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Geotherapy as evolutionary choice
Geotherapy as evolutionary choice
Richard Grantham
Mankind, the intelligent new species, has created problems for itself and the biosphere. In response, the author argues an evolutionary perspective is needed that favours the reproduction of caretakers of the environment, rather than the dominance of fertility, or the creation of a world controlled by medicine and biotechnology, with natural selection entirely absent. The author is with I’lnstitut d’Evolution Moleculaire, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France This article is an edited version of a talk given at the Colloquium on ‘Modelling and geotherapy for global change’, Lyon, 1417 May 1991. The author thanks Van Rensselaer Potter and Jacques Grinevald for stimulating ideas.
‘Elwyn L. Simons, ‘Human origins’, Science, Vol245,22 September 1989, pp 1343 1350. ‘Roger Lewin, ‘The earliest “humans” were more like apes’, Science, Vo1236, 29 May 1987, pp 1061-1063. %an Ft. Potter, ‘Getting to the year 3000: Can global bioethics overcome evolution’s fatal flaw?‘, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Vol 34, 1990, pp 89-98. 4George C. Williams and Randolph M. Nesse, ‘The dawn of Darwinian medicine’, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol 66, No 1, 1991, pp l-22. ‘William Nierenberg, ‘Global warming: Look before we leap’, New Scientist, 9 March 1991, p 10. ‘World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, /PCC First Assessmenf Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, 1990.
2
There is a long-term continuity in hominid evolution from our distant origins in east Africa.’ Around five million to seven million years ago, the hominid line evolved from other equatorial primates that were ancestors of chimpanzees and gorillas as well as of people. Since then, several species of hominid have appeared including, in order, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus. Homo erectus, the direct ancestor of humans (Homo sapiens), probably arose about 1.6 million years ago and persisted as late as 200 000 years BP (before the present).’ Thus our parent species lasted more than a million years, and perhaps one and a half million years. Humankind is now aware of the fact that it is rapidly destroying its habitat and perturbing the broader environment. No other species has done this during the four billion years that life has existed on Earth. Modern mankind (Homo sapiens sapiens) dates back about 100 000 years - no more than 10% of the typical timespan of mammalian species. Although we, like other species, have evolved in ways that favour the perpetuation of immediate biological characteristics (eg by developing strength, endurance, and wiliness), there is no guarantee that the process of evolution selects for longevity of species.3 Humankind is now compounding this ‘fatal flaw’ by transforming the biosphere and thereby imposing artificial selection of its own making.4 We have no way of knowing what the long-term biological consequences of our acts may be.
Adaptation and geotherapy Unlike other animals, we cannot rely on instinct to help us choose appropriate actions for coping with predicted environmental changes. Instinct helps species structure behaviour in response to situations that have been encountered repeatedly in the past. However, our species has never confronted threats to the entire biosphere. Our only alternative is to evaluate the available data and decide on a rational course of action. Even scientists like William Nierenberg, who were originally sceptical of the need for a societal response to global change, are now agreed about the need for action.’ Unfortunately, progress towards formulating an appropriate response is slow. The otherwise well regarded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proved a disappointment in this respect.6 Part of the difficulty lies in reluctance to accept that Earth’s ecosystem is 0959-3780/92/010002-03
0
1992 Butterworth-Heinemann
Ltd
Geotherapy
as evolutionary
choice
overcharged (ie the carrying capacity of the planet is exceeded by the size of the human population). It will be necessary soon to break out of the demographic deadlock or we will all vanish. At the same time, it will be necessary to correct the environmental damage that has already occurred. Two general types of action are necessary. The first is sociefuf adaptation. For example, in the context of rising sea levels, this includes such responses as building seawalls and removing threatened populations to safer areas. Changing from burning petroleum, which exacerbates greenhouse warming, to burning methane, which does not, is another example. The other type of required action is geotherapy. This refers to global measures that correct the degraded condition of Earth. Degradation results from various processes: build-up of trace gases in the atmosphere (ie greenhouse drift); air, water and soil pollution by molecules, bacteria, viruses and other agents; and chemical changes such as acidification, salinization and alkalinization. As a system of thought, geotherapy has a bio-philosophical basis. It views Earth as a deregulated system that requires treatment to assure its survival and health. Geotherapy can, of course, be considered a form of adaptation. It focuses on deciding what ought to be done to encourage Earth to survive and become healthy. Since some kinds of survival are better than others, it is necessary to make explicit choices.’ Although it emphasized accurate public information on climate issues and strengthened educational programmes, the Second World Climate Conference (Geneva, 29 October - 7 November 1990) stopped short of recognizing the need for geotherapy. It is necessary to overcome our reluctance to be proactive. Species, including humankind, evolve in relation to changes of the environment and they can become extinct if the changes are severe. The changes predicted for the 21st century are severe and we should do what we can to contain and control them.
What might he done?
%ichard Grantham, ‘Approaches to correcting the global greenhouse drift by managing tropical ecosystems’, Tropical Ecology, Vol 30, No 2, 1989, pp 157-174. ‘John A. Eddy, ‘Global change: Where are we now? Where are we going?‘, Earthquest, Vol 5, No 1, Spring 1991, pp l-3.
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
Two types of global measures should receive highest priority: population control, and strategies for managing greenhouse drift. Neither are sufficient, and both face serious difficulties. For example, asking for uniform worldwide control of population is illusory. How can it be expected that people in sparsely settled places like Algeria, Australia or Canada will try to limit numbers as readily as those in heavily populated countries such as Bangladesh, Belgium or Japan? Optimum population size varies with many factors, including lifestyle. We must decide not just what size population should be, but also a variety of interdependent questions. What do we want to eat? What type of house can we live in? What form of transportation should be planned? Moreover, these questions must be answered in light of the need to achieve balance among the amount of organic carbon made by photosynthesis. the amount consumed to produce energy, and the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted into the air. No money has yet been spent on geotherapy. The cost of public programmes designed to analyse and respond to global environmental change has reached 5-10 billion dollars per year. This is roughly 0.05% of the total world annual economic output of 18 trillion US dollars.* Most of these funds have been spent on computer modelling and monodisciplinary research. Studies have been preferred over action.
CHANGE
March 1992
3
Geotherapy as evolutionary choice
Clearly, global environmental change is broader than just climate change, nor is the only task one of combatting temperature increases and sea-level rise. Other problems are developing at even faster rates. For example, pollution of air, land and water by heavy metals (especially lead)” and nitrate,]” 1s accruing faster than trace gases in the atmosphere. In the words of John Eddy, ‘If the world is in environmental extremis today it is more through the rapidly changing chemistry of the air and soils and water, and through the inexorable and widereaching processes of urbanization and intensive agriculture and land use.‘l’ There is a need for global care of the environment - care that transcends national boundaries.
Conclusion
‘Jerome 0. Nriagu, ‘Global metal pollution’, Environment, Vol 32, No 7, September 1990, pp 7-l 1 and 28-33. “‘R. Eugene Turner, ‘Fertilizer and climate change’, Nature, Vol 349, 7 February 1991, pp 469-470. “Eddy, op tit, Ref 8. ‘%obert MacArthur and E.O. Wilson, The Theory of /s/and Biogeography, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1967. ‘3Williams and Nesse, op tit, Ref 4. “‘Maurice King, ‘Health is a sustainable state’, The Lancef, Vol 336, 15 September 1990, pp 664-667. 15Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, Ballantine Books, New York, NY, 1970, p 194.
4
We are an over-achieving species that has succeeded too well on a short timescale. In the terms of evolutionary biology, we might be considered runaway r-strategists because we are maximizing our reproductive potential to the point of exhausting the global environment.‘* However, we are at the end of a growth trajectory. To survive, we must change strategy: we must change selection. This view is neither shocking nor naive. We have already greatly changed selection for humans and other species.‘” We have eliminated most human predators and many diseases, which were the main controls on population size. Evolution’s basic rule, the survival of the fittest, no longer has the same overtones. Today’s ‘fittest’ (those who leave the most descendants) are not the couples who best resist, by their own vigour and perspicacity, the predators and diseases in the environment. But natural selection cannot be forgotten. A ‘demographic trap’ is closing on a large part of the world.14 The temporary mastering of natural selection cannot be prolonged indefinitely without changing lifestyles. Another century of population growth at today’s rate of increase (1.8% per year) will lead to an unthinkable 30 billion people by the year 2100. If humanity is to survive, a fundamental break with present cultural evolution is necessary. To geneticists and evolutionists the message is clear: maximize K strategy. That is, control reproductive behaviour to avoid a disastrous population crash. To all of us the message is clear cultural and biological evolution must be harmonized. This implies deciding what future lifestyles and population size we want in relation to Earth’s carrying capacity. We can create our own evolution. As also Leopold foresaw, ‘. . a species must be saved in many places if it is to be saved at a11’.15 Our species must be saved globally: to do so, local environments must be cared for. This adds up to saving the biosphere. In sum, the biosphere needs a caretaker. Its destiny can no longer be left to natural forces and the whims of national leaders, industrialists or terrorists. We need to form a global committee and begin to speak for humankind and for life. What we want and what we do not want should be decided, as democratically as possible. Nations should not be permitted to wage war or to prepare for war, or to make, buy or sell arms. Existing military folly is the worst and most intense waste of energy, and the worst disregard of the environment that Earth has seen. For scientific reasons, then, it should stop. Let us conserve and secure our future.
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
CHANGE
March 1992
Richard Grantham
Mankind, the intelligent new species, has created problems for itself and the biosphere. In response, the author argues an evolutionary perspective is needed that favours the reproduction of caretakers of the environment, rather than the dominance of fertility, or the creation of a world controlled by medicine and biotechnology, with natural selection entirely absent. The author is with I’lnstitut d’Evolution Moleculaire, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France This article is an edited version of a talk given at the Colloquium on ‘Modelling and geotherapy for global change’, Lyon, 1417 May 1991. The author thanks Van Rensselaer Potter and Jacques Grinevald for stimulating ideas.
‘Elwyn L. Simons, ‘Human origins’, Science, Vol245,22 September 1989, pp 1343 1350. ‘Roger Lewin, ‘The earliest “humans” were more like apes’, Science, Vo1236, 29 May 1987, pp 1061-1063. %an Ft. Potter, ‘Getting to the year 3000: Can global bioethics overcome evolution’s fatal flaw?‘, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Vol 34, 1990, pp 89-98. 4George C. Williams and Randolph M. Nesse, ‘The dawn of Darwinian medicine’, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol 66, No 1, 1991, pp l-22. ‘William Nierenberg, ‘Global warming: Look before we leap’, New Scientist, 9 March 1991, p 10. ‘World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, /PCC First Assessmenf Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, 1990.
2
There is a long-term continuity in hominid evolution from our distant origins in east Africa.’ Around five million to seven million years ago, the hominid line evolved from other equatorial primates that were ancestors of chimpanzees and gorillas as well as of people. Since then, several species of hominid have appeared including, in order, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus. Homo erectus, the direct ancestor of humans (Homo sapiens), probably arose about 1.6 million years ago and persisted as late as 200 000 years BP (before the present).’ Thus our parent species lasted more than a million years, and perhaps one and a half million years. Humankind is now aware of the fact that it is rapidly destroying its habitat and perturbing the broader environment. No other species has done this during the four billion years that life has existed on Earth. Modern mankind (Homo sapiens sapiens) dates back about 100 000 years - no more than 10% of the typical timespan of mammalian species. Although we, like other species, have evolved in ways that favour the perpetuation of immediate biological characteristics (eg by developing strength, endurance, and wiliness), there is no guarantee that the process of evolution selects for longevity of species.3 Humankind is now compounding this ‘fatal flaw’ by transforming the biosphere and thereby imposing artificial selection of its own making.4 We have no way of knowing what the long-term biological consequences of our acts may be.
Adaptation and geotherapy Unlike other animals, we cannot rely on instinct to help us choose appropriate actions for coping with predicted environmental changes. Instinct helps species structure behaviour in response to situations that have been encountered repeatedly in the past. However, our species has never confronted threats to the entire biosphere. Our only alternative is to evaluate the available data and decide on a rational course of action. Even scientists like William Nierenberg, who were originally sceptical of the need for a societal response to global change, are now agreed about the need for action.’ Unfortunately, progress towards formulating an appropriate response is slow. The otherwise well regarded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proved a disappointment in this respect.6 Part of the difficulty lies in reluctance to accept that Earth’s ecosystem is 0959-3780/92/010002-03
0
1992 Butterworth-Heinemann
Ltd
Geotherapy
as evolutionary
choice
overcharged (ie the carrying capacity of the planet is exceeded by the size of the human population). It will be necessary soon to break out of the demographic deadlock or we will all vanish. At the same time, it will be necessary to correct the environmental damage that has already occurred. Two general types of action are necessary. The first is sociefuf adaptation. For example, in the context of rising sea levels, this includes such responses as building seawalls and removing threatened populations to safer areas. Changing from burning petroleum, which exacerbates greenhouse warming, to burning methane, which does not, is another example. The other type of required action is geotherapy. This refers to global measures that correct the degraded condition of Earth. Degradation results from various processes: build-up of trace gases in the atmosphere (ie greenhouse drift); air, water and soil pollution by molecules, bacteria, viruses and other agents; and chemical changes such as acidification, salinization and alkalinization. As a system of thought, geotherapy has a bio-philosophical basis. It views Earth as a deregulated system that requires treatment to assure its survival and health. Geotherapy can, of course, be considered a form of adaptation. It focuses on deciding what ought to be done to encourage Earth to survive and become healthy. Since some kinds of survival are better than others, it is necessary to make explicit choices.’ Although it emphasized accurate public information on climate issues and strengthened educational programmes, the Second World Climate Conference (Geneva, 29 October - 7 November 1990) stopped short of recognizing the need for geotherapy. It is necessary to overcome our reluctance to be proactive. Species, including humankind, evolve in relation to changes of the environment and they can become extinct if the changes are severe. The changes predicted for the 21st century are severe and we should do what we can to contain and control them.
What might he done?
%ichard Grantham, ‘Approaches to correcting the global greenhouse drift by managing tropical ecosystems’, Tropical Ecology, Vol 30, No 2, 1989, pp 157-174. ‘John A. Eddy, ‘Global change: Where are we now? Where are we going?‘, Earthquest, Vol 5, No 1, Spring 1991, pp l-3.
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
Two types of global measures should receive highest priority: population control, and strategies for managing greenhouse drift. Neither are sufficient, and both face serious difficulties. For example, asking for uniform worldwide control of population is illusory. How can it be expected that people in sparsely settled places like Algeria, Australia or Canada will try to limit numbers as readily as those in heavily populated countries such as Bangladesh, Belgium or Japan? Optimum population size varies with many factors, including lifestyle. We must decide not just what size population should be, but also a variety of interdependent questions. What do we want to eat? What type of house can we live in? What form of transportation should be planned? Moreover, these questions must be answered in light of the need to achieve balance among the amount of organic carbon made by photosynthesis. the amount consumed to produce energy, and the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted into the air. No money has yet been spent on geotherapy. The cost of public programmes designed to analyse and respond to global environmental change has reached 5-10 billion dollars per year. This is roughly 0.05% of the total world annual economic output of 18 trillion US dollars.* Most of these funds have been spent on computer modelling and monodisciplinary research. Studies have been preferred over action.
CHANGE
March 1992
3
Geotherapy as evolutionary choice
Clearly, global environmental change is broader than just climate change, nor is the only task one of combatting temperature increases and sea-level rise. Other problems are developing at even faster rates. For example, pollution of air, land and water by heavy metals (especially lead)” and nitrate,]” 1s accruing faster than trace gases in the atmosphere. In the words of John Eddy, ‘If the world is in environmental extremis today it is more through the rapidly changing chemistry of the air and soils and water, and through the inexorable and widereaching processes of urbanization and intensive agriculture and land use.‘l’ There is a need for global care of the environment - care that transcends national boundaries.
Conclusion
‘Jerome 0. Nriagu, ‘Global metal pollution’, Environment, Vol 32, No 7, September 1990, pp 7-l 1 and 28-33. “‘R. Eugene Turner, ‘Fertilizer and climate change’, Nature, Vol 349, 7 February 1991, pp 469-470. “Eddy, op tit, Ref 8. ‘%obert MacArthur and E.O. Wilson, The Theory of /s/and Biogeography, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1967. ‘3Williams and Nesse, op tit, Ref 4. “‘Maurice King, ‘Health is a sustainable state’, The Lancef, Vol 336, 15 September 1990, pp 664-667. 15Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, Ballantine Books, New York, NY, 1970, p 194.
4
We are an over-achieving species that has succeeded too well on a short timescale. In the terms of evolutionary biology, we might be considered runaway r-strategists because we are maximizing our reproductive potential to the point of exhausting the global environment.‘* However, we are at the end of a growth trajectory. To survive, we must change strategy: we must change selection. This view is neither shocking nor naive. We have already greatly changed selection for humans and other species.‘” We have eliminated most human predators and many diseases, which were the main controls on population size. Evolution’s basic rule, the survival of the fittest, no longer has the same overtones. Today’s ‘fittest’ (those who leave the most descendants) are not the couples who best resist, by their own vigour and perspicacity, the predators and diseases in the environment. But natural selection cannot be forgotten. A ‘demographic trap’ is closing on a large part of the world.14 The temporary mastering of natural selection cannot be prolonged indefinitely without changing lifestyles. Another century of population growth at today’s rate of increase (1.8% per year) will lead to an unthinkable 30 billion people by the year 2100. If humanity is to survive, a fundamental break with present cultural evolution is necessary. To geneticists and evolutionists the message is clear: maximize K strategy. That is, control reproductive behaviour to avoid a disastrous population crash. To all of us the message is clear cultural and biological evolution must be harmonized. This implies deciding what future lifestyles and population size we want in relation to Earth’s carrying capacity. We can create our own evolution. As also Leopold foresaw, ‘. . a species must be saved in many places if it is to be saved at a11’.15 Our species must be saved globally: to do so, local environments must be cared for. This adds up to saving the biosphere. In sum, the biosphere needs a caretaker. Its destiny can no longer be left to natural forces and the whims of national leaders, industrialists or terrorists. We need to form a global committee and begin to speak for humankind and for life. What we want and what we do not want should be decided, as democratically as possible. Nations should not be permitted to wage war or to prepare for war, or to make, buy or sell arms. Existing military folly is the worst and most intense waste of energy, and the worst disregard of the environment that Earth has seen. For scientific reasons, then, it should stop. Let us conserve and secure our future.
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
CHANGE
March 1992