env-studies

[env-studies]

Blog Post 4

In this week's readings, the topic of philosophical world views was heavily discussed as mindsets about the planet dictate an individual’s actions that affect the biosphere as a whole. The two differing world views discussed in the textbook regarding the management of the World are human-centered and life-centered environmental world views. Simply put, a human-centered view prioritizes utilizing the planet’s resources as a means of exclusively improving the quality of life for people while having little regard for the planet unless it serves a purpose that helps humanity. A life-centered worldview expands the perspective beyond humans to include the natural environment and the organisms that inhabit it. The main problem with a human-centered view is that it leaves the management of resources and systems up to people and humanity has not shown competency in this area. In the textbook, a synthetic biosphere was constructed where eight scientists attempted to survive in the self-sustaining system for two years which unsurprisingly did not pan out as expected. Oxygen levels dropped, requiring outside oxygen to get pumped in the enclosure to keep the scientists alive; many animals died during freezing conditions; and all the pollinating insects went extinct when ants invaded the biosphere causing the plants to die. In essence, this case study proves that humans do not know enough about the natural world and all of its sustaining systems in order to effectively manage it as proven by the failure of engineering a synthetic biosphere (Miller 636). There are too many variables that are unaccounted for when attempting to recreate entire systems present in the natural world. 

(Figure 25.1 Biosphere 2, 2021)

The way I like to break down the immense amount of unknown variables in a large system is in the scope of computers. When a software programmer tries to modify one part of say a video game, it may work with that one modification. However, when you have a lot of different modifications all interacting together in that software, the program may completely crash as the original software was never designed with the idea of interacting with unknown modifications. Even if one was to debug all of the modifications in order for the program to remain stable, any future modification would also need to be tested and debugged in order to work within that system otherwise the stability of the software is once again compromised. These types of difficult diagnostic problems are commonplace in computer science, but are far more conceivable than trying to understand all of the Earth’s natural systems and how they all interact in tandem to sustain life. 

Throughout history, people have tampered with nature to cater to their needs which starts a far reaching domino effect that affects the larger environment not known about for years or decades till a discovery is made about the ways the environmental problem ultimately hurts humanity. This problem is explored in The Land Ethics reading where normal citizens of a society naturally assume that scientists know the ins and outs of what makes the natural world work whereas the reality of the situation is that scientists do not and may never know all of the inner workings of said systems (Leopold 205). Another problem outlined in the reading is that people will instinctively put their own interests in front of the interests of the community as those benefits are not immediately apparent. When farmers were given various choices of soil remedial practices, they chose the ones that were most profitable to themselves to pursue as opposed to the methods that were less profitable for themselves but potentially more profitable for the entire community they were living in which outlines the failure of the Soil Conservation District Law. In this instance, the policy failed because it did not provide additional incentives for the farmers to use techniques that would benefit people other than themselves (Leopold 208). However, because people are quick to change their habits and behaviors if there is an immediately noticeable financial benefit warranting that change, they will switch their current behaviors to take advantage of it. This is where policy can really be used effectively in order to speed along innovations that can be quite costly in the early stages of such technologies in order to bring it to a greater number of people by reducing the cost. For example, electric vehicles used to be far more expensive than today with less ranges and performance as compared to conventional internal combustion vehicles. The United States started offering tax incentives for people to buy new electric vehicles lowering the initial purchase price to the consumers which in turn gave electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla more money to invest into research and development as well as expanding manufacturing capabilities in order to drastically reduce the cost per unit of manufacturing the vehicles. This policy was most likely responsible for the existence of relatively affordable new electric vehicles that are now available for purchase which further compels consumers to switch from their older vehicles to save on fuel and maintenance costs which in turn helps lower the greenhouse gas emissions produced from transportation. 

Work Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Cengage Learning, 2021. 

Leopold, Aldo. The Land Ethic - University of Kentucky. https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/china2017/library/Leopold1.pdf. 

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