Amy Hessl
Amy Hessl is an assistant professor of Geology and Geography at WVU. Her research interests include the interactions between humans, climate and forested ecosystems in mountain environments. Recent projects include the history of wildfire in central Washington state, the impacts of land use strategies on carbon sequestration in West Virginia and the impacts of climate change on forests in Mongolia.
We have no choice but to alter nature ? how else can we exist? In fact, one might say that it is human nature to alter nature. Our evolutionary strategy has been to alter nature for our benefit ? through fire to catch game animals, through weaponry to increase our kill rate, and through agriculture and animal domestication to increase food security. We are not alone in adopting a strategy of altering nature for our benefit; other animals have adopted this strategy as well. Consider the North American beaver (Castor canadensis). So successful were beavers at creating wetlands through dam building that when they were nearly eradicated by hunting and trapping in the early 19th century, atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane actually decreased at a global level due to the loss of wetlands (which produce lots of carbon dioxide and methane). Prior to their near total eradication, beavers were actually contributing to global warming by creating wetlands thereby altering atmospheric composition! Sound familiar?
Ants are also capable of dramatically altering their environment by forming colonies that can extend underground for at least 1000km and comprise up to 400 million individuals. Ants are indigenous to almost every landmass on Earth, (the exceptions being Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and the Hawaiian Islands). E. O. Wilson, the famous ecologist, estimates that up to 33% of terrestrial (land-based) animal biomass is made up of ants and termites and that the global ant population is currently approximately 1017. The global ant population far exceeds the global human population.
If other species are numerous, can manipulate their local environment, and can even affect the global environment, then isn?t it ok for us to alter our environment? Or are our alterations somehow worse than those of other organisms? Though their may not be more of us than them (only 6.5 billion humans in 2005 ? not many compared with ants), our ecological footprint (amount of land and water required to support a person and their wastes) is a lot larger than that of a beaver and certainly greater than that of an ant. This is especially true in the first world where consumption of natural resources is much higher than the third world. As a result, the scale of our alterations of nature has become exceedingly large and our alterations (including pollution of all forms, urban development, habitat degradation, extinctions, etc.) are more effective, efficient, and complete than that of any other organism.
Perhaps a more realistic question is ?at what point have we altered nature too much?? Have we gone too far when our alterations begin to reduce the chances of our own survival as a species? Though many would argue we have already reached that point, some statistics would say otherwise. Human life expectancy has risen steadily since 1800 in all major regions of the world (except for a recent decline in Sub-Saharan Africa as a result of the HIV epidemic). During the same period, the global human population continued to rise exponentially. It appears that we can support large numbers of people on the globe even while we severely alter nature. This says nothing of course about whether our quality of life continues to be good (I leave that to the individual to evaluate).
This brings me to other questions, more philosophical in nature: Is our global domination of Earth?s resources moral? What about the effects of our activities on other living things and ecosystems? Do we have an obligation to protect them from our alterations of nature? Surprisingly, most Americans would say that we do. In fact we have a law to enforce this philosophy of ?deep ecology?. In 2004, a survey estimated that 86% of American voters said they supported the Endangered Species Act of 1973, indicating that we do agree that ?life is good?, even when it?s not our species. In the famous court decision TVA vs. Hill (1978), the Supreme Court upheld the Endangered Species Act even though the species at risk was a tiny, non-charismatic fish (the snail darter ? which later turned out to be quite abundant elsewhere).
So, if we agree that other species matter and we know that our current (ab)use of resources is negatively affecting them (generating the largest mass extinction in the last 65 million years, altering the atmosphere and climate at global scales and permanently destroying habitats worldwide) but at the same time we recognize that it is our very nature to alter nature, then what can we do but accept our (somewhat grim) future?
We can make use of another important aspect of human nature: consciousness. Though we alter nature, often to the detriment of other species and maybe even to our own detriment, we are aware of our actions and can anticipate our destiny and the destiny of other living things whether that destiny is extinction or proliferation. Though other organisms alter nature, we may be the only species that can avert disaster through conscious decision making, planning, and ingenuity. Does the salvation of our fellow species lie in technology? Conservation? Preservation? I believe all three ? but whatever the solution(s), we must accept both aspects of human nature: our tendency to destroy and our ability to act consciously.
