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HUMAN LIFE AND CULTURE: DYNAMIC COMPONENTS OF ECOSYSTEMS
Author(s) -
Wolański Napoleon
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb00986.x
Subject(s) - flourishing , humanity , ecosystem , disturbance (geology) , organism , environmental ethics , ecology , population , civilization , survival of the fittest , environmental resource management , sociology , geography , biology , political science , demography , psychology , economics , social psychology , paleontology , philosophy , archaeology , law , evolutionary biology
. Contemporary humanity—especially urban‐industrial civilization with its domination of nature—is disturbing complex, integrated, self‐regulating systems that have evolved over long periods of time. We are threatening not only biological ecosystems but also human self‐regulating capabilities at both the biological and the social‐systems levels. This paper presents examples of such disturbance both in the organism—respiratory‐cardiovascular problems related to environmental pollution‐and at the population level—rates of infant mortality and relations between fertility and mortality in light of economic and emotional factors. Prospects for our future survival and flourishing are thus linked less to technical know‐how than to ecological understanding.