I heard on the radio this morning that there will be, as of today, seven billion of us living on this planet; that is over four billion more people on this planet than when I was born in the fifties.
A lot of the talk surrounding this milestone concerns the effect our ever increasing population will have on the environment, more people using more resources, more land, more water, etc. I am curious as to how our increasing numbers are changing the environment, but I’m also wondering how we are changing our relationship with the natural world as well.
Back in 1800, when only one billion humans populated the world, there were still great expanses where humans had little or no effect on the forests, streams, or open land. Ecosystems functioned as they had for thousands of years; even in the United States there were forests that had not been felled by the ax. If you look at paintings of Thomas Cole or other American painters of this time, the presence of humans is pastoral with little effect on the natural landscape. Nature was depicted as powerful and magnificent.
The Oxbow Thomas Cole 1830s
Today an artist who might set up his easel at the same vantage points that Cole used would have more houses and roads to paint. There may be housing developments and factories as well. With more people, paving over more land and using more land for crops and livestock, there is less and less area for forests, wetlands, and other wild areas.
Open spaces exist, but increasingly they are being fenced off into preserves. The birds still nest and flowers still bloom, but they do so in enclosed areas. If Thomas Cole were to depict our relationship with nature today, the wilderness would be behind a fence and the power magnificence would be absent from his canvasses.
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