Mapping human impact

My poster presentation for the Oct. 22-24 Tallinn conference on Spatiality, memory and visualization of human/nature relations (text only):

Morten Tønnessen: Mapping Human Impact

Ecological Footprint

vs.

Ontological Niche

In this presentation I compare my ecosemiotic concept of a human ontological niche (cf. Tønnessen 2009) 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 (figure: early version (1920) of Uexküll’s functional cycle).

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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 it 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 (oftentimes) 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.

(fig.)

As we can see in the WWF figures below, global biocapacity is modelled as being potentially decreasing (in case of sustained/accumulated ecological overshoot) or increasing (in case of proper management).

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The ecological footprint model has several limitations, not least the fact that there are many environmental problems it cannot represent. It further says little or 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. It is also anthropocentric from a methodological point of view, since 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 [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.

I will now 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. The basic problem is this: How can we model human impact in nature – a crude, aggregate measure – based on a theory of the phenomenological experiences of individual creatures (be they human or non-human)?

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Above the global populations of selected livestock groups are represented in numerical terms (data taken from Livestock’s long shadow, FAO 2006). How could we represent these global data in qualitative terms?

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Here a few differences in the size of circles (3 categories) and thickness (3 categories) are chosen to represent the relative importance of livestock groups and the character of our relations to them. In more general terms some crucial traditional features of the human ontological niche can be represented as depicted below (note that a positive attitude to conservation can change the quality of our relation to big carnivores as well as to “wasteland” species).

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A few simple comments:

Resources/individuals: While an ecological footprint approach tends to focus on biomass (natural creatures qua resources), an ontological niche approach will tend to focus on individuals/subjects, wherever there are individuals.

Relative/Absolute: From a phenomenological point of view everything is relative to the subjects. But absolute numbers (i.e. the totals relative to the entire Earth system) matter too.

Qualitative/quantitative: Quantitative data must be analyzed in qualitative (oversight) terms. But qualities alone tell as little about a concrete empirical situation as quantities alone. Volume matters – and so does the quality (nature) of our ecological relations!

Simplifying/re-presenting complexity: All modelling entails simplification. What is decisive is that qualitative analysis at all steps is to guide quantitative representations, and that alienating decontextualization is to be avoided.

References

→ Livestock’s long shadow: Environmental issues and options. FAO 2006.

→ Living Planet Report 2008. WWF.

→ Fiala, Nathan 2008. Measuring sustain-ability: Why the ecological footprint is bad economics and bad environmental science. Ecological Economics 67: 519-525.

→ Tønnessen, Morten 2009. Umwelt transitions: Uexküll and environmental change. Biosemiotics 2.1: 47-64.

→ Uexküll, Jakob von 1920. Theoretische Biologie (first edition). Berlin: Julius Springer.

This poster presentation has been carried out as part of the research projects The Cultural Heritage of Environmental Spaces: A Comparative Analysis between Estonia and Norway (EEA–ETF Grant EMP 54), Dynamical Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations (ETF/ESF 7790) and Methods of Biosemiotics (ETF/ESF 6669).