The Three Possible Environmental Futures

There are three scenarios that are, I believe, the most plausible ones regarding the future of the natural environment.

One might be termed "the environmental cataclysm". In this view, the depradations of humanity will cause portions -- perhaps even large portions -- of the planet to become harsher, or even uninhabitable. Temperate zones with adequate precipitation will become drought-stricken and overheated. Rising sea levels will cause flooding in populated coastal areas -- forced migrations will result. Disease and famine will affect many more countries than they do currently, and not just in the developing world. Natural areas will disappear, with extinctions on a massive scale. At best, civilization as we know it would exist in a very different form from what we know today. However, a few predict that the environment could deteriorate even to the point where it could no longer sustain life in a meaningful way.

For the second scenario, we can take all these developments, and imagine, if you will, a measured, rational response to them. In other words, the human race will simply adapt to the changes in the environment that it has brought about. Our population will still grow, as predicted; we will simply accept greater crowding as natural and inevitable (there is still plenty of space to house people -- we will simply have less compunction about using it). We will use technology to adapt our agriculture to the new climactic conditions with which we are presented. Medical science will find responses to the new disease strains that develop, etc.

The first scenario is possible, but the second seems more likely. We will adjust so gradually and skillfully to the new state of the world that we will scarcely notice the extent to which we have transformed the environment. Our relationship to the natural world, already so different from that of 200, 100, or even just 50 years ago, will have changed even further, 50 years hence -- probably this new view of the environment will just serve to rationalize whatever further environmental changes we are responsible for.*

*for much of history, we thave hought of the world as divided into two regions: cities and farms (for human habitation), and wilderness (unsuitable for civilized living, and therefore to be avoided or admired, but not necessarily exploited). When technology permitted us to use almost any natural environment to whatever end we liked, our thinking about wilderness changed radically. Even today, with all of our understanding of the importance of preserving natural ecosystems, the survival of wilderness remains only an intellectual ideal.


The relationship with the environment we have maintained for most of history (this relationship also being so much part of our cultural legacy) has changed in the last 50 years or so, but is now being altered even further, to the detriment of nature. Our cities, which have been, in their own way, harmonious, rational conceptions, are sprawling outward in an improvised response to rural-to-urban inmigration and other trends (in the few instances where the growth of cities is actually being planned, as in China, the construction is on not on a human, but a gigantic and impersonal scale). Our farms, which once had a cultural significance that was almost as central to them as their practical function, are becoming factories in all but name; in this country they have become expendable, as we have become convinced that any type of uninhabited land could be better put to other human uses. Freedom, convenience, and the potential to benefit ourselves materially have become the measures we use to decide the purpose to which we put our land. The survival of natural or even just pastoral areas is not just a noble but a vital cause to fight for -- I think that if these areas succumb to human pressure, as they may well, our conception of ourselves will have to change fundamentally.**


**There is still at least a sentimental attachment to the idea of natural systems that exist independently of humans. But in very few cases do we deny ourselves the chance to encroach upon these same natural areas. However, if they disappear fully, as they are seemingly on their way to doing, it would be the first worldwide calamity for which almost no one could be held blameless. The notion that there is, somewhere, always some enclave of moral goodness would be contradicted with unprecedented force. The damage to our self-image as ultimately wise beings would be permanent.

The conversion of the world from a more or less natural environment to one that is merely adequate to sustain human life would be a soul-destroying turn of events. The dedication of all of the planet's resources towards our material well-being would also permanently weaken whatever is left of our culture. This may seem a bit alarmist, and though I always hope for the best, the cultural undermining that goes hand-in-hand with the aesthetic deterioration of the environment is already underway. In this country, this is obvious if one has been alive for at least 40 years. One proof that America is culturally much weaker than it was even just a few decades ago may be seen in how we use our land. For as many wonderful places as are still left, much of the country is an eyesore, a place where, the people notwithstanding, one would not wish to be for any longer than necessary. The inhospitality and inhumanity of our new buildings, roads, towns, shopping areas, etc. weaken our sensibilities; they undermine the notion that life should be exalted.

However, there is one more way things could be. One can envision a cultural change that would cause material betterment to be viewed only a means to achieving a certain level of comfort, not of achieving happiness. We would ensure our survival not through sheer population numbers, but through an apportionment of resources; neither would we equate our primacy in the world with our dominance of it. We could give voice to our personalities through achievements, work, family life, and other pursuits with meaningful but less tangible goals, and less so through acquisition.*** It might seem precious to suggest that a view to the future might take more precedence in our thought, that the rational self might be permitted to come to the fore, when presented with the awful environmental and cultural consequences of submitting, more or less without question, to a desire (which is not our need) to be gratified; however, it is worth making an argument for an environmental future based on such thinking, if one feels attached to living life as we conceive of it now.

***Do not confuse this for the argument that possessions are corrupting. In a rational conception of the environmental future, we could all enjoy possessions-- we would just have to plan (though only a humane course of action in this regard would be at all acceptable) for there to be fewer of us than we might at first have thought; we would also have to be more selective about what those possessions were.