Ecocide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ecocide, a neologism for "ecological suicide", is a process whereby human activity destroys large areas of the environment.[1] An early reference in 1969 described it as "Ecocide - the murder of the environment - is everybody's business."[2] The term was also used in relation to environmental damage due to war such as the the use of defoliants in the Vietnam War.[3] Ecocide is also a term for a substance that kills enough species in an ecosystem to disrupt its structure and function.[4] An example would be a high concentration of pesticide due to a spillage.

Many, for example the U.S. environmental theorist and activist Patrick Hossay (in Unsustainable A Primer for Global Environmental and Social Justice, Zed Books: London, 2006,see 'Ecocide' and 'Toxic Planet', pp. 22-34.) believe that the human species is committing ecocide, via industrial civilization's effects on the global environment. Much of the modern environmental movement stems from this belief as a precept. Critics[who?] of the belief in ecocide usually assert that human impacts are not sufficiently serious as to threaten the Earth's ability to support complex life.

A weaker definition of ecocide is that in which an organism destroys ecosystems other than its own. (e.g. cancer). For example, it could be said that during the Precambrian era, blue-green algae committed ecocide upon the prevailing reducing-chemistry-based ecology, by releasing oxygen into the environment. Organisms to which oxygen was a poison, died off, while the algae and other organisms adapted to and created a new oxidation-chemistry-based ecology.

According to this interpretation, humankind may be committing ecocide upon various ecological systems around the world, but the 'deaths' of these minor ecosystems do not materially impact our own survival. In this view, ecocide (of rainforests, coral reefs, the polar icepack, island habitat zones, etc.) may be regrettable aesthetically or morally but not materially and economically.

At the heart of the ecocide issue are practical and moral questions: is human activity destroying the ecological support system for our own survival (is global ecocide actually happening)?

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Random House (2006) Unabridged Dictionary
  2. ^ Encyclopedia Science Supplement 1969
  3. ^ Modern warfare equals environmental damage. USA Today Magazine, January 2008, Vol. 136 Issue 2752, p6-6,
  4. ^ Cunningham, W; et al (1998). Environmental encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale. ISBN 0-8013-9314-X. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Franz, Broswimmer (2002). Ecocide: A Short History of Mass Extinction of Species. Pluto Press. ISBN 0745319343.