B 2.5 Scale effects and landscape management

"Scale effects have other consequences: a part at least of the decisions which deal with a given landscape unit are taken by people who do not live in it, or by people whose choices are conditioned by external centres of power or influence (markets in the economic field; regional or capital cities in the political one; religious capital cities or pilgrimages in the religious field).
The contemporary evolution of pollutions leads to similar consequences. Humankind now confronts global unbalances: greenhouse effects or the ozone hole around the South Pole. These global effects result from the addition of millions of local decisions concerning the spread of fertilizers and pesticides, the use of cars and motor engines, the heating or cooling of houses, etc. The coming global ecological crisis thus requires the creation of (a) global authority(ies) able to set the limits for the emission of greenhouse gases or pollutants for every area. In this way, a new scale effect linked to externalities has deeply transformed the management of landscapes during the last half-century."

(This is an excerpt from the text by Professor Paul Claval “THE IDEA OF LANDSCAPE”)