Ecological Energy Systems and Human Development

Ecological Energy Systems and Human Development

     This picture is a representation of two different ecosystems, habitats, energy systems.  On the right side is a salt marsh and appropriately (indigenously) vegetated spit that extends into the bay. The left side shows a human built wooden pier and an industrial facility of some sort probably made with wood, metal, cement, and other modern building materials.

     One is regenerative, thrivingly diverse and constitutes multiple interwoven life supporting relationships that depend on and contribute to converging natural energy flows and local inputs; the other is not. It is a human made system engineered by relatively few players, in the form of people commonly acting on behalf of some private business interest or company (see corporation), and it is built from industrially assigned natural resources extracted, processed and shipped from all over the world to serve a very narrow economic function for human society, which may or may not be necessary or beneficial to society except for the few who profit from the activities going on in that space. 

One is a home and refuge providing critical habitat for wildlife including over 100 species of migratory birds that depend on the salt marsh wetland during their trips up and down the pacific flyway.  The other is a cog in the modern industrial machine, a weigh station for manufactured goods made from materials ripped from their resting place, and from the local people who depend on them, and sold to people who live in a more concentrated settlement that couldn’t possibly meet its own material needs, and especially not all its wants, with local supplies alone.   This system converts critical life supporting habitat to support human economic desires, and does it while occupying space that was crucial for a healthy ecological system.

The wetland’s unique plants and their extensive submerged root systems filter and clean storm runoff from the land as well as tidal surges from the bay, this is sometimes referred to as an ecosystem service, and is one of many processes essential for the long term sustainability and regeneration of life (including humans) on Earth.  The pier performs economic services that may benefit some but almost certainly are part of a chain of destruction of those very same ecosystem services we all depend on to breathe, eat, drink, live, etc.  It’s not as if there should be no facilities to accept water transport, but the ecological problem lies in the dominance of industrial facilities over wetlands along the coast, the functions these many facilities perform and for whom, and even the nature of the materials used to construct and maintain such developments. 

The crux of the matter is that human development has dominated the world and spread across the planet with disastrous effects on the life supporting natural cycles and systems of energy flows that gave birth to the diversity of species (again, humans too) and landscapes on Earth.  This seemingly unplanned, and short sighted, cancer-like spread of “civilization” continues to grow, as is necessary in the capitalist economic paradigm, or it will die.  The catch is if corporate domination of development and economic growth at the expense of ecosystems continue unchallenged they will continue to drive the mass extinction event that scientists agree we are now experiencing and could lead to the wholesale demise of countless more species (including us big brained humans). At the very best we would be left with a world filled with industrial waste and drastically reduced capacity to support life as we know it. This translates to a real tough life, like many around the world already experience, but it could become even harder for all of us to secure basic needs like clean food and water, shelter and basic livelihood. Not a pretty picture, but this is reality for most of the world’s population, now approaching 7 billion, and there is little evidence of major change happening anytime soon.   It’s no fun but it’s real life.

Thankfully there are also real actions that can catalyze real change.  We can all start to ask questions about our way of life, about how nature works, and about ways to live on this planet that might allow people to coexist with everything else for another 50 years? 100 years? Maybe even another 1000 years?  How long do we want to continue to live as a species?  If the answer is more than 50 or 100 years then we had better start acting like it and putting into motion new (usually evolved from the old) ways of relating to the environment, life and especially one another.  Murray Bookchin, the brilliant social ecologist, simply said that the way we treat, or mistreat, the environment is a reflection of how we treat eachother (i.e. male domination of women, strong domination of the weak, etc.).  Our task is to reconnect with the natural world and the cycles and flows of energy that we are just as much a part of as the shorebirds, the salt grass, and the water itself.  Ecology must encompass all the relationships observed in the world including those of humans to the rest of the world and eachother. 

If that sounds too theoretical here is a practical granite hard example.   The picture above that illustrates the juxtaposition of natural systems and human made systems was taken at Herons Head Park in the Bayview Hunter’s Point area of San Francisco.  The “natural” spit of land and the adjacent salt marsh are part of a habitat restoration project that actually turned a former industrial pier into the beautiful ecosystem and park it is today.  Community groups and volunteers teamed up to reclaim the space for the benefit of the earth, not a corporation, or a land developer, and in the process they reconnected countless human beings to the world we all depend on but often overlook.  A wise sage once said that even the most difficult tasks begin with simple steps.