A Second Environmental Science: Human-Environment Interactions

Concerned scientists recently signed a World Scientists Warning to Humanity that advocates policies necessary to change a collision course with the natural world that human activities are engendering. The document calls for an end to population growth and poverty and it predicts conflicts over increasingly scarce resources. A second environmental science is needed that focuses on human-environment interactions by analyzing: 1) forces behind those human activities that are major contributors to environmental degradation 2) how environmental degradation affects human well-being and 3) the most effective interventions for changing environmentally destructive activities. The US releases almost 30 times as much carbon dioxide per capita as India; 1 years natural population increase in the US (1.3 million) adds about twice as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as 1 years natural increase in India (18 million). Basic as well as applied research is proceeding on human-environment interaction with significant progress made in understanding how people perceive environmental risks; how we manage common-property resources such as fisheries grasslands and the atmosphere; what brought about anthropogenic environmental changes in the past; public concern about the environment; and the economic forces affecting natural resource availability. The scientific study of human-environmental interactions can advance human knowledge correct misconceptions and inform vital policy decisions. The National Research Councils recommendations for global change research are appropriate for other areas of human-environmental science. Such a program could attack the intertwined problems of training careers institution and community building and the development of a basic human-environmental science and could induce universities to become actively involved.