© ARMO.RS/ISTOCKPHOTO.COMThe growth of human populations, the development of new technologies, and the scope of human enterprise mean that the Earth’s systems—and the ways in which people interact with them—are changing faster than ever before. Humans appropriate more than 40 percent of the net energy produced by the world’s plants, consume 35 percent of the energy produced on the oceanic shelf, and use 60 percent of freshwater runoff. In some sense, people are already masters of their environment, engineering it for their own uses. But the human transformation of the planet is now entering a new and categorically different era: the era of synthetic biology.
Proponents of this new field argue that it can improve on the messy, inefficient, and uncertain processes of natural evolution by engineering more reliable and efficient biological systems. Synthetic biology has the potential to revolutionize biotechnology in the energy, medical, and agricultural sectors by creating novel organisms and modifying existing ones. (See “Engineering Life,” here.) More public discussion of the implications of these areas of research is occurring, as engineers and scientists continue to push the frontiers of synthetic biology faster and further.
But what will this relentless pursuit of synthetic biology mean for the natural world and for conservation? The nature and extent of human impacts on the planet have already led to deep questions about the purpose of conservation and the measures of ...
