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The Challenge in a Nutshell
The environment is a seamless, interactive system that wraps the Earth. At some level, everyone understands that what happens on the land affects the health of the air, the waterways, and so on.
Amazingly—even though we all intuitively understand that the environment is a system—businesses, government, even watchdog groups have never truly addressed the environment in this way. Business views the environment as a resource to be used. Government tries to create laws and policies to manage its’ use. The activist community tries to protect it. Because of their conflicting goals—development versus protection—businesses and activists have approached environmental problems from opposite directions. Governmental actions have ranged widely, depending on the political climate, from laissez-faire to inflexible regulation. The outcome is a piecemeal, ad hoc, and inconsistent environmental policy.
Unless we begin to approach the environment as a system, we will not preserve it, nor will its resources be left to use. Unless we try to solve environmental challenges within the context of a system, we will only address part of the problem. In the face of inevitable, continued urban and economic development around the world, such partial solutions will be disastrous. Unless we create a new framework that includes the environment and guides the growth of our cities and our economy, we will destroy the environment. If we cripple nature, then we also lose our prosperity and all that goes with it.
Nature, the Human Network
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Nature
We call the natural system of air, water, plants and animals that has evolved over the last 4.5 billion years nature. Two hundred million years ago, plants along with their oxygen-producing process of photosynthesis and help from the Sun’s energy, produced enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support Homo sapiens. |
Network
The “network” is the system of communication, transportation, and trade people have developed to fuel our lifestyle. The network is global, allowing us to obtain goods from anywhere in the world. Every US metropolitan area uses this global network to conduct business and support a local economy. Each community builds a local framework of business and physical infrastructure of buildings, transportation systems, education, health care, etc. to support it.
The network has developed in a blink of an eye when compared to the natural network which evolved over billions of years. The network will continue to expand and disable the natural system unless we act aggressively and wisely to weave nature and the network together.
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Nature and the Network Collide
Two systems, one planet, one solution.
Of the two systems on the Earth, nature and the network, humans control only one system, the network. And, since it is the network that is eating nature and not the other way around, we should focus on the network. Given the fact that the network will continue to grow, our challenge is to engage network builders in rebuilding the natural system as they build the human network. |
| The Dwindling Urban Forests |
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