By Keith H. Hirokawa, Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Karrigan S. Börk, & Sonya Ziaja.
Although the needs of the public health, safety, and welfare vary across time and space, human survival requires functioning natural systems. It is no exaggeration to say that, either cumulatively or individually at a relevant scale, interruptions to ecosystems, atmospheric systems, the geosystem, or the hydrological cycle cause major disruptions in the ability of such systems to maintain the planet as a habitable place. Ensuring that natural systems are functional, limiting actions that disturb those systems, and maintaining important aspects of ecosystems as they respond to climate change, all seem appropriate targets for regulation and community empowerment. At this point in time, “[h]uman society has never had a more pressing need to understand its dependence on nature” and maintain the conditions under which ecosystems can continue to function.