Much of what we do has an effect on the planet. We are bringing about one of the biggest ‘mass-extinctions’ there has ever been. We destroy and pollute habitats, introduce alien species into established ecosystems, and are warming the planet faster than it has ever been warmed before. We must expect severe problems!
Habitat Destruction
Modern agriculture requires us to stamp our own version of nature onto the environment. We prefer monocultures and eliminate biodiversity in the effort to produce enough food for ourselves. When ‘unproductive’ land is ‘brought under the plough’ we dismantle ecosystems that have often taken millions of years to establish themselves. We do this at our peril and we must expect the planet to ‘fight back’! If we successfully destroy all the Coral Reefs we must accept that this will affect many commercial fish species in unpredictable ways, if we remove all the rain forests we can expect weather changes, if we use pesticides without care we must accept that we will kill the good beasties along with the bad.
Invasive Species
There are many examples of creatures that have been moved by mankind into new environments. Sometimes this has been done deliberately (as in the case of the Harlequin Ladybird) and sometimes accidentally (as in the case of the Tiger Mosquito). In both of these cases there have been consequences that could not have been predicted. We have accidentally produced new types of animal on occasion, as happened when European Honeybees were crossed with African Honeybees to produce the so-called Killer Bees in South America. Always we are surprised by what happens.
Hopeful Developments
Nothing I have said above can be denied, and it might look as if I am preaching ‘doom and gloom’ – but I am not! The fact that many of the problems are being recognised and studied intensively means that we are beginning to undo some of the damage, or at least starting to know what we should do. In the case of the destruction of Coral Reefs there is a recognition of the fact that much of the damage is done by poor people who do not have the luxury of ‘finer feelings’ for the environment. Here there are moves to make the reefs more valuable to them by efforts such as insisting on the sustainable capture of aquarium fish (with high value) and increasing eco-tourism (where leisure divers bring in much money).
Globally we are now trying to slow down the rate at which we warm up the planet, and at the more local level there are pressures to retain diverse habitats and the biodiversity that means. We are now much more careful when we introduce alien species to control pests, and in some cases we are trying to undo some of the damage done in the past by eradicating invasive species.
Humans affect life on earth in many ways, but our increasing understanding of how biological systems behave should allow us to work with the planet rather than against it.
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