Girl drinking from a pipe in India
Understanding our impact on the world is an interdisciplinary venture because it requires the integration of many complex and interrelated issues. This area of research combines both studies of Environmental Science and Environmental Policy, the former concerning “how humans interact with the living and non living parts of their environment” (Miller and Spoolman 6) and the later concerning the “creation, evolution, implementation and effectiveness of environmental policies” (Environmental Policy 1). Jointly comprising Environmental Studies, this field requires an intensely interdisciplinary approach to grasp the complex affairs between human and environmental issues, supplementing the scientific disciplines of Biology, Chemistry, and Ecology with areas of Sociology, Religion, Technology and the Humanities. After all environmental issues do not live in a vacuum, they often have real ethically-trying implications for humans.
This interdisciplinary nature to Environmental Studies differs from that of singular disciplines, considering that “inter’, means, “between, among, and in the midst” and, “derived from two or more [areas]” (Repko 5). For even unlike trans-disciplinary examinations that supplement a preliminary locus with many disciplines, or multi-disciplinary inquiries that investigate (but fail to integrate) many disciplines, interdisciplinary studies depend entirely upon combining each related discipline’s unique technique of truth-seeking to derive its solutions. Environmental Studies weaves the implications of each discipline together, creating a brand new, and constantly transcending, body of knowledge.
Birds-eye rendering of Central Park in Manhattan (current state)
Commonly, people hold one of three possible life stances about their relationship to the environment. These worldviews are usually either ‘Planetary Management’, which establishes humanity as separate and rightful users of nature in any way we desire, ‘Stewardship’, which considers humans as rightful managers of the earth if pursued with ethical responsibility, or Environmental Wisdom, which grants all species the right to nature’s bounty and considers humans to be are a part of and entirely dependent upon the natural world (Miller and Spoolman 24-25). These three worldview hit the core, interdisciplinary meat of Environmental Studies and are always at play in the world, defining and informing our population’s economical, humanitarian, and environmental practices.
Humans unavoidably inflict damage to the environment whenever the process of their activities exceed one what is known as the earth’s ‘sustainable yield’, or the highest rate of renewable resources humans can use while maintaining the earth’s ability to replenish them. Materials that are non-renewable (such as oil and coal) do not have a sustainable yield because their amounts are fixed and irreplaceable. Against mounting ecological degradation, nations are pushing for increased sustainability, or the capacity “to survive, flourish, and adapt [our means of living] to changing environmental conditions into the very long-term future” (Miller and Spoolman 5).
Sustainable development chart
The Core of Miller’s text, The Living Environment, discusses certain part of nature as well as the kinds of natural capital and ecosystem goods and services, but most importantly, connects these things to the three principles of sustainability. According to Miller, sustainable activities are modeled after the of the world’s natural processes that work to support the earth’s long-term survival. These processes consist of Solar Energy, Biodiversity, and Chemical Cycling. The indefinite power Solar Energy makes it a ‘perpetual resource’ of life, the grand scheme of Biodiversity offers solutions for environmental changes, and the restorative rotation of Chemical Cycling forever repurposes waste into repurposed material for subsequent life forms. Humans can potentially gain a lot from mimicking these processes.
Many research organizations and tools track the scope of our destruction and inform our decision-making when creating solutions for these issues. From 2001-2005, the United Nations launched the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, collecting a detailed snapshot of the world’s ecological health and it’s roots causes. The interdisciplinary structure of environmental studies is clearly shown in the UN’s chart (see left), demonstrating the intricate relationships between human well-being, the ecosystems, and both direct and indirect ‘drivers’ of change. From the project, they found “60 percent (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services examined during the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are being degraded or used unsustainably”, including areas of fishing, fresh water, air, and climate regulation, and “over the past 50 years humans have changed ecosystems more than in any period of time in human history” (Sarukhán and Whyte 1). The past 50 years has also brought over 60 percent of the world’s increase of carbon dioxide (32 percent overall) while destroying or seriously damaging 40 percent of the world’s coral reefs, and the past 30 years has seen more land transformed into cropland than the 150 years between 1700 and 1850 (Sarukhán and Whyte 2). There are many root causes of this, one of them being population overgrowth. Between 1950 and 2000,
“The world population doubled to 6 billion people and the global economy increased more than sixfold. To meet this demand, food production increased… two-and-a half times, water use doubled, wood harvests for pulp and paper production tripled, installed hydropower capacity doubled, and timber production increased by more than half (Sarukhán and Whyte 5).
Clear-cut deforestation in the Amazon
I firmly agree that Earth has limited resources cannot support an unlimited human birthing, for every person born is another mouth to feed and body to shelter. Second, and touched upon in the above quote, most of our swollen population harvests resources at an alarmingly unsustainable rate. According to a recent example provided by the Environmental News Network, this overabundant call for resources is as strong as ever, citing that industrial palm oil companies in Borneo are trying to cut down large tracks of forest that provide 50 percent of the largest remaining orangutan population. The need for resources does not just involve the economy, it involves environmental science (the implications of destroying entire ecosystems), religion and cultural tradition (what spirituality is tied to the land), politics (who owns property rights, etc), and much more.
An impoverished boy outside a multinational foodchain
Small plant brings a little bit of nature into a household, and no doubt, into the psyche of the homeowner
I believe another primary reason for the world’s over-harvesting of resources can be traced to our next major problem: disparity of wealth. Affluent nations request unsustainable amounts of natural capital, the combination of earth’s natural resources and services, that far exceeds basic necessity to the point where “19 percent of the world [i.e. developed countries] use 88 percent of the world’s resources and produce 70 percent of the world’s waste” (Miller and Spoolman 12). To meet the needs of more affluent communities, poorer people will more often then not destroy entire ecosystems (clear cutting rainforests and polluting rivers for example) to survive, let alone increase their small margin of economic profit.
However, doing nothing to change our habits only exacerbates these issues for future generations and the actions we take as individuals can make a real difference. Our ingenuity has grown substantially over the centuries and we have the heart and intellect to potentially reverse our environmental deterioration.
While people can justly argue about the various rights and wrongs of human activity they cannot ignore current existence and causes of injury to our world’s ecosystems.
For in the wise words of Margaret Mead,
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has” (Miller and Spoolman 26).
Question One: Does an interdisciplinary understanding of Environmental Studies favor one of the three worldviews? For instance, would someone who thinks that the environment is an interdisciplinary issue be more inclined to follow a certain worldview (management/stewardship/wisdom)?
Question Two: How can an interdisciplinary outlook on environmental and economical issues help save the natural world from destruction and unsustainable use?
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Seattle is leading the green building movement in their construction of the Bullitt Center, which is currently the world’s greenest-ever commercial building. Located in Capital Hill, a populous neighborhood adjacent to Seattle’s downtown core, the Bullitt Center aims to fulfill all the sustainable requirements set forth by a new system of green certification (similar to LEED) called the The Living Building Challenge. Founders of the Bullitt Center hope to implement the newest, burgeoning technologies in harvesting green energy sources and combining efficient, sustainability with humanity’s move toward a modern lifestyle. As stated from the foundation,
A California-based company, Soil Retention®, offers systems of concrete manufacturing in roads, parking lots, retaining walls, and other forms of infrastructure that provides space for natural vegetation growth and ecological processes. Taken from the Soil Retention® website, the company’s first product is a plantable retaining wall, called ‘Verdura’:
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