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Thoughts on Some Conceivable Ecodisasters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Nicholas Polunin
Nicholas Polunin
Affiliation:
Secretary-General, International Conferences on Environmental Future; Founder and Editor of Environmental Conservation, etc., 15 Chemin F.-Lehmann, 1218 Grand-Saconnex, Geneva, Switzerland
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Extract

Even if, as many of us believe, ‘there is time to avoid the abyss’ of non-survival, there is no time for complacency. Rather is there need for eternal vigilance, scientific monitoring, international legal and other enlightened controls, and often very costly action. For Man is inexorably changing the world, though often insidiously and quite unintentionally. Already he has the knowledge and wherewithal to control his numbers, effects, and very destiny, maintaining the biosphere for himself and to some extent for Nature; but has he the collective wisdom? And what are the limits of his folly? It might be thought that many of our chosen items touched on above are either local or not concerned with the environment as a whole, and hence would not constitute real ecodisasters; but when we look just a little ‘below the surface’, we realize that they could engender in the long run quite disastrous effects on the habitat and life support system of Man which, with his present all-too-heavy impress, could mean the far wider environment of Nature and even the entire biosphere. Meanwhile Man's objective in this age of ecological enlightenment should surely be to maintain optimum diversity in the biosphere—with due emphasis on the ‘optimum’ having regard to the direct needs of Nature as well as of himself.

With Man now the unquestioned superdominant of the world, yet continuing to increase his numbers to the extent of projected doubling in 30–40 years and doubling again thereafter, there are thrust upon us an ever-increasing number and burden of conceivable ecodisasters, many of which we have touched on above. Others can already be foreseen and yet others will doubtless emerge. None seems inevitable in itself, at least in widespread magnitude, and few appear to be at all likely; but still something has got to happen to check the projected mounting demomass, and it seems reasonable to expect it to be one or more of cur listed conceivabilities. Which this may turn out to be, presumably sparking otheis and altogether changing the world even more precipitously than has been the case of late, we can only conjecture.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1974 , pp. 177 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1974

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