OpenSpace4Life

    "Believe it or not, nuclear reactors have existed since long before man, and a fossil natural nuclear reactor was recently discovered in Gabon, in Africa. . . . Thus life probably began under conditions of radioactivity far more intense than those which trouble the minds of certain present-day environmentalists. . . . The present dangers are real but tend to be exaggerated. These rays are part of the natural environment and always have been."

    "Towards the end of 1975 the United States National Academy of Sciences issued a report by . . . those expert in the effects of nuclear explosions and all things subsequent to them. The report suggested that if half of all the nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals, about 10,000 megatons, were used in nuclear war the effects on most of the human and man-made ecosystems of the world would be small at first and would become negligible within thirty years. Both aggressor and victim nations would of course suffer catastrophic local devastation, but areas remote from the battle and, especially important in the biosphere, marine and coastal ecosystems would be minimally disturbed.
    "To date, there seems to be only one serious scientific criticism of the report, namely, of the claim that the major global effect would be the partial destruction of the ozone layer by oxides of nitrogen generated in the heat of the nuclear explosions. We now suspect that this claim is false . . . There was, of course, at the time of the report a strange and disproportionate concern in America about stratospheric ozone. It might in the end prove to be prescient, but then as now it was a speculation based on very tenuous evidence."

    "So strongly expressed, however, has been public concern over the dangers of genetic manipulation involving DNA itself, that it was good to have no less an authority than John Postgate* confirm that . . . there must be many taboos written into the genetic coding, the universal language shared by every living cell. There must also be an intricate security system to ensure that exotic outlaw species do not evolve into rampantly criminal syndicates. Vast numbers of viable genetic combinations must have been tried out, through countless generations of micro-organisms, during the history of life.
    "Perhaps our continuing orderly existence over so long a period can be attributed to yet another Gaian regulatory process, which makes sure that cheats can never become dominant."

Yes, believe it or not, all of these quotes are from Gaia: A new look at life on Earth by James Lovelock, first published in 1979. In his preface to the 2000 edition he admits that he made some mistakes, but doesn't mention any of the above passages, although the theory of nuclear winter established in the early 1980s is a compelling reason to believe that full-scale nuclear war would be a global catastrophe for all land-dwelling multicellular organisms.

The preface also chides environmentalists for "attacking all science-based large companies of the First World especially where there was a link, however tenuous, with a threat to humanity," since "Our much too vociferous advocates, the consumer lobbies, and we the consumers are equally responsible for the gaseous greenhouse and the extinction of wildlife. The multinational companies would not exist if we had not demanded their products and at a price that forces them to produce without enough care for the consequences."

* The linked article is problematic in that it doesn't properly address the danger of genetically modifying plants and animals, which have much larger genomes and reproduce far more slowly than bacteria, and so experience a far lower rate of natural genetic mutations with major phenotypic effects.

If you've watched the movie Advertising and the End of the World and were confused by the graph showing the curves representing "natural resources" and "production" intersecting in about the year 2070, here's an explanation.

"Probably the best index of the scale of the human economy as a part of the biosphere is the percentage of human appropriation of the total world product of photosynthesis. Net primary production (NPP) is the amount of energy captured in photosynthesis by primary producers, less the energy used in their own growth and reproduction. NPP is thus the basic food resource for everything on earth not capable of photosynthesis. Vitousek et al. calculate that 25% of potential global (terrestrial and aquatic) NPP is now appropriated by human beings (BioScience 1986 vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 368-73). If only terrestrial NPP is considered, the amount rises to 40%. The definition of human appropriation underlying the figures quoted includes direct use by human beings (food, fuel, fiber, timber) plus the reduction from potential NPP due to alteration of ecosystems caused by humans. The latter reflects deforestation, desertification, paving over, and human conversion to less productive systems (such as agriculture). Taking the 25% figure for the entire world, it is apparent that two more doublings of the human scale will give 100%. Since this would mean zero energy left for all nonhuman and nondomesticated species, and since humans cannot survive without the services of ecosystems, it is clear that two more doublings of the human scale would be an ecological impossibility, even if it were arithmetically possible. Assuming a constant level of per capita resource consumption, the doubling time of the human scale would be equal to the doubling time of population, which is on the order of 40 years."

1986 + 40*2 = 2066, which is close to 2070. But wait, there's more.

"Of course economic development currently aims to increase the average per capita resource consumption and consequently to reduce the doubling time of the scale of the human presence below that implicit in the demographic rate of growth. Furthermore the terrestrial figure of 40% human appropriation is really the more relevant one since we are unlikely to increase our take from the oceans very much. Unless we awaken to the existence and nearness of scale limits, then the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain will be just a preview of disasters to come, not in the vague distant future but in the next generation."

-Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good.

For some idea of what such a future might be like, see the novel A Friend of the Earth by T. C. Boyle.

A Basic Trend

1. According to modern “scale” economics, producing more and selling more results in more profits. As a result, corporations tend to produce as much as they can, as fast as they can.

2. Continuing technological development ensures that the maximum production rate keeps going up.

3. The living natural resources used by corporations to make products, however, reproduce themselves at relatively steady rates according to the delicate balance of Earth’s biosphere.*

4. Therefore, beyond a certain point, nature can no longer keep up with humanity’s accelerating use of its resources.

5. These resources are then depleted at an accelerating rate, eventually leading to a spectacular and terrible economic and ecological collapse.


Possible Ways to Alter This Trend

1. Alter the basic nature of the economic system: very difficult. Mass production and economies of scale are part of a global system of intertwined economics and politics which is itself enormously resistant to change, despite the massive changes it is making to this planet.

2. Increase the rate of natural resource reproduction: also very difficult. Since life has covered the planet so thoroughly, an increase in the reproduction rate of one species almost always occurs at the expense of another. If we keep expanding production of the species that are useful to us, we run the risk of destroying enough other species to cause the collapse of the entire biosphere, which is one of the few events that could result in the complete extinction of humanity. Giant space colonies may eventually solve this problem by creating new habitat areas, but don’t hold your breath.

3. Start an anti-consumerist movement, to prevent the corporations from continuing to sell more and more products: difficult, but not as difficult as the first two alternatives. A rising standard of living doesn’t necessarily mean consuming more products faster. If people refuse to buy products that are designed to be short-lived or aren’t useful enough to justify the resources put into them, the corporations will eventually be forced to change their strategies. We need to convince them now rather than wait for them to wake up to the consequences of continued resource depletion and find real solutions.

* The dangers of running out of petroleum, metals, and minerals are minor compared with those of damaging or destroying the biosphere on which we are still dependent.

(originally posted August 4, 2003)