Friday, Aug 29, 2008
The great scientist and conservationist explains the terrorism we insist on overlooking. And space colonies won't help, either.
Jan 14, 2002 | E.O. Wilson is one of America's most prominent scientists and the author of two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, "On Human Nature" and "The Ants," as well as other groundbreaking books such as "Naturalist," "Sociobiology" and "Consilience." A professor of biology at Harvard from 1955 until 1997, Wilson has received many of the world's leading prizes in science and conservation.
His work in sociobiology forms the foundation of current evolutionary psychology study. His research on insect societies has informed the work of contemporary complexity theorists who are looking at complex natural systems. In his most recent book, "The Future of Life," Wilson focuses on the state of the natural environment, analyzing the threat to our biosphere and offering a set of recommendations for the protection of life on Earth.
What's life going to be like in 100 years?
If present trends continue, the result will be irreversible impoverishment of species. At the current rate, we will lose half the plant and animal species on Earth by the end of the century.
If we lose half, we'll still have millions left, won't we?
But the loss is forever, and these species are hundreds of thousands of years old, in many cases millions of years old, and exquisitely well adapted to their environment. Each species is a masterpiece of evolution that humanity could not possibly duplicate even if we somehow accomplish the creation of new organisms by genetic engineering. Massive loss of species would decrease the stability of the world environment. Beyond that, we will lose living libraries of genetic information that could be enormously useful to humanity in the future. Finally, there is the moral argument: that there is something dreadfully wrong about destroying the creation.
What's the impact on human beings?
The best estimate on human population has us leveling off at 9 or 10 billion people by the end of the century, and that's just about the absolute limit, without some radical new way of producing food or generating energy. The pressures on the remaining natural resources -- the coral reefs, the rain forests and the arctic tundra -- may become totally devastating.
What about the economic impact?
Consider that, according to a study based on data for the year 1997, the natural world and all those millions of species contributed an estimated $30 trillion worth of services completely free that year. That's roughly comparable to the GNP of all the countries of the world combined. And experts believe that we would require four more planet Earths to sustain everyone in the world at current American consumption levels. We have to improve the quality of life, but not with the wasteful and inefficient modes of production that now dominate the developed world.
Say you're president. What's your environmental agenda?
New, sustainable energy generation, new forms of transportation, conservation of natural resources and general improvement of the quality of American life with a simultaneous reduction in per-capita consumption of energy and materials. The president who exercised that kind of leadership would ensure his or her legacy for all time.
Somehow that doesn't seem likely from any president, let alone a Republican.
Last spring I was invited to speak at one of the leading conservative think tanks, and I asked two questions: What is the core of conservatism if it does not include conservation? And why have the conservatives needlessly and destructively abandoned the moral high ground on the issue? We had a lively discussion. They essentially said the liberals are blue sky, they're big talkers and dreamers, whereas conservatives are problem-oriented, practical people who keep the wheels turning and the world on course. But they're not solving this problem. Too often they don't even admit that the problem exists.
Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and conservationist. You don't hear much about him these days.
That's right. I believe what happened is that in the '60s the left did, in fact, co-opt the environmental movement. They used it as a club to beat the conservatives, along with the Vietnam War. When Reagan came along, it was already a set piece of the conservative counterargument that the environmentalists were these liberal wackos driving around in Yugos with their knees up to their chests. Once they started that, and scored with it, they couldn't give it up. One reason I wrote this book was to suggest ways in which leading conservative thinkers could get back on board. They say they are big problem solvers, and God knows we need problem solvers.
Do you drive a Yugo?
You have me cornered on this. I drive a Volvo. All Harvard professors are required to drive Volvos.
So I guess you're not concerned about being viewed as one of those liberal, granola-crunching wackos.
I have no fear about attacks from any direction. My writings on sociobiology in the '70s had the implication that ordinary instinctive human behavior does indeed have a biological basis, which in turn originated through a long period by natural selection. At that time, the academic left included many social scientists who based their social programs and reasoning on the assumption that humans are a blank slate, so I was a prime target of the left. And now, promoting conservation as strongly as I do, I'm sometimes a target of the right. I call that a considerable lifetime achievement for an academic. I hope that someday I'll be given credit for that.
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