An Analysis of the Implications of Technology and the Global Ecosystem
Background and Overview. In her essay, "Gaia: Gender and Scientific Representations of the Earth," Marcia Bjornerud (1997) reports that, "Few ideas have provoked more rancorous debate within the modern scientific community than the Gaia hypothesis-the proposal that the Earth can be viewed as a superorganism with the capacity to regulate its "body" chemistry and temperature" (89). Although the concept of the Earth as a living being is ancient, the formal scientific development of that concept first began in the 1960s when an atmospheric chemist, James Lovelock and a philosopher, Dian Hitchcock and a molecular biologist, Lynn Margulis, investigated the anomalous composition of Earth's atmosphere compared to those of neighboring Mars and Venus. According to these three investigators, the unique mixture of gases that surrounds the Earth and supports life on the planet is the very essence of "Life," which is created and maintained by the global biosphere for its own unfathomable reasons and uses. "The composition of the atmosphere, in turn, profoundly affects Earth's climate," Bjornerud says, "which has remained favorable for life for at least 3.5 billion years. In other words, life on Earth has not merely
The second important issue to emerge over the past few decades has been the fact that some human communities have become more vulnerable to hazards such as storms, floods and droughts as a result of increasing population density in sensitive areas such as river basins and coastal plains. "Potentially serious changes have been identified," Johansen notes, "including an increase in some regions in the incidence of extreme high-temperature events, floods and droughts, with resultant consequences for fires, pest outbreaks, and ecosystem composition, structure and functioning, including primary productivity" (50). This author also makes the point that measuring the net climatic impact of a given mix of greenhouse gases is not easy, due in part because the mix is so complex. "Some gases (an example is carbon dioxide)," the author says, "may continue to increase in the atmosphere, while others (an example during the 1990s was methane) may stabilize or even decline. Other gases (an example being nitrous oxides) may counteract some of the effects of others" (Johansen 50). This, in fact, was the case with atmospheric methane; after doubling in level from the pre-industrial period to approximately 1980, the proportion of methane in the atmosphere slowed markedly, and, during 1992 and 1993, this rate actually declined; nevertheless, these gases and countless other emissions are being released in enormous quantities into the global ecosystem and only time will tell what the far-ranging implications will be. Despite these grim statistics though, the same technologies that have contributed to the rapid decline of the quality of the global ecosystem may help to mitigate these effects in the future; these issues are discussed further below. 7) The increased spread of certain diseases such as malaria and cholera (Smith 118). The negative and positive impacts of technology on the global ecosystem are discussed further below. 6) Even worse air pollution (particularly ground-level ozone, which is formed during high daytime temperatures); and, 3) Disruption and instability of agriculture; According to Bruce E. Johansen's book, The Global Warming Desk Reference (2002), over the past few decades, two important issues concerning the relationship between humans and the Earth's ecosystem have emerged. "First, human activities," he says, "including the burning of fossil fuels, land-use change and agriculture, are increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (which tend to warm the atmosphere) and, in some regions, aerosols (microscopic airborne particles, which tend to cool the atmosphere)" (50). In the wake of these environmental degradations, there have been an increasing number of predictions from the scientific community that changes in the emission levels of greenhouse gases and aerosols will change regional and global climate and climate-related parameters such as temperature, precipitation, soil moisture and sea level (Johansen 50).
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2588
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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