Science is only limited by the curiosity of the scientist and the quality of the instruments they use. With the invention of new technology, the boundaries of society’s collective knowledge widen with the increased capabilities of scientific equipment and practices. Because of this, interests such as ecology and population theories radically changed over the course of the 1900’s as the United States began to face land and food crises. While ecological techniques and practices were improved by ecologists such as Aldo Leopold and Paul Sears, population theorists such as Thomas Malthus and Lester Brown were able to formulate ideas and delve into the science behind the growth and fluctuations of population size. In this paper, I will discuss each scientist’s contributions and the role technology and improved techniques plays in their discoveries and contributions.
Ecology was a field of particular interest during the early and mid-1900’s, as farming across the Midwest grew and game and fur hunting had reached a new popularity. Aldo Leapold, for one, foresaw the environmental impact of overhunting first hand. Wanting to increase the deer population, hunters were encouraged to kill predators of the deer. Before long, the increased deer population began to cause problems in the ecosystem, as the removal of predators severely shifted nature out of equilibrium. By studying this sort of relationship between predators and prey, Leopold then extrapolated this relationship to all parts of an ecosystem, including humans’ interactions with the land. Leopold summarizes this in his Land Ethic, where he claims “the land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it” (Leopol...
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... times prior, taking action may be the hardest step to take, and only time will tell the true impacts of overpopulation and our response to this crisis.
Works Cited
Brown, L (1971). The environmental consequences of man’s quest for food. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 184 (1971):62-75. New York Academy of Sciences.
Leopold, A., & Schwartz, C. W. (1949). A Sand County almanac, and Sketches here and there. London: Oxford University Press.
Malthus, T. R., Winch, D., & James, P. (1992). An essay on the principle of population, or, A view of its past and present effects on human happiness: with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press.
Sears, P. B. (1935). Deserts on the march. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.
In my generation, I am able to catch what is relatively the tail end of this slow extinction. And to be quite honest, I had not devoted a moment of thought to this phenomenon until I read Leopold’s passages. In fact, I am always the first one to compliment a new highway project that saves me five minutes of driving or even a tidy farmstead as I pass. Now, more than ever, my thoughts are in limbo. It was just last week when my dad pointed out an area off the highway that displayed miles of slowly rolling cornfields. His reaction was to the beauty of the countryside. Mine was to question his. I found myself thinking about all of the hard work that created that beauty, and then how much more beautiful it was fifty, a hundred, or even two centuries ago. Only the mind’s eye can create this beauty now, and that is exactly why Leopold’s concerns are validated.
Parfit, Derek (2004). “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life.” In J. Ryberg & T. Tännsjö (eds.), The Repugnant Conclusion. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 7-22.
Aldo Leopold’s essay, “Thinking Like a Mountain” shines light on a prominent issue amongst the ecosystem concerning the importance of a single organism. Leopold attempts to help the reader understand the importance of all animals in the ecosystem by allowing a wolf, deer, and a mountain to represent the ecosystem and how changes amongst them cause adverse effects on each other. Leopold recounts of the killing of a wolf and seeing a "fierce green fire" die in its eyes, this became a transformational moment in his life causing him to rethink the beliefs he had grown up with. By connecting the wolf’s death to the health of the mountain he was inspired to promote the idea that all predators matter to the ecosystem. He believed then that all native organisms are critical to the health of the land, if any change occurs in one part of the circuit, many parts will have to adjust to it and if something is removed the consequence can be detrimental. The essay highlights the idea that all living things on earth have a purpose and that everything is interdependent of each other.
Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” is an article that identifies the nation’s current problems and predicaments that can’t be resolved through the use of technical solutions. Hardin’s work heavily focuses on overpopulation, a prominent and unceasing issue that significantly distorts and affects the stability of the Earth and the abundance of the planet’s resources. In his article, he mentioned some reasonable and important solutions to overpopulation, but he also explained its downside and how the said solutions may not be ideal and practical. “Tragedy of the Commons” revealed that the human population will continue to flourish and how it will be greatly detrimental to our society unless individuals get the education that they need and
Loder, Natasha, Elizabeth Finkel, Craig Meisner, and Pamela Ronald. “The Problem of What to Eat.” Conservation Magazine. The Society for Conservative Biology, July-Sept. 2008. Web. 16 Dec. 2009.
John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold all have moderately different views and ideas about the environment in terms of its worth, purpose, use and protection. At one extensively non-anthropocentric extreme, Muir’s views and ideas placed emphasis on protecting environmental areas as a moral obligation. That is to say, Muir believed that wilderness environments should be used for divine transcendence, spiritual contemplation, as a place for repenting sins and obtaining devotional healing, rather than being used for exploitative materialistic greed and destructive consumption, such as industrialism, mining, and lumbering. At the other extreme, anthropocentric, Pinchot views nature simply as natural resources. In other words, nature is explicitly
One of Aldo Leopolds main points in his essay was that we as humans can not replace, rebuild nature. So before it goes to far, and get's to destroyed we must restore it. As people though we can only do so much and we can't restore it with foreign plants, but only the natural plants that originated there. So if we destroy an area's ecosystem then we can never restore, and replenish it to its original state and land consistency. In his essay Leopold said that "we have radically modified the biotic system because we had to. Food chains now begin with corn, and alfalfa instead of oaks and bluestem, flows through cows, hogs, and poultry instead of into elk, deer, and grouse." Therefore we can never restore damage done but only reroute it.
Now, the ideas of Thomas Malthus generally do not apply to the world today. It is important to understand that Malthus wanted to create a theory that explained the success of people in a population. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution (which was helped formed by Malthus doctrine) it is survival of the fittest. I do bel...
Owens, James (nd). Is Limiting the Population Growth a key Factor in Protecting the Global Environment.
Among the fears of many environmentalists is that of overpopulation. Acutely aware of the finite resources that the planet possesses and the limitations of renewable resources, there are concerns that the planet may soon reach its maximum caring capacity. Since the First Great Transition ten thousand years ago, the planet has experienced an astounding increase in population. Generations later, the planet is beginning to feel the effects of continual population expansion. Over the years, numerous methods have been proposed or adopted to ensure that the Earth will not exhaust its resources. One of the most frightening adapted solutions was the eugenics movement.
Leopold defends his position the advent of a new ethical development, one that deals with humans’ relations to the land and its necessity. This relationship is defined as the land ethic, this concept holds to a central component referred to as the ecological consciousness. The ecological consciousness is not a vague ideal, but one that is not recognized in modern society. It reflects a certainty of individual responsibility for the health and preservation of the land upon which we live, and all of its components. If the health of the land is upheld, its capacity of self-renewal and regeneration is maintained as well. To date, conservation has been our sole effort to understand and preserve this capacity. Leopold holds that if the mainstream embraces his ideals of a land ethic and an ecological consciousness, the beauty, stability and integrity of our world will be preserved.
Malthusian theory also deemed population expansion would have a direct correlation between the environment and its future destruction. The environment is the home not only to humans but also to the wildlife, vegetation, and other living species of the world. “Population will have a very serve, even catastrophic, impact on the natural environment and human welfare (Walker, On Wall Street). Over-populat...
Overpopulation describes a condition where the number of people uses the resources in a closed environment so that it can no longer maintain that population (Elliot Institute). Around the early 1900 's, the world population had grown to a billion people, and English scholar, Thomas Malthus and partner economists predicted that mankind would outgrow its available resources because a limited amount of land wouldn 't be able to support a population with a limitless potential for growth. Today our population is more than 7 billion. Despite the fact that better health care and medicine along with advances in food production and easier access to freshwater and sanitation have given us the ability to feed ourselves and fight many sickness 's, some
It is a known fact that the world population is increasing without bound; however, there is a debate if this increase is a good thing or if it will prove catastrophic. The article “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin discusses how the ever-increasing world population will exhaust the world of its natural resources, and eliminate human’s capability for survival. On the other side of the argument is Julian L. Simon who wrote “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” This article proposes the theory that with an increase in population, humans’s quality of life is amplified. One particular issue that they both mention and have drastically different views on is the future of agriculture and human’s ability to sustain it.