Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

CHAPTER
21
HUMAN ECOLOGY
AND HEALTH EDUCATION
H OWARD S. H OYMAN
T he twentieth century has confronted us with some crucial questions: Does man have
a future? Will there be a year 2000 for us and our children? Can man survive and prevail
in the “ asphalt jungle ” of our cities? Can man escape from the crippling and lethal
dangers of our technotronic world? Or are we clever “ naked apes ” destined to go the
way of the dinosaurs in an ecological booby trap of our own making? Will there be no
human voices echoing down the corridors of time (Shepard & McKinley, 1969; Love &
Love, 1970; Odum et al., 1970)?
Each generation of man and each person has a rendezvous with destiny. The new
ecological Jeremiahs, aided by Sartre and Camus, have confronted us with the supreme
“ challenge and response ” situation of our time: the realization that human life is absurd
and in danger of being snuffed out like a candle cannot be an end for man but only a
beginning (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1970; Environment section staff, 1970).
MAN ’ S ECOLOGICAL COEXISTENCE
Modern ecology is a comparatively new scientific field — with taproots in the past —
whose time has come in the twentieth century. Human ecology has emerged out of our
modern existential human predicament and the ecological crisis now facing us. It
Note: This article is intended to be read for its pholosophical perspective. Originally published in 1971, it may
contain factual material or examples that are dated.