Commentary: The Verdict of Science
By Kurt Cobb, Resource
Insights, June 20, 2005
It's no surprise that human beings want all the benefits of science
without accepting its verdict. The benefits come from understanding how to manipulate
biological, chemical and physical processes to create a consumer paradise that
is increasingly going global. The verdict comes from understanding how that
manipulation is leading to oil depletion, global warming, water pollution, loss
of biodiversity, soil erosion and a host of other effects that could eventually
lead to the end of industrial civilization as we know it.
We think of science as objective, nonpartisan, and neutral. Yet, both those who
believe in endless technical fixes and those who forecast ecological collapse
cite science. How can this be? In fact, science has an ideology. Sir Francis
Bacon noted that "knowledge is power." In effect, that means science
has been the handmaiden of what the ecologist calls "takeover" and
"drawdown." Takeover is merely the ecologist's name for the taking of
resources by one species away from another. Farming is a good example. Takeover
increases carrying capacity* for one species while lowering it for another (or
possibly many others). Drawdown refers to the extraction of a resource faster
than it is being replaced. The quintessential examples of drawdown by humans
are fossil fuels and metals. But many more resources are now being
added to the list including water and soil.
Because observation and inquiry form the
basis of science, it was inevitable that the same science used to conquer the
environment would discover its destruction. These discoveries are byproducts,
and fortunate ones. They give us a chance to change course.
In a classic book on human population and resource use, Overshoot: The
Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, human
ecologist William Catton asks whether we humans are the same as all other
animals. Are we destined for the terrible collapse that has always been the
fate of other species that overshoot the underlying carrying capacity of their
environment, or are we different enough to plan ahead and manage a population
decline? His book and the question it asks are as relevant now as they were in
1980 when the book first appeared. Will we at long last accept the verdict of
science?
______________________________
*The maximum population of a given species which a particular habitat can
support indefinitely (under specified technology and organization, in the case
of human species.) [Definition taken from Overshoot
by William Catton.]
Extracts from chapters of this book available
online @ http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2005/06/verdict-of-science.html
