Assault on Nature
Source: By Jaydev Jana: The Statesman
“If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature.”
~ Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
Human beings have for long been at war with the environment. Nature has been treated as a source of resources to be tapped and as a sink to dump wastes. Economic performance, based on ‘reductionist’ science, has failed to differentiate between income and capital. We have lived off the interest generated by the earth’s natural capital assets. Environment has reached a critical juncture on account of progressive degradation. This has provoked the World Bank to advance a warning ~ “Soil that is degraded, aquifers that are depleted, and ecosystems that are destroyed in the name of raising incomes today can jeopardize the prospects for earning income tomorrow.”
The overwhelming emphasis of modern economic activity is on growth rather than development. This is the major problem today. Growth is often mistakenly equated with development, driven by the illusion of opulence. Economic development, accurately expressed in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), is predominately a qualitative measure of sustainability and people’s sense of morality ~ right and wrong, good and bad. Conversely, economic growth, expressed mainly in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is exclusively a quantitative measure that hardly takes into account sustainability and is also silent about the overall quality of life. Wealth is what Nature gives us and what a reasonable man can make out of the gifts of Nature for his reasonable use. The reverse of wealth is ‘illth’ ~ a term coined by John Ruskin in unto this Last (1860). It means that the production and possession of useless items that get accumulated and foster adverse results rather than well-being. The market ~ the Holy Grail of conventional economies ~ consumes that which sustains us all and preposterously turns out ‘illth’.
The creation of scarce resources and environmental pollution could reasonably be explained by the concept of ‘thermo economics’ ~ the term coined by an American engineer, Myron Tribes, in 1920. It applies the laws of thermodynamics to the macro-economic models of economic activity. Energy and matter flow from the environment to the economic system and waste matter and heat flow from economic system to the environment. Therefore, the flow begins with depletion of natural resources and ends with pollution of the environment.
According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed. But the problem is that something is permanently lost whenever these are used. This has been corroborated by the second law of thermodynamics which states that whenever energy is used to perform an activity, some of it is let off in the form of waste-heat. No energy-using process is 100 per cent efficient. The flow of matter in production and consumption is also an entropic process. The re-use of all wastes from the consumption process will require a large amount of energy, rendering 100 per cent recycling impossible. As a result, resources become scare and pollutants get accumulated.
Today’s economy is thriving on the massive use of natural resources. This is overloading the Earth’s capacity to absorb pollutants. This can disrupt the natural cycles to replenish slowly-renewable resources such as soil and groundwater, and to sustain genetic and ecological diversity. The flow of energy and matter through the economic system appears to be linear and uni-directional, not circular. Conversely, the dynamics of ecosystems are influenced by feedback loops and circular loads and do not follow the linear process of the physical system. If the limit is crossed, it could lead to decline or collapse. We cannot always foresee when the limit gets overstepped since the threshold in non-linear systems is difficult to anticipate.
Nature is normally benevolent to us. It provides a range of beneficial services, collectively known as ecosystem services, such as waste detoxification, pollination, air and water purification, bio-diversity maintenance, and soil generation. But Nature’s benevolence is fast drying up because of human avarice. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 concluded that out of 24 ecosystem services examined, 15 are being degraded or used in a manner that is unsustainable. Scientifically, the human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems is measured in terms of the ‘ecological footprint’ which represents the biologically productive land and sea area needed to sustain the current consumption pattern as well as to assimilate associated wastes.
The most recent accounts published by the Global Footprint Network, an independent think-tank, reveal that ‘our footprint exceeds the world’s ability to regenerate by about 25 per cent.’ Decimating forests, damming rivers, draining wetlands, spreading copious amounts of toxic gas and destabilizing the climate have all contributed to an unraveling of Earth’s complex ecological safety net. Over-exploitation of natural resources has severely affected five specific areas that can be expressed by a simple acronym, WEHAB ~ Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Bio-diversity.
More than half of the world’s wetlands disappeared during the past century; half of the remaining coastal wetlands are likely to be lost by 2080. According to the World Commission Report for the 21st century, more than half of the world’s major sources of water are so polluted that they may endanger human health and poison surrounding the ecosystem. That system is already contaminated by industrial, agricultural and urban wastes. More than one billion people are without safe drinking water and nearly 3 million people die every year from diseases caused by unsafe water, 90 per cent of whom are children. Twice that number lack adequate sanitation.
Energy is a sine qua non for economic growth. The Industrial Revolution was accompanied by a revolution in the conversion of inanimate energy to meet human needs and a shift from the ‘ecotechnic phase’ based on ‘water-and-wood complex’ to the ‘paleotechnic phase’ based on ‘fossil fuel-and-iron complex’. Fossil fuels are a part of the natural capital which we are treating as expendable. Indiscriminate burning of carbon-dense fossil fuels accompanied by extensive clearing of forests has contributed to a 40 per cent increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have raised the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. At present, each person emits almost 4.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted serious risks and damage to species, ecosystem, human infrastructure, societies and future livelihoods. Across the world, infectious diseases kill some 14.5 million people a year; more than one billion die every year from air pollution. Tropical diseases such as malaria and African guinea worm are closely linked with polluted water and poor sanitation. Modern agriculture has also created environmental problems.
The devastation of our planet is proceeding at such a rapid pace that it now threatens the future of humanity. The problem brings out a conflict between the concepts of ‘price’ and ‘value’. According to the principles of economics, a commodity that has no price is like Nature’s goods ~ also known as public goods ~ are vulnerable to indiscriminate exploitation.
It would be pertinent to conclude with an appeal that was once advanced by Nelson Mandela ~ “Let us stand together to make our world a sustainable source for our future as humanity on the planet.”
“If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature.”
~ Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
Human beings have for long been at war with the environment. Nature has been treated as a source of resources to be tapped and as a sink to dump wastes. Economic performance, based on ‘reductionist’ science, has failed to differentiate between income and capital. We have lived off the interest generated by the earth’s natural capital assets. Environment has reached a critical juncture on account of progressive degradation. This has provoked the World Bank to advance a warning ~ “Soil that is degraded, aquifers that are depleted, and ecosystems that are destroyed in the name of raising incomes today can jeopardize the prospects for earning income tomorrow.”
The overwhelming emphasis of modern economic activity is on growth rather than development. This is the major problem today. Growth is often mistakenly equated with development, driven by the illusion of opulence. Economic development, accurately expressed in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), is predominately a qualitative measure of sustainability and people’s sense of morality ~ right and wrong, good and bad. Conversely, economic growth, expressed mainly in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is exclusively a quantitative measure that hardly takes into account sustainability and is also silent about the overall quality of life. Wealth is what Nature gives us and what a reasonable man can make out of the gifts of Nature for his reasonable use. The reverse of wealth is ‘illth’ ~ a term coined by John Ruskin in unto this Last (1860). It means that the production and possession of useless items that get accumulated and foster adverse results rather than well-being. The market ~ the Holy Grail of conventional economies ~ consumes that which sustains us all and preposterously turns out ‘illth’.
The creation of scarce resources and environmental pollution could reasonably be explained by the concept of ‘thermo economics’ ~ the term coined by an American engineer, Myron Tribes, in 1920. It applies the laws of thermodynamics to the macro-economic models of economic activity. Energy and matter flow from the environment to the economic system and waste matter and heat flow from economic system to the environment. Therefore, the flow begins with depletion of natural resources and ends with pollution of the environment.
According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed. But the problem is that something is permanently lost whenever these are used. This has been corroborated by the second law of thermodynamics which states that whenever energy is used to perform an activity, some of it is let off in the form of waste-heat. No energy-using process is 100 per cent efficient. The flow of matter in production and consumption is also an entropic process. The re-use of all wastes from the consumption process will require a large amount of energy, rendering 100 per cent recycling impossible. As a result, resources become scare and pollutants get accumulated.
Today’s economy is thriving on the massive use of natural resources. This is overloading the Earth’s capacity to absorb pollutants. This can disrupt the natural cycles to replenish slowly-renewable resources such as soil and groundwater, and to sustain genetic and ecological diversity. The flow of energy and matter through the economic system appears to be linear and uni-directional, not circular. Conversely, the dynamics of ecosystems are influenced by feedback loops and circular loads and do not follow the linear process of the physical system. If the limit is crossed, it could lead to decline or collapse. We cannot always foresee when the limit gets overstepped since the threshold in non-linear systems is difficult to anticipate.
Nature is normally benevolent to us. It provides a range of beneficial services, collectively known as ecosystem services, such as waste detoxification, pollination, air and water purification, bio-diversity maintenance, and soil generation. But Nature’s benevolence is fast drying up because of human avarice. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 concluded that out of 24 ecosystem services examined, 15 are being degraded or used in a manner that is unsustainable. Scientifically, the human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems is measured in terms of the ‘ecological footprint’ which represents the biologically productive land and sea area needed to sustain the current consumption pattern as well as to assimilate associated wastes.
The most recent accounts published by the Global Footprint Network, an independent think-tank, reveal that ‘our footprint exceeds the world’s ability to regenerate by about 25 per cent.’ Decimating forests, damming rivers, draining wetlands, spreading copious amounts of toxic gas and destabilizing the climate have all contributed to an unraveling of Earth’s complex ecological safety net. Over-exploitation of natural resources has severely affected five specific areas that can be expressed by a simple acronym, WEHAB ~ Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Bio-diversity.
More than half of the world’s wetlands disappeared during the past century; half of the remaining coastal wetlands are likely to be lost by 2080. According to the World Commission Report for the 21st century, more than half of the world’s major sources of water are so polluted that they may endanger human health and poison surrounding the ecosystem. That system is already contaminated by industrial, agricultural and urban wastes. More than one billion people are without safe drinking water and nearly 3 million people die every year from diseases caused by unsafe water, 90 per cent of whom are children. Twice that number lack adequate sanitation.
Energy is a sine qua non for economic growth. The Industrial Revolution was accompanied by a revolution in the conversion of inanimate energy to meet human needs and a shift from the ‘ecotechnic phase’ based on ‘water-and-wood complex’ to the ‘paleotechnic phase’ based on ‘fossil fuel-and-iron complex’. Fossil fuels are a part of the natural capital which we are treating as expendable. Indiscriminate burning of carbon-dense fossil fuels accompanied by extensive clearing of forests has contributed to a 40 per cent increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have raised the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. At present, each person emits almost 4.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted serious risks and damage to species, ecosystem, human infrastructure, societies and future livelihoods. Across the world, infectious diseases kill some 14.5 million people a year; more than one billion die every year from air pollution. Tropical diseases such as malaria and African guinea worm are closely linked with polluted water and poor sanitation. Modern agriculture has also created environmental problems.
The devastation of our planet is proceeding at such a rapid pace that it now threatens the future of humanity. The problem brings out a conflict between the concepts of ‘price’ and ‘value’. According to the principles of economics, a commodity that has no price is like Nature’s goods ~ also known as public goods ~ are vulnerable to indiscriminate exploitation.
It would be pertinent to conclude with an appeal that was once advanced by Nelson Mandela ~ “Let us stand together to make our world a sustainable source for our future as humanity on the planet.”
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