Paul Ehrlich: Can We Avert a Global ‘Nineveh’?
Due to human impacts on the planet, our species and the broader ecosystem may be “racing toward a miserable future.” Paul Ehrlich says we shouldn’t over-rely on technology to correct this troubling trend.
Published August 1, 2004
By Christine Van Lenten
Academy Contributor
Our “triumphant” species may be partying on toward the first collapse of a global civilization. By accelerating depletion of our natural capital, the interrelated trends of population growth, rampaging consumption, and worsening political and economic inequality have put us on a collision course with nature and eroded our ability to create a sustainable future.
The sources of these trends and how they can be altered is the subject of Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s new book, One with Nineveh, which Paul Ehrlich discussed at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) this spring, at the invitation of the Environmental Sciences Section and the Science Alliance.
That title refers to the seat of the ancient Assyrian empire, which, you may have noticed, is no longer flourishing. Its demise was hastened by self-inflicted environmental damage – a cautionary tale.
Today, Ehrlich’s name is more widely recognized than Nineveh’s. Author of the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, he is Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford and has published extensively, won many awards, and been a forceful scientist-citizen spokesman on vital issues for decades.
Grave and Worsening
The issues he’s grappling with now are grave and worsening, and Ehrlich did not disguise his frustration with the problem that dismays him most. The human race has radically reshaped the planet; scientists understand all too well that we’re racing toward a miserable future; what must be done is all too clear; for years, scientists have been urgently trying to make this understood. But the mass media carry little science news, and too many citizens and policymakers remain blithely unconcerned. Magical beliefs that technology will solve all problems, quickly, contribute to this syndrome. Leadership is essential, but, Ehrlich believes, the Bush administration is making matters worse.
Scientists must do a better job of getting their story out, he insisted. One with Nineveh is a heroic, plain-English attempt to do this.
The Ehrlichs’ agenda for achieving needed change is proportional to the problems: that’s to say, it’s staggering in scope. One initiative would squarely tackle the challenge of modifying nothing less than human behavior itself. “Remember,” Ehrlich said, “we’re a small-group species, both genetically and culturally. For most of our 5-million-year history…we lived in groups that averaged below 200 people, and almost everybody within those groups was related. Now, evolutionarily in an eye blink of time, we’re trying to live in a global civilization of 6.3 billion people.” We must figure out how to do this better. And individuals’ rights become part of environmental problems, because we can’t tackle problems “if we’re at each other’s throats.”
A millennium assessment of human behavior, he suggested, would examine issues on the “population-environment-resource-ethics-power” spectrum, including the fundamental question of “what people are for.” Ethical issues – including our obligations to the world’s poorest people, to future generations, and to nature – would be central.
Potential for Change
This initiative may seem fanciful, but a partial precedent is enjoying impressive success: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change involves scientists from many countries and disciplines in tackling an unprecedented global problem. Its work is regarded as authoritative. The UN is a cosponsor, and while Ehrlich believes the UN must be radically restructured to reflect 21st century realities, he views it as “the only game in town.”
Another promising precedent is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an international scientific collaboration that will support local, national, and international decision making about ecosystem management.
But can human behavior change, and change quickly enough? Ethical standards have been evolving, Ehrlich reflected. For example, it’s no longer OK to beat your horse to death in the street; becoming a despot is no longer considered a good career move. And societies can change dramatically and rapidly: after President Truman desegregated the military, race relations in the United States changed quickly, though not enough; the Soviet Union collapsed suddenly.
Ehrlich sees the potential for similar change in how we treat each other and the environment, and it is in this that he places his hope. “When the time is ripe, people will begin to realize that the only realistic solutions today are ones we thought were idealistic yesterday. What I hope all of you will do is everything you possibly can to ripen the time.”
