Global Geography 12
“Good Planets Hard to Find: Let’s take Care of Ours”
- What is the source of the article? What credentials does the author have?
- What were some of the early changes brought about as a result of the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring?
- What two issues are crucial to the sustainability of human life on Earth?
- Explain: “Greed seems to trump intellect.”
- Comment on this article. Support your ideas with valid reasons.
Good planets hard to find: let’s take care of ours
By PAUL RUGGLES
Published April 18, 2012 - 4:19am
Last Updated April 18, 2012 - 7:00pm
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A haul truck carryong a full load drives away from a mining shovel at the Shell Albian Sands oilsands mine near Fort McMurray. (JEFF McINTOSH / CP)
Canada’s latest budget de-emphasis on environmental protection comes at a critical time for the Earth. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has suggested: "The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet."
At present, the world is managing a variety of environmental problems inadequately, causing billions of people to suffer. We need to rekindle the public commitment that characterized the early environmental movement.
Widespread concern for the environment first arose in the 1960s following the publication of Rachel Carson’s best-selling Silent Spring. The public responded to the early-warning systems provided by songbirds, fish and other biological indicators of environmental health.
An ethic of environmental protection infected the public and created a sense of empowerment. People believed they could bring about change — and in many ways, they did. The wide-scale spraying of DDT and other harmful insecticides was curtailed. Domestic and industrial waste effluents were significantly reduced, and departments of environment were created.
During this earlier period of the environmental movement, a relatively informed and involved public had the political will adequate for the task at hand.
However, environmental problems have grown more serious and the world’s response is not close to being commensurate with the threats we now face. Our population and industrial growth rates are unsustainable. Our planet will survive. The question is: Will it sustain humans?
Sustainable development and ecological well-being are indivisible. We seem to grasp the fact that we are running out of oil, but are reluctant to look for alternative sources for energy. Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth. Until our thinking about energy and water consumption are addressed, sustainability will elude us.
Experts explain that the water crisis already directly affects at least one billion people who lack access to safe drinking water. The United Nations estimates that by 2030, nearly half of the world’s population will live under water-stress conditions. In California, dwindling water supplies, population growth and climate change will lead to a massive water shortage by 2020.
Even though there seems to be an intellectual awareness of these problems, there is much debate about their practical implications and about the urgency with which governments, businesses and society at large should act on them. We seem to be doing only as much to address these urgent problems as industry finds convenient. Greed seems to trump intellect.
If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we may have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that would ultimately result in unprecedented changes to human population levels. Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases, produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.
The Club of Rome, a global think tank headquartered in Switzerland, describes this dilemma as follows: "The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
The wide-scale environmental response required exceeds the capacity of political and economic mechanisms that are currently available. Therefore, governments must co-operate and build new systems of environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises.
We must take immediate action to calibrate resource use and conduct research into new technology that reflects the current depletion of world resources and mankind’s impact on the environment. A sea-change of public awareness and participation is essential to create the political will to bring the world’s economic system into line with ecological realities.
The calamity of the century is unfolding and we don’t seem to get it. It’s not just about saving a few songbirds, or cod, or whales, or polar bears. It’s about saving worldwide ecological systems upon which mankind’s survival depends.
We should be concerned. Good planets are hard to find.
Paul Ruggles is a retired DFO scientist and consultant with worldwide fish conservation experience spanning 50 years.