Sandro Lanfranco
Department of Environmental Science, Junior College, University of Malta, Msida
 

OVERVIEW
The emergence of environmental science as a distinct field of knowledge is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although the basic foundations of environmental science are largely traditional, being entrenched in the fundamentals of the natural sciences, its integration with the causes and effects of human activity is not. Such integration was largely instigated by the necessity of investigating real or perceived changes in the state of global systems.

The present-day incarnation of environmental science is not, however, a tool exclusive to scientists. It provides a fundamental informational background for a whole spectrum of social groups, including environmentalists, all of which exploit it for their own purposes. The potential for drastic anthropogenic environmental change has raised serious concerns which must be addressed in the short term in order to provide reasonably definitive answers concerning the collective behaviour of the human species in future centuries.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
Recent concern about the state of the global environment is mostly a legacy of the industrial revolution. Development of large-scale industry promoted widespread affluence, which in turn engendered more industry. Within a relatively short time, the global environment was subject to a concentrated sequence of impacts which could not be easily buffered by natural systems:

• Pollution: Industry generated large volumes of waste products and unused materials all of which were dispersed into the natural environment. This was cheap and convenient and arose from a popular perception that the enormity of the atmosphere and oceans could safely absorb all waste.
• Overpopulation: The growth of industry accelerated the development of medical technology, leading to effective medical practice that was also widely available. With the threat of life-threatening disease now minimised, a rapid population increase followed, bringing with it fresh demands for the natural resources used to drive the industrial juggernaut.
• Depletion of Earth Capital: Increasing demands for resources were responsible for the exhaustion of various natural reserves. Economic depletion of oil and coal from proven reserves necessitated prospecting for fresh supplies. Successive large-scale mining of various natural resources led to shortages of supply and increasing prices.
• Changing dynamics of global systems: The planet-wide systems of oceans, land and atmosphere were therefore subject to concentrated input of alien chemicals from industry and to the increased effects and demands of human activity. Natural equilibria are capable of assimilating some degree of variation. However, excessive change can lead to a drastic disruption of dynamics which in human timespans have been perceived as being the familiar norm. These changes are several, and include widespread extinction of biological species, global warming, acidic precipitation and depletion of stratospheric ozone.

Individual persons and individual nations were, and are, concerned with promoting their own short-term welfare at the possible expense of long-term environmental stability. Such an attitude has been termed the Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin, 1968) and may provide a conceptual framework that identifies the origin of large-scale human exploitation of environmental resources. The preoccupation with short-term accumulation of wealth engendered a frontier mentality characterised by the economics of limitless, uncontrolled consumption, where individuals and nations strive to extract as many resources as possible in the shortest time possible.

Societies based on frontier economics cannot survive indefinitely. Resources that are not easily renewed will eventually run out and industry would no longer operate. In the meantime, the Third-World countries that would have supplied the resources in the first place would have nothing to fall back on and be subject to social disorder. So in order for human societies to survive for extended periods of time without forfeiting much of the affluence that characterises the present western world, frontier economics must be replaced by the ethics of a sustainable society.
 
 

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The basic principle of sustainable development is that the rate of use of any resource should not exceed the rate of replenishment of that resource. This of course means that several resources that currently form the cornerstone of our economy (oil, coal, wood) cannot be exploited at present rates within the context of a sustainable economy. Should present rates of consumption persist, these resources would be exhausted within a relatively very short time. So the switch to a sustainable economy necessitates large-scale use of perpetual sources of energy: sunlight, wind waves. The changeover is bound to be gradual, with alternative technologies sequentially asserting themselves in the market on individual merit. At present, exploitation of perpetual sources is expensive and yields are dilute.; therefore generating resistance to the widespread utilisation of these technologies. Nevertheless, maintenance of present economic standards requires replacement of present unsustainable practices in the foreseeable future, where industry would be driven by cleaner fuels that would be more readily available.

Although it is likely that such sustainable technologies would initially be introduced in the western world, their application to present Third World countries is an imperative that must be addressed at some point in the relatively near future.

References:
Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons. Science (162) 1243

General Reading:
chapters from the following texts provide useful information:

Nebel B.J. & R.T. Wright (1996). Environmental Science; The Way the World Works. Fifth Edition. Prentice-Hall Inc.

Turk, J. (1989). Introduction to Environmental Studies. Third Edition. Saunders College Publishing.
 
 

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