Ecological Design and Education 295level of ecological damage evident as impaired ecological functions, the loss of
biological diversity, mutilated ecosystems, spreading blight, pollution and climate
change. For the scientists who study Earth processes and ecology the facts are well-
known. Due to the loss of habitat and pollution, the number of species on Earth
will decline by a quarter to one-third in this century. The carbon content of the
atmosphere has increased by more than a third from its pre-industrial level of
280ppm and is rising at a rate now of over 2ppm per year, a harbinger of worse to
come. The human population has increased six-fold in the last two centuries and
will grow to 8 or 9 billion. The number of large predatory fish in the oceans has
decreased by 90 per cent. Worldwide soil loss is estimated to be 20–25 billion tonnes
per year. Forests, roughly the size of Scotland, are disappearing each year. Within a
few years or maybe in a decade or two, we will reach the peak of the era of cheap oil
where supply and demand diverge and start down the backside of the curve. That
transition could be the start of an era of bitter geopolitical conflicts. Harvard biolo-
gist, Edward O. Wilson refers to the decades ahead as a ‘bottleneck’, an uncertain
passage through constraints caused by the loss of species, climatic change and popu-
lation growth (Wilson, 2002). The scientific evidence documenting the decline of
the vital signs of the Earth is overwhelming, so too the burden of pondering such
complicated and dire things which may help to explain the growing popularity of
escapism, religious zealotry, hyper-consumption and other modes of denial.
The industrial experiment is failing, too, because of growing inequities and
violence. In spite of nearly a century of economic growth, a majority of people on
Earth experience life close to the bone. Over 1 billion people live at the edge of
starvation in absolute poverty. Their daily reality is hunger, insecurity and hope-
lessness. At the other end of the spectrum another billion live in affluence and
suffer the consequences of having too much. Powered by cheap fossil energy, their
world is one of traffic jams, suburban malls, satiation, fashion, fad diets, addiction,
boredom, excitement and commercial entertainment. In spite of high rates of eco-
nomic growth, the trend is toward greater and greater inequity that is leading to a
world dominated by a handful of corporations and a few thousand super wealthy.
These two worlds appear to be diverging, but in fact their destinies are colliding.
Security, once a function of distance and military might, has been radically changed
by terrorism and the diffusion of heinous weaponry. National borders no longer
provide safety. The powerful and wealthy are vulnerable now precisely because
their power and wealth makes them targets for terrorists and malcontents. And
ethics, once a matter of individual behaviour, now includes the conduct of whole
societies and entire generations whose choices about energy and resource use cast
long shadows across the planet and into the far future.
The inability to solve ecological and social problems points to deeper flaws.
Like the proverbial fish unaware of the water in which it swims, we, too, have dif-
ficulty perceiving fatal flaws in our ideas, paradigms and behaviour that we take for
granted until it is too late. In Jared Diamond’s words ‘human societies and smaller
groups may make disastrous decisions for a whole sequence of reasons: failure to
anticipate a problem, failure to perceive it once it has arisen, failure to attempt to