The Dominant Animal: Chapter 12, New Imperative
an on line guide
Garret Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons
Weeks
Twelve
Outline | Conclusions | Ending paradox
New Imperative for action. |
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| "over the last two decades a new imperative has come to dominate environmental concerns with the growing awareness that human activities have increasing influence on Earth. . ." | ||
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| Finite meaning limited, bounded, and constrained by circumstances. | ||
Reform culture, asset accounting, & the Future of Life
"Large-scale human caused environmental change also is an old story."
Outline
Scope: “The roots of
global change go far back in time . . . “
1.
Land use change {236
2.
Agriculture and its challenges {240
3.
Oceans: an open access resource {245
4.
Homogenization of nature {247
5.
Toxic substances {248
6.
The ecological foot print {251
"The ecological footprint of a designated population is 'the total area of land and water ecosystems required to produce the resources that a population consumes, and to assimilate the wastes that the population produces,...." (pp. 251-252.)
7.
Tying it all together {252
"...and even common sense, suggest that the human enterprise is already unsustainable –human demand is outstripping what nature can provide...."
"The eco-footprint of an average American is roughly four times the global average,...and as much as ten times larger than those of ...Bangladesh and Chad."
"Now our hard-earned dominance threatens our own civilization, and it will therefore greatly influence future trajectories in cultural evolution–and, in turn, what they portend for humanity's life support systems."
