This night/morning I finished my compulsory course essay (in 'Aristotelian Physics and Biology') 'On the Mathematician and the Student of Nature' (8 pp).
Right now I finished my abstract for the CECT conference 'Spatiality, memory and visualisation of culture/nature relationships: Theoretical aspects', 'Mapping Human Impact: Ecological Footprint vs. Ontological Niche '. Abstract:
In this presentation I will compare my ecosemiotic concept of a human ontological niche with the concept of an ecological footprint, with respect to how either of these can be applied as tools in mapping human impact in nature. An ontological niche - a concept derived from Jakob von Uexküll's Umwelt concept - can be defined as the set (or whole) of ecological relations (or 'contrapuntal relations', be they somatic, social or ecological) a being or life form partakes in at a certain point in natural history. The ecological footprint concept, on its hand, first introduced in 1996, is now being used by WWF (Living Planet Report) and developed methodologically by the Global Footprint Network. Claimed to be a tool that makes sustainability measurable, it condenses a complex array of consumption down into a single number. The developers of the ecological footprint model stress that it includes only those aspects of resource consumption and waste production for which the Earth has regenerative capacity. What is does is converting consumption into the land used in production, along with the land theoretically needed to sequester the greenhouse gases produced. By dividing 'Humanity's Ecological Footprint' (currently 2,7 'global hectares' per person) by 'World Biocapacity' - which is modelled as being constant - we arrive at the conclusion that humanity as a whole has been unsustainable (accumulating 'ecological debt') since the late 80s. When the footprint of a country does not surpass its biocapacity, it is said to be sustainable.
The ecological footprint model has several limitations, not least the fact that there are many environmental problems it cannot represent. It further says nothing about the intensity of land use. From an ethical point of view it is biased toward anthropocentricism in assuming that 'sustainability' entails that humanity can exploit the Earth's biocapacity fully. Also from a methodological point of view it is anthropocentric, as it represents human consumption and ecosystem services only - both being purely human interests. The human ontological niche concept, in contrast, is designed in order to display the ecological relations in which humanity partakes. As Nathan Fiala (2008: 519) remarks, “better measures of sustainability would address these issues [environmental issues] directly”. Whereas the simplicity of the ecological footprint is not only its greatest advantage but also its greatest disadvantage, the human ontological niche concept is better suited to account for variety within and across ecosystems, because its biggest advantage is its (qualitative, rather than quantitative) specificity. It further allows for disparate ethical assumptions. Unlike the ecological footprint, it will hardly result in an illusory certainty while in fact misrepresenting ecological reality. After assessing the ecological footprint concept, I will model selected global environmental data to demonstrate how the human ontological niche concept can be applied as a modelling tool scrutinizing human impact in nature.
Reference
Fiala, Nathan 2008. Measuring sustainability: Why the ecological footprint is bad economics and bad environmental science. Ecological Economics 67: 519-525.
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