February 1969 — VOL. 50, No. 2 —
Man in the Balance
of Nature
Download PDF version
Why are people so disturbed about
pollution of air and water? It is not simply because they
have become more refined and aesthetic, but because they begin
to realize that we have reached a critical point in human
habitation of the earth.
As far back as 1947 the question before a conference at
Princeton University was "the fate of man". Would he go the
way of the dodo and the dinosaur? Or would he take his destiny
in his own hands and make a better creature of himself? Opinion
was divided.
There was no split of opinion at the UNESCO headquarters
in Paris last year when more than two hundred experts from
fifty countries met in conference. Within twenty years, they
decided, life on our planet will be showing the first signs
of succumbing to pollution: the atmosphere will become unbreathable
for men and animals; life will cease in rivers and lakes;
plants will wither from poisoning.
This opinion was made public following the Inter-Governmental
Conference of Experts on the Scientific Bases for the Rational
Utilisation and Conservation of Biospheric Resources.
The biosphere is the part of the earth and its atmosphere
which contains living things. In this layer, only a few miles
thick, man is creating far-reaching imbalances. He threatens
the stability of his own ecology by destroying resources and
burdening his environment with the waste products of his own
activities.
The biosphere is so immensely complicated that its workings
are imperfectly understood, but it is known that any interaction
of factors, however insignificant, can produce repercussions
whose chains often span continents or even girdle the earth.
After commenting on the damage done by swift depletion of
minerals and forests, the report of the UNESCO Conference
in the Manchester Guardian goes on: "As cities spread
in monstrous fashion the problem of refuse inherent in urban
life attains the size of an insoluble problem. Carbon dioxide
and all the host of air-borne industrial wastes are fouling
the atmosphere and poisoning fresh water. In the last twenty
years the whole process has been accelerating at a crazy speed."
What shall we do ?
We must be willing to ask such questions as "What is the
meaning of life? What is our relationship with everything
around us? What shall we do in the short stretch between birth
and death to preserve and improve our inheritance?" We need
the courage to ask such questions — as the UNESCO Conference
did — with respect and seriousness, and the gumption
to do what the answers tell us to do.
There is no better way of giving our lives the dimension
of depth than by identifying ourselves as important factors
in the balance of nature and putting our weight on the side
of conserving what is good, correcting what is wrong, and
progressing to something higher in the scale. We were put
upon Earth, according to the Book of Genesis, "to dress it
and to keep it."
But man has become a prober and a meddler. Fire, the axe,
the plow, fire-arms and the bulldozer have been the fundamental
tools of our modern culture. We have spurned the fact that
Nature is a total of the conditions and principles which influence
the existence of living things. Her laws were so contrived
that land, water, plants and animals should, and under natural
conditions do, exist in harmony and interdependence for perpetual
productiveness.
Nature has been at work for a great many millions of years
to get things as they are. Cause and effect are tied together
like stones in a well-built wall. Without careful investigation
you never can tell which is a keystone, the removal of which
will bring down a large section of the structure in ruin.
Man is only a comparatively small element in this massive
system. As Anthony Tucker put it in his report of the UNESCO
Conference: "The system developed without him, determined
his evolution, and shaped his dependence on life cycles which
in turn were already dependent upon complex living and chemical
relationships in a relatively stable environment." It is imperative
to his survival that man should recognize his animal nature
and live within the boundaries set by his organic world.
Throughout history one species after another of animal and
plant has disappeared from the earth, and one culture after
another has passed to oblivion, because of inability to adjust
to environmental change.
Nature's laws
We are, then, an integral part of our environment. "Nature"
embraces all existing things — fields, oceans, mountains,
forests, deserts, the wild creatures ... and human beings.
We are part of it, and we must live in concert with it.
Our discovery of nature's laws does not mean entering a
state of slavery. On the contrary, once we know what they
are we can learn to co-operate with them, and by so co-operating
increase our own freedom within them. Take fire as an example:
we learned far back in our aboriginal state that fire burns
you if you touch it, not to punish you, but because that is
the natural law of fire. From there we went on to use fire
for our useful purposes within the bounds of its law.
Ecology is the science concerned with the relation of living
things to their environment, and with the factors which influence
that environment. It is an expression of the realization that
man must give over trying to mould the rest of the natural
world to his wishes without adequate understanding of the
laws that govern it.
What are some of the things needful to know? The subject
is so vast that no human mind has ever fathomed all its secrets,
but the basic principles are becoming known. First and foremost
is the lesson so hard to learn: that Nature is the expression
of a definite order with which nothing interferes successfully,
and that the chief business of men is to learn that order
and govern themselves accordingly.
Consider our disregard for plant life. The green leaf pigment,
called chlorophyll, is the sole link between the sun and life:
it is the conduit of energy to our frail organisms. Every
plant, even the most humble, even algae, the simplest form
in the vegetable kingdom, is a specialist, adapted by its
habit of growth and its special requirement for light and
moisture, to grow best in its preferred environment, and there
to fulfil its destiny in serving Nature's purpose.
Let disaster strike the microscopic plants upon which the
tier of life is built, and whole organizations will come tumbling
down. The forces we set in motion to carry out our great projects
move out to affect the lives of other creatures, and come
back to act upon us.
Our worst conservation problems owe their existence largely
to our short-sighted preoccupation with our immediate affairs,
our personal lives, our ignorance of our place in the balancce
of nature. A person who has once perceived the greatness of
nature's smallest creature or flower, can no longer be happy
if he allows himself to be petty, self-seeking, and greedy
in his dealings with Nature.
Because there are men and women who have not received this
vision, it is necessary to have man-made laws to enforce the
laws of nature.
Why should anti-pollution regulations raise objections?
Do they restrict our freedom, that word so cherished in democracies?
So do traffic laws and signals, which limit the freedom of
action of the driver of the automobile. None the less, intelligent
drivers gladly obey the regulations, even when there is no
policeman at the corner to enforce them, because they know
that in the absence of such organization of traffic their
freedom to move in a chosen direction would be enormously
more impeded by traffic jams and accidents.
On a higher scale than enforcement by law is the self-regulation
taught to Boy Scouts: always leave the camping ground better
than you find it. There are unwritten laws observed by woodsmen
and mountain climbers: not to kill a porcupine or a fool hen
unless there is no other food to be had, always replenish
the wood-pile at a shelter hut to at least the size it was
when you took shelter there.
Something about meddling
Meddling with small parts of a related whole produces evil
consequences. Whatever we do in altering nature must be done
in full awareness of Nature's reactions to and on ourselves.
For lack of adequate knowledge, much of our manipulation
is based on technological criteria without thought of its
over-all biological results. Some of this tampering starts
a chain of events that upsets the balance of nature with destructive
effects.
Consider the undisputed facts of life in the soil. These
facts were studied by the UNESCO Conference and reported by
Mr. Tucker. Something like forty billion tons of vegetable
material are made and destroyed on the earth every year. The
mass of land animals and smaller organisms amounts to less
than one per cent of the vegetation. Of this tiny "zoomass"
(which includes man) some 95 per cent consists of invertebrate
organisms with crucial roles in the decomposition processes
of the life cycle. Since they form an essential part of the
natural capital it is utterly profligate to bring about their
mass destruction through indiscriminate use of such things
as non-selective pesticides.
Irresponsible chemical eradication of weed and insect pests
presents not only a serious threat to wildlife conservation
but holds out the danger of contamination to human beings.
A pesticide, possibly used to kill rats in a wheat field,
was blamed for the death of seventeen children in Mexico.
Alfalfa that had been sprayed with DDT was fed to cows by
scientists. The cream was churned to butter, the butter was
fed to rats, and the still toxic DDT was found in their body
fat in substantial amounts.
Our poisoned water
What use is it to make a fetish of cleanliness of the body,
of hair, of teeth, if we continue to pour sewage into rivers,
thence to be carried inside our bodies?
In one midwestern city in the United States, as John H.
Storer tells us in The Web of Life, tests of the city's
water showed that during the period of low water in the winter
it was one-half straight sewage.
Water, the most important natural resource, can be the medium
for the transmission of germs and toxic substances. The World
Health Organization reports that about five million children
die every year from intestinal diseases caused by water.
There is a point at which the rivers themselves rebel. The
load of poisons from city sewers, factories, slaughter-houses
and farm lands becomes unsupportable. These kill the cleansing
plants, use up the purifying oxygen in the water, and clog
up the filtering gravel.
Once the mass of pollution exceeds a certain amount, animal
and vegetable life disappears; the river dies.
To clean up our lakes and rivers we must deal with many
types of man-made pollutants: detergents, fertilizers, insecticides,
weed-killers, sewage, industrial waste, and hundreds of other
products. This clean-up does not involve primarily treatment,
but prevention, and some movement is being made in that direction
by municipalities and industries.
Our lakes are dying. The United States public health service
has warned shippers in Lake Erie that water within five miles
of the shoreline should not be used for drinking or cooking.
This stretch of near-shore water is so polluted that even
boiling or chlorination will not remove the contamination.
Farther out, pollution has stimulated the growth of vegetation,
using up oxygen, so that a large expanse of dead water has
developed.
In 1965, Dr. G. B. Langford, F.R.S.C., Director of the Great
Lakes Institute, University of Toronto, concluded a report
The Great Lakes and Their Problems in this way: "Governments
in the United States are facing up to the situation much more
realistically than are those in Canada. The insignificant
support of research in the Great Lakes by the governments
of Canada stands in sharp contrast to what our neighbours
are doing. An unbiased observer would wonder if we actually
share these lakes, for we do not share the responsibility
of saving them from the pending disaster."
Our polluted air
Hamlet put it this way: "This most excellent canopy, the
air, this brave o'erhanging firmament ... appeareth nothing
to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours."
Today we seem to look upon smog and air pollution as incidents
of urban life, until a public health disaster such as the
death of 4,000 people in London's smog in 1952 calls our attention
to the fact that this can be a killing negligence.
At least a hundred air pollutants have been identified,
and their interaction produces others.
The cost of air pollution in Canada has been estimated at
from $20 to $65 per person, depending on where he lives. This
is for laundering, painting, cleaning of buildings, filtering
of air, and doctors' bills.
But cost and loss in dollars and cents do not tell the whole
story. Air pollution constitutes a serious hazard to health.
Atmosphere pollution has been found to lower resistance to
disease, to reduce vitality, and to increase sickness. Relatively
low levels of air pollution may be involved in the development
of chronic degenerative diseases, including skin and lung
cancer, heart and vascular disorders, and chronic bronchitis.
Paul Kotin, of the University of California, has established
that several of the organic compounds produced by the combustion
of gasoline and diesel oil are carcinogenic.
The best means of preventing combustion-caused pollution
is simple: use better combustion equipment. This improvement
should be insisted upon by those who have the responsibility
for community welfare and hold the legal power to enforce
it.
Restoring the balance
Some people who have not thought seriously about the matter
shy away from the word "conservation" under the misapprehension
that it means "stop using". Resource conservation is fundamentally
nothing more than wise use of our resources in accordance
with the laws of nature.
Personal conscience is the beginning of any effective conservation
effort. A Washington State Supreme Court decision reads: "An
unwritten compact between the dead, the living, and the unborn
requires that we leave the unborn something more than debts
and depleted natural resources."
Nature maintained her balance for millions of years, but
she is now up against something new. All other participants
in nature live by habit and instinct but men try to manage
things, to force things into new ways. Their conceited and
arrogant interference has brought about the deterioration
in living conditions which alarms us, the extinction of many
animals and plants, and the defilement of air and water.
Now that their continued existence is shown to be at stake
men are called upon to rethink many things, to relearn lessons
long forgotten, and to get back on the right road.
Our research and its findings and the lessons it teaches
give hope to a world as yet largely unconscious of the gravity
of its situation. Scientists and research people do not make
laws, but discover them. The laws of nature are there, and
scientists find them so that we may obey them.
This involves a new duty: communication. The facts of the
balance of nature and man's part in it must be presented to
the people of all countries in understandable terms. By this
means scientists can place the decision about these grave
issues in the proper hands.
No municipal, provincial or national effort to preserve
the balance of nature can be effective unless it is pressed
for and adequately supported by informed public opinion. Every
citizen need not be an expert in this or that branch of science,
but he should know what the scientists are talking about,
what the technicians are doing, and what his elected governments
should be doing.
What could be a higher ideal than that of an intelligent
informed citizenry with an attitude toward nature that is
based upon an understanding and knowledge of man's dependence
on his total environment? An effective programme with this
end in view is being carried out by the 4-H Clubs in Canada.
By intelligent and sympathetic guidance, these young people
are learning conservation as a way of life.
Redemption
We have disregarded our place in the balance of nature for
long enough, and we are face to face with our man-made conflict
between the principle of freedom to use up and the principle
of husbandry to use wisely and replenish. We can imagine the
trees and the wild creatures and the earth itself watching
and listening, alive and aware, holding their breaths in anticipation
of what their human neighbours will do with their common heritage.
We face the hard task of putting natural forces to work
in restoration and redemption. We need to deal with the necessary
steps one at a time and with reasonable judgment.
Government programmes are being established, but at a snail's
pace. They cannot succeed until they are enlarged to match
the size of the problems, and until citizens are ready to
pay the huge bill which we have already incurred by our assaults
on the quality of our environment.
Political and geographical boundaries must not be allowed
to impede the national effort. The first conservation duty
of a city is to clean itself, and fastidious citizens will
see that it does so. Then it must work hand-in-hand with adjoining
municipalities, for how can people close their minds to the
fact that much of the water flowing from their kitchen taps
has already passed through other people's drains? Counties
and townships and provinces are interlinked in any honest
attempt to restore the balance of nature.
All of these divisions need to give attention to another
aspect of nature. Our country-side is becoming wearied with
the constant encroachment of factories and housing developments.
Men pleading specious needs violate parks, forests and wildernesses.
They ruin for all time what the time of man on earth cannot
replace.
We need people rich enough in understanding and imagination,
and strong enough in fibre, to insist that adequate forests
and outdoor space be left to be admired, not destroyed. Unless
natural outdoor spaces remain, young people are denied their
instinctive wanderings. Trapped in city corridors, enmeshed
in sprawling suburbs, empty of heart, mind and hand, cheated
of experiences that are by nature necessary to them, they
will turn their energies to protest and to evil.
When a young person goes for a stroll or paddles his canoe
in a nature park he realizes that he is not merely an observer
of nature, but a part of nature. His troubles grow petty,
not because they are unreal, but because they dissolve within
the larger plan.
A value judgment
Man, part of nature, has become enticed into a nearly fatal
illusion: that his skills in science and technology make him
independent of the laws of nature.
He spread insecticides without examining into whether they
would be fatal to birds and beneficial insects and might kill
people. He poured millions of pounds of detergents into rivers
before learning that they polluted the water. He allowed lakes
to die of oxygen starvation. He contributed to the deadliness
of smog by floating noxious substances into the air.
What is required is a value judgment which compares the
known risks with the anticipated benefits. This is where conscience
and intelligence enter the scene. Said Barry Commoner in his
powerful article entitled "Pollution: Time to Face the Consequences"
in the mid-summer 1968 Think: "No scientific procedure
can tell us how many defective births from fallout radiation
we ought to tolerate for the sake of a new nuclear weapon....
No scientific principle can tell us how to make the choice
— which may be forced upon us by the insecticide problem
— between the shade of the elm tree and the song of the
robin. ... The necessary judgments are therefore the
responsibility, not of scientists and technologists alone,
but of all citizens."
Man emerged on this space ship Earth and is biologically
bound to it for ever. The message from the UNESCO Conference
to world governments and people is that either they keep the
space ship healthy or we die with it.
What is the paramount thing? To come to nature with clean
hands, unsoiled by spoilage, destruction and waste. This involves
a great deal of governmental wisdom, a lot of scientific research,
and a lot of engineering ingenuity. Behind all these must
be the pressure of public demand.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
[ Return to RBC Letter home page ]
|
