One way to make the physical environment meet the increasing demands and growth of the human population is to physically change the shape of the landscape. However this approach may prove to be as short-sighted as it is drastic.
The flattening of mountains in China caught the attention of the world media this week and the reports centred on the warnings issued by the scientific community.
Efforts to flatten the landscape aim to create more space for construction and allow for the expansion of cities that are currently restricted in valleys. This is one of the least subtle ways in which humans are exercising domination over nature; by literally bulldozing over the natural landscape.
The concerns are that this mountain flattening is happening on an unprecedented scale and so it is somewhat experimental. It has also been linked to water and air pollution, soil erosion and flooding. Furthermore there are concerns as to the suitability of the newly flattened land for building, and so it may not even meet its primary objective.
Previous posts in this blog have discussed the dangers of heavy handed approaches to nature, and the ways in which poorly considered approaches that do not acknowledge or understand the natural processes in the environment, often end up creating more problems than they can solve. It seems that mountain flattening will become yet another example.
Mountain flattening represents a feat of human engineering and ingenuity. If the city is getting too big for the valley and if it is not financially or structurally viable to expand into the mountains, then change those mountains and valleys. If the planet is getting too warm due to an increased concentration of greenhouse gases and it is not socially, economically or politically viable to reduce emissions, then cool the planet by restricting incoming solar radiation. Though mountain flattening is not in the same league as some solar radiation management proposals in terms of the level of tinkering with the earth system, both represent a similar way of thinking. Both present a solution that changes the wider environment but not human behaviour. Both make an allowance for continued unsustainable growth. Both solve a problem in very narrow sense with seemingly no regard for the consequences. If we would rather move mountains (literally) than address unsustainable population and economic growth it does not bode well for a timely and effective response to climate change.
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