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Science Matters by David
Suzuki
Over the past series of essays, I have tried to examine the roots
of our ecological crisis. We live in an era of enormous wealth and
material comfort, but it is supported by our unsustainable use and
degradation of nature and its services. If we want to maintain a healthy
environment and quality of life for future generations, we must change
the way we see the world and our place in it.
There exists a widespread notion that our intelligence has freed us
from the constraints of nature. Nothing could be more wrong - we just
no longer recognize nature’s exquisite interconnectedness. The
move from small villages to big cities has estranged us from nature,
the information explosion has obliterated our ability to see context,
and science - in focussing on parts of nature - has exacerbated our
fragmented worldview.
Nowhere is this loss more striking and, I believe, more dangerous,
than in biotechnology. Biologists have acquired powerful insights
and techniques for the manipulation of DNA, the genetic material.
In a remarkably brief period, scientists have elucidated the entire
three billion letters in a human genome. We have tools to purify,
read, synthesize and insert fragments of DNA, but we have little understanding
of the new context within which the newly inserted DNA functions.
Armed with powerful manipulative tools, and unwarranted faith in our
knowledge and predictive ability, we are rushing to apply this technology
and raise genetically modified organisms in open fields and to rush
the food and drug product into the market. We should have learned
better from examples like DDT and CFCs and in the unexpected consequences
of applied biotechnology itself.
Perhaps the most destructive agent of our sense of interconnectedness
is economics. Economists assume that when resources are exhausted,
human intelligence and creativity will always enable us to exploit
or create new materials. Thus, in conventional economics, the ozone
layer, underground water aquifers, topsoil, or biodiversity are considered
"externalities" that are irrelevant within the economic
construct, even though these are all finite and crucial to human survival
and health.
Economists also tell us that, unlike other species whose numbers are
limited by the productivity of a given ecosystem, humans can exceed
the "carrying capacity" of a region because of trade. So
Canadians can trade abundant wheat, trees and fossil fuels with other
countries that have cotton, bananas, or coffee, thereby enabling both
populations to exceed the limits to growth within their respective
regions.
Ecologist Bill Rees sees a flaw in that proposition because, while
we may import food, for example, land somewhere was still required
to grow it. He created a measurement called the "ecological footprint"
which is the total area of land required to provide the food, clothing,
absorption of wastes, etc for each of us in a year. He finds the collective
impact of all Canadians is more than four times the total useable
land area of Canada!
In fact, the ecological footprint of most countries exceeds their
land base. Instead of living on nature’s interest - the margin
of excess productivity that can be exploited without diminishing the
whole - we are using up the natural capital of clean air, water, soil
and biodiversity that we depend on.
I am often asked, "What is the most urgent environmental problem
confronting us?" My answer is the human mind, the beliefs and
values it clings to. Where once we understood that we are dependent
on and interconnected with the rest of nature, the modern mentality
believes that we have escaped this reality. Our big-city lifestyles,
the fragmented explosion of information, the very nature of scientific
reductionism, and the assumptions underlying modern economics all
shatter the sense of interconnectedness and blind us to the consequences
of our actions. Our most urgent challenge, therefore, is to rediscover
our place in the natural world.
To discuss this topic with others, visit the discussion forum
at davidsuzuki.org.
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