Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
14.2
The Complex Nature of Socioecosystem: A New
Ontological Paradigm
Global change not only refers to changes at global scales, but changes associated
with human activities. The extent of the human impact on earth has been so deep
that some authors are calling the current times the Anthropocene as a new geologic
era (Crutzen and Stoermer
2000
). We know that humans are not the only organisms
capable of transforming their environment at global scales. The appearance of pho-
tosynthetic cyanobacteria transformed the oxygen-free atmosphere into an oxidiz-
ing one, which dramatically changed the composition of life forms on Earth billions
of years ago. However, humans are the only species that has been conscious about
its global effect on the environment, and with technological means to do it in a much
faster manner.
Being conscious and able to generate technology is generating ecological draw-
backs, but these human characteristics are also our best tools to deal with those
environmental problems. In fact, most organisms do not think about their environ-
mental problems. They just react to them using their natural arsenal encoded in their
genes, and, through a Darwinian evolutionary process, the best momentary solu-
tions are selected in each generation and transmitted to their descendants. Humans,
instead, have the capability of thinking about their environmental problems.
Through knowledge generation and technological development humans make a
conscious attempt to deal with those challenges, and this is what Earth Stewardship
is all about. Our best solutions are incorporated into our cultural legacy and trans-
mitted not only from one generation to the following, but also to other humans of
the same generation in other places in a more horizontal fashion. As Callicott (
2007
)
has pointed out, this conscious and horizontal evolution in humans, somewhat of a
Lamarckian type, is many times faster than Darwinian evolution, giving to humans
a peculiar character that differentiates us from the rest of living organisms. This
more conscious evolution of humans highly depends on the way we see and under-
stand the world, and guides and determines the types of solutions we design and
implement to deal with our environmental problems. Therefore, the way we see the
world is critical for the solution of our environmental problems.
System thinking has produced a profound change in the way we appreciate and
understand our world (Ackoff
1999
; ICSU
2010
). The ecosystem concept brought
fresh air to our perception and comprehension of life phenomena at levels higher
than individual species (Golley
1993
; Maass and Martínez-Yrízar
1990
; Kaya et al.
1999
). What remains controversial, though, is the conceptual place of humans in
nature.
Physicists state that life is just another type of organized star dust. Although it is
true that all living organisms are made of atoms following the laws of nature, biolo-
gists have show that life, in comparison to most entities in the universe, has the
particularity of being able to store information in genes. This ability of store and
reproduce genetically encoded information, generates new and different entities,
built from already existing ones, without the need to start from zero every time it
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