Ecology-2014. What to Do? The Final Seminar...
A question I am proposing to third-year students to answer — first and foremost to those who need to make up the seminar that did not take place on November 19.
I am copying a passage from the column "Dies irae" written two years ago: "...to think about how individual citizens and society as a whole should behave properly in conditions where: — the human population has increased enormously and continues to grow rapidly; — present-day humanity exists primarily at the expense of non-renewable resources; — already today the size of the human population greatly exceeds (by some estimates — by more than an order of magnitude) that which the Earth can sustain without depleting non-renewable resources; — population growth is associated with a reduction in mortality, primarily child mortality; — the peak extraction of some important non-renewable resources (for example, phosphate-bearing rocks) has already passed, and for others humanity is passing it now (presumably, oil); — the consequences of population growth include shortages of energy, food and clean water, destruction of natural ecosystems, increasing environmental pollution, and military threats; — the natural halt of population growth occurs under conditions of a mature society and high well-being; — climate change will likely lead to a situation where the climate favorable for agriculture will be found where there are no suitable soils, while the regions with fertile soils will develop a dry climate; — a shortage of resources for individual parts of humanity may trigger a struggle for their redistribution, and this struggle will inevitably reduce the amount of available resources; — thus, humanity is already extremely unstable today, and with the continuation of the trends we observe, this instability may increase up to some breaking point". Links to some materials important for analyzing this situation are provided on this page, written three years ago. In general, nothing fundamentally new has changed since then. I also recommend looking at the column "Mountain Road" and listening to the lecture by Dennis Meadows discussed there. The responses of previous generations of students are in the column "Dies irae" and on this forum page. Summarizing, I will formulate the problem once more. The rapid evolution of humanity has led to the development of technologies that have ensured a drastic reduction in child mortality. This has led to a further acceleration of population growth, which has exacerbated shortages of food, energy, and water. The problem is being solved through the accelerated use of mineral resources and the transformation of natural ecosystems. This process is worsened by environmental pollution, a reduction in biodiversity, climate shifts, and growing military threats. At present, humanity lives at the expense of non-renewable resources, primarily fossil fuels. This means that the current way of life will inevitably change. How — is a more complex question. On this matter there is considerable diversity of opinion, which can be distributed between two notional poles. From the alarmists' point of view, humanity is doomed, as it has undermined the foundation for its own existence. From the progressivists' point of view, there is no problem, since, as before, the existing limitations will be overcome through the improvement of technology. Neither of these views can be reliably substantiated, since at present there are no technologies capable of reliably predicting the behavior of complex systems in that part of the space of their possible states which they have never been observed to occupy. In your opinion, how should humanity act in this situation? And how should each individual — above all, you yourself? I invite not only those students who need to make up the seminar from November 19, but everyone who wishes, to share their views.