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Why Not Enough Is Being Done About Ecological Dangers
| Article
# : |
15204 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1989 |
3,980 Words |
| Author
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Stanislaw Andreski
Stanislaw Andreski is professor emeritus of sociology at the
University of Reading, United Kingdom. His books include
Social Sciences as Sorcery, the African Predicament: A Study
in Pathology of Modernization, and Parasitism and Subversion:
the Case of Latin America. His latest book is Syphilis,
Puritanism and Witch-hunts, which will published in 1989 by
Macmillan Press, Ltd., London. |
There is a striking contrast between the foresight and caution that most people show in arranging their personal affairs, and the utter improvidence displayed by mankind as a whole. When choosing a job many people take into consideration the pension rights, even though they are still very far from using them. They endure tedious training and save for the sake of a future benefit. They take out insurance against unlikely dangers. Many even try to reduce the tax on inheritance payable to their heirs. Yet collectively--in the face of dangers from which nobody can escape except by dying soon--mankind is behaving like a man who is trying to get firewood by sawing off the branch on which he is sitting. What are the reasons for the discrepancy?
The first and most obvious, though not necessarily the most important, is the novelty of the situation. Nobody foresaw the possibility of destruction of the environment. Even Thomas Malthus, who pointed out the limit to the growth of the population, thought only of the scarcity of resources: He did not envisage the possibility that natural resources might be diminished by the pressure of the population upon them as has happened in many cases of soil erosion. All the most renowned thinkers of the past--from Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, and Herbert Spencer to Max Weber, Bertrand Russell, and John Maynard Keynes--were totally oblivious to the danger of pollution. Nonetheless, knowledge about the coming ecological predicament has been available for more than 30 years, but very little has been done about it. So, there is more to it than sheer novelty.
The desire to avert the eyes from this knowledge stems from its depressing nature. Having suffered for so long from poverty and sickness, mankind was entranced by the prospects of being freed from these scourges by technical progress and the growth of wealth, as has happened in the most fortunate countries. It was flattering to the denizens for the latter, as well as cheering to the less fortunate nations, that the poor could join the ranks of the rich simply by imitating them. The idea that the ecological limits will not allow it is very unpalatable to the unfortunate. It is also disagreeable to the fortunate because of the possibility that they might have to give up some of the enjoyments.
Two Modes Of Escapist Thinking
The unpleasant prospects prompt two modes of escapist thinking: One is to deny or ignore the validity of the new knowledge; the other is to propose remedies that are fairly painless but doomed to futility.
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