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ISSN 1108-8931 |
INTERNATIONAL ECOTOURISM MONTHLY |
Year 6 - Issue 62 |
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Through literally millions of years of struggles, humans have emerged as the dominant species, but still not the smarter ones. We are still outsmarted by parasites such as the malaria one and legions of viri. We need to expand our abilities to manage nature without destroying it or altering it beyond recognition. We need to take risks, however wisely, openly and for the collective good of the planet, rather than for profits. To solve current environmental and health problems we may need another wave of inventions like the ones preceding the Industrial revolution: imagine a plastic-eating microbe, or an electricity generating plant (living plant) - if you think about it plants are solar batteries, transforming light into stored chemical energy. It is not realistic to expect that humanity will voluntarily (i.e. without destructive wars or cosmic events) retreat to an earlier stage of civilisation. In a way, technology is part of natural evolution, spacecrafts evolved from planes that evolved from birds, that evolved from dinosaurs. If we are unwise and treat nature arrogantly, such as the DDT wars of the 60s, nature soon turns the revolver back to us. We should never get overenthusiastic about new technology either, remember that in the early 20th century people would drink water with radiation, to improve their health ! Tradition is not more solid either: think twice before swimming in those health spas, the water is also bound to contain radiation... Not all is bleak though. Scientists have already discovered that in nature there are no permanent "limits", only temporary ones. Although there are still famines, Malthus was wrong in believing it would never be possible to feed all of the world's population, it is now technically possible. (Not to mention that the world's population has peaked). It does not happen as politics, individual and collective human behaviour - has not evolved as fast as technology. Still, technology expands opportunities for all and thus, in theory at least, allows for gradually improving the status of the majority, without drastically threatening the dominant minority. Antonis
B. Petropoulos |
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EDITORIAL: ECO
SCIENCE vs ECO TABOOS
In
this issue we learn from Todd Barber, the inventor and developer of an
innovative artificial reef system that goes by the name of the
"Reef Ball". Mr Barber in effect intervenes in nature,
according to him at least, in a benevolent way. Intervening in nature
is still taboo with a surprising large number of environmentalists, as
generations of them have been brought up with the quasi-religious
dogma that "nature knows best", "nature is god".
But Ernst Haeckel, the maverick father of "Ecology", probably
did not think so. We now know that humans, and some animals like the beaver, have been
intervening in nature since time immemorial. The extinction of
elephants in North America (10,000 BC) and of the Moa in New Zealand
(c 1500 AD) long preceded modern industrial society and is associated
with the "harmless" hunter-gatherers. A species eradication,
in 1977, was deliberate and sponsored by the World Health
Organisation: Smallpox (but don't worry, for our "security", the
world's superpowers have kept some). When we fall ill, we do not let
nature take its course, we all (apart perhaps from some weird sects)
go to the doctor to try to cure us / prolong our life with artificial
medications or even shiny new body parts. An artificial limb is not the
real thing, however it is already as functional and even aesthetic.
Why not so for artificial reefs?
