an accessory criticism relating to some of the data sets’. Cole et
al. were partly correct on both counts, yet only for a period of
time. Nuclear power, plant hybrids, the prospect of hydrogen-
fuelled vehicles, and effective information transference all now
exist, but with many more complications and costs attached than
were foreseen in the decade of the two Meadows and their co-
authors. Furthermore, the acceleration of lasting environmental
degradation and climate change, both largely fringe considerations in the 1960s,
are now back on the agenda as urgent and immediate twenty-first-century
problems.
From a post-World War II perspective it might possibly have
been wonderful if the cheap high-tech presumptions had materi-
alized. But the simple fact of the matter is that global population
has increased exponentially at just that period in human history
when fossil-fuel supply is approaching dramatic decline. This is
illustrated in box 3.3 which offers a side-by-side depiction of
Global population and energy usefor the two centuries on
which global society is now centred. Like Sahelian locusts and
Scandinavian lemmings, the rush to produce a global population
beyond the fuel resources and eventually the food capacity avail-
able, is a biological imperative seemingly bound to run its cata-
clysmic course. Yet, unlike locusts and lemmings, human communities actually
knowwhat is happening! Furthermore, nations of the Anglo New World kind still
have the potential to live comfortably within their renewableresource context, and
with a lower level of finiteresource uptake, all the while ‘exploiting’ the free-flow
resources.
The Meadows team’s combination of hard science (country-by-country pro-
jections of over-population and over-consumption), and high morality (akin to
the Malthusian predictions for ‘global atrophy and societal decay’), had a good
press but received an apathetic political reception. Their work also generated
counter-enthusiasms from other people of science who were predicating the
wonders of nuclear power ‘too cheap to to be bothered to meter’; agricultural
hybrids and genetically modified foods ‘producing a bountiful bread basket for
Charter for Conservation with Development 93Use of the expression ‘ecosystem’ in policy language is
largely maladroit. In noting that ‘balanced ecosystems’ all
exhibit characteristics of being ‘alive’ and ‘reciprocating
within themselves’ and of being ‘in harmony with other
ecosystems’ we observe merely that, for example, two
river systems, one crystal clear, the other sluggish and
eutrophied, are both functioning ‘ecosystems’ albeit of dif-
ferent quality. Nature does not ‘care’ about the diversity
or otherwise of contrasting ecosystems, agricultural
ecosystems, or urban ecosystems. The conclusion towhich this reasoning is directed is that the word ‘ecosys-
tem’ and the term ‘landscape ecology’ are frequently
employed by policy makers in an anthropocentric manner.
Leave ecosystems to ecoscience. Recall that in a world
of accelerating entropy there can never be a globally nor-
mative end state, for we are bound never to attain a more
optimal overall ecosystem to live in than the one we
enjoy today! Environmental wellbeing is essentially a
societal matter under human direction.Box 3.2 Continued
Prevention is preferable
to intervention. Better,
always, constraint care
and counselling at the
top of the cliff than an
ambulance service at the
bottom.Not only did population
almost treble during the
last century; the length
of lives lived by
wealthier peoples
doubled over the same
period of time; the main
consequence being an
exponential
(twentyfold?) increase in
the exploitation of
‘finite’ resources.