Ecosystems, and Why We No Longer Talk About Ecosystems

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When I was in school, really not so many years ago, a topic of major import to the education of biology and ecology was the concept of the ecosystem. To simply and accurately define the term, an ecosystem is a system of living creatures and their environment, and their interactions. This concept provided not a simple view of a single animal or species, but a holistic view of several species coexisting together interdependently in a system. While those words may seem simple enough to comprehend, it is the magnitude of their meaning that underlies the enormity of the idea's contribution to fundamentally altering the way we view the world.

Systems are, by nearly every definition, complex. Indeed there are entire fields of science, and even more subfields of other areas devoted to the understanding and exploration of systems, whether they be called "systems," "networks," "communities," or by some other nomenclature. To say that our environment is indeed a system brings about the force of sheer complexity when trying to understand it. As an example of their complexity, an ecosystem may be virtually unfazed by a volcanic eruption in its midst, but may completely collapse at the introduction of a new species of mosquito. What determines the durability, longevity, productivity, etc. of an ecosystem is buried deep within the system.

But to what ends does this systemic understanding go? Well, systems have very unique properties that radically defy our notions of simple causality. Systems are very much subject to the Law of Unintended Consequences, as well as to the magnifying powers of the Butterfly Effect. Simply assuming that a particular change will have a particular, limited effect ignores the holistic view of the system.

So what brought this particular rant on? Listening to Barack Obama talk about controlling global warming. While in Italy for the G8 summit, he gave a speech where he discussed limiting global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius. Putting the fundamental debate over global warming aside, this policy still struck me as enormously naive, since it clearly failed to account at all for the massive systemic effects of his proposed policies, and whether they would really have any of the desired effects after they entered the system. To give an example, the main push right now is to limit the emission of carbon, generally in the form of carbon dioxide. The assumption is that by limiting carbon emission, we would limit global warming in a linear relation. Where this argument begins to fall apart is at the mere fact that, while we and all other animals emit this useless gas, plants absorb carbon dioxide as part of their functions necessary to life. Without carbon dioxide, plants cannot survive. So then do the changes in carbon emission have a negative impact on the planet's flora, resulting in a worse condition than the problem trying to be solved? The real answer is that nobody knows, but worse, nobody is even going to do the proper systemic analysis to find out.

Even when I learned about ecosystems, there were always two primary failings that were never addressed in the education of the theory. The first failing is the theoretical closedness of an ecosystem. The theorists always saw an ecosystem as generally closed and complete in itself, virtually independent from the rest of the world. The problem here is that nothing is so isolated as to ever be a closed system. There are always larger interactions between even those ecosystems that seem the most isolated. To the best of our scientific knowledge, the only truly closed ecosystem is the entirety of the universe. Even the Earth is not completely closed as it regularly interacts with extraterrestrial factors such as the Sun, the Moon, comets, meteors, etc. All ecosystems are open and interrelated. The second failing of the science of ecosystems is the general exclusion of the most prolific element in the system: human beings. At least when I was taught, people were considered as externalities to ecosystems, not as elements within them. This belief vainly elevates us over systems of which we are merely parts, sometimes small parts at that. Our interactions with an ecosystem are not rare, incidental, and disruptive, but are more frequent, purposeful, and continuous to the system. Though we are the only species that radically changes our environment, we are not superior or external to it.

I suppose it is no surprise that so few people seemed to react to Obama's folly: we no longer talk about ecosystems. The Green movement has usurped the conservationist and ecological fields, and replaced them with a growing crowd of mindless fanatics and power-grabbing bureaucrats. Money and influence no longer go to ensuring environmental conservation or ecosystemic health, but rather go to buying politicians and television advertisements. No one is left to even think about the systemic view, but rather everyone marches blindly to Al Gore's drum.

Understanding ecosystems is important. Without an understanding of the system of which we are a part may lead us to cause far greater damages actively protecting it than what we might cause by passively ignoring it.