John H Baldwin - Environmental Planning and Management

John H. Baldwin

First published 1985 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Copyright 1985 by Oregon State Board of Higher Education

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Baldwin, John H.
Environmental planning and management.
Bibliography: p.
1. Environmental policyUnited States. 2. Environ
mental protectionUnited States. I. Title.
HC110.E5B36 1985 363.7'056'0973 84-2281

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00585-6 (hbk)

According to the U.S. government's The Global 2000 Report to the President , world resource supplies by the year 2000 will be insufficient to meet the demands of an estimated global population of 6.35 billion people (Council on Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of State, 1980). According to the report, serious regional water and food shortages will occur by the year 2000. Although global food production will increase by more than 15 percent, the global population will have grown by more than twice that percentage, with billions of people in the developing countries facing famine. By the year 2000, soil erosion will annually result in deserts equal in total size to Maine, and an area half the size of California will be deforested each year. In addition, mineral and energy resources will become increasingly scarce and more inequitably distributed between the developed and developing nations of the world. Thus, the scale of need and the interdependencies of nations created by resource trade and improved communications will more closely intertwine the problems of rich and poor nations. This may foster a climate of increased international cooperation or confrontation.

U.S. citizens have contributed more than their share to these problems. Since the American revolution, the United States has developed an industrial economy in which resources are acquired, processed, and discarded at a rate unprecedented in human history. Today, the United States, with less than 6 percent of the global population, annually accounts for nearly 33 percent of global consumption and generates nearly 50 percent of all global solid wastes and pollution (Miller, 1982).

However, as we Americans enjoy the fruits of our labors, we are becoming painfully aware of growing global environmental problems. We sense that profound changes are in the making. Ames (1981) has stated, "Like a plains thunderstorm, we feel it coming long before it hits. Economists, politicians and other observers of the American system do not openly savor the rumblings on the horizon of the new decade. Privately many of them express doubt and cynicism. The public itself is not far behind in its perception that uninvited changes are in the works." These changes reflect the transition of U.S. socioeconomic systems from a "pioneer" to a "mature" state. Rapid economic growth, high birth rates, and even harmful technologies can be tolerated in natural ecosystems having plentiful resources and high assimilative capacities. However, as our resource base shrinks, as the human population swells, and as we use increasingly harmful technologies for war and commerce, the ability of our maturing system to tolerate these insults is diminishing. The result is increasing socioeconomic problems, resource shortages, environmental contamination, and damage to human and ecological systems.

If we survive the transition, terms such as power, prestige, economic growth, and exploration will be replaced with terms such as efficiency, conservation, diversity, stability, cooperation, and recycling. These latter terms are created in the image of natural ecological processes. In biological terms we are engaged in a transition from a primary succession stage to that of a climax community or a steady state. Howard Odum (1978) stated, "Whenever an ecosystem reaches its steady state after periods of succession, the rapid net growth specialists are replaced by a new team of higher diversity, higher quality, longer living, better controlled and stable components. Collectively through division of labor and specialization, the climax team gets more energy out of the steady flow of available source energy than those specialized in fast growth could."

). The end result would be the use of a more "appropriate technology" to develop a more "appropriate community."

Public support in the United States for preserving and protecting our natural environment is growing. In the summer of 1980, the president's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released the results of a national public opinion poll on environmental issues (Resources for the Future, 1980). The survey of 1,576 adults found that:

The Characteristics of "Pioneer" and "Climax" Ecosystems (from Coates, 1981).