Energy, food, and land — The ecological traps of humankind

Abstract

Humans' superiority over all other organisms on earth rests on five main foundations: command of fire requiring fuel; controlled production of food and other biotic substances; utilization of metals and other non-living materials for construction and appliances; technically determined, urban-oriented living standard; economically and culturally regulated societal organization. The young discipline of ecology has revealed that the progress of civilization and technology attained, and being further pursued by humankind, and generally taken for granted and permanent, is leading into ecological traps. This metaphor circumscribes ecological situations where finite resources are being exhausted or rendered non-utilizable without a realistic prospect of restitution. Energy, food and land are the principal, closely interrelated traps; but the absolutely decisive resource in question is land whose increasing scarcity is totally underrated. Land is needed for fulfilling growing food demands, for producing renewable energy in the post-fossil and post-nuclear era, for maintaining other ecosystem services, for urban-industrial uses, transport, material extraction, refuse deposition, but also for leisure, recreation, and nature conservation. All these needs compete for land, food and non-food biomass production moreover for good soils that are scarcer than ever. We are preoccupied with fighting climate change and loss of biodiversity; but these are minor problems we could adapt to, albeit painfully, and their solution will fail if we are caught in the interrelated traps of energy, food, and land scarcity. Land and soils, finite and irreproducible resources, are the key issues we have to devote our work to, based on careful ecological information, planning and design for proper uses and purposes. The article concludes with a short reflection on economy and competition as general driving forces, and on the role and reputation of today's ecology.

Spatio-temporal urban growth dynamics of Lagos Metropolitan Region of Nigeria based on Hybrid methods for LULC modeling and prediction

“…It is shown that the rate of urban physical expansion is much faster than urban population growth in many cities (Seto, Sánchezrodríguez, & Fragkias, 2010), which is often referred to as urban sprawl, presenting the increasing pressure on land resources. The increasing scarcity of limited land resources due to anthropogenic activities -particularly by urban growth -has not been given enough attention, which poses a great challenge to achieve the goals of sustainable development (Haber, 2007).…”

Extremophiles and their Application to Biofuel Research

“…The sensitivity over the use of food grains for fuel has stimulated interest in secondgeneration fuels derived from abundant lignocellulosic materials such as agricultural, forest, and urban wastes (Haber, 2007;Nordhoff, 2007;Tenenbaum, 2008). Plant cell walls are the source of lignocellulose, which is comprised of cellulose (35 to 50% of plant dry weight), hemicellulose (20 to 35%), and lignin (5 to 30%) (Perez et al, 2002;Lynd et al, 2005).…”

The environment and our responsibility to our children and youth: A message for adults

“…These fossil fuels undergird our way of life (8), and because most of our economic growth and industrial development, plus the spinoffs from that, such as stable governments, education, food, health, transportation and employment depend on cheap and abundant energy, this loss of fossil fuels will lead to the greatest social challenge and change that humanity has ever seen on a global scale. This loss will be associated with increasing oil and gas costs, economic and social disruption, food insecurity, poorer health, uncertain health care delivery and general hardship (8)(9)(10). Renewable solar, tide and wind energy will help soften the blow, but will not negate it, and for the most part, will not replace the fuels essential for cheap transport.…”

“…Oceans will lack fish and their ecosystem services will be impaired (11). We will lack petroleum and natural gas for fuel and fertilizer production, so our ability to produce adequate food for everyone will diminish (8). Agriculture also uses 75% of the world's fresh water, and water is becoming increasingly scarce.…”