Human Ecology as a Problem of Ecological Design

Abstract

Whatever their particular causes, environmental problems all share one fundamental trait: with rare exceptions they are unintended, unforeseen, and sometimes ironic side effects of actions arising from other intentions. We intend one thing and sooner or later get something very different. We intended merely to be prosperous and healthy but have inadvertently triggered a mass extinction of other species, spread pollution throughout the world, and triggered climatic change—all of which undermines our prosperity and health. Environmental problems, then, are mostly the result of a miscalibration between human intentions and ecological results, which is to say that they are a kind of design failure. The possibility that ecological problems are design failures is perhaps bad news because it may signal inherent flaws in our perceptual and mental abilities. On the other hand, it may be good news. If our problems are, to a great extent, the result of design failures, the obvious solution is better design, by which I mean a closer fit between human intentions and the ecological systems where the results of our intentions are ultimately played out. The perennial problem of human ecology is how different cultures provision themselves with food, shelter, energy, and the means of livelihood by extracting energy and materials from their surroundings (Smil 1994). Ecological design describes the ensemble of technologies and strategies by which societies use the natural world to construct culture and meet their needs. Because the natural world is continually modified by human actions, culture and ecology are shifting parts of an equation that can never be solved. Nor can there be one correct design strategy. Hunter-gatherers lived on current solar income. Feudal barons extracted wealth from sunlight by exploiting serfs who farmed the land. We provision ourselves by mining ancient sunlight stored as fossil fuels. The choice is not whether or not human societies have a design strategy, but whether that strategy works ecologically and can be sustained within the regenerative capacity of the particular ecosystem. The problem of ecological design has become more difficult as the human population has grown and technology has multiplied. It is now the overriding problem of our time, affecting virtually all other issues on the human agenda.