Earthsky Interviews
Private: Gloom and doom, or hopeful future?
10-28-2006 - Human World
Reuters “reported”:http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2006-10-24T074534Z_01_L19402119_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-WWF-PLANET.xml on Tuesday that “humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets’ worth of natural resources every year by 2050″ if current trends continue.
This information came from a biennial report from “WWF,”:http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/who_we_are/index.cfm a conservation group which was established in 1961 and which says it currently operates in more than 100 countries. And God bless ‘em for that. You can download the full WWF report “here.”:http://assets.panda.org/downloads/living_planet_report.pdf
Meanwhile, the email list – the talk between scientists you’ve likely never heard of – was organized by the “Millennium Project”:http://www.acunu.org/ of the American Council for the “United Nations University.”:http://www.unu.edu/
The Millennium Project has issued an “invitation for teenagers to compete in this year’s Global Millennium Prize,”:http://earthsky.org/teachers/global-millennium-prize-deadline-november-15 by writing essays or “scenarios” describing the future. The scientists on this email list talked about that this week, and they also talked about the Millennium Project’s “2006 State of the Future”:http://www.acunu.org/millennium/issues.html report, which was published recently.
Jerome C. Glenn, Director of the Millennium Project, wrote to the group about two short overviews of the report. You’ll find one “here,”:http://www.rsa.org.uk/journal/article.asp?articleID=830 from the RSA (Royal Society of Arts in the UK) Journal. And the other is “here,”:http://www.wfs.org/fsrvabst.htm from Future Survey, a publication of the World Future Society.
Neither overview is light reading. This way of thinking – this international effort looking toward the future from a scientific perspective – just hasn’t entered the popular media yet.
Earth & Sky sees a lot of articles of the kind mentioned at the top of this post. We know you do, too. We all see lots of gloom and doom. Studies like this are great. They’re real. They’re probably needed to expand our minds to the reality that Earth is finite and that we can’t continue using our world as a “thing,” a resource for our survival and our pleasure, unthinkingly, forever.
On the other hand, in contrast, the work of scientists on the email list mentioned above seems almost underground. You just don’t hear much about this work. It’s a like an underground movement of scientists around the world who are working hard to create a hopeful future. This is what’s called the emerging “science of sustainability,”:http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/BCSIA/sust.nsf/pubs/pub78 which isn’t widely recognized or understood many people yet, but which is a great thing. It’s cool. It’s very cool. It only needs some good “P.R.”:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=safari&rls=en-us&defl=en&q=define:P.R&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
Will we get to the point suggested in the gloomy WWF study: a point where, by 2050, we are using ” two planets’ worth of natural resources every year?” Certainly not. We won’t ever get there, because it’s not possible to use so many resources and remain alive on this small fragile world.
What will happen instead? Part of what will happen, surely, is that very smart people like the scientists and other experts at the “Millennium Project”:http://www.acunu.org/ will go on quietly conducting their studies, talking to each other on the internet, and working with whatever local and global policy-makers they can convince to listen. They’ll continue on, digging into the physics and biology and geology and materials science and climate science and other sciences needed to understand this world … in order to learn to live in it sustainably.
And at some point people like you reading this post – also smart, also caring – will begin to hear that hopeful scenarios of the future are not only possible … they are part of science. There are hopeful scientific scenarios of the future world, just as much as there are gloomy ones. The hopeful ones just haven’t had as much press.
“2006 State of the Future”:http://www.acunu.org/millennium/sof2006.html report.
“Great Transition Initiative”:http://www.gtinitiative.org/
“Forum on Science and Innovation for Sustainable Development”:http://www.sustainabilityscience.org/
“Sustainability Gateway”:http://nrc58.nas.edu/pgasurvey/Sustainability/home.html
My hopes for a good future soar every time good scientific data is presented to the world. Science is our best guide, I suppose, to assuring a fit habitat for coming generations.
Whenever the pressures of political convenience, economic expediency, plainly unreal religious dogma, the social status quo, cultural prescriptions, or other pressures come to bear on scientists, such that those pressures interfere with and ultimately obstruct their vital scientific work, then darkness and hopelessness engulfs me.
With abiding confidence in science and hope of a good future, just as we want it to be for our children…
Steve, I couldn’t agree more about science. As a thirty-year veteran of science writing, I have to say that, while I’ve always enjoyed science, I haven’t been one to feel convinced that it’s critical to human culture … until the past few years. Now we definitely NEED science to navigate the challenges ahead.
As for feeling dark or hopeless … I just don’t feel that. I feel very hopeful about the future.
Deborah
Dear Deborah,
Perhaps there is another for me to communicate what appears so worrisome.
Today mounting pressures from politicians and their benefactors in the business world, from institutional inertia in academe, and from ubiquitous expressions of human greed and arrogance could be producing a chilling effect that discourages scientists discharging their primary duties and responsibilities to science and to its natural evolution. For whatever ‘reason’ or pressure, if good science is ignored, suppressed or outrightly rejected rather than rigorously examined, interpreted and critiqued, then a fear for human wellbeing and environmental health subdues me.
Is science not one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity? Without science, pray tell me, how is humankind to adequately understand the natural world; to meaningfully grasp its placement in the natural order of living things; and to ably adapt to the changing requirements of an evolving world?
Steve, yes, there are reasons to feel worried. For me, I think, it’s like I’d feel if I had a teenaged child going through a time of darkness … drugs or alcohol or thieving or gambling, with bad influences all around. That sort of self-destructiveness in a single human teen might be somewhat analogous to what the human species is doing today, with respect to using Earth’s resources. It’s like we’re all drunk with our new-found power to use Earth’s resources to create comfort and wellness for ourselves. With teens, you can talk, you can cajole, you can feel heart-sick. But, under it all, you have to have faith that they’ll come through … you just can’t give up the faith.
It seems natural to me that the human species would go the route it’s gone, with respect to using Earth’s resources. It wasn’t that long ago that humanity – across the globe – was battling nature just to stay alive on this planet. And now we’ve subdued nature and are exploiting it. The next step will be to use our human intelligence, cooperativeness, ingenuity and essential goodness to learn to live in harmony with nature.
I believe that will happen. I wish I could live another 100 years, just to see it!
Deborah
Deborah, I’ll counter your optimism. With regard to earths resources the example of Rapanui comes to mind. Once a tree covered and life sustaining island it was ravaged by it’s inhabitants. They had to notice the shrinking woodland and the growing lack of bird life and other creatures. At some point there was just one tree left, but someone even cut that one down. That vanished microcosm is the future of mankind as a whole left to its own devices.
Dear Deborah,
If humankind was simply to follow your lead and that of Jane Goodall, among many other like-minded God-fearing scientists and lovers of what lives, who are struggling to save the world as we know it for coming generations, then, truly, I believe that all will be well for life on Earth.
What worries me is that too many leaders, those who ‘sit on thrones’ and ride is limos, are themselves addicts, “all drunk with…power,” as you put it, and with wealth, seeking effortless ease and endless comforts.
For you, Deborah, and Dame Jane, I would say science, nature and life rule; but, for the many too many leader/addict types these wondrous and irreplaceable gifts from God seem to be routinely subordinated to un-natural activities now overspreading Earth.
I like your “next step” a lot. The task before us, I suppose, is to declare ourselves and take action.
Thanks always.
Dear Greg Harrison,
Although I would prefer not to have to report this, IF it turns out that humankind contines too much longer with the current kind of leadership—the adamant ones who are such enamored and single-minded sponsors of more, evermore of the same, old “business as usual” activities suited best to the desires of the powerful and rich, then I, too, believe that you have put “your finger” on the future for humankind.
This is what is worrying me.
Steve, what concerns me also is that it may not necessarily be the current leadership alone. There are very powerful influences on whatever administration takes the reigns. I frankly don’t believe that any elected official will be able to override those influences and change the consumer mentality of the general public. I’m not just being a pessimistic nay-sayer as a clear look at trends beginning with the industrial revolution shows humanity as a whole to be greedy, wasteful and terribly shortsighted. People like you and I, should we live long enough, will see our fears are in fact our future.
By the way, how are you affiliated with sustainabilitysoutheast.org, your website reference?
Dear Greg,
I am already too old to worry longer about myself and a wonderful, long-suffering spouse. Even though my children are grown, I am desperately worried for them and their children. As for coming generations, I do not know what to say, other than two statements of one point: 1) my wife says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different to occur as a result; 2) if we decide to keep doing what we are doing now, we are certain to keep getting what we getting from now on. Is that not the way the world works? Is it not that simple?
The current leadership to which I am referring is not the present US Administration. If only that was the problem, I would not worry. It is not just the leaders in the US whose behavior is woefully inadequate and misdirected, as I see it; there are politicians, economists and demographers in both major political parties here and among similarly situated, elite power groups in other countries worldwide who bare responsibility for the global situation and the direction in which we are relentlessly and unreflectively going.
Although I believe you are likely correct with regard to your view of “humanity as a whole,” I must say in all the seriousness of what is true for me, we can change our behavior, and we will. We can understand what is sustainable and what is patently unsustainable and respond ably to the requirements of reality, and we will. We can choose to see that there is more than ONE RIGHT WAY to live on Earth and that WE DO NOT POSSESS THAT ONE RIGHT WAY, and we will.
Despite what Vice-President Richard Cheney says and other current leaders “parrot” about our way of life is NON-negotiable, I believe our way of life had better be negotiable or else there may be no life worth living on this good Earth before the close of Century XXI.
Greg, if I may go back to an story you told earlier today …
With regard to earths resources the example of Rapanui comes to mind. Once a tree covered and life sustaining island it was ravaged by it’s inhabitants. They had to notice the shrinking woodland and the growing lack of bird life and other creatures. At some point there was just one tree left, but someone even cut that one down. That vanished microcosm is the future of mankind as a whole left to its own devices.
This story sounds like one of several told by Jared Diamond is his book Collapse. The book tells some stories of isolated civilizations – people on islands, for example – completely using up the resources available to them. Are we on Earth today isolated like those on islands of the past, in the sense that we’re on a small planet in the vastness of space, with only limited resources available to us? It’s clear that, in some ways, we are.
And yet, as Diamond himself pointed out in his book, the stories of island people entirely using their resources … those stories must be the exceptions to the rule. Yes, some civilizations entirely used their resources. But other civilizations did not entirely use the resources available to them. Instead, they learned to manage their resources. We must have descended from those who learned to manage their resources. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.
None of us really knows what has happened in the past. We can’t possibly know the full extent of history. And none of us knows the future.
That’s why it essential to be aware … to talk … to learn … and to have faith. People are good. People are smart. We’ll figure it out.
Deborah
Humbly, feebly, with poor communication skills I need to report:
The good Earth we are blessed to inhabit is our home; but it is first and last God’s house. This marvelous celestial orb, set among a sea of stars, appears to be governed by the rules of the house…according to God. If we choose to simply understand adequately enough the rules of God’s house and act accordingly, then all will be well.
I feel fortunate to have recently met and spoken with Jared Diamond at Duke University, where a son of his is a student. He appears to be correct about so many things that I hesitate to say that he does not yet grasp how collapsing civilizations, past and present, could be a direct result of humankind’s insistence on making up the “rules of the house” by which we then choose to live rather than gaining knowledge of and following the rules of God’s house.
At this moment in human history, could it be that the current leaders—the ones who are the self-proclaimed “masters of the Universe” with so little left to learn—do not have sufficient knowledge of God’s “house rules” and do not care to learn about them, not really, because of what it would mean for their NON-negotiable way of life?
Always, with thanks to God, Earth, science, and humanity for another Sunday morning amid life as we have known it and before the predominant culture’s reckless pursuit of infinite consumption, production and propagation in a finite world brings another civilization to its closing time,
Steve
Doom is NOT what I see. Change appears in the offing. Is life itself not always evolving and changing?
Only if humankind chooses to follow leaders who adamantly stay the course and defend at whatever cost the scale and continuous rate of overgrowth of certain distinctly human activities overspreading Earth, could a case for doom possibly be made.
Perhaps change is visible on the far horizon. I certainly do not subscribe to any kind of Nietzschean-like idea of the eternal recurrence of collapsing human civilizations or that humankind cannot use its God-given intelligence to make changes in its thought and behavior…..changes that will make a difference. I am not thinking about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but real changes.
There are ideas “floating” everywhere; but, of course, the mass media/popular press remain focused on the politically convenient, the economically expedient, the socially attractive, the culturally prescribed and whatsoever else underwriters, benefactors and power brokers will pay for.
For example, ideas like powering down…….economic contraction and convergence……..universal population education and readily available contraception………family health and planning programs……..steady-state economy………sustainable development without overgrowth……..re-institution of human-scale, traditional farming practices……limits to growth of per capita consumption…..production and transportation without pollution…….required use of renewable energy resources………development of alternate energy sources to fossil fuels……..much more money for the UN Population Fund………empower the United Nations………extend democratic principles to assure that resources are shared within the human community on a more fair and equitable basis……..substantial incentives for protecting biodiversity and the environment equal to what is paid captains of economic transformation……..Nobel Prizes for honest politicians……..more wealth dedicated to science, the preservation of nature and the wellbeing of the human community at large…….
Of course this list of changes, like knowledge itself, can be developed without regard to limits to growth. That is the wonder of knowledge, is it not? I believe the infinite growth of knowledge is evident and good; whereas, certain overgrowth activities of the human species could be approaching a point in human history in the 21st century of patent unsustainability.
For me, wondrous discussions like these initiate change.
Thanks for your every word.
Deborah, your enthusiasm is very admirable. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading Mr. Diamond’s publication, but I will certainly endeavor to. My feeling, though, is that you are giving humanity the benefit of a doubt undeservedly. We have applied to ourselves the term ‘consumers’. It wasn’t too long ago that the sole meaning of consume was to destroy in some fashion, as by fire, leaving nothing to remain. I’ve been reviewing the Living Planet Report, and it seems that whoever applied that tag really knew what was coming. But, not to be a complete downer, I do love your Earth and Sky report. I’ve been a fan for a long time.
Steve, I’m sorry for misunderstanding your initial message and pegging you as a gloom and doomer. Your propositions to save the planet are hampered by 1. our desire to live longer and healthier lives and 2. to bear progeny and maintain the lineage and 3. overall peaceful relations between nations. Don’t misunderstand me, I certainly do not condone violence as a means to an end, but without war and it’s associated problems – famine and disease, people will multiply like…people. The ability to forecast and prevent death my natural disaster is improving. Death by natural causes and crime alone will not keep up with birth. Short of a Logan’s Run type life lottery system, enlightened acceptance of our neighbors, the freedom to procreate at will and have access to more extensive and advanced health care will doom us. Space travel will not advance fast enough to get the baby out of the cradle before critical mass is reached.
I’m not saying people can’t learn better ways. But can they learn them quickly enough?
Dear Greg,
I was remiss in not saying clearly and earlier in this discussion how important I believe your point of view is. Thank you for it.
You asked earlier about Sustainability Southeast. This is simply an very small effort I am proud to support that is dedicated to raising awareness regarding the human predicament that could be posed to humanity by the unregulated global growth of human numbers and human enterprise in Century XXI. We strive to bring attention to the best available emerging scientific data, as they relate to certain activities of the human species that are occuring virtually everywhere within the inhabitable spaces of the planet and without acknowledgement of human limits or Earth’s limitations.
How much longer will it be before people begin to address what the “masters of the universe” know already, but choose to ignore: that the unbridled freedom to rampantly plunder Earth’s finite resources and then to reflexively advocate for the their unrestrained consumption may not be sustainable through the 21st century? Perhaps I, a generation of elders and current leaders may be making grievous, unforgivable errors by first recklessly commandeering and then greedily devouring the available wealth of the natural world, without giving conscious consideration and developing actionable plans that responsibly account for humanity’s long term wellbeing, for biodiversity, for environmental health, and for the needs of coming generations. In this small planetary home we are blessed us to inhabit, we could be behaving in a woefully inadequate way and failing in our duties to act as good enough stewards of God’s house.
If human beings evolved on Earth (did not descend from heaven or come here from some other place in the universe) and the emerging data of human overpopulation of our planetary home are somehow on the right track, then humanity could soon confront daunting global challenges.
Perhaps hubris confuses human reasoning about the “placement” of humanity within the natural order of living things. There is the rub, I suppose. We have learned from God’s great gifts to humanity—natural philosophy and modern science—that Earth is not the center of the universe (Copernicus); that we are set upon a tiny celestial orb among a sea of stars (Galileo); that such things as the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Thermodynamics affect living things equally, including human beings (Newton, et al); that humankind is a part of the general evolutionary process (Darwin); and that people are to a significant degree unconscious, mistake what is illusory for what is real and, therefore, have difficulty both adequately explaining the way the world works and understanding why we behave as we do (Freud).
Now comes apparently unanticipated and unfortunately unwelcome data from Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D., and David Pimentel, Ph.D., that indicate we have had nothing more than a preternatural grasp of human population dynamics and are now unwilling to take personal responsibility for the necessary regulation of human numbers and human enterprise. That is to say, humanity could soon be presented with a predicament resulting from its unbridled “overgrowth” activities: increasing and unchecked per capita consumption of scarce resources, seemingly endless expansion of the world economy’s production capabilities in a finite world, and unrestrained human species propagation.
Extant data indicate that the excessive extinction of biodiversity and creeping environmental degradation are happening alongside the rapid dissipation of natural resources; all of which are occurring at an accelerating rate that substantially exceeds the capacity of Earth to restore its resources, maintain the integrity of its environs and preserve its biodiversity. These perilous circumstances appear to be in large part a direct consequence of human influence.
From my humble vantage point, it does look as if the challenges posed to humanity by certain unregulated human activities overspreading Earth are now huge ones and are becoming larger and more difficult to address with passage of time. Even so, we can choose to take the measure of the looming challenges before the human community and find solutions to our problems that are consonant with universally shared values.
QUESTION:
Is there even a remote possibility certain activities of the human species now overspreading Earth could become so predominant as to precipitate the mass extinction of biodiversity, the destabilization of the climate and the irreversible degradation of our planetary home?
METAPHOR:
Perhaps the magnitude of the influence of the human species upon the natural world is like the proverbial “elephant in my living room” and in your living room and in the living rooms of every member of the human community.
No one can say how the gargantuan thing ever got into the house. Its very presence does not make sense. How could so large a presence have existed, escaping the notice of so many people everywhere? The situation strikes most people upon seeing the huge thing as incredible and unbelievable.
Every member of the human family can see some part of the the gigantic thing. We call it leviathan. Some of us see a tusk or a tail. Others see its head or some part of its massive body. Because leviathan is so big that no one person can see the whole of it, we conclude that it simply cannot be real, not really. And that is exactly what we do. By simply making the choice to deny its presence, we can ignore that which, in any case, cannot be completely seen by anyone. After all, not a single photograph of leviathan can be produced. No acceptable data pertaining to this unforeseen giant organism can be obtained. Henceforth, there is no talk about the elephant. The elephant is a taboo topic.
Whatever will be, will be. If the elephant in the living room is really real, it is obvious, is it not, that there is nothing any person can do about it? Why worry; be happy. C’est la vie.
And not surprisingly, the longer we ignore the elephant in the living room by not mentioning to one another the potential threat it poses to a sustainable future for the children and coming generations, the bigger and more oppressive it becomes. Leviathan gathers momentum as it grows and reminds some, strangely enough, of a tsunami wave, one that is still out at sea, but visible on the far horizon. So quiet, so natural, so beautiful, so big, so potentially dangerous.
We are told by everyone in a position to have knowledge of the situation that if we stay the course, keep doing just what we are doing and resolutely ignore leviathan, as one of the world’s most prominent political leaders (gesturing by throwing up his hands toward the sky) recently put it, “We’ll all be dead.”
Thanks to all who choose to see the tabooed elephant; it appears to be on the move and increasing its size without bounds in a finite world. Perhaps life as we know it in the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit depends upon the human family’s determination to openly acknowledge and respond ably to leviathan.
Has anyone seen leviathan?