Reading time: ~3 min read
Our own lives depend indisputably on millions of other living species, flawless balances and perfectly functioning ecosystems. The purification of the water you drink, the production of the air you breathe and the food you eat, the fertilization of agricultural land, the production of raw materials in the objects you use and countless other activities are all carried out by living things. Most people fail to properly appreciate these blessings they obtain from living things that live side by side with them, and most do'nt even feel the need to think about them. Yet to free one from lazy thinking and familiarity, what would happen if the living things that perform these services for us ceased to exist?
Clearly, we, too, would be unable to survive. Even if we mobilized advanced technology and our entire material means, we could never establish the balances and conditions essential to our survival. The latest scientific research to confirm this fact was the Biosphere 2 Project, regarded as the largest and most complex closed study area used in ecological research to date.
This project aimed to establish an ecosystem that would provide a habitat for eight people, plants and animals for a two-year period in a closed area of 13,000 square meters (15,550 square yards) in size.37 The system contained "rooms" resembling such natural ecosystems as agricultural areas, forests and seas. However, the project was a failure, which disappointed a great many scientists. Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University and David Tilman of Minnesota University described the result of this initiative in an article in Science magazine:
Despite the enormous resources invested in the original design and construction (estimated at roughly $200 million from 1984 to 1991), and despite a multimillion-dollar operating budget, it proved impossible to create a materially closed system that could support eight human beings with adequate food, water, and air for 2 years. The management of Biosphere 2 encountered numerous unexpected problems and surprises, even though almost unlimited energy and technology were available to support Biosphere 2 from the outside. 38
Some of the unexpected problems that emerged in the facility between 1991 and 1993 and made life impossible included a drop in oxygen levels to 14%, sudden rises in the carbon dioxide concentration, a rise in the amount of nitric oxide sufficient to cause brain damage, the disappearance of most of the living species (including 19 of 25 vertebrate species and all pollinators brought into the enclosure, which would have ensured the eventual extinction of most of the plant species as well), water pollution, excessive algae, and population explosion of crazy ants, cockroaches and katydids.39
In short, despite all the efforts made, it proved impossible to produce in the closed Biosphere 2 system the balances that have been operating for millions of years on Earth, and thus it was impossible to establish an environment habitable for humans, animals and plants.
In conclusion, Professor Cohen and Professor Tilman summarized the lesson to be learned from the project:
No one yet knows how to engineer systems that provide humans with the life supporting services that natural ecosystems produce for free.40
References
- "Biosphere 2 Center," Columbia University, 2002, http://www.bio2.edu/ ↩
- Joel E. Cohen, David Tilman, "Biosphere 2 and Biodiversity—The Lessons So Far", Science, Vol. 274, No. 5290, 15 November 1996, p. 1150-1151. ↩
- G.C. Daily, S. Alexander, P.R. Ehrlich, L. Goulder, J. Lubchenco, P.A. Matson, H.A. Mooney, S. Postel, S.H. Schneider, D. Tilman, and G.M. Woodwell, "Ecosystem Services: Benefits Supplied to Human Societies by Natural Ecosystems," 2002, http://www.esa.org/science/Issues/TextIssues/issue2.php. ↩
- Joel E. Cohen, David Tilman, Op.cit., p. 1151. ↩