With the
exception of the solar energy that we use directly, all of the resources that maintain
life arise from our planet. Those resources that we use cannot be used by another living
organism at the same time. Therefore, we appropriate a part of the global resources by our
living on the planet. Solar energy is converted by photosynthesis into "food"
for secondary producers by the primary producers, then decomposers (ordinarily microbes,
but we like the imagery of dung beetles) until there is no energy remaining -- only
inorganic matter such as CO2 or mineral materials. Our waste, or unused
portions from partial use of an organic resource, is used by other organisms, until all of
the "value" is depleted. Metabolism is a part of the entropic process that
"uses up" the solar energy initially converted into a usable
"resource" for other life. The space required to maintain our supply of
renewable resources is part of our global footprint. Recycling amounts to
"purifying"
our environment by reuse of resources until they become incorporated once again into the
organic cycle by primary producers. This simplification makes the ecosystem sound like an
engineered system. However, for a glimpse at the complexity in the soil food web,
check the information by Dr. Elaine Ingham.
Resources that are not
"used up" such as minerals must be incorporated into the biological cycles
before they are useful again for sustaining life. Humans add an additional burden on the
system. For example, almost all of the gold mined today is used for jewelry. Humans tend
to hoard certain minerals, and as the population of the planet grows, these nonrenewable
materials are appropriated and removed from circulation or "available" storage,
and either become in short supply, or are mined with increasingly higher costs -- economic
costs as well as ecological costs. This appropriation of nonrenewable resources
constitutes a part of our global footprint, and sometimes hoarding becomes hazardous by
"reburying" some of it in abnormally high concentrations or chemical forms, such
as radioactive materials. Some is simply applied intentionally in smaller amounts but
accumulate to toxic levels, such as endocrine-mimicking pesticides in the soil. We also
reduce the biological value of some valuable materials by contaminating it with toxic
industrial materials, such as PCB and pesticides in sewage flowing in our cities to
treatment plants, instead of where it can be a food resource for soil microorganisms. This
practice of hoarding, whether in a landfill, in the atmosphere, in our soil, or on our
bodies, presents a serious threat to life.
Today with extensive
processing, trade and storage technology, it is difficulty to recognize our footprint.
What we eat may be grown thousands of miles away, and stored for weeks or even years. The
total footprint includes the resources used in manufacture of equipment for processing,
shipping and storage, and a portion of the resources to sustain the people who operate the
equipment. We depend not only on the living organisms that transform solar energy to food
that we eat, but also upon the solar energy that is required to produce, process, move,
and store it for us. Fossil fuel is solar energy that has been stored for millions of
years, and we use this solar energy faster than photosynthesis "captures"
contemporary solar energy. While we depend on a nonrenewable resource in the form of
fossil fuel, we also return to the global system the raw material of photosynthesis, CO2,
at an accelerated rate, and cause "pollution" of the atmosphere. As in any
system, there is a limited range within which a balance must be maintained before the
system becomes less and less efficient. The buffering capacity of the system can be
overpowered when extraordinarily large changes occur. We can expect such a condition to be
reached, and it may already be indicated by climate changes (global warming effects, ozone
hole effects, etc.). Our contribution to reduction in the effectiveness of the life
support system is also part of our global footprint with long term effects well past our
lifetime.
In this course you will
estimate your personal ecological footprint. It may surprise you
to find how many people a population with similar footprints our planet can support. The
management of your footprint is the most basic form of natural resource management.
Everything else that we do likewise manages natural resources, but is more difficult to
evaluate directly. We will be developing this web site to allow you to enter your data
weekly into a database, from which your footprint will be calculated.
For an interesting
discussion by Gil Friend of this concept for the design of buildings and cities, read the
"Zero Ecological Footprint"
article. One of the ironies of economics is that there is no ecological
signal related to the supply of natural resources remaining that
support life and human civilizations. The relationship is analogous to the
accelerator pedal of an automobile, which provides no information about
the fuel in in the fuel tank -- until it is empty! One can
accelerate the engine by pressing the accelerator so long as the fuel tank
can supply the demand. However, when the fuel tank is empty, the
accelerator no longer works. For further discussion of the relationship,
and failure of economic signals about serious loss of ecological services,
read an article by William Rees.
For our society, the
ecological footprint MUST be changed, and very soon, or we will destroy our support
system. Gil Friend has written a number of essays that give some insights into how these
changes may be achieved, and the ways that we can monitor our progress. Also, a protocol
called "The Natural Step" was developed in Sweden, and has been adopted by some
of the largest corporations in the world. (Part 1;
Part 2) This development gives
me hope that the transformation can be accomplished. The worry I have now is can
we do it before we crash -- HARD?
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