Environmental Challenges and Responses

The relationship between man and nature has been a point of discussion for quite sometime now but more often than not it has been considered as something for the intellectuals and elite of the society to discuss among social gatherings. Never in our wildest imaginations had we thought our impact on environment to be substantive enough to be worthy of any serious discussion among the masses – not anymore. No more we can continue to deny the tell tale changes that our collective way of life has on the environment around us. A CO2 emitting industrial unit in China can no longer be dismissed an internal environmental problem of China. Traffic pollution on the roads of Delhi cannot be regarded as the concern for India alone. A common theme emanating from media outlets is the concept of world becoming a global village. Nowhere is this concept more applicable as is in terms of our relationship with the environment. The fact is that we as residents of this global village share a space that has shrunk with advancements in science and technology. Our dependency on each other has never been higher and so is the effect of our actions on each other. Our environment is going to shape every aspect of our lives in decades to come and it’s high time we start taking our environment seriously. The effect of human footprint on earth and its resources is becoming more and more evident with one study after the other. So the central question that arises is that what kind of leverage do we have on our environment, if any at all? Do we affect our environment or is it the other way around? What kind of challenges are we facing and are we equipped well enough to tackle them? But before we would go about discussing these key aspects it’s prudent to take a step back and analyze how we have dealt with the environment issue so far? This relates to our understanding of environment so far and the evolution of our thought process in that regard.

Environment is not a new area of study for intellectuals. It has been an object of central focus discussed across a considerable chunk of literature written by intellectuals and scholars. Broadly speaking there are two schools of thoughts about our capability to influence environment. One group of intellectuals and scholars known as the Environmental Determinists proclaim that it’s our environment that shapes the way an individual behaves and thinks which in turn defined the behavior and culture of the society that those individuals formed. Those who believe this view say that humans are strictly defined by stimulus-response (environment-behavior) and cannot deviate. Key proponents of this theory included Carl Ritter, Ellen Churchill, and Thomas Griffith Taylor. It is due to this feel of helplessness and over simplification that this theory has a fare share of its critics who believe that its is far too naïve to attribute the a complex relationship that we have with our environment to be merely driven by a series of stimuli from the environment and our reactions to those stimuli. At one point this theory was even proposed to explain human social behaviors like racism or imperialism. Furthermore it puts the blame for the deterioration of environment squarely on the environment itself and absolves mankind of any wrong doing. The notion that environment is on the driving seat and we are merely influenced defies logic and common wisdom. Furthermore it puts mankind in an awkward position where we know something is wrong with the environment but simply wouldn’t be bothered to do anything about it – a detrimental assumption. As opposed to determinism there is a different school of thought known as the Environmental Possibilists. The Possibilist theory tries to bring some sanity to the determinist’s point of view. According to environmental possibilists the environment does set some constraints or limitations but on the whole the overall culture is influenced by the people themselves. Possibilist school of thought would believe that desert cultures would have similarities due to living in environments that have similar limitations, but they would also have important differences due to being different peoples. Paul Vidal de la Blache is often regarded as the founder of this school of thought.