Schubel finds environmental future grim
Many speakers at past Technological Literacy Conferences have given their personal assessments of the environmental future of planet Earth. They have expressed strong caution about agricultural losses due to soil erosion and the inability to replace them by cutting down rainforest. Yet, in spite of the grave environmental challenges they recognized, they all felt that "we could make it." Not so with Jerry Schubel, President of the New England Aquarium, in his plenary address to the Twelfth National STS Meeting in Worcester, MA, on 7 March 1997.
"We can't repair Spaceship Earth by sending up a repair mission as we do to the Hubble Space Telescope," he opened. The repairing of Spaceship Earth must come from each of us, he maintained -- but how? We used to define our neighborhood locally, he pointed out; only our immediate neighbor's behavior was of concern to us. Now our neighborhood is global, he continued; and what happens on all parts of the globe affects all of us. Likewise, our behavior affects everyone else -- not only today but also for all generations to come. We all live on a global commons, Schubel claimed. The public has a responsibility to protect its use for all and for all time.
Schubel cited Tom Malone's description of the twentieth century as the century in which one species determined the future habitability of the Earth. This is the product of population growth, land use, and energy use. Though there are signs of slowing population growth, he pointed out that we do a poor enough job caring for the population we already have, not including an additional amount equal to what already exists. More people are living in densely-populated cities, he went on. There are advantages to living in cities, he conceded, but they disassociate us from nature. (This would be even truer for a proposal to build a 500-story apartment building in Japan.) In addition, more people are living within 50 miles of coasts, and the demands of individuals on the environment are greater.
According to Schubel, the three problems receiving the greatest attention are 1) global warming, 2) destruction of the ozone layer, and 3) loss of biodiversity. No respectable scientist does not believe in the future warming of the earth, he maintained; it's not a matter of what but when. Sea level is expected to rise almost a meter in the next century, devastating coastal regions, especially Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands. And biodiversity acts to preserve the ecology of our planet and plants which provide products for many drugs.
Schubel reminded us of Buckminster Fuller's observation that there are no passengers on Spaceship Earth, only crew. Yet of a global village of 1000, 564 are Asians, and this number will increase to 567 by 2000. Meanwhile, only the 210 Europeans and 60 North Americans have adequate health care. Of this global village of 1000, 200 don't have safe water, 500 don't have sanitation, and 250 are illiterate. Not all in the global village live equally well, Schubel conceded; and the gap between haves and have-nots is increasing. Science and technology can stretch the limits of planet Earth, Schubel agreed, but not indefinitely.
Instead of spending so much to clean Superfund sites, Schubel felt we should prioritize in favor of preserving first what is good and act to protect the other species with which we share the planet. Thomas Jefferson in 1789 articulated the concept of sustainable development as not contracting environmental debts that the present generation can't repay, Schubel reminded us; but, he added, we have not been doing this the past 200 years.
Five hundred million people visit aquariums and zoos every year to see live animals, and these people are a more representative cross section of the population than those visiting other museums. Schubel suggested that these live animals can become ambassadors to persuade the visitors that they must change their behavior to preserve the animals they have come to visit and the environment that sustains them. Changing directions will not be easy, Schubel noted; but if we don't change directions, we shall continue going where we are headed. Technologies have given us convenience, but at a price to our environment. We must act to preserve our environment, he concluded, not dominate it.
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