Beautiful destruction?

I mentioned in class that there is a movement to augment the old terrestrial biome classification of the planet with a new system that reflects the profound influence that humans have on the planet.  Check out the anthromes project here.

A more visceral view of the global impact of humans is provided by the photographs of J. Henry Fair.  His photos vividly depict scenes of environmental degradation.  Check out an article about his work in this month's Smithsonian magazine here.  Besides being arresting beautiful, I think the pictures are interesting because they make you think about how much of our landscape is actually at least partly constructed and modified by humans.  The pictures also bring up interesting questions about perspective, scale, and perception.  Each of the pictures presents a very limited snapshot of human interaction with the natural world, almost totally devoid of context.  However, informed management decisions require a deep understanding of context.  We will explore some of these contextual details.....and the complications that arise form them....in this class.