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Dynamic Aquaria: Building and restoring living Ecosystems

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By the mid-20th century, widespread concerns were being expressed for the way in which modern human populations and their industrial endeavors and products were affecting both the environment in which they lived and the planet’s wild populations and their ecosystems. Some predictions for the future were dire, and enough environmental activism developed so that some of the more conspicuous problems (e.g. raw sewage, oil spills, DDT, PCBs, chlorofluorocarbons, and atomic power radioactive materials) were subsequently ameliorated or at least subject to management (though never fully corrected).

However, the larger, more widespread, and chronic effluent problems of human society (e.g. nutrients, CO2, and moderately toxic hydrocarbons) have continued to expand their reach into every corner of the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. The ever-growing global human population, the continuing process of habitat destruction, and the ever-expanding desire of that population for a western lifestyle, rich in fossil energy use and synthesized products, using abundant raw materials, suggest that these problems, already built up over a century or more, and now growing geometrically with population expansion, are not going to be so easily ameliorated.

Atmospheric CO2 increase, with its concomitant global warming, already seems beyond correction to a large percentage of scientists, engineers, and educated public. Yet, the degradation of our natural waters, and
especially our oceans, the latter being of considerably greater mass than the atmosphere, is slower to be recognized; and orders of magnitude more difficult to correct. In many coastal waters, decades of environmental effort backed by large financial expenditures have failed to prevent a continuing and serious reduction in water quality. Although, in many countries, regulations to contain the widespread pollution of the atmosphere and natural waters have been initiated, habitat destruction continues and increasing population and advancing prosperity have overcome most efforts to stem the tide of environmental degradation. As some writers have so succinctly stated, we are slowly beginning to stew in our own toxic brew.

We are hardly alone in expressing our grave concern for the future of the human race if the full understanding and correction of these issues does not become the top priority of all human society. It seems highly unlikely, no matter what our scientific and technical prowess, that humans can survive on this planet, with our few domesticated species, in the midst of a radically altered atmosphere and hydrosphere and a dysfunctional biosphere. It is most discomforting to hear of new plans to purposefully inject pollutants into the stratosphere, to act like a volcanic eruption, or to spray iron dust on the oceans, hopefully to increase photosynthesis, and thereby, at least temporarily, reduce global warming effects. Why is it that so much of our educated humanity cannot conceive of working with our biosphere, using processes that we know well, to
solve multiple environmental problems?

Ranging from the domestication of a few wild species by chance beginning 10 000 years or more ago to that by design in the last few centuries, human efforts to extend utilization of our biosphere beyond hunter-gathering have almost always been at the level of an individual species. Limited polyculture, as farm ponds, is practiced in some countries, and in the latter half of the 20th century “permaculture,” following some ancient practices on land, advocated polyculture; however, by and large, our domesticates remain monocultures.

Compared to the global biodiversity (even the already greatly reduced biodiversity of today), the numbers of domesticated species remain vanishingly small. The intensive management of farms and aquacultures provides one of the most extensive elements of coastal and oceanic pollution and wild ecosystem loss. Unfortunately, especially in western cultures, it remains deeply ingrained that only by optimizing all aspects of single species culture, often at great environmental cost, can we hope to support current human populations. It also does not help that most economic models call for ever-continuing growth, when this is clearly the root of our failure to meet environmental problems.

This book focuses on efforts to interact with and effectively “domesticate” at the ecosystem level, to build experimental ecosystems to learn, and to undertake ecological engineering, as interaction with “wild” ecosystems. Ultimately, we propose to optimize biogeochemical function and biodiversity, and to reform
our relationship to our biosphere. As we explain in this book, symbiosis has been a critical part of organic evolution. Likewise, humans have formed a number of symbioses with plant and animal domesticates. Some very
influential and critical scientists have recognized that the human symbioses collectively called farming have
been a mixed blessing for the human race. Nevertheless, current human populations are demanding an everexpanding intensive global scale farming that typically uses monocultures to optimize a single return; usually this return is biomass for food, materials, and, more recently, energy. However, the human race also requires ecosystem/biosphere level atmospheric and hydrospheric cleaning, soil structuring services, and general biogeochemical stabilization that our farming symbioses do not and probably cannot provide. Global
warming is only one example of human overpowering of those global ecosystem services. As we describe in depth in this book, the experimental study of living ecosystems can lead to “domesticated” ecosystems that are far more efficient at solar energy capture than farm monocultures, without providing the inevitable environmental
degradation of those monocultures. We demonstrate that use of such systems can clean up much of the damage already visited on our planet.

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Ketersediaan

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

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Penerbit

California : Elsevier Inc.., 2007

Deskripsi Fisik

xiv, 508 Hlm.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-0-12-370641-6

Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

3rd ed.

Subjek

ILMU LINGKUNGAN
ILMU KELAUTAN

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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