 Okay,
so we've been tinkering around with our "environmental
problems" for roughly 35 years now. I think it's high time
someone asked the question, so I will: Is the world worth saving?
Why does the question need to be asked? Because we're already
answering it, by our actions (or rather, our lack of action), with a
resounding "No!" - but we're pretending we're not.
But I'd better step back a moment and try to
answer another question: Does the world need us to save it? First,
let me clarify a point. When I use the word "world," I
mean the world with humans in it, not the biosphere itself. The
biosphere will almost certainly go on whether we're here or not. My
concern now is for humanity, and for the other creatures we're
taking with us as we destroy the world. I don't pretend to be a
scientist. I'm not qualified to make an expert assessment about the
state of the world, so I'll defer to the folks who are.
In 1992, the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States and the Royal Society of London released an
unprecedented joint statement entitled Population Growth,
Resource Consumption, and a Sustainable World. This passage
comes from the introduction: "If current predictions of
population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on
the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able
to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or
continued poverty for much of the world." And this, from the
Conclusions section: "The future of our planet is in the
balance. Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if
irreversible degradation of the environment can be halted in time.
The next 30 years may be crucial."
More, this time from the World Scientists' Warning
to Humanity, released by the Union of Concerned Scientists that
same year: "If not checked, many of our current practices put
at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the
plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it
will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we
know."
Could the scientists be too pessimistic? Sure.
There's much we still don't even understand about the earth, so we
can't hope to know exactly what will happen as we run roughshod
across it. If sober, measured scientists are talking
apocalyptically, though, we would be insane not to listen. Problem
is, that's exactly what we're doing - not listening. Oh, sure, we've
passed some laws, written some regulations, convened some expensive
global conferences, and made a lot of impressive-sounding speeches
over the last 35 years. Recycling bins and "greenspeak"
have become commonplace. None of this has any hope of saving the
world, though:
-
Laws and regulations? After a quarter-century,
we're still mud wrestling over clean air and water rules. We aren't
going to legislate the saving of the world.
-
Recycling? I'm all for it, but it's not even
making a serious dent in our waste problem, much less addressing the
real issues.
-
Speeches and greenspeak? I hear what you do, not
what you say. From that perspective, we haven't said much.
Meanwhile:
-
We're seeing species die off faster than at any
time since the end of the age of the dinosaurs, and we're the ones
killing them.
-
Global warming is changing the very life support
system of the world - the climate - and the scientific consensus is
that we're the ones turning up the heat.
-
We've ripped massive holes in the global
sunscreen, the ozone layer.
-
We've poisoned the earth's surface and waters
with chemicals that are disrupting the basic processes of
life.
-
The human population has grown by roughly 2.8
billion.
And those are just the biggies. So I say it's
time we either put up or shut up. We should either get down to the
wonderful work of saving the world, or we should quit fooling
ourselves and go out in a last binge of miserable excess. If we
decide on the binge, though, we'd best take a bit of time to start
making up excuses to give our children and grandchildren when we
hand over a devastated world to them. I doubt "our dog ate the
planet" will fly.
And, if you've decided to save the world, then
the question becomes: Can we? Can we live as part of the community
of life? Sure we can. Humans have done so for millions of years.
We've only been trying to conquer the place for ten thousand years,
give or take a few, and even then it's only been one culture - ours
- doing so. We are not the whole story of the human species - we are
not humanity. There are other cultures, other peoples, still in the
world who are quite happy to live as part of the community of life.
We've wiped out most of them, but not quite all. There is much we
could learn from them, if we decide we want to live.
What will it take? Really, it all comes down to
one thing, and only one. We have to give up the idea that the world
is human property, deeded to us by whatever creative force you
happen to believe in. Shatter that myth- and a myth it is - and
everything else is possible. All we have to do to begin is change
our minds.
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