The End Is Near... Again

Last night I was reading about the colonization of Australasia and the South Pacific by humans. It seems that wherever humans went, extinction followed. Through hunting and the introduction of exotic species, animals like the Australian Thylacine and ten species of New Zealand Moa birds became extinct in just a few centuries. As many as 40 bird species may have gone extinct in the Hawai'ian islands before contact with Europeans. The most extreme case of early environmental destruction is Easter Island, where humans succeeded in completely deforesting their island and were forced to revert from a complex civilization to a primitive, subsistence way of life.

Reading this got me wondering if the global environmental collapse we have well underway is inevitable. It is perhaps understandable how the first colonizers of Europe or North America drove big game animals such as Aurochs or Mammoths to extinction (with a little help from climate change). They had no way of knowing how big their prey's habitat was or whether there were more animals just over the next mountain range. You can't say the same thing about the Easter Islanders, though. They knew perfectly well how many trees they had left, and still they cut them down. We may say they were deluded by their religion into thinking their gods would support them, but are we not equally deluded when we put our hopes in technology? Those who have done the math tell us that we do not have enough alternative energy sources to even begin to make up for what we use in petroleum, and still our government keeps our hopes up with promises of hydrogen, biodeisel, wind, and solar. In reality, it is no more possible to power our society on the "alternatives" than it was for the Easter Islanders to be fed, clothed, and sheltered magically by their gods.

By strange coincidence, this morning I heard an interview with Ronald Wright, author of the recently re-released A Short History of Progress. His thesis is just what I've pieced together from my reading, that humans have a habit of degrading whatever environment they enter, even to their own detriment. Wright says that civilization is self-limiting in that is gives humans the power—through technology, organization, and population growth—to destroy its ecological supports, thus ending it. He reminded me of what I read about the ancient Sumerians, who flourished when the invention of irrigation allowed them to exploit fertile bottomlands, and then declined when that same irrigation caused the salinization of their soils. This pattern has occurred repeatedly in human history and in completely isolated regions, so it can't be attributed to unique cultural or geographical factors.

Wright is quite pessimistic about the human capacity to act rationally with respect to our limited resources. Our track record as a species is always to want more, to breed, to expand. If resources peter out in one area, we move on to another, killing or enslaving its previous inhabitants if necessary. We do this still, but because of our great numbers and great technological powers, our entire planet is starting to look like an isolated South Pacific island. We can see we are running out of room and resources—every environmental indicator you care to name confirms this fact—yet we continue to consume, pollute, breed, and devise ever more powerful technologies for squeezing the last drops of ecological capital out of our planet.

We have so much more information than our predecessors, but what hasn't changed is us. We have the same bodies and brains as the Easter Islanders and even the Sumerians. Certainly there have long been wise teachers who have warned against greed (though probably not because of the link between wealth and environmental exploitation), but their very existence is proof that the majority of humans are most decidedly in favour of acquiring ever more wealth.

I need look no further than myself to despair of our future. As an environmental scientist I know more than most about the state of this planet, and yet I live a lifestyle that is almost completely unsustainable. Being a vegetarian and not having children are certainly two big steps in the right direction, but after that I fall down. I have a car, I live in a big house that requires a great deal of energy to heat, and I hardly have an electrical outlet that doesn't have some appliance or electronic gizmo plugged into it. If I'm not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to live in a sustainable way, who will?

Of course, I have my excuses. I'm disabled and need a car to get around. I need heat because my body can't keep itself warm. I need labour-saving devices to cook and clean and do other necessary tasks I wouldn't be able to do with simpler technologies. So why not attempt live in a group that, if willing, can do those things for me? Because it is more than that. The rich intellectual life that I enjoy is greatly dependent on unsustainable technologies, right down to my beloved books printed on unsustainably harvested wood fibre and shipped across oceans and continents in petroleum-fuelled vehicles and vessels. To live without access to the wealth of human knowledge and expression is almost unthinkable, and there I am stuck.

I don't know that my stuck place is any more noble than that of the person who seeks comfort, convenience, children, entertainment, or opportunity. I don't think it will matter much to future generations why we consumed and poisoned the planet as we have. Perhaps they will be as unaware of the details of our excesses as most of us are unaware of the excesses of the past. They will no doubt make do just as the Easter Islanders did—in smaller numbers, with fewer resources, living a more primitive lifestyle. It seems inevitable that the transition will happen, but how it happens—whether by warfare, starvation, and disease, or birth control, voluntary simplicity, and cooperation—will show whether Homo sapiens truly can claim to possess sapientia, wisdom.

Comments

[Antony]

I am guilty. I am stuck too.

We are doomed.

[Sylvia]

I'm still hoping that "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

[Dan Trabue]

Wow, Sylvia. I had no idea about the disability. I'm glad for you, at least, that it's not the worst form of it.

I'd never heard of M.E.

As to hope, there is a sense in which the earth is self-correcting. The Easter Islanders were able to continue to overconsume only so far and then, when resources ran out, so did the Easter Islanders.

But that is such a harsh way to learn and many, many will be wounded in learning the hard way.

I'm somewhat hopeful that the end of affordable petroleum might come gradually enough that we can begin a self-correction process - learning the Biblical lesson of Enough - without too much global suffering.