As discussed in class, the Anthropocene is the era of the human kind. Kareiva describes this era as a period when humans “dominate every flux and cycle of the planet’s ecology and geochemistry.” This means humans influence nearly every part of the world in some way. Many people consider this a negative idea since there is a popular belief that nature is fragile and humans are powerful and abusive. While there is evidence that humans are rapidly changing the environment, these changes are not necessarily terrible. Like Kareiva, I believe that people should recognize the strength of nature and they should focus on the relationship between people and nature instead.
Both Vitousek and Kareiva agree that humans are rapidly changing the world. Vitousek states that human activities, such as agriculture and fishing, have altered the Earth’s ecosystem. Similarly, Kareiva admits that humans have changed and destroyed some habitats around the world. While both agree on the general idea of human dominance on the world, Vitousek appears to focus more on the negative consequences of human interaction. For example, Vitousek states that land transformation is the most important cause of extinction, but he adds that even more species will be extinct if this continues. This implies that extinction only leads to more negative changes. On the other hand, Kareiva believes extinctions will continue to happen in the future, but nature is strong enough to adapt to these changes. The American chestnut went extinct due to a foreign disease. Even though the species went extinct, there were no major changes to the forest ecosystem. Kareiva further supports his argument of nature’s resilience by giving examples including the Chernobyl disaster and the 2010 oil spill. Nature responded to these changes and quickly adapted to these situations. Since nature has survived many changes and disasters throughout history, people should acknowledge nature’s strength and resilience.
Both Vitousek and Kareiva offer some solutions to slow the rapid changes happening around the world. Vitousek believes that humans should take greater responsibility in managing the planet. Unfortunately, this is probably difficult to do since there is already a large human population and an overreliance on technology. This means that humans will continue to use technology for their own daily lives and the technology will continue to alter the land, biogeochemical cycles, and modify species population. Furthermore, Vitousek published his article in 1997. The human population and technology have drastically changed since 1997. There is currently a greater demand for resources due to the larger population and greater reliance on technology. While Vitousek want humans to be more responsible with non-human environments, Kareiva suggests finding a conservation method to satisfy both human environments and non-human environments. Satisfying both environments is difficult, but people can start by analyzing the way urban environments interact with nature. Since this type of relationship appears in many human areas, studying this coexistence could give an insight to the conservation method. The coexistence of urban environment and nature is called urban ecology, which will continue to appear in many different areas in the future. Because this is the general direction we are heading, Kareiva’s solution is more likely to be successful.
