ABSTRACT
In the, current discourse on sustainability, diverse, traditional and environmentalist views and the "cornucopian economist" or "biosphere people" perspectives tend to clash, and claim superiority over their respective opposite. Humanity may not just be engaged in a struggle for survival in a hostile world anymore, but be a major factor of influence on many ecosystems, and even the main force in human-dominated ecosystems. Atmospheric phenomena, natural disasters, and the like can and will not be controlled, pathogens do not wait to be eradicated but evolve in response to our misguided efforts to do so, and the simplification of ecosystems may endanger the provision of ecosystem services which have always been taken for granted but, as already shown above, are not. Ultimately, the question is not one of whether or not there may be human influence, it is what shape it can take so that "both people and planet" profit rather than have to be squared off against each other.
