CHAPTER I 

 Summary and Recommendations 



An overworked metaphor states that spaceship earth embraces two ] ^ J|-|E CHALLENGE 

 worlds inhabited by man. One world is the biosphere of air, water, land 

 and biota including the human species that has evolved over millions 

 of years. The second is the world of urban and political institutions 

 with the technology necessary to engineer an environment suitable for 

 human habitation and obedient to man's purposes. Many of technolo- 

 gical society's dilemmas arise from the conflicting demands of these 

 two finite worlds. Civilization is both a collaboration and a conflict 

 between natural and technological processes. Advanced civilization 

 and developed nations become more, not less, dependent on resources 

 and the web of processes that constitute natural ecosystems. As a 

 consequence, developed nations utilize much more resources per cap/fa 

 than other nations and generate more waste and more pollution. 



Our current American society has evolved from an agrarian society 

 developing in a frontier environment with high esteem for personal 

 and state freedom. The industrial revolution, occurring at the time the 

 country was established, made feasible mass production of desired 

 materials. This led to an economic growth period that was 

 accompanied by a degree of depersonalization. Changes in social 

 institutions, environmental deterioration, and other problems 

 followed. We are now in a transition period to a more service-oriented 

 economy emphasizing quality of life and individualization. Projec- 

 tions of population size and of per capita demands for goods and 

 services during the last third of this century argue that we build for a 

 nation with yet another 100 million people. Food, fiber, energy, shelter, 

 transportation, and education must be planned to avert serious and 

 prolonged deterioration in the quality of life. This essential planning 

 for the best use of resources, environments, biota, and space for human 

 satisfaction must be based on ecological knowledge. There is an 

 inherent tendency of high energy, fuel-powered societies to overshoot; 

 i.e., develop too much of the material "good things" at the expense of 

 the quality of human life. Ecological considerations should not be 

 viewed as mere constraints on productivity or on the fulfillment of 

 human aspirations, but rather as the basis for achieving harmony 

 between societal demands and the stability of the natural world. The 

 challenge is to synthesize pertinent scientific knowledge, to ascertain 

 and fill the gaps in this body of information, and to apply the under- 

 standing gained to solving problems of the human condition. Ecology 

 offers an intellectual framework with great potential for helping to 

 meet these challenges. 



