Perils, and Unintended Consequences
Manipulating the biology of living organisms helped mankind establish the economic and sociopolitical institutions that have made us the dominant species on our planet. Our actions however have had a profound impact on the earth’s ecological balance. While we (many but not all members of the human population) have reaped countless benefits from our ability to manipulate nature, mankind has endangered (and driven to extinction) countless living organisms, eradicated over 50% of the planet’s forests and has imperiled the sustainability of most of our planet’s ecosystems.7 It is disheartening to consider that the deleterious effects of our actions will continue for thousands of years. They can be considered as an ecological inheritance bequeathed to future generations. We must also recognize that our manipulation of biological systems has created a host of unintended social, political, and economic consequences that have negatively impacted the lives of the more vulnerable members of our earth family. The combination of these environmental, social and cultural effects of our technologies pose great risks to the survival of our species.
Since the dawn of agriculture, three-quarters of the terrestrial biosphere has been converted from wilderness. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the planet’s biological productivity…is now appropriated for human use. If the same cultural practices that have reworked the planet so dramatically over the past ten thousand years are inherited by future generations, we may push many species to extinction and threaten our own well-being 8
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