Why bother making such an effort? Because each species from a bacterium to a whale is a masterpiece of evolution. Each has persisted, its mix of genes slowly evolving, for thousands to millions of years. And each is exquisitely adapted to its environment and interlocks with a legion of other species to form the ecosystems upon which our own lives ultimately depend. We need to properly explore Earth’s biodiversity if we are to understand, preserve and manage it.
It is impossible to gainsay Wilson's knowledge of biology nor his poetry in revealing the beauty of the biosphere. We all would do well by admiring the richness of living nature as does he, and admiring Wilson himself for his impassioned call to understand nature in her every detail. However, I still feel that the above quote contains one flaw that endangers all the rest.
The flawed statement is the assertion that we humans are to manage Earth's biodiversity. The sentiment is not the problem. It would be nice to have a benevolent mankind looking out for the best interests of each and every species. It would be empowering to harvest the bounty of countless generations of evolution to apply every trick in nature's armamentarium to conquer diseases and better living conditions everywhere. I think these sentiments are unarguably good.
However, the call for mankind to manage the biosphere is over-reaching and impractical. In fact, I feel that daydreams of managing the biosphere are categorically wrong and dangerous simply because mankind, nor any agency, is competent enough to "manage" a biosphere. A biosphere is, literally, unmanageable.
We are sustained by the synergistic workings of the biosphere, the sum of the activities of all life on Earth. From life's humble origins in a methane-dominated atmosphere, it has had an active role in shaping the physical environment. Gradually the early methane atmosphere was altered by freeing oxygen, allowing different forms of life with higher metabolic rates to grow dominant. Life has conquered nearly every environment Earth has presented, from the perpetually frozen arctic to the ever-boiling sulfurous vents astride faults. Life permeates Earth as if it were a sponge.
Each living thing satisfies its needs for nutrients and passes its metabolites back into the life-generated soup that is the environment. Plants feed on carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen whilst animals inhale oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. Every input and output of every organism on the planet is meticulously complemented by other organisms, high and low, each which extract every scintilla of energy at every stage. The unequivocal process of rewarding the fit with progeny, while tolerating some variation in reproduction has produced, through evolution, an astounding variety of life forms and behaviors that, like water, fills nearly every crack and crevice of opportunity with a life form to take advantage of it.
Yet the optimizations of life are not restricted to the designs produced by evolution; the conversion of chemical inputs to biomass is accomplished by the individuals of countless species, each living the drama of its personal existence, motivated by hunger, fear, and desire throughout its life. The whole adds up, on a grand scale, to a homeostatic system, having great stability, as each player is but a tiny contributor to the whole. The wisdom of the system, as it were, resides with no individuals nor groups, rather. it is in the countless, intricate feedback loops that include all of life; its wisdom is in the whole.
Contrast this with mankind, a recent arrival on an ancient scene, whose connection with nature has been largely severed, or so it would seem, by a consciousness that lifts what it sees from a context unnoticed. Modern humans are singularly adept at acting on their misconceptions, and have left a terrible trail of destruction in their wake. It is for all these reasons that humanity cannot and should not be emboldened to be the "stewards of the Earth" or the managers of the biosphere, for not only is this the height of folly, it is almost certainly the death warrant for even greater numbers of species than have already perished.
The best, if not only, way for mankind to contribute to the stability of the biosphere is to shrink in numbers and influence by at least 100-fold, and preferably 1000-fold or more, and adopt a policy of "zero-footprint" engagement with nature, wherein all resources are replenished, all human waste biodegradable, and so forth. This would be tantamount to returning to the living conditions of so-called aboriginal peoples.
Whether this would be possible is doubtful. given general unwillingness to forgo the comforts of modern civilization, not to mention a host of other reasons. The probability of some sort of catastrophic collapse of civilization is all but certain because, this has always been the case. Unlike the rest of nature, humanity organizes itself into fragile hierarchies that mainly serve to amplify the power of lunatics and worse, such as Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others.
Yet others are more or less directly responsible for large-scale environmental damage, such as Ford, Rockefeller, DuPont, Nobel, and a host of imitators, who have collectively enabled modern industrial society to reshape the world to the peril of everyone and everything. Clearly, the apparent imperatives of civilization are at odds with survival itself, which brings humanity to the grimly amusing position of having to destroy itself to save itself. This sort of paradoxical conundrum is probably best handled by religion if it is to be handled at all.
This begs the question as to whether, at this juncture on our threatened planet, science and technology can continue in their accustomed roles as enablers of human development. After all, as has been proven many times throughout history, survival trumps rationality.
No comments:
Post a Comment