Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:22:11.558Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What is an Ecodisaster?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

John L. Cloudsley-Thompson
Affiliation:
Professor of Zoology, Birkbeck College (University of London), Malet Street, London WC1, England.

Extract

The term ‘ecodisaster’ may be defined as ‘a global catastrophe of the human species’. Any ecodisasters occurring in the near future will, almost certainly, be caused, directly or indirectly, by the present overpopulation of the world, accompanied by unwise and irresponsible disregard of environmental deterioration.

The suggestion is made here that Man's first and, it is to be hoped, last, ecodisaster may already have begun. Although not dramatic, it is taking the form of a steady decline in the standard of living nearly everywhere, coupled with massive pollution, and widespread malnutrition in the under-developed countries of the world. It will persist until world population eventually becomes adjusted to environmental resources.

It is ironical that control of the pests and diseases which have inflicted so much misery on mankind in the past, should have helped to engender the present population explosion with all the hunger and privation that accompany it in the under-developed regions of the world.

Type
Main Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allee, W. C., Emerson, E. A., Park, O., Park, T. & Schmidt, K. P. (1949). Principles of Animal Ecology. Saunders, Philadelphia & London: xii + 837 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Bonnet, P. (1956). Bibliographia Araneorum. Les Artisans de l'lmprimerie Douladoure, 9 Rue des Gestes, Toulouse, France: Vol. 2(2), p. 1537.Google Scholar
Cloudsley-Thompson, J. L. (1965). Animal Conflict and Adaptation. Foulis, London, and Dufour, Philadelphia: xi + 160 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Cloudsley-Thompson, J. L. (1976). Insects and History. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, and St Martin's Press, New York: 242 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Duffey, E. (1958). Dolomedes plantarius. Trans. Norfolk Norwich Nat. Soc., 18(7), pp. 15.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, P. R. & Holdren, J. P. (1975). Eight thousand million people by the year 2010? Environmental Conservation, 2(3), pp. 241–2.Google Scholar
Norman, C. (1976). Will world population double? Nature (London), 264, pp. 78.Google Scholar
Polunin, N. (1974). Thoughts on some conceivable ecodisasters. Environmental Conservation, 1(3), pp. 177–89.Google Scholar
Polunin, N. (1976). A short selection of conceivable ecodisasters. Pp. 327–34 in Science for Better Environment: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Human Environment (HESC), Kyoto 1975. Edited by the Secretariat, HESC Organizing Committee [Secretary-General Yoichi Fukushima], Science Council of Japan, and published by The Asahi Evening News, C. P. O. Box 555, Tokyo, Japan: xiv + 992 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Tappan, H. (1968). Primary production, isotopes, extinctions and the atmosphere. Palaeogr., Palaeoclimat., Palaeoecol., 4, pp. 187210.Google Scholar