Nature, Cruel and Uncaring
At the beginning of chapter one of The Resilient Earth, we opened with a quote from Meg Urry: “Nature is what it is.” It seems that this statement has troubled one of our readers, who has written us criticizing our “total disdain for species.” While Professor Urry's statement was not specifically referring to the inevitable extinction of all species, that is a scientific truth that we put forth in the book. It seems that this nugget of scientific knowledge doesn't set well with the green crowd.
The quotation from Dr. Urry, chair of the Physics Department at Yale University, was about the nature of science and the role that scientists play. Our reader—let's refer to him as Mr. Foot (not his real name)—misinterpreted the quot, narrowing the meaning to a "callous disregard for the value of living species." This shows how some people stop listening when they encounter discourse they object to. The quote in its entirety is as follows:
“Scientists observe nature, then develop theories that describe their observations. Science is driven by nature itself, and nature gives us no choice. It is what it is.”
What this elegant and concise statement says is that scientists don't have the luxury of opinion or guesswork when it comes to their profession. They must accept the natural world on its terms, not theirs. As my co-author, Al, often says: “You don't get a bunch of physicists together and take a vote on the speed of light.” Mr. Foot did not truly understand the quote and possibly missed the meaning of the entire book.
Among the things that Mr. Foot did like about TRE was that it was not full of political labels, no “Democrat, Republican and Libertarian.” In truth, we never consciously thought about our subject matter in political terms. From our point of view no political party has a lock on bad ideas or a corner on the stupidity market. He also praised our support for hybrid vehicles and our staunch opposition to the use of coal, both positions that I have expanded on in this blog (see “Plugging In To Hybrid Happiness” and “The Cost Of Coal”). Where we and Foot part company is on the subject of extinction.
We cited scientists from the Smithsonian Institution Department of Paleo-biology in our discussion of mass extinctions and the demise of species. The quotation that Mr. Foot should have cited in his objection is the following:
“Extinction is the complete demise of a species. It takes place when all individuals of a species die out. Extinction has occurred throughout the history of life on Earth. It is the ultimate fate of all species. In fact, it has been estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.”
This is a simple statement of scientific fact, backed by direct evidence in the fossil record and observed by myriad archeologists and paleontologists. True, the statement that “nature is what it is” could be translated as supporting the statement that the “ultimate fate” of all species is extinction—a fairly sobering and scary thought. One of nature's dirty little secrets is that every 100 million years or so a major extinction event wipes out all life on this planet larger than a house cat. Life then puts forth another crop of even more diverse species to take the places of the newly extinct. That does not change the accuracy of the statement one bit—in the long run we are all doomed.
Why should this observation regarding the workings of nature be so upsetting to a nature lover like Mr. Foot? Perhaps it is because most self proclaimed ecologically conscious people have only a foggy idea of the way nature works. Often ignorant of the long and sanguine history of life on Earth, they have arrived at a heart felt, but wholly unreasoned belief that all species are infinity valuable and should be preserved at any cost.
We have seen this irrational reaction with the snail darter, the spotted owl and, most recently, the salt march harvest mouse. The $787 billion economic stimulus bill recently passed by the US Congress includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered mouse. While restoring wetlands is an admirable pursuit, in these times of economic distress are there not more pressing matters to spend the people's money on? Of course the green lobby would say no.
At the heart of this reflexive need to preserve the existence of any species, no matter how insignificant, is a quasi-religious belief in the goodness of nature and the inherent evil of mankind. When Dr. James Lovelock first put forth the Gaia hypothesis, which considers the planet Earth as a self-regulated living being, he was not planing on creating a new religion. Unfortunately, the Gaia of Lovelock's theory has been transformed by new age mystics into an earth goddess that is worshiped by many environmentalists. Strange that many who consider themselves so modern and sophisticated—who deride traditional religious belief—have fallen into a form of neo-paganism that is more befitting the stone age than the atomic age.
Just as an aside, Lovelock, who's green credentials are beyond dispute, has become a supporter of expanding nuclear power to help reduce fossil fuel use. To quote from his official website: “With fossil fuels currently the dominant source of energy, he sees a large-scale switch to nuclear power as vital if electricity supplies are to continue reliably and carbon dioxide emissions are to be brought down.” But back to the matter at hand.
To clarify what science says about species extinction, including our own, let me cite the words of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould: “Nature is amoral, not immoral... [It] existed for eons before we arrived, didn't know we were coming, and doesn't give a damn about us.” What the earth mother worshiping, tree-hugging, save all species at any cost crowd doesn't understand is that nature is not a sentient being. It doesn't value any individual creature, or any species, because it can't. Nature is just a collection of physical processes interacting with Earth's biota and one day Nature will end us all.
If nature doesn't give a damn about any living species why should we? We can approach this from a strictly self centered point of view and say that we need other species to keep the biosphere liveable. Or we can focus on other possible uses of Earth's living plants and animals. As we said in TRE:
“Despite the impressive advances of science we are unable to bring back a single vanished species. When a species becomes extinct all the knowledge we might have gained from studying it, all the pleasure of observing it, is also gone forever. The genetic code of each life-form, its genome, contains a treasure house of information. New drugs, cures for disease, and unique evolutionary insights can all be lost. We should be very careful when dealing with such living treasure.”
We can be more specific and say some critters are quite tasty when properly prepared—as I have often said, if you want to save a species from extinction put it on the menu. There is no shortage of cattle, sheep, goats or chickens. So what about creatures we don't eat, creatures that, given half a chance would eat us? Are there rational reasons to keep them around?
Preserving the environment is a good thing, but it is a good thing because clean air is better to breathe, clean water better to drink, sweeping natural vistas more pleasing to look at, and beaches uncluttered by trash nicer to swim at. There is nothing wrong with valuing a creature simply because we find it nice to look at. Giraffes are whimsical, elephants stately, lions regal and pandas cuddly looking. There is nothing out of the ordinary in wanting to preserve things that give us pleasure, we spend billions on movie DVDs and recorded music every year. But let's be honest about why we value other species.
Species will go extinct and we should not always intervene blindly, out of misplaced passion for nature. Demanding we save every species out of quasi-religious superstition and nature worship is irrational. Rather, we should act rationally and with our own interests at heart, remembering that the only value attached to any species is the value we assign. Nature herself remains totally impartial. To quote again from the late Professor Gould: “Nature betrays no statistical preference for being either warm and fuzzy, or ugly and disgusting. Nature just is—in all her complexity and diversity, in all her sublime indifference to our desires.”