Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
a controlled environment without soil. Hydroponic establishments are
essentially food factories. With the right materials and design, this eco-
system is resistant to heat and cold, drought and hail.
At the other extreme is the food system of hunting and gathering
cultures, which were practiced by virtually all humans until about
10,000 years ago. This technology was highly dependent upon climatic
patterns. The main way that management entered the picture was through
mismanagement from deforestation, overfi shing, or overhunting. Human
history is full of civilizations that declined or disappeared because they
depended upon unmanaged food supplies that dried up with drought,
cold periods, or bad management of local resources.
A fascinating account of how past societies declined is found in
tation, soil erosion, water mismanagement, overhunting, and overfi sh-
ing by a range of human societies that include the Greenland Norse,
Easter Islanders, Polynesians of Pitcairn Island, Anasazi of North Amer-
ica, and Maya of Central America. From an economic point of view,
decline and collapse came from narrowly based economic structures,
heavily dependent on unmanaged or mismanaged systems, with few
trade linkages to enable provisioning from other regions. When most
economic activity is based on local hunting and gathering of food, and
the food supply dries up because of the interaction of climate and human
activities, there is little resilience in the system, and the population
must migrate, decline, or perish.
There are multiple strategies by which living organisms or human
societies can manage themselves or their environment to increase their
resilience in the face of shocks. One strategy is migration, by which
birds and animals can follow their food supplies. Another management
mechanism, of which humans are particularly fond, is developing tech-
nologies that enable them to adapt to local conditions. People build struc-
tures to warm or cool themselves and to provide shelter against storms,
and they make devices to manipulate their environment. Few species
have survived all the shocks that have occurred during the 4 billion
years of life on earth, but it is remarkable how adaptive strategies have
