Abstract
Imagine a book edited by a leading political scientist that recognizes the sustainability of small groups of shifting-cultivators using tropical forest and of the public health dangers of the growing trade of bushmeat in Africa, and you'll have some idea why From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security should appeal to you. No, this isn't a book focused on how smaller scale societies use biological resources, but it does illuminate many of the reasons that such societies find it increasingly difficult to use those resources.
Dennis Pirages is one of the very few political scientists who have fully grasped that the environment is the key political issue today. As this edited volume indicates, he and Ken Cousins understand the seriousness of the environmental situation, and the great need for interdisciplinary integration of attempts to ameliorate it.
With the exception of nuclear war (still distressingly possible, if largely unrecognized by the public), the book visits a host of environmental issues with well-written and well-referenced chapters. Each chapter deals not just with an aspect of the human predicament, but also with ways to ameliorate the problems. I was especially pleased by Pirages’ fine introduction and the book's title, with its emphasis on ecological security, so rarely considered in political discussions of the strength of nations. There is a good chapter by Robert Engleman and colleagues on population growth, where they recognize that the news is both good and bad, but much better than it might have been. Amusingly, it states that dropping fertility is good news for those “who see population growth as a significant contributing factor in environmental degradation and ecological insecurity.” That means it is good news for everyone. Nothing is more certain in environmental science than that declining fertility rates are a positive sign. Some important aspects of the social complications that such a drop entails are clearly explored in a chapter by Paul Runci and Chester Cooper.
Ken Conca supplied an understanding of the problems associated with water. An otherwise informative essay on food security by Marc Cohen is sadly lacking because it does not deal with what is possibly the most serious threat to that security: rapid climate change. The latter is something that deserves much attention from the readers of this journal. Helen Conley and Warren Phillips have written another good chapter on energy security, although with too much emphasis on supply and perhaps (in my view) too little on the environmental constraints that I and others believe will make conservation the main “source” of energy within a decade or so. They also do not emphasize the time-course of energy transitions. But perhaps I'm being too critical, since many of these (and other) issues are nicely addressed in chapters on renewable energy (Gary Cook and Eldon Boes) and climate change (Matthias Ruth).
Critical biodiversity topics are covered in chapters on forests (Patricia Marchak) and conservation (David Inouye). Both should be made required reading in every beginning political science course (indeed this whole book could well be required at the beginning of that course and one on beginning economics). The importance of biological resources is classically underestimated, and major flaws in national accounting schemes often trace to such things as failure to depreciate biological capital. Ken Cousins provides a thoughtful final chapter, stating near the end: “While many of the concerns detailed in this volume may be primarily ecological, it is important to remember that even these issues are understood in broader terms, including (but not limited to) wealth, opportunity, fairness, justice, and cultural identity” (p. 226). To which I would add an “amen” and note that unless we address the issues of power and wealth distribution (including the status of corporations), our chances of reaching ecological security are minimal.
This book is particularly valuable at a time when the United States government appears determined to do everything possible not just to reduce global military security, but also to accelerate the loss of ecological security. Buy a copy and recommend it to your friends.