This week’s topics cover everything about the environment.

The first step to understanding human

complex behaviour is to start from the beginning. Everything starts from the first time we walk on earth
as a species. We are a very young species, and just like any other organism in the world, we are
struggling to survive in a world full of challenges and dangers.

The ultimate goal for all species on earth is to survive, to achieve this, a species has to work hard and
accomplish two essential pre-requisites, find food and reproduce. But what made humans dominate the
earth in a short span of around 400-200 thousand years? Unlike other animal species and organisms, we
have, in our anatomy, an advantage that we have developed over millions of years starting from our
earliest hominin ancestors. This is the (big) human brain. Bigger brains gave humans the advantage
against other competitors, from predators to other human relatives in the earliest period of our
evolution. The ability to think became our tool to find the best source of calories, to fight enemies, and
to reproduce with a higher survival rate.

We created culture due to our big brains and made all sorts of things that gave us more edge in the
game of survival. Human bodies have limitations, we cannot breathe underwater, we cannot run very
fast, we cannot fly, we cannot dig deep under the ground without damaging our hands or crush stones
with bare hands, and the list goes on. But we overcome all of these limitations because of culture,
through the use of our big brains we innovated: discovered many ways of using the resources around us
or invent many tools from the raw material found in the ecosystem. We used fishing gear to catch fish
and taught ourselves to swim. We made bows, arrow, and spears to capture animals that can give us
large amount of calories to develop our bodies. We fashioned digging sticks, stones, and metals to use in
cultivation, and create permanent societies and become more independent. We discovered the
importance of fire, tamed it, and use it in various ways. These are just some of the things that culture
gave us.

Fast forward to the contemporary world, and we have developed so many innovations that have altered
our environment. There is no stopping for new inventions that can efficiently extract more resources
from the ground, oceans, and forests. The question now, what are we doing, what have we done to the
earth, and what will happen in the future?

Sustainable development is the ability to provide the present generation's needs without compromising
the future generation's needs. But critics of this definition calls it as anthropocentric, meaning, a human-
centered idea that only thinks of the environment as solely owned by humans and created for the
benefit of humans. Sustainable development, when it was formulated, definitely was economically
driven. But nowadays, more people are beginning to think beyond human survival and consider the
importance of other species here on earth. Other organisms also experience the same struggle, and
often, it is much more difficult for them to survive due to human intervention of their habitats.

The concept of sustainable development was coined a few decades ago to acknowledge somehow the
human destruction of the environment and the consequences in the present and future. Sustainability
varies from the concept of stability. Stability means maintaining order in a system or organization. The
parts of a system are all interrelated and intertwined; if there will be a disturbance in one of its parts,
the others needed to adjust to bring back stability. While sustainability, on the other hand, recognizes
not just the maintenance of order in a system but accepts the change that comes with time, instead of
returning the situation to how it was before, it tries to adjust; it tries to improve it. Therefore,
sustainability is moving forward while maintaining order within the system.
To understand in detail how important the environment to human survival, below, enumerates and
examines the functioning ecosystem and its benefits to humans. For a full detailed discussion of these
services, check the link of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment website:
https://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/Index-2.html

Full report: (page 39): https://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.356.aspx.pdf

Synthesis: (look for diagram and explanation of the relationship between Ecosystem services and Human
Well-being) https://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.354.aspx.pdf

Below is my brief explanation.

The environment has provided human beings with services responsible for the flourishing of cultures,
cities, and human lives. These services offered biophysical and cultural security to human civilizations
throughout history.

Ecosystem services:

Provisioning services include materials needed to produce or give energy such as wood for fuel, plants,
and trees for food and fiber and freshwater for all sorts of human activities. (Products)

Regulating services is for the maintenance of the processes responsible for the smooth functioning of
the ecosystem's life. Includes climate regulation, water purification, and regulation, to name a few.
(Protection)

Cultural services can vary depending on the perception of humans toward the ecosystem where they
live. Such as the aesthetic beauty that it gives for the enjoyment of people. Source of inspiration,
recreation, and even spiritual and religious beliefs. (Non-material benefits)

Supporting services is the most important of all other services responsible for the overall function, its
impact on humans can be both direct and indirect. Such as soil formation that supports plants and trees
which are needed by animals and humans to survive. Oxygen formation through photosynthesis is
another example which both benefit plants and humans alike.

When these services are functioning efficiently, humans can achieve the constituents for well-being:
security, the basic material for the good life, health, and good social relations, which all lead to freedom
of choice and action. The attainment of these means a person has reached the ultimate goal of survival.

In our situation today, too many things have been lost due to human activities, we are moving forward,
but we also have to accept our faults and try not to repeat or replicate them. We have to move on to
protect what we have and develop these resources for our future and Mother Nature as well.