Environmental Science - the perfect multidiscipline
3 Jul 2014 by Evoluted New Media
As an endeavour, Environmental Science is surely the prime example of the term ‘multidisciplinary’. Spanning physics, biology, chemistry, oceanography, atmospheric science, soil science, ecology to name but a few – the variety of expertise required to even begin to get a handle on the almost impenetrable complexity is staggering.
“The more you know, the more you know you don't know” – so said Aristotle, and, like so many areas of research, it can be safely applied to Environmental Science. That’s not to say that incredible leaps in our understanding of the myriad of factors which affect the earth’s environment haven’t been made, but there is still a lot to be uncovered.
This could perhaps be considered a good thing – grist to the mill of the brilliant scientific minds involved in the subject; fodder for the discipline for decades to come – were it not for a rather pressing issue. We are part of our environment; our activities and technology has demonstrably altered the atmosphere, land and water upon which we depend. We need to understand both the extent and potential mitigation of this – and the clock is ticking.
But time isn’t the only factor here, politics and money is just as important. Global warming is perhaps the best known of the anthropogenic environmental effects – and earlier this year the IPCC released their latest report in which they estimate the cost to the world – in monetary terms – if we have a chance of staying below a 2°C temperature rise. Here we compare this with the amount the World’s military spend – and it makes for sober, but critical reading.
