考研阅读精选：世界末日 vs. 美好生活
『环境学家警告人类环境问题将导致人类世界末日的声音不绝于耳，但与此同时，人们的生活却在不断的向前进步，究竟有没有所谓的“世界末日”？而又是什么让人们能在如此恶劣的环境中，暂且美好的生活着？』If the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well?
世界末日 vs. 美好生活
Sep 1st,2010 | from Scientific American
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For decades, apocalyptic environmentalists (and others) have warned ofhumanity’s imminent doom, largely as a result of our unsustainable useof and impact upon the natural systems of the planet. After all, themost recent comprehensive assessment of so-called ecosystemservices—benefits provided for free by the natural world, such as cleanwater and air—found that 60 percent of them are declining.
Yet, atthe exact same time, humanity has never been better. Our numberscontinue to swell, life expectancy is on the rise, child mortality isdeclining, and the rising tide of economic growth is lifting most boats.
So which is it? Are these the best of times or the worst oftimes? Or both? And how imminent is our doom really? In the Septemberissue of BioScience, a group of scientists attempts to reconcile theconflict and answer the question: "How is it that human well-beingcontinues to improve as ecosystem services decline?"
Theauthors, led by geographer Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne of McGill University,offer four hypotheses for this "environmentalist’s paradox": humans areactually worse off than we think; the ability to grow food trumps allother ecosystem services as far as humans are concerned; technology hasallowed us to transcend the environment; and the ill effects ofenvironmental degradation lag its benefits, i.e. the worst is yet tocome.
First off, despite vast differences, on the whole, humanity hasnever been better. Yes, more people are now displaced by warfare thanat any time since World War II, and yes, natural disasters affect morepeople than ever, but we’re far more prepared to deal with such thingsand therefore actual deaths as a result of them are going down. Plus,the "human development index"—an aggregate measure of life expectancy,literacy, educational attainment and per capita gross domestic productbeloved by economists and wonks—has never been higher. "Human well-beingis, on average, growing," the authors write. So that hypothesis isright out.
As for farming, it’s pretty clear that it’s oneof (if not the) most important ecosystem services humanity requires.That’s certainly one lesson of the "Green Revolution" that averted thefamines many apocalyptic environmentalists forecast in the 1970s. At thesame time, farming drives much of the ecological damage humans do: fromhabitat loss (and decreasing biodiversity) to messing around with thecycle of nitrogen through the environment. So while there are costsassociated with the loss of other ecosystem services—an example on mymind this anniversary week is the loss of wetlands that helped doom NewOrleans to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina—our continued success atfarming trumps them.
And we are getting better at it, growingmore crops on less land—a key technological innovation. Thetechnological innovation of burning fossil fuels—liberating the energystored by eons of life on Earth—is also at the root of present humanwell-being. At the same time, however, these new technologies hardlyfree humanity from, for example, the need for the fresh water providedby natural systems.
So are we simply storing up trouble forthe future, like the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere that havelocked in some amount of global warming for the foreseeable future? Yesand no—climate change is a certainty, whether all of human society isheaded for collapse is not. As the researchers put it: "While there aremany important time lags in Earth’s systems…the consequences of thoselags for human well-being are unclear."
That’s not exactlycomforting, nor is the fact that we cannot assume that the past isprologue to the future. The potential for unexpected and sudden crisesalways looms, like the global economic collapse or food crisis in 2008.At the same time, there is the potential for technology to begin helpingecosystem services, rather than hurting them.
That said,one thing is clear: We live in the Anthropocene—an era when everythingfrom the atmosphere to the layers of rock laid down for the future aredominated by human activities. Management is no longer a luxury. We hadbetter get good at it. (684 words)
文章地址： http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/09/01/if-the-world-is-going-to-hell-why-are-humans-doing-so-well/
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