), such as temperature, rainfall,
day length, wind, and ocean currents. The interactions of organisms with
biotic and abiotic factors form an ecosystem.

Even minute changes in any one factor in an ecosystem can influence
whether or not a particular plant or animal species will be successful
in its environment.

Organisms and their environment constantly interact, and both are
changed by this interaction. Like all other living creatures, humans
have clearly changed their environment, but they have done so generally
on a grander scale than have all other species. Some of these
human-induced changes – such as the destruction of the world’s tropical
rain forests to create farms or grazing land for cattle – have led to
altered climate patterns. In turn, altered climate patterns have changed
the way animals and plants are distributed in different ecosystems.

Scientists study the long-term consequences of human actions on the
environment, while environmentalists-professionals in various fields, as
well as concerned citizens-advocate ways to lessen the impact of human
activity on the natural world.

UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIRONMENT

The science of ecology attempts to explain why plants and animals live
where they do and why their populations are the sizes they are.
Understanding the distribution and population size of organisms helps
scientists evaluate the health of the environment.

In 1840 German chemist, Justus von Liebig first proposed that
populations could not grow indefinitely, a basic principle now known as
the Law of the Minimum. Biotic and abiotic factors, singly or in
combination, ultimately limit the size that any population may attain.
This size limit, known as a population’s carrying capacity, occurs when
needed resources, such as food, breeding sites, and water, are in short
supply. For example, the amount of nutrients in soil influences the
amount of wheat that grows on a farm. If just one soil nutrient, such as
nitrogen, is missing or below optimal levels, fewer healthy wheat plants
will grow.

Either population size or distribution may also be affected, directly or
indirectly, by the way species in an ecosystem interact with one
another. In an experiment performed in the late 1960s in the rocky tidal
zone along the Pacific Coast of the United States, American ecologist
Robert Paine studied an area that contained 15 species of invertebrates,
including starfish, mussels, limpets, barnacles, and chitons. Paine
found that in this ecosystem one species of starfish preyed heavily on a
species of mussel, preventing that mussel population from multiplying
and monopolizing space in the tidal zone. When Paine removed the
starfish from the area, he found that the mussel population quickly
increased in size, crowding out most other organisms from rock surfaces.

The number of invertebrate species in the ecosystem soon dropped to
eight species. Paine concluded that the loss of just one species, the
starfish, indirectly led to the loss of an additional six species and a
transformation of the ecosystem.

Typically, the species that coexist in ecosystems have evolved together
for many generations. These populations have established balanced
interactions with each other that enable all populations in the area to
remain relatively stable. Occasionally, however, natural or human-made
disruptions occur that have unforeseen consequences to populations in an
ecosystem. For example, 17th-century sailors routinely introduced goats
to isolated oceanic islands, intending for the goats to roam freely and
serve as a source of meat when the sailors returned to the islands
during future voyages. As non-native species free from all natural
predators, the goats thrived and, in the process, overgrazed many of the
islands. With a change in plant composition, many of the native animal
species on the islands were driven to extinction. A simple action, the
introduction of goats to an island, yielded many changes in the island
ecosystem, demonstrating that all members of a community are closely
interconnected.

To better understand the impact of natural and human disruptions on the
Earth, in 1991, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
began to use artificial satellites to study global change. NASA’s
undertaking, called Earth Science Enterprise, and is a part of an
international effort linking numerous satellites into a single Earth
Observing System (EOS). EOS collects information about the interactions
occurring in the atmosphere, on land, and in the oceans, and these data
help scientists and lawmakers make sound environmental policy decisions.

FACTORS THREATENING THE ENVIRONMENT

The problems facing the environment are vast and diverse. Global
warming, the depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere, and
destruction of the world’s rain forests are just some of the problems
that many scientists believe will reach critical proportions in the
coming decades. All of these problems will be directly affected by the
size of the human population.

POPULATION GROWTH

Human population growth is at the root of virtually all of the world’s
environmental problems. Although the growth rate of the world’s
population has slowed slightly since the 1990s, the world’s population
increases by about 77 million human beings each year. As the number of
people increases, crowding generates pollution, destroys more habitats,
and uses up additional natural resources.

The Population Division of the United Nations (UN) predicts that the
world’s population will increase from 6.23 billion people in 2000 to 9.3
billion people in 2050. The UN estimates that the population will
stabilize at more than 11 billion in 2200. Other experts predict that
numbers will continue to rise into the foreseeable future, to as many as
19 billion people by the year 2200.

Although rates of population increase are now much slower in the
developed world than in the developing world, it would be a mistake to
assume that population growth is primarily a problem of developing
countries.

In fact, because larger amounts of resources per person are used in
developed nations, each individual from the developed world has a much
greater environmental impact than does a person from a developing
country. Conservation strategies that would not significantly alter
lifestyles but that would greatly lessen environmental impact are
essential in the developed world.

In the developing world, meanwhile, the most important factors necessary
to lower population growth rates are democracy and social justice.
Studies show that population growth rates have fallen in developing
areas where several social conditions exist. In these areas, literacy
rates have increased and women receive economic status equal to that of
men, enabling women to hold jobs and own property. In addition, birth
control information in these areas is more widely available, and women
are free to make their own reproductive decisions.

GLOBAL WARMING

Like the glass panes in a greenhouse, certain gases in the Earth’s
atmosphere permit the Sun’s radiation to heat Earth. At the same time,
these gases retard the escape into space of the infrared energy radiated
back out by Earth. This process is referred to as the greenhouse effect.
These gases, primarily carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water
vapor, insulate Earth’s surface, helping to maintain warm temperatures.
Without these gases, Earth would be a frozen planet with an average
temperature of about –18 °C (about 0 °F) instead of a comfortable 15 °C
(59 °F). If the concentration of these gases rises, they trap more heat
within the atmosphere, causing worldwide temperatures to rise.

Within the last century, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
has increased dramatically, largely because people burn vast amounts of
fossil fuels – coal and petroleum and its derivatives. Average global
temperature also has increased – by about 0.6 Celsius degrees (1
Fahrenheit degree) within the past century. Atmospheric scientists have
found that at least half of that temperature increase can be attributed
to human activity. They predict that unless dramatic action is taken,
global temperature will continue to rise by 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius degrees
(2.5 to 10.4 Fahrenheit degrees) over the next century. Although such an
increase may not seem like a great difference, during the last ice age
the global temperature was only 2.2 Celsius degrees (4 Fahrenheit
degrees) cooler than it is presently.

The consequences of such a modest increase in temperature may be
devastating. Already scientists have detected a 40 percent reduction in
the average thickness of Arctic ice. Other problems that may develop
include a rise in sea levels that will completely inundate a number of
low-lying island nations and flood many coastal cities, such as New York
and Miami. Many plant and animal species will probably be driven into
extinction, agriculture will be severely disrupted in many regions, and
the frequency of severe hurricanes and droughts will likely increase.

DEPLETION OF THE OZONE LAYER

The ozone layer, a thin band in the stratosphere (layer of the upper
atmosphere), serves to shield Earth from the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet
rays. In the 1970s, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs)-chemicals used in refrigeration, air-conditioning systems,
cleaning solvents, and aerosol sprays-destroy the ozone layer. CFCs
release chlorine into the atmosphere; chlorine, in turn, breaks down
ozone molecules. Because chlorine is not affected by its interaction
with ozone, each chlorine molecule has the ability to destroy a large
amount of ozone for an extended period of time.

The consequences of continued depletion of the ozone layer would be
dramatic. Increased ultraviolet radiation would lead to a growing number
of skin cancers and cataracts and also reduce the ability of immune
systems to respond to infection. Additionally, growth of the world’s
oceanic plankton, the base of most marine food chains, would decline.
Plankton contains photosynthetic organisms that break down carbon
dioxide. If plankton populations decline, it may lead to increased
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and thus to global warming.
Recent studies suggest that global warming, in turn, may increase the
amount of ozone destroyed. Even if the manufacture of CFCs is
immediately banned, the chlorine already released into the atmosphere
will continue to destroy the ozone layer for many decades.

In 1987, an international pact called the Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer set specific targets for all
nations to achieve in order to reduce emissions of chemicals responsible
for the destruction of the ozone layer. Many people had hoped that this
treaty would cause ozone loss to peak and begin to decline by the year
2000. In fact, in the fall of 2000, the hole in the ozone layer over
Antarctica was the largest ever recorded. The hole the following year
was slightly smaller, leading some to believe that the depletion of
ozone had stabilized. Even if the most stringent prohibitions against
CFCs are implemented, however, scientists expect that it will take at
least 50 more years for the hole over Antarctica to close completely.

HABITAT DESTRUCTION AND SPECIES EXTINCTION

Plant and animal species are dying out at an unprecedented rate.
Estimates range that from 4,000 to as many as 50,000 species per year
become extinct. The leading cause of extinction is habitat destruction,
particularly of the world’s richest ecosystems-tropical rain forests and
coral reefs. If the world’s rain forests continue to be cut down at the
current rate, they may completely disappear by the year 2030. In
addition, if the world’s population continues to grow at its present
rate and puts even more pressure on these habitats, they might well be
destroyed sooner.

AIR POLLUTION

A significant portion of industry and transportation burns fossil fuels,
such as gasoline. When these fuels burn, chemicals and particulate
matter are released into the atmosphere. Although a vast number of
substances contribute to air pollution, the most common air pollutants
contain carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen. These chemicals interact with one
another and with ultraviolet radiation in sunlight in dangerous ways.
Smog, usually found in urban areas with large numbers of automobiles,
forms when nitrogen oxides react with hydrocarbons in the air to produce
aldehydes and ketones. Smog can cause serious health problems.

Acid rain forms when sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide transform into
sulfuric acid and nitric acid in the atmosphere and come back to Earth
in precipitation. Acid rain has made numerous lakes so acidic that they
no longer support fish populations. Acid rain is also responsible for
the decline of many forest ecosystems worldwide, including Germany’s
Black Forest and forests throughout the eastern United States.

WATER POLLUTION

Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide lack safe
drinking water and that at least 5 million deaths per year can be
attributed to waterborne diseases. Water pollution may come from point
sources or nonpoint sources. Point sources discharge pollutants from
specific locations, such as factories, sewage treatment plants, and oil
tankers. The technology exists to monitor and regulate point sources of
pollution, although in some areas this occurs only sporadically.
Pollution from nonpoint sources occurs when rainfall or snowmelt moves
over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and
carries away pollutants, such as pesticides and fertilizers, depositing
the pollutants into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even
underground sources of drinking water. Pollution arising from nonpoint
sources accounts for a majority of the contaminants in streams and
lakes.

With almost 80 percent of the planet covered by oceans, people have long
acted as if those bodies of water could serve as a limitless dumping
ground for wastes. However, raw sewage, garbage, and oil spills have
begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most
coastal waters are now polluted, threatening marine wildlife. Beaches
around the world close regularly, often because the surrounding waters
contain high levels of bacteria from sewage disposal.

HOW ECOSYSTEMS WORK. ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

Ecosystem comprises organisms living in a particular environment, such
as a forest or a coral reef, and the physical parts of the environment
that affect them. The term ecosystem was coined in 1935 by the British
ecologist Sir Arthur George Tansley, who described natural systems in
“constant interchange” among their living and nonliving parts.

The ecosystem concept fits into an ordered view of nature that was
developed by scientists to simplify the study of the relationships
between organisms and their physical environment, a field known as
ecology. At the top of the hierarchy is the planet’s entire living
environment, known as the biosphere. Within this biosphere are several
large categories of living communities known as biomes that are usually
characterized by their dominant vegetation, such as grasslands, tropical
forests, or deserts. The biomes are in turn made up of ecosystems.

The living, or biotic, parts of an ecosystem, such as the plants,
animals, and bacteria found in soil, are known as a community. The
physical surroundings, or abiotic components, such as the minerals found
in the soil, are known as the environment or habitat.

Any given place may have several different ecosystems that vary in size
and complexity. A tropical island, for example, may have a rain forest
ecosystem that covers hundreds of square miles, a mangrove swamp
ecosystem along the coast, and an underwater coral reef ecosystem. No
matter how the size or complexity of an ecosystem is characterized, all
ecosystems exhibit a constant exchange of matter and energy between the
biotic and abiotic community. Ecosystem components are so interconnected
that a change in any one component of an ecosystem will cause subsequent
changes throughout the system.

The living portion of an ecosystem is best described in terms of feeding
levels known as trophic levels.

Green plants make up the first trophic level and are known as primary
producers. Plants are able to convert energy from the sun into food in a
process known as photosynthesis. In the second trophic level, the
primary consumers – known as herbivores – are animals and insects that
obtain their energy solely by eating the green plants. The third trophic
level is composed of the secondary consumers, flesh-eating or
carnivorous animals that feed on herbivores. At the fourth level are the
tertiary consumers, carnivores that feed on other carnivores. Finally,
the fifth trophic level consists of the decomposers, organisms such as
fungi and bacteria that break down dead or dying matter into nutrients
that can be used again.

Some or all of these trophic levels combine to form what is known as a
food web, the ecosystem’s mechanism for circulating and recycling energy
and materials. For example, in an aquatic ecosystem algae and other
aquatic plants use sunlight to produce energy in the form of
carbohydrates. Primary consumers such as insects and small fish may feed
on some of this plant matter, and are in turn eaten by secondary
consumers, such as salmon. A brown bear may play the role of the
tertiary consumer by catching and eating salmon. Bacteria and fungi may
then feed upon and decompose the salmon carcass left behind by the bear,
enabling the valuable nonliving components of the ecosystem, such as
chemical nutrients, to leach back into the soil and water, where they
can be absorbed by the roots of plants. In this way, nutrients and the
energy that green plants derive from sunlight are efficiently
transferred and recycled throughout the ecosystem.

In addition to the exchange of energy, ecosystems are characterized by
several other cycles. Elements such as carbon and nitrogen travel
throughout the biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem in
processes known as nutrient cycles. For example, nitrogen traveling in
the air may be snatched by tree-dwelling, or epiphytic, lichen that
converts it to a form useful to plants. When rain drips through the
lichen and falls to the ground, or the lichen itself falls to the forest
floor, the nitrogen from the raindrops or the lichen is leached into the
soil to be used by plants and trees. Another process important to
ecosystems is the water cycle, the movement of water from ocean to
atmosphere, to land and eventually back to the ocean. An ecosystem such
as a forest or wetland plays a significant role in this cycle by
storing, releasing, or filtering the water as it passes through the
system.

Every ecosystem is also characterized by a disturbance cycle, a regular
cycle of events such as fires, storms, floods, and landslides that keeps
the ecosystem in a constant state of change and adaptation. Some species
even depend on the disturbance cycle for survival or reproduction. For
example, longleaf pine forests depend on frequent low-intensity fires
for reproduction. The cones of the trees, which contain the reproductive
structures, are sealed shut with a resin that melts away to release the
seeds only under high heat.

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

Humans benefit from these smooth-functioning ecosystems in many ways.
Healthy forests, streams, and wetlands contribute to clean air and clean
water by trapping fast-moving air and water, enabling impurities to
settle out or be converted to harmless compounds by plants or soil. The
diversity of organisms, or biodiversity, in an ecosystem provides
essential foods, medicines, and other materials. But as human
populations increase and their encroachment on natural habitats expand,
humans are having detrimental effects on the very ecosystems on which
they depend. The survival of natural ecosystems around the world is
threatened by many human activities: bulldozing wetlands and
clear-cutting forests – the systematic cutting of all trees in a
specific area – to make room for new housing and agricultural land;
damming rivers to harness the energy for electricity and water for
irrigation; and polluting the air, soil, and water.

Many organizations and government agencies have adopted a new approach
to managing natural resources –naturally occurring materials that have
economic or cultural value, such as commercial fisheries, timber, and
water, in order to prevent their catastrophic depletion. This strategy,
known as ecosystem management, treats resources as interdependent
ecosystems rather than simply commodities to be extracted. Using
advances in the study of ecology to protect the biodiversity of an
ecosystem, ecosystem management encourages practices that enable humans
to obtain necessary resources using methods that protect the whole
ecosystem. Because regional economic prosperity may be linked to
ecosystem health, the needs of the human community are also considered.

Ecosystem management often requires special measures to protect
threatened or endangered species that play key roles in the ecosystem.
In the commercial shrimp trawling industry, for example, ecosystem
management techniques protect loggerhead sea turtles. In the last thirty
years, populations of loggerhead turtles on the southeastern coasts of
the United States have been declining at alarming rates due to beach
development and the ensuing erosion, bright lights, and traffic, which
make it nearly impossible for female turtles to build nests on beaches.
At sea, loggerheads are threatened by oil spills and plastic debris,
offshore dredging, injury from boat propellers, and being caught in
fishing nets and equipment. In 1970, the species was listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

When scientists learned that commercial shrimp trawling nets were
trapping and killing between 5000 and 50,000 loggerhead sea turtles a
year, they developed a large metal grid called a Turtle Excluder Device
(TED) that fits into the trawl net, preventing 97 percent of
trawl-related loggerhead turtle deaths while only minimally reducing the
commercial shrimp harvest. In 1992, the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) implemented regulations requiring commercial shrimp
trawlers to use TEDs, effectively balancing the commercial demand for
shrimp with the health and vitality of the loggerhead sea turtle
population.

ECOLOGY & ENVIRONMENT

The three elements namely earth, water and space constitute the whole
cosos therefore it re-affirms to work with people towards creating
awareness and as a movement for perseverance, sustenance of flora and
fauna and cosmic elements and to usher ecology and environment of this
earth where integrity of creation will be a cherished value.

AIR

• Air pollution has now become a major killer with three million people
dying of it every year.

• Carbon emissions doubled in three decades. Global warming is now a
serious threat.

• US Carbon emissions are 16 % above 1990 levels making it a major
polluter.

WATER

• Forty percent of world population now faces chronic shortage of fresh
water for daily needs.

• Half the world’s wetlands have been lost and one-fifth of the 10,000
freshwater species is extinct.

• Contaminated water kills around 2.2 million people every year.

LAND

• Since 1990, 2,4 % of the world’s forests have been destroyed. The
rate of loss is now 90,000 sq. km.

every year.

• Now two-thirds of the world’s farmlands suffer from soil degradation.

• Half the world’s grasslands are overgrazed. India is 25 % short of
its fodder needs.

WILDLIFE

• 800 species have become extinct and 11,000 more are threatened.

• Almost 75 % of the world’s marine captures is over fished or fully
utilized. In North America, 10 fish species went extinct in the 1990s.

• Of the 9,946 known bird species, 70 % has declined in numbers.

PEOPLE

• The world added 800 million people since 1990. In 2000, global
population was 6 billion, up from 2.5 billion in 1950.

• In 10 years, the world will have to feed and house another billion

CARING FOR THE NATURE

“Nature has everything for man’s need but not his greed”, – said once
Mahatma Gandhiji. A large-scale deforestation that is taking place
around the globe is causing tremendous ecological and environmental
imbalances throughout the world. The resultant fury of the nature is
witnessed all around through drastic change in the climate, flash,
floods, failure of rain and many more, causing damage to thousands of
lives and livestocks throughout the world.

THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: THE WAY OF THE WORLD

“The Economist”, the famous magazine of the United Kingdom, has analyzed
the trend of the world in the twentieth century. The environment of the
past 100 years has not been as bad as the people have thought. On the
contrary, the environment of the world has been good and will be so
until the next century. Although the population of the world has been
increasing quickly during the last century, it has not caused any
serious problems as world production has also been highly increased. The
environment of the world has not been a disaster (like the prophecy of
many others) because of the changes of many factors. There is the change
of resource prices and society. The development of democracy and the
planning of environment are to meet the pressure from the people.

It is seen that when there are more people, more consuming, more
production, the use of natural is increasing. The price goes up when
there is the need. There is then the force of being economical in use,
the need to find new resource sites, new kinds of resources, new
technology, and new ways for humanity. The mechanism of prices has been
quite efficient in solving the problems of natural resource.

However, we need to accept that marketing mechanisms have not been quite
satisfactory in solving environmental problems, particularly, where
there is something in nature, which does not belong to any one.
There-fore, there is the tendency that resources will be used
inconsiderately. There is no one to care for conservation.

There is the example that resources in the sea and the ocean will
continue being in hazard in the next century.

Moreover, in some cases, the hazard in the environment has not been
reflected in the way we can see like “price”. There is the case that
pollution is setting into air and water. The pollution occurs to the
ecology and community. However, the price does not reflect any of these
damages. It is because private business wants to decrease the capital
amount and want to continue getting the highest profit. They let the
disasters happen.

Communities, society and nature meet danger from the environment as we
see in the developing countries all over the world

“The Economist” points out that in a country with advanced industry,
pollution is not a big problem because they have developed democracy,
which then has the checking, there is always the pressure from the
people. The democratic government has answered the people’s needs with
the awareness that something needs to be done and some things have
already been done. We can see that air pollution in industrial society,
which had been increasing for 300 years, is solved satisfactorily. This
will be continued for a long time. In a developing country, this problem
may continue to the next century.

THE CRISIS OF ECOLOGY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

In the analysis, “The Economist” may be too positive in assessing the
environmental problem and regarding only one aspect like pollution in
industry. There is the conclusion that the incidence of pollution in the
air has been decreasing. Nothing is said about the pollution of toxic
waste, which has been left, and keeps piling up in the environment for
so long in the world of industry. This tendency will continue until the
next century as the government in industrial countries like America,
Japan and Germany have not been successful in solving the problems of
toxic waste, which has been accumulating for so long. It is because the
main environmental policy emphasizes only the problems, which are
visible and can be felt. The emphasis is on short-term pollution, which
has an immediate effect to on people’s health. The accumulating
pollution cannot be seen easily, it is then neglected.

Besides, the analysis of the population of the world overlooks one main
fact – although the growth rate is not as high as before the population
of the world in this turn of the century will increase by approximately
80 million a year. (The amount is equal to the number of people in
Germany.) It means that this amount of population among the impoverished
and the deterioration of rural environment will heighten the environment
crisis, which will have an effect on the production system and the ways
of living of the people in developing countries. The very high increase
of the population has affected the development in city and the living in
urban areas. At present, there are 2.6 billion people living in cities.
1.7 billion of that amount live in the cities of developing countries.
There is the prediction that the ratio will accelerate until the year
2015. Three quarters of the world population is in developing countries,
which are very crowded, and the health problems are serious.

When we adopt the well-known “environmental formula” of Anne and Paul
Ehrlich as the base on considering problems, we get the conclusion that
the environment crisis has the tendency to become very critical. This
formula says:

“Environment crisis (I) is settled by the amount of the population (P),
the economic growth (A) and Production

Technology (T), that is I = P * A * T”.

Economic growth is also another main variable. The more development,
there is the more the increase in production. It heightens the ecology
system. Moreover, the production of one unit may cause a large quantity
of pollution because of the use of unclean (unhealthy) technology, which
endangers the environment. It is worrying that the trading, the
production and the consuming will enhance the squandering of resources
and the environment will be seriously destroyed.

DEMOCRACY AND ENVIRONMENT

We can give the main conclusions for the future of the developing world
as follows.

1. The worst pollution may occur among the poor countries. It reflects
some basic problems. These countries hardly have democratic development,
their people have no rights, no vote, they do not get information on the
environment, and they are unable to force their government to be against
the businesses threatening environmental conditions. The lack of
democracy is then the main factor causing environmental crisis.

2. The seriousness of pollution has not occurred because of the over
development of the economy. It is because the first part of the
development by government and private business emphasizes only the
economic enlargement (to increase population income and the export).
After a certain period, people in various fields started to develop
their conscience of “Green” and there is a large cry for the awareness
of “Sustainable Development”. During this time, the government has to
respond to the starting of environmental planning with the aims of
economic development along with environmental protection. However, there
needs to be “Democracy of the environment” as the main base.

3. Regarding the long 100 years of experience of the West, we may look
further ahead that in the 21st century the developing countries may be
trying to solve environmental crises by themselves. However, there are
many other factors for their success, particularly, the following:

– there needs to be information which is quite complete for the
comparison of capital for the controlling of environment and the
benefits from which society will gain;

– there are efficient criteria, which is the mixture of the standards of
marketing and the price, and the criteria in setting up the
environmental standards.

Finally, the solving of the crisis of the environment is not only the
economic problems (e.g. the promulgation of Green Tax) but also the
political problem. If there are too strict standards, it may not be
accepted politically. The people may criticize. The business world may
be against it and react (by decreasing the investment in employee’s
wages or increasing the price so high that it causes people to be in
trouble.) In a democracy, the politicians who plan the policy on
environment do not usually like strict standards. There is no one being
concerned about how much the standard and the policy on environment will
be affected.

It is predicted that in the twenty-first century the green power group
in developing countries will increase.

The movement will be in a wider scope and there will be the call for
solving the problems down to the root.

This is because the environment problem is becoming serious while the
reaction from the government is quite slow. It is because the government
has the tendency not to have strict standard that they may have to be
concerned with private business and the national economy.

ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION

Among the rich countries, it is assumed that it is not so hard to solve
environmental problems of the 21st century. These countries will compete
with each other in improving the quality of their products. There is
always the search for innovation, environmental innovation, in
particular, is an important instrument in encouraging the progress of
the industrial world. At present, the rich countries have already had
the high potentiality of developing new technology for the production
process with the regard for environmental quality.

The innovative analyst regards that the ability of industry in
responding to the environmental problems is the main indicator if that
kind of industry can compete at the world level. Those who want to
succeed must integrate the main idea with the production system. It
means the protection of the environment, solving the problem of
pollution, increasing the efficiency in using natural resources and
power. The strict standard of the environment will enhance the thinking
of production method, which will benefit the environment.

At present, the governments of the industrial world, like Sweden, agree
with “Environment Innovation

Ways”. There is a conclusion in the latest report of the national
environment that “The policy on environment of the Swedish government is
very important in enhancing the modernity in industrial business
sectors. The improvement of the environment has turned out to be the
main factor in accelerating the competition in this industry.”

This is the entire new western concept, which emphasizes “How to bring
about Ecological Modernization.”

It is the new concept on new environmental technology and every step is
used for the industrial production process. However, there needs to be
adaptation of the whole production structure, which needs systematic
«environmental planning», and the adapting of world vision and the
conscience of the environment of the people in every field. The concept
of “Ecological Innovation” does not emphasize only the technology but
also regards the importance of “Environmental management” which needs to
be done in both the governmental and private sectors. This can be seen
in countries like Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Germany, which are
regarded as the leaders in “Environmental Innovation”.

ENVIRONMENTALISM AND TECHNOLOGY

Wait a minute, you might say, it is environmentalism against technology,
for isn’t technology a fundamental source of environmental problems?

This has been the position of deep greens. In fact, some trace all
environmental problems to the beginning of agriculture, arguing that it
was the shift from hunter-gatherer to farming that created what they
consider the human cancer consuming the globe. Even moderate greens can
be anti-tech, reflecting both skepticism about capitalism and the
counter cultural ideology that characterizes most environmental
discourse.

Consider, for example, something as mainstream, as the precautionary
principle, which holds that no new technology be introduced until it can
be demonstrated to have no harmful environmental impacts. Taken at face
value, this embeds within it a strong preference for “privileging the
present” – that is, attempting to ban or limit technological evolution –
for the potential implications of all but the most trivial technological
innovations can-not be known in advance.

Positioning environmentalism against technology, however, has its
problems. For one, it misunderstands the nature of complex cultural
systems. These inevitably evolve, generally towards greater complexity;
consider, for example, how much more complex international governance,
information networks, or financial structures are now than just a few
years ago.

And technologies are evolving rapidly as well, particularly in the
three areas that promise to impact environmental systems the most:
biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology. The first
will, over time, give us design capabilities over life; the second will
let us manipulate matter at the molecular level; the third will change
how we perceive and understand the world within which the first two are
accomplished.

Moreover, developing such capabilities will give the cultures that do so
significant competitive advantages over those that opt for stability
rather than technological evolution. There are historical examples of
this process

– for example, China, from roughly the 11th to the 14th centuries. At
that time, China was the most technically advanced society, but for a
number of reasons its elite chose stability over the social and cultural
confusion that development and diffusion of technologies (such as
gunpowder and firearms) might have caused. Northern Europe, however,
followed a more chaotic path, including the Enlightenment and the
Industrial Revolution, which favored technological evolution. The
result: Eurocentric, not Chinese, culture forms the basis of today’s
globalization.

Applying this lesson to current conditions raises the question of
whether deep-green opposition to certain technological advances,
especially genetically modified organisms, could halt technological
advance. Some societies –

Europe, in particular – may choose stasis over evolution. But biotech is
such a powerful advance in human capabilities that other societies –
especially developing countries with immediate needs that biotech can
address – are not likely to forego its benefits. And to the extent,
their cultures become more competitive by doing so, they may come to
dominate global culture.

So is the answer then to simply give up and let technology evolve, as it
will? Not at all. In fact, the essential problem with an ideological
opposition to technology is that it prevents precisely the kind of
dialog between the environmentalist and technological discourses
required to create a rational and ethical anthropogenic earth. For
technologies are not unproblematic, and their evolutionary paths are not
preordained; rather, they are products of complex and little-known
social, cultural, economic, and systems dynamics, it is important that
they be questioned and understood.

The challenge is thus not unthinking opposition, or maintenance of
ideological purity, or even meaningless repetition of ambiguous phrases
such as “precautionary principle.” It is far more demanding. It is to
learn to perceive and understand technology as a human practice and
experience, and to help guide that experience in ways that are
environmentally appropriate.

BUT I WANT TO WORK ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUFF!

One of the horrible existential challenges of being a student is that,
in most cases, one must at some point leave school and begin work,
presumably in an area for which one has been training these many years.
For those reading this column, the area of interest is likely
environmental, usually expanded these days to include sustainability.
Put bluntly, the relevant questions are likely to be “How do I do well
and what is the job market like?” Recognizing that planning your career
on the basis of a 750-word column is probably not a great idea, here are
some thoughts while you hit the books. First, the good news. There are
plenty of opportunities to do great things: to help your employer (be it
a private firm, government, or NGO), help the world, and feed yourself.
Now, the bad news. Most of these opportunities are disguised, most have
nothing to do with environment as currently taught and thought about at
most schools, many of the opportunities have yet to be invented, and
almost any worthwhile job will require that you develop it yourself,
from inside.

To begin with, traditional environmental jobs that is, those based on
current regulatory and policy structures, primarily cleanup and
end-of-pipe emissions control will be with us for a long time,
especially in developing countries. They are necessary. But this field
is not growing, offers few intellectual challenges, and will have little
to do with solving the larger problems of the anthropogenic world albeit
improving health significantly in developing countries. So if you really
want to help the environment in the broader sense – perturbed climatic
and oceanic systems; anthropogenic carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and
hydrologic system changes; biosphere disruptions – this is not the place
for you.

The next step up is a position in the “sustainability industry.”
Superficially, at least, such jobs, which are frequently with niche
consulting firms, are broader in scope and offer more intellectual
opportunities. But caution is in order. The term “sustainability” has
now grown to be so politically correct, and at the same time flown so
far beyond mere ambiguity, that there is no substantive content to much
of this work. In too many cases, it now amounts to a somewhat
patronizing, highly ingrown dialog within a small circle of friends that
tend to regard themselves as the great and the good, and spend a lot of
time reinforcing one another’s mental models.

The result is a nouveau utopianism that has tenuous connections with the
real world, except for the few that are already True Believers. Thus,
for example, I recently participated in a sustainability workshop where
one conclusion was that firms should exist not for profit, but only to
redistribute income (and that, by the way, money should be banned).
Those with any historical background will recognize that this proposed
policy closely tracks that of the early Leninist/Marxist Soviet Union.
They did ban money – and the economy collapsed. Moreover, you can
imagine how the typical executive would greet such a proposal as a model
for how his/her firm could be “sustainable.”

So, be careful if you want to work in this area. Before you jump in, you
may want to work inside a firm first to get an idea of what companies
really are like. It will help you maintain perspective. There are a few
real opportunities – but caveat emptor.

So what to do? Back to first principles. The challenge of environmental
(and related social) issues is precisely that they have become so all
encompassing. They are not separable from the messy, multidisciplinary
worlds of commerce, of ordinary life, of birth and death, of long
natural cycles. So the kinds of things that contribute most to social
and environmental progress – employee telework options, efficient
network routing algorithms for air and ground transport systems,
low-energy and reduced-water manufacturing technologies – come not from
the environmental staff, but from the core operating competencies –
engineers, business planners, product designers, and others. So, by all
means remain committed to sustainability, but get expertise in
international business, chemical engineering, or finance. Then, when you
get your non-environmental, line position, you can start to change the
world.

WORKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT – INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

A while ago, I was reading an article on pollution prevention written by
an ex-EPA consultant, and was both amused and somewhat surprised to see
“industrial ecology” identified as industry green wash.

My first response, of course, was dismissive: didn’t the author realize
that meaningful environmental progress could be achieved only through
such systematic approaches as industrial ecology, and its implementation
through (for example) Design for Environment and Life Cycle Assessment
methodologies?

Indeed, pollution prevention as usually interpreted by environmental
regulators is a singularly limited concept, a relatively insignificant
extension of end-of-pipe approaches, and it requires something like
industrial ecology to energize it.

But my initial reaction was both unfair and superficial. The author was
not really reacting to industrial ecology as laid out in existing texts
or as being implemented in some firms today. Rather, the article
implicitly made an important point about the nature of “environment”
itself: the very concept (and closely related concepts such as
“wilderness” and “nature”) is constructed from underlying mental models,
which may differ significantly and carry very different policy and
governance implications.

Thus, “industrial ecology” does not enter the environmental discourse as
an objective concept (although industrial ecology studies strive for
objectivity and good science). Rather, an environmentalist will see it
as a response to growing political pressure by powerful administrative
and bureaucratic systems, with a belief system based on scientific and
technical rationality – as, in short, a defensive thrust based on a
state/corporatist managerialism mental model.

Seen in this light, the concept carries several implications which to an
environmentalist may be problematic: a powerful (and polluting) elite
co-opting “real” environmentalism; establishment of a playing field
(high technology and industrial systems) which implicitly degrades the
knowledge base and operational characteristics of traditional
environmental NGOs; and, more subtle but all the more powerful for that,
a vision of a future “sustainable” world based on a high technology,
urbanized society as opposed to an agrarian, localized world with large
portions of limits to people.

It was important, therefore, not to take that article as just a naive
rejection of industrial ecology and its promise, but to understand it as
a reflection of deeply conflicting worldviews which were all the more
critical for being implicit and, to a large extent, even unconscious.

And, of course, these two mental models – call them the managerialistic
and the edenistic – are not the only common ones. Others which might be
identified include the “authoritarian” (environmental crises require
centralized authoritarian institutions); “communal” (with the caution
that some communities can be extraordinarily violent towards minorities
and outsiders); “ecosocialist” (capitalistic exploitation of workers and
commoditization of the world are the source of environmental
degradation); “ecofeminist” (male exploitation of nature andi women
derive from the same power drive, and must be addressed concomitantly)
and “pluralistic liberalism” (open collaboration involving diverse
interests is the proper process to achieve environmental progress).

All of these raise some very difficult questions. For example,
ecosocialism is somewhat tarnished by the abysmal environmental record
of Eastern European communist governments.

The obvious question for the manager blessed with the opportunity to
manage among these minefields is which one of these mental models is
“right”? The unfortunate truth is that we as a society are not ready to
answer that question yet.

This is not just because most people – environmental professionals,
environmentalists, regulators, industry leaders – are naive positivists,
and therefore unwilling or unable for the most part to recognize their
own mental models, much less to respect other parties’ mental models.

It also reflects a disturbing and almost complete ignorance about the
implications of each model for the real world. What levels of human
population, of biodiversity, of economic activity, would each mental
model imply? What kind of governance structure? Who would win and who
would lose (more precisely, what would the distributional effects of
each model be)?

The important point, I think, is not the correctness of any particular
model. Rather, it is the need to under- stand that differences among
stakeholders in environmental disputes may arise not just from factual
or economic disagreements, but from differences in fundamental
worldviews – and that, at present, our current knowledge cannot anoint
any particular one as “privileged.”

A little sensitivity to how one’s position and practices are understood
by others can go a long way towards facilitating collaborations, which
are both necessary and plenty difficult as it is. Before one too readily
criticizes others, one should recall the Socratic admonition and know
thyself – and thy mental models.

PRE-CAMBRIAN PERIOD

The Earth formed under so much heat and pressure that it formed as a
molten planet. For nearly the first billion years of its formation –
called the Hadean Period (or “hellish” period) – Earth was bombarded
continuously by the remnants of the dust and debris – like asteroids,
meteors and comets – until it formed into a solid sphere, fell into an
orbit around the sun, and began to cool down.

As Earth began to take solid form, it had no free oxygen in its
atmosphere. It was so hot that the water droplets in its atmosphere
could not settle to form surface water or ice. Its atmosphere was also
so poisonous that nothing would have been able to survive.

Earth’s early atmosphere most likely resembled that of Jupiter’s
atmosphere, which contains hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia, and is
poisonous to humans.

Earth’s atmosphere was formed mostly from the out gassing of such
volatile compounds as water vapor, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia,
nitrogen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrochloric acid and sulfur
produced by the constant volcanic eruptions that besieged the Earth. It
had no free oxygen.

About 4.1 billion years ago, the Earth’s surface – or crust – began to
cool and stabilize, creating the solid surface with its rocky terrain.
Clouds formed as the Earth began to cool, producing enormous volumes of
rain – water that formed the oceans. For the next 1.3 billion years (3.8
to 2.5 billion years ago), called the Archean Period, first life began
to appear (at least as far as our fossil records tell us… there may
have been life before this!) and the world’s landmasses began to form.
Earth’s initial life forms were bacteria, which could survive in the
highly toxic atmosphere that existed during this time. In fact, all life
was bacteria during the Archean Period.

Toward the end of the Archean Period and at the beginning of the
Proterozoic Period, about 2.5 billion years ago, oxygen-forming
photosynthesis began to occur. The first fossils, in fact, were a type
of blue-green algae that could photosynthesize.

Some of the most exciting events in Earth’s history and life occurred
during this time, which spanned about two billion years until about 550
million years ago. The continents began to form and stabilize, creating
the super continent Rodinia about 1.1 billion years ago. (Rodinia is
widely accepted as the first super continent, but there were probably
others before it.) Although Rodinia is composed of some of the same land
fragments as the more popular super continent, Pangea, they are two
different super continents. Pangea formed some 225 million years ago and
would evolve into the seven continents we know today.

Earth’s atmosphere was first supplied by the gasses expelled from the
massive volcanic eruptions of the Hadean Era. These gases were so
poisonous, and the world was so hot, that nothing could survive. As the
planet began to cool, its surface solidified as a rocky terrain, much
like Mar’s surface and the oceans began to form as the water vapor
condensed into rain. First life came from the oceans. Free oxygen began
to build up around the middle of the Proterozoic Period around 1.8
billion years ago – and made way for the emergence of life, as we know
it today. This event, of course, created conditions that would not allow
most of the existing life to survive and thus made way for the more
oxygen dependent life forms.

By the end of the Proterozoic Period, Earth was well along in its
evolutionary processes leading to our current period, the Holocene
Period, also known as the Age of Man. Thus, about 550 million years ago,
the Cambrian Period began. During this period, life “exploded”
developing almost all of the major groups of plants and animals in a
relatively short time. It ended with the massive extinction of most of
the existing species about 500 million years ago, making room for the
future appearance and evolution of new plant and animal species.

And then, about 498 million years later – 2.2 million years ago – the
first modern human species emerged.

EARTH’S TRUE VITAL SIGNS REVEALED FROM SPACE

Circling the Earth 16 times a day 438 miles above the surface, new
satellite technology is revolutionizing earth science and now scientists
are able to understand the health of the planet and distinguish between
human impact and natural phenomenon. On February 4, scientists began
collecting images of the earth’s vital signs from its bus-sized Terra
satellite, the flagship of NASA’s 15-year Earth Observing System (EOS).
EOS is an international collaboration designed to help scientists
develop those answers about Earth’s climate and environmental changes
that have not been available before.

Though the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, the earliest
ancestors of the human race only appeared between three and four million
years ago, according to most scientists. This is only one-tenth of one
percent of Earth’s time span, a relatively insignificant period. Even
the first known civilization did not appear until about 6,000 BC. But
since the dawn of humankind, the earth supplied all of their wants and
needs, which led to settled life in groups or villages. Yet during the
entire lifespan of the earth, natural geologic forces have constantly
been changing and rearranging the planet’s features, climate and
environment. And now, there is “compelling evidence that human
activities have attained the magnitude of geological force and are
speeding up the rates of global change,” according to Dr. Yoram Kaufman,
Terra Project Scientist.

According to Dr. Kaufman, these changes have occurred without much
knowledge at all about their impact on earth’s life systems. “Scientists
don’t understand the cause-and-effect relationships among Earth’s lands,
oceans, and atmosphere well enough to predict what, if any, impacts
these rapid changes will have on future climate conditions,” he said.

This image from Terra shows chlorophyll concentrations and phytoplankton
health in the Arabian Sea via its MODIS instrument.

“There are some basic questions about the Earth system that need to be
answered in order to understand our world’s climate system well enough
to predict future changes, and how those changes may impact our quality
of life,” – said Dr. Kaufman during a recent NASA news briefing in
Washington, DC. “Terra data, along with other measurements, will feed
earth science models so we can predict climate variations and climate
change, and prepare for the future. We anticipate that Terra data will
revolutionize our understanding of the Earth’s climate system and help
show the human impact,” – he continued. “Terra is measuring a wide array
of vital signs, many of them for the first time, to help us understand
our planet, to distinguish between natural and man-made climate change,
and to show us how the Earth’s climate affects the quality of our
lives.”

Dr. Kaufman describes that this revolution in earth science is necessary
to help in the understanding of our world’s climate systems enough to
accurately predict changes and how those changes will impact quality of
life. Questions, which need to be answered, include “How are the soils
and vegetation types changing around the world?”

“What are the changes in the extent of snow and ice, and why are 2 – 3
of the world’s glaciers disappearing each week?”

“What are the variations in the phytoplankton in the ocean and how are
these plants affected by windblown Saharan dust?”

“What is the concentration of atmospheric airborne particles and gaseous
pollutants, and how do they affect the ability of the atmosphere to
cleanse itself?”

“What fraction originates from natural or man-made sources?”

“How do the availability of water vapor and the presence of pollutants
affect cloud formation, properties and precipitation?”

“Is the Earth system taking in more radiant energy than it reflects and
emits back into space, or is the radiation budget in balance (global
warming)?”

“Is there a change in the frequency of wild fires, floods & volcanic
eruptions?”

“Is the frequency related to climate change?”

The Terra observatory uses five instruments to thoroughly study and
track Earth’s vital systems: Land,

Ocean, Atmosphere, and the life, exchange of nutrients, carbon, heat,
moisture and pollution among them. The first instrument is called the
Moderate-resolution Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MODIS). MODIS provides
frequent global views of changes occurring within the Earth system,
including the study of snow and ice cover, cloud cover and cloud type,
vegetation cover and other land covers, the temperature of the oceans,
and the study of plant life on land and in the oceans.

This thermal infrared image shows the urban heat island effect in the
San Francisco Bay area through Terra’s ASTER instrument.

The second instrument is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer
(MISR) that physically characterizes the Earth’s surface, atmosphere,
and clouds, and how they interact with sunlight, the primary energy
source for Earth’s climate system. The third instrument, the Advanced
Space borne Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer (ASTER) is a
joint US-Japan project provided by Japan’s Ministry of International
Trade and Industry. It is the zoom lens of the Terra satellite. The
primary goals of ASTER are to characterize the Earth’s surface and to
monitor dynamic events and processes that influence habitability at
human scales. The Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT)
is a fourth instrument that helps scientists to determine the amount of
carbon monoxide and methane at different altitudes in the atmosphere.
MOPITT is a joint effort of the US and Canada.

The final instrument is called Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy
System (CERES), which measures reflective sunlight. Measuring the energy
emitted by the surface and atmosphere of the Earth, CERES monitors the
balance of the “radiation budget” which indicates whether the earth is
warming or cooling. If the radiation budget if perfectly balanced, the
earth should neither be warming nor cooling.

THE OZONE LAYER

Although ozone (O3) is present in small concentrations throughout the
atmosphere, most ozone (about 90 %) exists in the stratosphere, in a
layer between 10 and 50 km above the surface of the earth. This ozone
layer performs the essential task of filtering out most of the sun’s
biologically harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation. Concentrations of
ozone in the atmosphere vary naturally according to temperature,
weather, latitude and altitude. Furthermore, aerosols and other
particles ejected by natural events such as volcanic eruptions can have
measurable impacts on ozone levels.

THE OZONE HOLE

In 1985, scientists identified a thinning of the ozone layer over the
Antarctic during the spring months, which became known as the “ozone
hole”. The scientific evidence shows that human-made chemicals are
responsible for the creation of the Antarctic ozone hole and are also
likely to play a role in global ozone losses.

Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) have been used in many products which
take advantage of their physical properties (e.g. chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) have been used as aerosol propellants and refrigerants).

CFCs are broken down by sunlight in the stratosphere, producing halogen
(e.g. chlorine) atoms, which subsequently destroy ozone through a
complex catalytic cycle. Ozone destruction is greatest at the South Pole
where very low stratospheric temperatures in winter create polar
stratospheric clouds (PSCs). Ice crystals formed in PSCs provide a large
surface area for chemical reactions, accelerating catalytic cycles. The
destruction of ozone also involves sunlight, so the process intensifies
during springtime, when the levels of solar radiation at the pole are
highest, and PSCs are continually present.

Although ozone levels vary seasonally, stratospheric ozone levels have
been observed to be decreasing annually since the 1970s. Mid-latitudes
have experienced greater losses than equatorial regions. In 1997, the
Antarctic ozone hole covered 24 million km2 in October, with an average
of 40 % ozone depletion and ozone levels in Scandinavia, Greenland and
Siberia reached an unprecedented 45 % depletion in 1996.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH EFFECTS

The amount of UV reaching the earth’s surface has been shown to
correlate with the extent of ozone depletion. In 1997, UV-B levels
continued to rise at a rate of 2 % per annum. Increased UV levels at the
earth’s surface are damaging to human health, air quality, biological
life, and certain materials such as plastics. Human health effects
include increases in the incidence of certain types of skin cancers,
cataracts and immune deficiency disorders. Increased penetration of UV
results in additional production of ground level ozone, which causes
respiratory illnesses. Biologically, UV affects terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystems, altering growth, food chains and biochemical cycles. In
particular, aquatic life occurring just below the surface of the water,
where plant species forming the basis of the food chain are most
abundant, are adversely affected by elevated levels of UV radiation. The
tensile properties of certain plastics can be affected by exposure to UV
radiation. Depletion of stratospheric ozone also alters the temperature
distribution in the atmosphere, resulting in indeterminate environmental
and climatic impacts.

FUTURE PERSPECTIVE

Despite existing regulation of ODS, there continues to be severe ozone
depletion and maximum stratospheric levels of chlorine and bromine are
predicted to occur only during the next decade. Without further
measures, the ozone hole will continue to exist beyond 2050. However,
the success of the Montreal Protocol has already been observed in terms
of changes in the concentrations of man-made chlorine-containing
chemicals in the troposphere (i.e. the rates of release of ODS to the
atmosphere have been reduced). Additional measures are currently being
proposed by the European Commission to accelerate the phase out of
various ODS and there by to provide much-needed additional protection
for the ozone layer.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT THE OZONE LAYER

You have already taken the first steps to help protect the ozone layer
by informing yourself of the problem and its causes. Try to find out as
much as you can about the problem from publications, schools or public
libraries. The only way to mend the ozone hole is to stop the release of
CFCs and other ozone depleting substances (ODS) into the atmosphere.
European legislation aims to achieve this by phasing out ODS as soon as
viable alternatives become available, and where no such alternatives are
available, restricting the use of these substances as far as possible.
However, there are a number of practical initiatives, which can be taken
at the individual level to help protect the ozone layer: try to use
products, which are labeled “ozone-friendly”.

Ensure technicians repairing your refrigerator or air conditioner
recover and recycle the old CFCs so they are not released into the
atmosphere.

Vehicle air conditioning units should regularly be checked for leaks.

Ask about converting your car to a substitute refrigerant if the a/c
system needs major repair.

Remove the refrigerant from refrigerators, air conditioners, and
dehumidifiers before disposing of them.

Help start a refrigerant recovery and recycling program in your area if
none already exists.

Suggest school activities to increase awareness of the problem and to
initiate local action.

PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM UV RADIATION

There is a direct link between increased exposure to UV radiation and
elevated risk of contracting certain types of skin cancers. Risk factors
include skin type, sunburn during childhood, and exposure to intense
sunlight. Recent changes in lifestyle, with more people going on holiday
and deliberately increasing their exposure to strong sunlight, are
partly responsible for an increase in malignant skin cancers. In order
to minimize the risk of contracting skin cancer, cover exposed skin with
clothing or with a suitable sunscreen, wear a hat, and wear UV-certified
sunglasses to protect the eyes.

CARBON MONOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE

Human activities cause nearly half of the world’s carbon monoxide
pollution. It is produced by the deficient or incomplete combustion of
gasoline and other fossil fuels such as used in automobiles, furnaces
and industry, as well as by the burning of natural organic matter such
as wood and grasses (from fireplaces to forest fires). Not only is
carbon monoxide dangerous by itself, but it also produces ozone, a
greenhouse gas that forms naturally in the upper atmosphere but is
dangerous to humans.

According to NASA, Terra has allowed scientists to observe carbon
monoxide in the atmosphere from two to three miles above the Earth’s
surface where it forms ozone through interaction with other gases. Once
the pollutant moves higher in the atmosphere, high winds can blow it
rapidly across great distances. By tracking this movement, scientists
can also track the movement of other pollutants that are also produced
by combustion but are not easily detected from space.

Using the Data Such technology not only gives scientists details on the
state of the Earth’s current condition, but the information it produces
will help scientists, engineers, researchers, consumers and industry
plan a course of action to correct the problems. People have known for
years that the burning of fossil fuels and organic matter creates
pollution, but technology such as the Terra satellite provides specific
detail on what happens to that pollution. Contrary to many theories and
common beliefs that air pollution simply dissipates in the atmosphere or
is remedied by Earth’s natural processes, we have learned that these
pollutants not only can remain in the atmosphere for very long periods
of time, but they can reach anywhere in the world. The Antarctic is a
very good example. This pristine, ice-covered continent is untouched by
industry and dense human populations that are strong sources of
pollution. Yet, traces of these pollutants can be found in Antarctica’s
ice shelves and the seawaters that surround it.

Methane hydrates, found in large deposits underneath ocean floors, could
meet the world’s energy needs for centuries, but mining them and their
environmental impact are still questionable.

Armed with this information, scientists and engineers – supported by
industry – are racing to develop alternative energy to the point where
it can effectively and affordably replace the need for fossil fuels, and
to find ways to burn fossil fuels more efficiently. Already, hybrid
combustion cars – which operate primarily from an electric engine and is
supported by a separate combustion engine when needed – have entered the
mass market- place and are expected to develop firm roots among consumer
over the next ten years. The hybrid automobile is seen as a bridge
between today’s all-combustion engines and the non-combustion engines of
the future. Solar energy is slowly becoming utilized as a feasible
alternative form of energy, but has not yet been able to meet the
extraordinary energy demands of industry. Water and wind have been
tapped as energy sources throughout history, and they will continue to
serve as important sources for part of the world’s energy needs.

The key challenges may not be pollution so much as the dwindling fossil
fuel reserves that remain. With fossil fuels being consumed faster than
they form, we can expect to deplete them before the end of this century.

Methane hydrates could solve the planet’s energy needs for centuries to
come, but the impact they could have on the environment is poorly
understood.

THE PROJECT: REDUCE POLLUTION

What are SI2, NOx, and CO2? How do they contribute to pollution?

CO2. Carbon dioxide is the principle “greenhouse gas” implicated in
global warming. CO2 is released into the atmosphere as a result of
burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. Coal is
particularly dirty, producing about twice as much CO2 for the same
amount of power as natural gas. CO2 is also generated in smaller amounts
by forest clearing and cement production.

NOx. Nitrogen oxides cause smog, irritate the lungs and lower resistance
to respiratory infections such as influenza. Smog is formed when
nitrogen oxides, which are emitted by burning fossil fuels at electric
power plants and in automobiles, mix with other chemicals in the air,
sunlight, and heat. The two largest sources of smog-forming pollution
are motor vehicles (30 %) and power plants (26 %).

The effects of short-term exposure to nitrogen oxides are still unclear,
but continued or frequent exposure to concentrations higher than normal
may cause increased incidence of acute respiratory disease in children.

Nitrogen oxides are an important precursor to both ozone and acidic acid
rain and can affect both land and water ecosystems.

SO2. Sulfur dioxide comes from the combustion of fuel containing sulfur,
mostly coal and oil. It is also produced during metal smelting and other
industrial processes. The major health concerns associated with exposure
to high concentrations of SO2 include effects on breathing, respiratory
illness, alterations in the lung’s defenses, and aggravation of existing
cardiovascular disease. While everybody is adversely impacted by SO2 to
some degree, people that are particularly at risk include asthmatics and
individuals with cardiovascular disease or chronic lung disease, as well
as children and the elderly.

WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING AND WHY ARE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS RAISING THE
EARTH’S TEMPERATURE?

Increases in concentrations of carbon dioxide and other pollutants
contribute to global warming, which is predicted to raise average
temperatures, alter precipitation patterns, and raise sea levels. These
changes may negatively impact our quality of life, including increases
in infectious diseases, respiratory illness, and weather-related deaths.
Global warming may also decrease crop yields, water quality, and
regional forest health and productivity. Atmospheric concentrations of
CO2 have been increasing at a rate of about 0.5 % per year and are now
about 30 % above pre-industrial levels.

HOW DOES SO2 CREATE ACID RAIN?

Scientists have confirmed that sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides
(NOx) are the primary causes of acid rain. Acid rain occurs when these
gases react in the atmosphere with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to
form various acidic compounds. Sunlight increases the rate of most of
these reactions. The result is a mild solution of sulfuric acid and
nitric acid.

WHAT IS THE ELPC?

The Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC) is the Midwest’s leading
public interest environmental legal advocacy and eco-business innovation
organization. We develop and lead successful strategic environmental
advocacy campaigns to protect our natural resources and improve
environmental quality. We are public interest environmental
entrepreneurs who engage in creative business deal making with diverse
interests to put into practice our belief that environmental progress
and economic development can be achieved together. ELPC’s
multidisciplinary staff of experienced public interests attorneys,
environmental business specialists, and policy advocates and
communications specialists brings a strong and effective combination of
skills to solve environmental problems. ELPC promotes development of
clean energy efficiency and renewable energy resources to reduce
pollution from coal and nuclear plants, advocates high-speed rail and
smart growth planning solutions to combat sprawl, and implements sound
environmental management practices to preserve natural resources and
improve the quality of life in our communities. Our vision embraces both
smart, persuasive advocacy and sustainable development principles to win
the most important environmental cases and issues in the Midwest.

AS THE EARTH WARMS: THE THINNING OF THE ARCTIC ICE CAP

The geographic North Pole was last covered with water about 50 million
years ago, during the early part of the present Cenozoic Era. Known as
the age of Mammalsi and the recent Life Era, this modern age, which saw
the dawn of human beings began 65 million years ago.

This global view of the Arctic Ocean, captured using advanced radar that
sees through all weather conditions, is enabling researchers to
determine how global warming may be affecting the Polar Ice Cap. The
Arctic sea ice is providing clues to the Earth’s overall climatic
condition.

During the Cenozoic Era, the continents that formed Pangea, the super
continent, had begun to move into their present positions. As these
continents drifted northward, they formed the shoreline of the Arctic
Ocean, which lies directly over and around the geographic North Pole.

About 15 million years into the Cenozoic Era (about 50 million years
ago), the Arctic Ice Cap formed over the Arctic Ocean, virtually
covering the entire sea with a sheet of ice. As the continents continued
to move, climatic changes brought about by shifts in water and air
currents caused the Earth to gradually cool down. This created the
glaciers that mostly dominated the land masses through the end of the
Great Ice Age in the Pleistocene Epoch, about 10,000 to 1.8 million
years ago, and that still exist today on Greenland.

The same climatic conditions that created the glaciers, which are
essentially great ice sheets formed on land, also formed the Arctic Ice
Cap. Yet the ice sheet covering the Arctic Ocean rests directly on top
of the ocean instead of land, and it has remained relatively stable and
frozen since it was formed…

The Arctic Ice Cap is shrinking dramatically. Roughly the size of the
United States, it has lost an area roughly the combined size of
Massachusetts and Connecticut each year since the late 1970s. Since the
1950s, when data was first collected on the Arctic, the ice cap has lost
nearly 22 % of its volume. It is projected that in another 50 years,
nearly half of the Arctic Ice Cap will be gone.

So what is going on? We know that the Arctic Ice Cap, frozen for 50
million years, is melting. We also know that above normal Arctic
temperatures from the ocean water to the air currents account for the
melting. Global warming is real, and the melting of the Arctic Ice Cap
is one of its symptoms.

Scientists have determined that the Earth’s surface temperature has
increased an average of 1 °F since the beginning of the 20th century,
which is enough to trigger significant global climatic changes.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
the 20th century was the warmest century of the last millennium, and the
1990s was the warmest decade. Increased average temperatures have been
recorded in both the southern and northern hemispheres, although some
regions have recorded cooler temperatures.

Using the best available data, many scientists believe this warming
trend will cause an additional 5 – 10 °F increase in the average global
temperature in the next century. Still, there are many scientists who
believe the global warming trend may reverse itself within the next
century. The fact is, there is not enough known about WHY the climate is
changing the way it is for scientists to determine what really is going
on or what will happen in the future.

But there is enough information to tell us several things.

1. Human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, is releasing
enormous volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are
contributing to the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect, the Earth’s
natural process of trapping the sun’s warmth. About 5 – 6 billion tons
of carbon dioxide are emitted each year due to human activity. This
increase results in additional heat being trapped within the Earth’s
atmosphere.

2. The Polar Ice Cap itself reflects sunlight energy (heat) back into
space, rather than the heat being absorbed by the Earth. This is called
albedo, the amount of sunlight reflected by an object. As the Ice Cap
melts however, the albedo is reduced and the Earth absorbs the energy
that is not reflected. Thus, more heat is retained in the Arctic.

3. The Earth’s natural carbon cycling process the amount of carbon
dioxide that enters and leaves the atmosphere as a result of the natural
cycle of water exchange from and back into the sea and plants account
for about 95 % of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which contributes
to the greenhouse effect.

4. Ocean waters constantly move along a giant oceanic conveyer belt,
which travels, from the North Atlantic to the Atlantic, Pacific and
Indian Oceans. This circulation distributes warm tropical waters
northward, which are then chilled and returned to the warmer southern
oceans. This heat exchange also has a significant impact on global
weather patterns.

Ocean waters are constantly on the move, carrying warmer waters north
toward the Arctic and cooler waters south to the temperate and tropical
zones. This ocean circulation is referred to as the great oceanic
conveyer belt, which is a single continuous current that carries chilled
water from the North Atlantic into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific
basins. The conveyer belt returns water warmed in the tropics back to
the North Atlantic.

Ocean currents also affect global heat exchange by redistributing heat,
especially in coastal regions. In fact, the oceans have the greatest
impact on the Earth’s climate.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

The point is that while all of these things are taking place at the same
time none of them exists in a vacuum. They are all interrelated and can
have a reciprocating effect on each other. To what extent, scientists do
not know at this point.

The climatic changes that are taking place can have profound impacts on
the Earth’s ecosystems, human health, plant and animal species.
Scientists fear that continued melting of sea ice could weaken the North
Atlantic Current, the northward continuation of the Gulf Stream. The
Gulf Stream transports 25 times more water than all the Earth’s rivers,
and a diversion could result in extremely cold winters in the North
Atlantic regions, especially in northern Europe.

There are many-fold scenarios; however, human-induced global warming is
one that we should pay close attention to because we can control it. If
we can reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, it could have a penetrating
effect on the natural climatic occurrences that have been affected by
human activity. Scientists project that the amount of carbon dioxide
released into the atmosphere in the next 30 years will double or triple.
The number of cars in operation around the world will double by the year
2030.

ARCTIC ICE DELUGE

One concern that most people have with regard to the melting of the
Arctic Ice Cap is the eventual flooding of the landmasses. What is
commonly misunderstood is that the Arctic Ice Cap is relatively thin,
about 10 feet thick on average.

And about 90 % of that is already displacing the water (taking up space
that would otherwise be occupied by water). Thus, even a complete
melting of the Arctic Ice Cap would only result in a small increase in
sea water level.

Antarctica is a continental landmass 98 % covered by thick ice sheets.
It contains 70 % of Earth’s fresh water and 90 % of Earth’s ice. The
average ice thickness is 1.5 miles, reaching 3 miles deep in some
regions.

The major concern, however, would be the increase of fresh, cold water
into the marine environment. This would alter ecosystems and the food
chain dependent on the saline waters would funnel more cold water into
the oceanic conveyer belt. As a result, you would see a global climate
change due to the introduction of the additional cold water into the
southern oceans, and you would see a displacement of plant and animals
species dependent on the more saline ecosystems. Some animal species
will, of course, retreat to the land-based ecosystems.

TRACKING AIR POLLUTION FROM SPACE

NASA’s Terra spacecraft is providing scientists the most complete view
of global pollution. Terra sees C in the atmosphere from 2 – 3 miles
above the surface, where it interacts with other gases and forms ozone.

NASA’s Terra Spacecraft has assembled the first ever-complete view of
the world’s air pollution as it treks around the globe. Terra’s new
global air pollution monitor, contributed by the Canadian Space Agency,
allows scientists to identify the major sources of air pollution and see
what happens to it anywhere on the planet.

Terra is one of the United State’s major Earth-observing satellite
systems (EOS), designed for the accumulation of data needed to predict
future changes in the global environment.

It takes pictures with digital cameras, about 435 miles (700 km) above
the Earth, basically to catch reflected sunlight and released heat on or
from the Earth, rather than scanning the global surface by microwaves.

Unlike other satellites, Terra travels in a North-South polar orbit.

Through Terra, which launched in December 1999, air pollution is clearly
identified as a global problem, with pollution from sources in one
region having a dramatic impact on others. Among the greatest impacts
observed so far there is the transcontinental drift of an immense carbon
monoxide plume from a source in South-east Asia across the Pacific to
North America. The pollution reaches North America in fairly high
concentrations. In the winter, a major source of pollution captured by
Terra is the burning of fossil fuels for mass transportation and
business and residential heating in the northern regions of the planet,
which is observed traversing a majority of the hemisphere.

A NEW LOOK AT HUMAN EXTINCTION

The very powerful technologies of the new Millennium – from robotics,
genetic engineering and nanotechnologies – “are threatening to make
humans an endangered species,” according to the April 2000 issue of

“Wired Magazine” (“Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”) in an article by
Billy Joy, co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems. As man’s
dependence on technology continues to substantially increase, so does
his progress in developing intelligent machines that can and will do all
things better than humans can do them-selves. In a way, it is the
technological version of Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fitted.” If
technological evolution reaches the point where sophisticated systems of
machines can function on a cognitive level, and make decisions and
perform tasks without the need for any human intervention whatsoever,
then, as Mr. Joy points out, the human race would be at the mercy of
machines.

So, why doesn’t the future need us? Mr. Joy covers this possibility in
extraordinary thought which considers a simple theme in our efforts to
improve the quality of our lives, we – humans – strive to make things
that can do things better than we can ourselves. In so doing, we create
things that replace what humans once did exclusively. Just consider such
simple creations as the calculator, remote control devices, personal
computers and microwave ovens.

Yet, the 21st century will provide such compelling technologies as
genetic engineering and nanotechnologies (work at the atomic, as opposed
to the molecular level) that have the potential to threaten any human
involvement whatsoever – far more than the simpler technologies of yore.
According to Joy, “Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and
nanobots (robots on the atomic level) share a dangerous amplifying
factor: they can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once – but one
can become many, and quickly get out of control.” And the risk of this
would be substantial damage to the physical world, the environment on
which humans and all of

Earth’s other organic co-inhabitants depend.

The promises of these new technologies are equally powerful: virtual
immortality, providing treatments and cures for almost every disease,
and solutions and advances that could expand the human life span
indefinitely and improve the quality of our lives – particularly the
environment. All the while, Joy says, “with each of these technologies,
a sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to an
accumulation of great power, and, concomitantly [coupled with], real
danger.”

Simply getting rid of machines would be suicide, Joy points out. So
perhaps an equally viable option is that human progress be tempered with
the care of ensuring that human involvement remains essential to that
progress, thereby ensuring that human needs are maintained and the
quality of life improved. While it’s true that machines and other
products of our technologies have no consciousness, it does not mean
that they will not some day have the cognitive qualities to perform
tasks as humans do. Today, that is called science fiction.

But as we have learned from our science fiction literature of the past,
such things are based on real possibilities, many of which we have
already witnessed in our lifetime, such as space travel, visiting other
planets, the creation of the atomic bomb, nuclear power and machines
that will talk to you. Perhaps English author H.G.

Wells, considered by many to be the father of modern science fiction,
could foresee such human decline “at a time when civilization passes it
zenith,” when he authored his first literary work, “The Time Machine” in
1895.

In speaking of the result of human progress witnessed far into the
future by the Time Traveler, he wrote: “The great triumph of Humanity I
had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. It had been no such
triumph of moral education and general co-operation as I had imagined.
Instead, I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and
working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of today. Its
triumph had not been simply a truth over Nature, but a triumph over
Nature and the fellow man.”

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