This is
an excerpt from my 2021 book Sensible Decarbonization: Regulation, Risk, and
Relative Benefits in Different Approaches to Energy Use, Climate Policy, and
Environmental Impact
The Web of Relationships Between Humans, Technology, Energy, and Nature
Humans are encased in the biosphere, yet we are also not
separate from nature. We have the ability to see from a human-centric view,
which partly derives from our basic urge toward survival. We can also empathize
with other denizens of the environment and with current and future human generations
by imagining things from a nature-centric perspective. We and all other species
are closely interconnected with each other and our environment in many ways. Deepening
our awareness of these connections can help us to solve problems.[1]
The products we buy, and use involve many
environmental impacts. Nature can be understood as a vast system of
relationships and cycles that scientists call the earth system. Climatologists
often call it the earth-ocean-atmosphere system. Humans are a fast-growing part
of that web of relationships. Due to our sheer numbers and our activities, in
many cases we affect nature far more than other species. In several ways we are
stressing those cycles. Nutrient-loading is creating dead zones where rivers
enter seas. We are changing the composition of the atmosphere and parts of the
hydrosphere and the earth itself. We are also mitigating problems we created.
The acid rain problem caused by sulfur dioxide from coal combustion in power
plants has been reduced in some forests through regulation by requiring that
pollution abatement technologies be applied. Replacing coal with natural gas
power plants has also helped in this endeavor. The ozone hole is closing after
the Montreal Protocol banned CFC refrigerants. We also have the ability to
affect nature positively, albeit some of those ways are not yet economically
feasible to pursue. With issues like climate change and habitat loss we are
needed to positively affect nature, to help species survive and thrive and to
stem the loss of biodiversity. The evidence suggests we can successfully
restore deforested areas, peatlands, wetlands, streams with acid mine drainage,
and many industrial spills. In some cases, this involves making rules limiting
development in certain places. In others, it involves directly helping through
technological intervention. We can better prevent, control, and remediate
problems with technology and smart actions.
Many of us see it as noble to develop a
sense of caring for the environment. However, we need to be very careful and
consider what actions are of net benefit. For example, we may prefer organic
food for less dependence on chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, but
organic farming may involve some problematic natural fertilizers and pesticides
and more importantly its lower yields may require more land converted to
agriculture to produce a similar amount of crop yields. It is not always clear
what actions are of net environmental benefit. We also need to consider
economic benefits and costs to mitigate environmental damage.
What is Nature and How Do Humans Fit In?
Our concept of nature is probably a bit different than
ancient peoples’ concept of nature, especially after the Industrial Revolution.
Many of us see our inventions and technologies as something different from
nature. They are man-made, synthetic, even artificial, which also means fake or
unnatural. In a sense we compete with nature as creators. The lines between
natural and artificial are much blurred these days. Utilitarian philosopher
John Stuart Mill emphasized our mastery over nature and how it benefitted us.
Jedidiah Purdy, in his book After Nature: A Politics of the Anthropocene,
writes: “If Nature were a
place, we could not find it, If Nature were a state of mind, we could not
attain it. We are something else, and so is the world.”[2] What I
think he means is that the definition of nature is changing, especially in
relation to humans. With 7.7 billion humans inhabiting a world where we decide which parts of nature are
preserved, where we selectively breed our food, where we impact nature in
diverse and profound ways, there is no longer a dichotomy between humans and
nature. One might say we are the biggest part of nature, the biggest influence
on nature. We are in the Age of Humans, the Anthropocene. Just like in the deep
past the earth was once dominated by bacteria, first the prokaryotes,
cyanobacteria and methanogens, then eukaryotes, and later plants and animals
gained influence, now it is humans that do much of the influencing. We and all
creatures evolve with our environment, altering it to improve our chances of
survival. This is known a “niche construction.” Thus, we were never really
separate from nature. It was just a convenient way of depicting things for a
time. Among conservationists, nature is no longer considered to be simply
“pristine wilderness,” notes writer Emma Marris, author in 2011 of Rambunctious
Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.[3]
We humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere and the oceans just
like those microbes did in their heydays. Our influence on nature is
everywhere. We have moved and mixed animal and plant species all over the
world. Humans are also master manipulators of the materials of nature, creators
called homo faber, man the user of tools, man the maker of his destiny.
“What humans do is utilize
nature by manipulating its materials. The material world is not just a display
of our technology and culture, it is part of us. We invented it, we made it,
and in turn it makes us who we are,” says materials scientist and
engineer Mark Miodownik, author of Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous
Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World.[4]
Of course, humans are not alone in influencing nature. Many other species do
it, but usually on smaller scales, more locally, and sometimes on much slower,
evolutionary time scales. In evolutionary time plants develop thorns and the
manufacture of poisons to dissuade local nibblers. In real-time beavers engineer
small lakes and reroute rivers by felling trees and building dams. Elephants
root out trees to maintain grassland. Stream-dwelling shipworms eat away rock
which creates niche habitat for invertebrates. Squirrels plant oak trees.
Cyanobacteria were arguably the first of these ecosystem engineers when
they oxygenated the atmosphere, a global scale effect. A study and paper in Nature
Communications from the Sante Fe Institute attempts to quantify these
ecosystem engineering, or niche construction feats in terms of ecosystem
effects.[5]
Food webs, species interactions, and extinctions were considered. A network of
these ecosystem engineers in sufficient numbers was found to increase ecosystem
stability and lead to few extinctions. They created an ecological network
model based solely on interactions where species do three things: eat,
need, and make. The model is a way to “explore the dynamics of ecosystem
assembly.” Interestingly, the
article suggests that we humans are “planetary scale {ecosystem} engineers.”
Such models can aid understanding and perhaps help quantify some ecosystem
services which in turn can help quantify business externalities, both
negative and positive, those respectively polluting or benefitting the environment.
Much of our engineering as well as that of other species has had unintentional
environmental effects, which is often because they were not planned with
conscious educated consideration of possible future effects. As time goes on,
we understand impacts better. Ecosystems reorient in various ways according to
inputs. If this continues for long time periods then evolutionary-scale
interactions between one species and another, or between a species and some
part of the environment, then evolutionary changes, are possible and known to
happen. Fixation or switching on or off of gene alleles in response to
environmental conditions occurs via epigenetic changes and can happen over much
shorter time scales than natural selection. Thus, we and all species, co-evolve
with other species and with our environments. We change nature. Nature changes
us. We also adapt to nature and nature adapts to us.
We have gotten better at adapting to
nature and we have gotten better at assisting nature in adapting to us. A
recent experiment revealed that by infecting a disease-carrying mosquito with a
bacteria and releasing it, the rates of dengue fever dropped in the Indonesian
city of Yogyakarta, making it four times less likely that a person would be
infected over a two-year period compared to before. Indonesia has 7 million
cases of dengue per year so this could be a big help.[6]
The same mosquito also carries Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever so the
implications could be huge. There appear to be no safety concerns with humans,
so the next step is more releases. Thus far, it appears that the bacteria impair
the ability to acquire the disease and importantly they also do pass on the
bacteria to their offspring making them also unable to get dengue. However,
since mosquitoes don’t travel far there need to be multiple releases to cover
their ranges.
In a fascinating article for Genetic
Literacy Project, epidemiologist Jean-Paul Oury writes that anti-GMO activism
is ideological, tends to deify nature, wants to define nature and decide what
is natural and what is not, and has a limited view of nature. Gene transfer can
be vertical as in normal evolution, or horizontal, as in horizontal gene flow
and transgenic processes, which also occur in nature. Anti-GMO advocates want to
define the latter as unnatural, while pro-GMO advocates accept that horizontal
gene flow is natural and that doing it with biotech is simply copying nature,
or improving on it, as is selective breeding. Thus, the pro-GMO advocates have
a broader and less limited view of nature. The ability to define what is
natural and unnatural is a kind of power since we have become somewhat biased
in such a way that natural is often seen as beneficial and unnatural (which is
also associated with that which is artificial or man-made) is often seen as
harmful. It is another form of narrative control.[7]
The question is: Do we want scientists writing the story or do we want
activists writing the story? More specifically, do we want a strong consensus
of scientists writing the story or do we want activists with a few dissenting
scientists aligned to them writing the story? Goals that are often ideological,
like bans, moratoriums, and very limited frameworks, seek to limit innovative
human endeavors. There is nothing particularly scientific about the
precautionary principle. It is more or less an ideological approach.
[1] Dorje, K. O. (2017). Interconnected: Embracing Life in
Our Global Society. Wisdom Publications.
[2] Purdy, J. (2015). After Nature: A Politics of the
Anthropocene. Harvard University Press.
[3] Maris, E. (2011). Rambunctious Garden: Nature in a
Post-Wild World. Bloomsbury.
[4] Miodownik, M. (2015). Stuff Matters: Exploring the
Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World. Mariner.
[5] Yeakel, J. D., Pires, M. M., & Gross, T. (2020,
July 3). Diverse Interactions and Ecosystem Engineering Can Stabilize Community
Assembly. Nature Communications (11).
[6] Sanders, R. (2020, August 26). Breakthrough in
eliminating dengue, other mosquito-borne diseases. Berkeley News. Retrieved
from https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/08/26/breakthrough-in-eliminating-dengue-other-mosquito-borne-diseases/
[7] Oury, J.-P. (2020, July 13). Viewpoint: Activist
opposition to GMOs fueled by an 'extremist' vision of nature. Genetic Literacy
Project. Retrieved from https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/07/13/viewpoint-activist-opposition-to-gmos-fueled-by-an-extremist-vision-of-nature/
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