Jeff wrote:
> The following report from Worldwatch Institute talks about how everything
> is connected and attacking problems singly (one at a time) may never
> produce a lasting solution. In the end it concludes we need a more
> holistic approach.
>
> This is a constant battle between those interested in one issue and
> those who look at the whole. When should we work to save the whales
> and when should we fix the economic pressures that are making whales
> valuable?
>
> By Chris Bright
>
> Environmental pressures are converging in ways that are likely to
> create a growing number of unanticipated crises. Each of these crises
> will demand some sort of fix, and each fix will demand money, time and
> political capital. Yet no matter how many fixes we make, we've no
> realistic expectation of reducing the potential for additional crises
> -- if "fixing" is all we do.
>
> The key to controlling that demon is to do a better job of managing
> systems in their entirety. And whether the system in question is the
> global trading network, a national economy, or a single natural area,
> many of the same operating principles will apply. Here, in my view,
> are four of the most important operating principles.
I agree with the point made, but question the shift from whales to economic
pressures. I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking about issues
one step up on the wholistic scale. I have been looking into when humans
started to drift away from Nature, why/how we started to see Nature as a
resource for our desires, and how we can "progress" without regard for the
ecosystems / Nature.
To me, this provides clues to our motivations behind our destructive
behaviors and may help find ideas for changing these behaviors. Let's use
the same logic Chris used when he said, " Yet no matter how many fixes we
make, we've no realistic expectation of reducing the potential for
additional crises, if "fixing" is all we do." I'd say that increased
energy and material efficiency, better political structures, more equal
distribution of wealth, better economic systems, higher pollution
standards, etc. will not give us any better chance of "reducing the
potential for additional crises".
First, using Chris' logic -- used by many -- a "better job of managing
systems in their entirety" may give us "better" systems but do not ensure
fewer crises because our approach to survival / progress / civilization
does not necessarily change. I believe it is at this basic level where our
ability to destroy the environment comes from. Left unchanged, our
behaviors will likely find some other way, or continue in overlooked ones,
to create instability in the environment.
A related but different point is that if our "solutions", at any level of
wholism, allow us to continue to increase in population (better food
systems, better distribution, etc.) or to continue to use large amounts of
natural resources (regardless of how efficiently they are used) we are only
raising the stakes. Our ability to survive, as well as everything else's,
will depend on our ability to continue to come up with "fixes" as the
scales increase. At the same time, the results if we should fail at some
future time to come up with a suitable fix would be increasingly more
disastrous.
I have been reading and thinking (and hope to get my ideas into essay form)
about how man has, throughout time, changed his behaviors, including
technologies, to adapt to increased population. Unlike other animals who
are, for the most part, restricted to available resources, we can adjust at
a cultural level -- geometrically faster than evolution -- to any current
"crisis". This has allowed the human population to reach a point where
what we do influences the rest of the world (species and features). Each
time we adopt a new behavior it seems a reasonable reaction to the problem
at hand. But without a larger view, we loose sight of where this strategy
takes us, and everything else
Perhaps, this ideas leads to the conclusion that humans are "destine" to
follow a path of increased cultural / behavioral adaptation until it can no
longer "solve" or "fix" the situation it has put itself into. Nature will
just have to pick up the pieces when its all over, perhaps to do it again
if we've survived.
Or perhaps, less pessimistically, we can learn to think on larger scales
and in higher degrees of complexity, allowing us to adopt new behaviors
that return us to a harmonious state within Nature. Finding a (lower)
population level and level (type?) of technology that permits us to live
within the limits set by our environments. It will require no less than a
total restructuring of civilization, and the transition will be a
challenge. This possible future has an expiration date. If we do not
accomplish a change on this level soon enough, we will follow the other
path by default. Each step toward this solution may reduce the scale of
disaster if we do not accomplish it in its entirety. If we do accomplish
it, each step brings that day closer, and perhaps preserves more of what we
still have here on Earth. So everyone's efforts in this direction should
be appreciated.
Although there is work to do in many areas, I believe none of them alone is
sufficient if the basic survival approach of humans is not brought into
question and changed. And perhaps a change at this level is sufficient to
start a dramatic shift in all human activities.
Any thoughts?
Eric:
