I recently finished Michael Crichton’s Prey, which was an engrossing, highly entertaining techno-thriller. The following is a verbatim quotation taken from the introduction to Crichton’s book that really impressed me. It brings into sharp focus man’s naive (and greedy and disrespectful!) beliefs that he can change, pillage, and plunder his environment without regard to consequences, thinking that he “knows best.” And even when he tries to fix past misdeeds, the results are unpredictable and often as bad as the initial damage.
Contrast Crichton’s thoughts with our current government’s (President Bush’s) policies. We now have the threats of oil drilling in many formerly untouched areas of the United States, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. For Bush’s “far-sighted thinking” on the matter, see this site. Thanks to him, many environmental restrictions on corporations have been loosened. Of course these corporations will do the right thing, won’t they? (Yeah, right!) And on top of all this, our administration still thinks that global warming is unproven. Hell, we are the only nation who claims to be a superpower, and we’ve (Bush, our government, etc.) opted out of the Kyoto Protocols! We should all be ashamed of this!
Here’s a thought. How about actually being cautious about what we throw into the atmosphere? Before we damage it beyond saving, if we haven’t done so already, let’s look for ways to reduce our dumping of pollutants into our air, our water, and onto our land. We are all in this together, after all. If Corporation X emits sulphur dioxide, we all breathe it, don’t we? (Okay. I’ve climbed down off of my soapbox.)
I know this is a lot to read, but I think it will be worth your while. It really is food for thought!
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If we were to grasp the true nature of nature—if we could comprehend the real meaning of evolution—then we would envision a world in which every living plant, insect, and animal species is changing at every instant, in response to every other living plant, insect, and animal. Whole populations of organisms are rising and falling, shifting and changing. This restless and perpetual change, as inexorable and unstoppable as the waves and tides, implies a world in which all human actions necessarily have uncertain effects. The total system we call the biosphere is so complicated that we cannot know in advance the consequences of anything that we do.
That is why even our most enlightened past efforts have had undesirable outcomes—either because we did not understand enough, or because the ever-changing world responded to our actions in unexpected ways. From this standpoint, the history of environmental protection is as discouraging as the history of environmental pollution. Anyone who is willing to argue, for example, that the industrial policy of clear-cutting forests is more damaging than the ecological policy of fire suppression ignores the fact that both policies have been carried out with utter conviction, and both have altered the virgin forest irrevocably. Both provide ample evidence of the obstinate egotism that is the hallmark of human interaction with the environment.
The fact that the biosphere responds unpredictably to our actions is not an argument for inaction. It is, however, a powerful argument for caution, and for adopting a tentative attitude toward all we believe, and all we do. Unfortunately, our species has demonstrated a striking lack of caution in the past. It is hard to imagine that we will behave differently in the future.
We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so. We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds—and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own.
We are one of only three species (including humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans) on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind.
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Michael Crichton
(Introduction to his novel “Prey” - 2002)
Filed by matteo at 12:42 pm under Politics/Humanities, Making A Difference, Our Environment
