Environmental Issues For Real - Environmentalism

By J. Mark Dangerfield Ph.D.

image: depositphotos

Environmentalism has been with us for a century and the world would be a poorer place without the efforts of the vocal and active minority who are its practitioners. Great swathes of land have been saved from the chainsaw and the plough, pollutants are fewer, and planning for development is now tempered by the need to consider more than just profit.

At the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago there were perhaps 1 million Homo sapiens. Back then the Earth must have seemed vast, boundless and bountiful.
With so few people there would always be the next forested valley to forage into, the next herd of game to hunt and the next pristine glacial lake to fish.

Our numbers began to increase once we figured out how to grow our own food. More babies survived to adulthood and adults lived longer simply because of improved nutrition. Then our numbers exploded once we discovered abundant energy from the burning of fossil fuels. And for a long time during these agricultural and industrial revolutions we kept that boundless and bountiful feeling about the world we live in. We went on to grow food everywhere and increase in numbers building cities and farming infrastructure as we went.

Environmentalism was the "hey, hold on a minute" call that we needed to have.
A few vocal individuals reaslised that natural resource renewal was compromised by the impact of our growing numbers on organisms and habitats, that habitats and species were being lost, and even that our actions would have a collective effect on climate. Environmentalism pointed out the very real limits to this growth and the need to prevent some of the damage it causes.