It doesn't take a soothsayer to predict the headlines in 2009. We will read of melting in the Arctic and fires in California, deepening drought Down Under and in the American Southwest. We will see high food prices and obesity, coral bleaching and algal blooms, collapsing global fisheries and deforestation. And we will keep tabs on the itinerant price of oil. What we might not immediately discern is that many of these events are interconnected, that they are in fact part of much larger cycles linked by myriad feedback loops, both positive and negative. The map [above] is an attempt to explore some of these relationships. In the center of the concentric circles are the most fundamental influences, such as population growth. Rippling outward are the effects, which, though they diminish in influence, create a surprising number of synergies.
Take, for example, the economic impact of meat: more people today are eating a meatier diet, which contributes to higher food prices, both directly (as demand for meat goes up) and indirectly, as more livestock consume a larger, increasingly valuable portion of the grain supply. Greater demand for meat leads to greater meat production, which in turn increases farming, follis-fuel usage, CO
2 and methane release, and therefore, further climate change. A warmer climate, in turn, leads to drought and lower grain supply, thereby again raising the costs of food.
Red lines depict reinforcing relationships. Blue lines show some of the inhibitory forces that also come into play. Climate change, for instance, has elevated environmental awareness, leading to a number of efforts to stem the consumption of fossil fuels. While red lines predominate, they shouldn't be equated with gloom and doom. Increased fossil-fuel prices have reinforced research into alternative energy and more efficient cars, buildings and cities. Also, although only the first segment is shown, the inhibitory effect of a blue line would propagate through the entire system. R&D into efficient cars would decrease fossil-fuel usage, which would cut down on CO
2 release, climate change, and so on.
This visualization does not attempt to be comprehensive. For instance, the time scales over which markets respond and ecosystems change are in reality vastly different. Furthermore, the view is distinctly anthropocentric - an entire web of biodiversity loss could be layered on top of this image.
But though it may be simplified, this network provides an informative glimpes of the nested complexities, and the borderless nature, of our world in 2009.
Seed, issue 20 pgs. 57-56.
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Topic: POINTLESS THREAD II: ESCAPE FROM RAPTOR MOUNTAIN (Read 1327895 times)