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environmental crisis emerging in the 1960s, he became interested in the interpenetration
of myth, social systems, and ecosystems, developing these ideas in a topic,
Daydreams and Nightmares: A Sociological Essay on the American Environment
(Burch
1971
). Burch warned academics to be wary of falling into the trap of
blaming environmental problems on a fl awed human “nature,” on single causes like
overpopulation, or on various villains and conspirators. Over-simplifying the cause
of the problem would not help to solve it, and pinning one's hope on technological
fi xes was not likely to work either.
Burch's arguments were also relevant to the simplifi ed logic of the tragedy of the
commons. Hardin's discussion in 1968 had not been restricted to problems of
resource use. Most provocatively he extended his logic to the problem of over-
population and concluded that solving that problem also entailed some form of
coercion. While much debate at that time focused on the population “explosion,” as
though humans were cancers on the earth, Burch countered that human reproduc-
tion was not a strictly biological phenomenon, over-population was not to be blamed
on irresponsible behavior among the underclass, and the solution would not come
from handing out the latest birth control technology. Always there were social,
cultural, economic, and political dimensions to these problems that had to be under-
stood. Environmental problems had broad ramifi cations that resisted reductionist
thinking. Burch's ideas have been adapted by ecologists and applied to the develop-
ment of a Human Ecosystem Model, or a framework for studying human-dominated
ecosystems, such as those in urban environments (Pickett et al.
1997
). The Baltimore
Ecosystem Study, part of the Long-Term Ecological Research program, uses this
framework. Its objective is to analyze how humans, including their institutions and
cultures, operate as parts of ecosystems, but without judging that activity in the stark
negative terms that were intrinsic to Hardin's logic.
2.3
Power to the People
This rich literature in social science, in combination with ecological and environ-
mental discussions, opens the possibility for an approach to environmental literacy
that would try to put more agency in the hands of the citizenry, or encourage people
to be self-educators through their interactions with their environments. It is easy to
see the problem of environmental literacy as conveying knowledge from experts to
people who are ignorant, in order to get ignorant people to alter their behavior.
That kind of knowledge fl ows in one direction, and the approach would be some-
thing like this: teach more about environmental science (and related subjects like
natural history), at an earlier age, teach it better, and keep driving home the message
throughout people's lives. There is nothing wrong with such teaching, but another
goal would be to make people realize that they are capable of making correct deci-
sions even without a lot of expertise, if they can critically analyze what is around
them and link what they observe to their values, their culture, and what they think
is worth preserving. That is, ecological knowledge is not just about conveying
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