Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Furthermore, it promoted a new, international focus on the relationship between
humans and the environment that has proven, in retrospect, to be the springboard for
future international environmental efforts (including an interest in climate change
and sustainable development) and has been a solid foundation of European environ-
mental efforts.
This same period saw a revival of interest in human ecology/environmental sociol-
ogy with several new publications (Kormondy 1974; Sargent II 1974; Dunlap 1980a,
1980b). Like earlier efforts, this interest in ecology and humans was short-lived, disap-
pearing as Dunlap and Catton (1994) suggest in the early 1980s as public interest in
environmental issues waned during the Reagan administration. It rebounded in the
late 1980s and early 1990s as the global nature of environmental issues and the hu-
man role in them became better known and more widely publicized (Dunlap and
Catton 1994).
A groundbreaking work appeared in the early 1990s—
Humans as Components of
Ecosystems: The Ecology of Subtle Effects and Populated Areas
(McDonnell and Pick-
ett 1993). This topic not only placed humans squarely within the context of the ecosys-
tem, it complemented new efforts within the Chesapeake Bay area by ecologist Stew-
ard Pickett and others that ultimately resulted in Baltimore being named and funded as
an National Science Foundation Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network
site—the first in the United States to incorporate both ecological and social sciences.
In 1996, the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International
Social Science Council (ISSC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) created the International Human Dimensions
Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) as an international, interdis-
ciplinary science program dedicated to promoting, catalyzing, and coordinating re-
search, capacity development, and networking on the human dimensions of global
environmental change. The IHDP takes a social science perspective about global
change and works at the interface between science and practice.
The 1990s and early 2000s also saw the emergence of two other large-scale,
human-related environmental issues—the acknowledgment of the human role in cli-
mate change and the recognition of ecological economics and ecosystem services.
The work that has been done scientifically and in terms of public education about the
subject of climate change has been staggering. The Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
mate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 and released its first report in 1990. Its sub-
sequent work has made very clear the strong connection between human action and
the sustainability of the global environment. Similarly, but at a much smaller scale,
ecological economists have made strides toward identifying the true costs of human
activities that deplete or damage the existing natural capital of water, soils, vegetation,
air, and the like.
As ecologists began grappling with ways to integrate economics into their disci-
pline, other disciplines traditionally steeped in the natural sciences began coming to
terms with the overwhelming importance of the social realm. Forestry, wildlife man-
agement, and rangeland management are just a few of the fields that have made the
leap from a traditional narrow focus on natural sciences and technical expertise to an
