2.2 We are part of nature

Take a few minutes to look around at your surroundings before you read on. What do you see? Obviously this depends on where you are at the moment: at home, at work, or perhaps travelling in between, or maybe you have the misfortune to be laid up in hospital. Possibly like me you are at home. I am fortunate to have a study where I do much of my writing and you won't be surprised to hear that I'm looking at a computer screen at the moment. What else can I see? Books and bookshelves, furniture of various sorts, pictures, a camera, some clothes, then a carpet on the floor, electrical leads, plugs and a socket, lighting, a radio, a radiator, walls and ceiling, a door, and a window overlooking a small and somewhat untidy garden. I don't know what you can see, but wherever you are, it is likely that what we are both looking at has several important features in common. It is a scene made almost entirely of manufactured materials, which may have come from almost anywhere in the world. I can see products made from wood, cotton, paper, metal, cardboard, glass, and a variety of polymers, while hidden behind my wallpaper are plaster, bricks and mortar. In most cases I can only guess where all these materials might have come from.

This material world we inhabit is one we humans have largely designed and manufactured, and is supported by an amazing infrastructure of transport, communication and many other services that we take for granted. Without them, for example, you wouldn't be reading this page or studying this OpenLearn course. The technological basis of our society has undergone major transformations in the last two centuries and whether you regard such changes as 'progress' or not, today you would probably find it hard to manage without most of them. Certainly, if I were honest, I would have to admit that I would be reluctant to lose most of my creature comforts, ranging from central heating to my CD player.

But, you might argue, I have only really described my home, which has been designed and built, and is surrounded by a built urban environment. You could point out that the countryside and open spaces are quite different, and you might be fortunate enough to be reading this in such surroundings. Even in towns 'nature' is hard to avoid whether in the form of the flowers and vegetables (and weeds) in my garden, the cats which trample over them, or even the pot plant standing on the window-sill. And what of ourselves, aren't we part of nature as well? To all this, I would have to agree, yes, we are certainly part of nature. Figure 1 illustrates this relationship in a simple way.

Figure 1 We are part of nature. Nature supplies material requirements for life, absorbs our wastes, and provides life-support services such as climate stabilisation, all of which make Earth hospitable for people.

One of the ideas that will be developed in this Introduction is that we can't escape from nature's laws, but our impact and influence on our environment spreads far beyond our immediate surroundings. The landscapes you can see in the British Isles, from the close hedge-rowed pastures still found in western parts of the country, the grain fields of the East, to the heather and bracken covered uplands of northern Britain, have all been modified by human occupation and agriculture. A similar pattern prevails through much of Europe where the human influence can be quite marked, as in the agricultural land recovered from the sea in the Netherlands, and the ancient vineyards and olive groves of the south. Even in high mountain regions, such as the Alps, away from the ski developments, local populations have attempted to control and channel the naturally destructive forces that mould the landscape, through river management, including hydroelectric schemes, and avalanche control.

There are very few landscapes which we have not altered. Many of these are actively managed by us for our own use, for agriculture or leisure, for example, and most of the rest are also affected by our activities whether we mean to or not. Even the atmosphere and the oceans have been modified by us in ways that we are only beginning to understand, and these, in turn, affect the flows of energy and materials to all ecosystems. It is, then, difficult to make a clear distinction between a 'managed environment' and a 'natural ecosystem', although we can all understand the difference in principle between planned management and inadvertent change.

Not only are we part of nature, but, as Figure 1 suggests, we exert an increasingly dominant influence on our planet. Our ability to make use of its resources, whether animate or inanimate, for our own ends is the basis of our material affluence, bringing benefits to many, though by no means to all. We cannot assume, however, that the goods and services we take from our natural surroundings are either limitless or free. In particular, if we disturb the environment beyond its natural abilities to sustain itself or respond to change, there may be adverse and unexpected consequences. Now, this last sentence can be interpreted in many different ways from the alarmist to the complacent. I would place myself somewhere in between these extremes. I believe we face many difficult environmental issues, some more serious than others, and that we are likely to discover many more in the future. I also believe that science and technology, wisely used, can help us solve, or at least mitigate, many of them. But every time we intervene to manage or control an environmental problem we have to take responsibility for the consequences. Increasingly we are becoming the managers or stewards of our environment – whether we like it or not.

Your opinions may well differ from those expressed in the last paragraph. Since you have chosen to study this course about the environment, I would not be surprised if you already have quite strong views about some of the environmental issues we face.

Figure 2 Public reactions to environmental issues.

To end this section, I'd like to emphasise a point made in the previous discussion; that people in different situations, in inner cities, in the countryside, in affluent or developing countries, are likely to have quite different priorities. When solutions or agreements are being discussed which may affect widely differing groups it is only common sense to find out and take into account their different perspectives.