On foreseeing the possible

The Tyee reports on both the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment itself, and the corporate media's failure to pay attention to what should be important news:

The report's basic premise is that healthy ecosystems provide humans with a range of "services" -- things like food, clean water, clean air, buffers from natural disasters and even spiritual renewal. To the extent that these "ecosystem services" are degraded, so is the quality of human life.

And without serious behavior modification, we're headed for a bad run, Reid said. "We've badly mismanaged our ecosystems," he said. "As long as we regard ecosystem services as free and limitless, we will continue to use them in a way that does not make sense." Reid enumerated the main findings of the study he directed, which concluded that 60 percent of the planet's ecosystem services are being run down or used up faster than they can replenish themselves...

But the presenters last week were resolutely optimistic. "It's a good news message," Carpenter said. "We can make a very positive difference in ecosystem services by 2050. The caveat is that fundamental changes would have to be undertaken."

The article expresses concern that out of four plausible scenarios pointed out by some of the presenters, each presents at least some downside. But that acknowledgement of trade-offs should be the first step to ensuring that ecosystem preservation is given its due consideration. The contrast in the scenarios merely highlights the reality that local ecological management may not be sufficient to address global environmental issues, or that increasing international connectivity may reduce the force of community traditions. And it's better to recognize the inevitability of some trade-offs than to refuse any change which could possibly have any perceived negative effects.

The truly disturbing part of the scenarios is the degree to which the world's leading power seems bent on pushing the "Order from Strength" scenario, which by almost all accounts appears to be the worst future outcome (featuring some ecological deterioration and ever-increasing wealth gaps). But by the same token, once all the options are set out next to each other, there seems little reason to think that this particular scenario would win out...as long as the other options receive genuine consideration.

Which returns to the article's initial concern at the lack of attention paid to the MA in North America. Whatever the outcome of a discussion of our future path based on the realistic options, the end result has to be better than one which simply fails to acknowledge the possibilities. And hopefully the Tyee's attention will be a small step toward ensuring that Canada makes its future plans based on a more thorough appraisal of what can be done.