The term anthropocene is clearly defined in Kareiva’s article Breakthrough Journal, Conservation in the Anthropocene. The article states that anthropocene is a term used to describe the current era in which humans control the planet’s ecology. Anthropocene’s ideology can also be found within Vitousek’s article Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems. The articles focus on the idea that humans directly affect nature. Human beings dominate the planet and further human growth is on-going. This same increased human growth will only lead to more human dominance over the world. This dominance gave way to the notion of urban ecology.
Urban ecology can be described as the newfound relation between the urban human society and nature. Human society has blended industrial and technological innovations within the confines of the planet, hence nature. This mixture of two forces result in a struggle to prevent annilation. Human growth depends on the enhanced future of urban ecology, but nature requires the opposite. In some cases, urban ecology prevents the survival of nature. In order to create new highways and fuel our cars, nature must be sacrificed. In this sense, urban ecology presents itself in a negative tone. Species become endangered or, as many already have, extinct. Species, including humans, suffer from the harmful by-products of urbanization. These can be found in the ozone layer, oceans, forests, and the very air that we all breathe. They come in various forms, namely pollution and poison.
Ecologists have attempted to prevent the negativity caused by the urbanized anthropocene society. Many blame the human society for seeking wealth by cutting down trees, mining ores, or harvesting natural gases. However, the two articles claim otherwise. Vitousek claims that the rate of human growth is increasing and in order to save nature, we must stunt human population growth, increase the understanding of the planet’s ecology, and for humans to take more responsibilities. I disagree with this solution. I believe that the increase of the human population cannot be feasibly controlled. The understanding of ecology may create more devotion towards saving the planet, however it will not necessarily prevent human society from wanting to progress themselves in an urban ecology. As time has shown, we have not downgraded in industry. We have only found more ways to pollute the environment, with the basis of survival in mind. I agree that more responsibility should be taken, but it is impractical. Humans generally would not consider taking on more responsibility, especially when it does not directly help them. I agree when Kareiva states that nature’s destruction is not entirely due to human destruction of ecosystems. Many examples are given to prove otherwise: a species of orangutan is near extinction due to humans hunting opposed to humans cutting down trees, the destruction of one species does not leave the entire food chain in disrepair, and studies that show the human attempt to create wildlife reserves and conservations fail to produce results and, as a matter of fact, show negative results where species tend to dwindle. The article goes even further and argues that it may seem as if conservation is of the utmost importance, but it hides several crucial elements from the debate. The creation of conservations has cost human lives due to the enforced evictions from selected areas. Another element is that a poor human class cannot help themselves survive without access to their only resource – nature. I believe that the solution to this problem lies in the way we view nature and urban ecology. We should not view the problem as if there were only one solution. Instead, we should focus on finding a solution to save both portions of urban ecology.
