Bissell:
> May I add that even if local changes are "only"
> environmental, as John Foster suggests, that is also a basis for ethical
> concern.

That would be consistent with the fact that environmental changes include
ecosystem changes. After all an ecosystem is a subset of the environment.
Where there is no life, there is no ecosystem. The whole universe is in a
way a watershed, but there is unlikely any life in much of it. So a change
in the rate of insolation here on earth, is an environmental change, but not
necessarily an ecosystem change.

<sni>
Bissell:
> I still am not sure what JF's point is. After saying that ecosystems do
not
> change, he then says that they are only conceptual. I'm not sure what that
> means, but there you go.

Here is what Chris Perley believes by way of Tansley who first defined the
'ecosystem concept' where he calls ecosystem a concept

He then coins "ecosystem" -  arguing for a fundamental
conception of a:

"... whole system (in the sense of physics), including not only the
organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming
what we call the environment of the biome - the habitat factors in the
widest sense.  Though the organism may claim our primary interest, when we
are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate them from their special
environment, with which they form one physical system." (p299)

John here:

If this definition, and concept, of an ecosystem is unchanging, then there
most be some properties of identifiable ecosystems which persist. And that
is what occurs with ecosystems, there is persistance. If an an object is
capable of change, and it includes life, then it must ultimately change but
it is not change that is permanent, but rather cyclic or phase change. The
world of the fallen tree is once such phase, the other is the germinant, and
the seedling, which are not seperate from the whole ecosystem of the tree,
but rather integral too. All forests are detritrus based.....

I believe the challenge that Bissell has before him is obvious. He needs to
see the small disturbance as a phase or sere in a sucession of events that
are all part of the same ecosystem. For instance the 'aut-ecology' of the
Pinus albicaulis (white bark pine) is the same for seedling as it is for the
mature parent tree.

The point which ecologists are making is pretty obvious. As a matter of
ethical concern, ecosystems are naturally resilient, able to resist
stresses, and have the capacity for regeneration and even able to exploit
new ecological niches via new phyla and species.

For instance if a forest of alpine or balsam fir is harvested and clearcut
every forty years for pulp, then one of the most likely outcomes is the
complete removal of all native genetic alpine fir. The reason is that alpine
fir (A. laziocarpa) cannot produce cones until they are 45 years-old,
whereas lodgepole pine produce cones after only five years. While one
species is adapted to frequent wildfire disturbances, the other is adapted
to stable mature forests which are not frequently disturbed by wildfire.

That means that to 'manage' an area of forest so that natural processes
continue by and large, then a much longer rotation is required, and as well
a minimum number of seed trees of varying ages is required to reduce
inbreeding.

Bissell is clearly confused on how ecosystems function, and maintain their
stability over millions of years. It is no conincidence that the most boreal
tree species are wind pollenated, and disperse easily by wind over
relatively great distances. These are the only tree species, except for a
few zoogamous species, that inhabit the boreal forest. This makes the boreal
forest very adaptive to large, rapid environmental changes like glaciations.

> I agree, if this is indeed what JF means, that
> ecosystems are not real in the sense that we can easily defines the
> boundaries of one and the next. I disagree that ecosystems are whatever
you
> want to say they are. I think there is a body of knowledge that supports
the
> idea that ecosystems are local in most cases and include biotic and
abiotic
> components. I'm not sure what the significance of phyla is, actually I'm
> pretty sure there is no significance to ecosystems.

No. You misunderstood what Tansley later states. He indicated that
ecosystems may not be real. Because the ecologist finds it convenient to
de-limit an ecosystem, or component, the problem arises regarding the
influence of other remote, and adjacent ecosystems on the ecosystem under
investigation. The principle of interpendence is valid therefore it is
logically impossible to seperate ecosystems from one another, as well as to
seperate evolutionary genetic forces from the whole, global ecosystem. This
get us to a discussion where the ontological nature of ecology and
ecosystems begins versus the ontical nature of ecosystems.

Act locally, think globally.

john




>
> I've started to ramble. Enough said.
> Steven
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion forum for environmental ethics.
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Chris Perley
> Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 6:14 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Ethical implications of environmental change
>
>
> I thought I might add another thought relating to this apparent
controvercy
> concerning whether the environment (or ecosystems) change.  JF has
suggested
> that either ecosystems do not actually change - or that the change is
within
> some pattern that relates to a "climax".  I think there are shades of the
> "balance of nature" myth in his thinking, but that is beside the point.
>
> IF the environment does not change in reality - then an environmental
ethic
> that condemns change seems to have soem support.  The implications for
> humans as a species are major.  We breath, we eat, we excrete.  Human
> ethical boundaries are too constrained if "no change" occurs in any sense.
> Every act we do is wrong because we cause an "unnatural" change.
>
> On the other hand, if we take John's view that all this flux and dynamism
> over geological scales is not *actually* change in some conceptual way
> (change only being significant if a new higher order phyla emerges - so
> species extinctions are not *significant*, nor the wiping out of one
> ecosystem because we judge it has "moved" somewhere, etc.), then how are
we
> to judge the apparently not *actual* change when humans convert forest to
> pasture on the same scale that climate did it elsewhere?  It seems to me
> that under this view, there are no meaningful boundaries to our actions -
> because even an asteriod hit which doesn't cause a major taxonomic change
> comes under the Foster definition of "no change".
>
> Thankfully the reality is there is change, and therefore a context for an
> environmental ethic that neither a belief in either 1. no change or 2. no
> substantive change unless a major evolutionary event, can provide.
>
> Chris P