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发信人: golem (公子小岩), 信区: Biology
标 题: 一篇深谋远虑的好文章
发信站: The unknown SPACE (Fri Nov 1 09:32:31 2002) WWW-POST
原文可在Science (297) 954-958， 2002上找到。在下第一次看到如此有眼光的科学家，
对于人类发展的状况，当前世界冲突的本质等都有了一个新的认识，更重要的是，对于人
类命运的忧虑。中国古话有云：覆巢之下，焉有完卵。这个巢现在就是地球，而卵则是地
球上的每一个人。
作者Peter Raven是多年的Biodiversity方面的专家，享有世界声誉，并长期担任美国总
统科学发展顾问团智囊，现任Washington
University的教授。原文如下，有点长(在Science上5页篇幅)，但是绝对值得阅读：
Science, Sustainability, and the Human Prospect
Peter H. Raven*
When we set out the theme for the 2002 American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) Meeting, "Science in a Connected World," we
thought of the ways in which the fates of nations were intertwined as never
before and of the role of science in shaping communication. I was mindful of
the enormous challenges that faced a world that had grown so rapidly in
population, individual consumption levels, and changing technologies. In the
months that followed, the shock delivered by the September 11th events brought
home with unimagined force the ways in which our collective neglect of these
relationships had helped to bring about the dangerous and unstable state of
the world in which we find ourselves. The problems we face seem cruelly
compounded, but their root causes remain unchanged.
The challenges that we face are enormous and deeply rooted in relationships
neglected for far too long. We must find new ways to provide for a human
society that presently has outstripped the limits of global sustainability.
New ways of thinking--an integrated multidimensional approach to the problems
of global sustainability--have long been needed, and it is now up to us to
decide whether the especially difficult challenges that we are facing today
will jolt us into finding and accepting them.
The State of the World
Over 400 generations (10,000 years), our human population has grown from
several million people to approximately 6.1 billion. During this time,
villages, towns, cities, and nations formed and became the homes of poets,
philosophers, lawyers, builders, religious leaders, and tool makers. We
continue to depend on a series of ancient, genetically and socially determined
habits and attitudes, many of which seem to have been more suitable for our
hunter-gatherer ancestors. We must adopt new ways of thinking that will serve
our descendants well in a world that is crowded beyond imagining, a world in
which we shall always be the major ecological force; unless, of course, we
destroy ourselves.
During the 1790s, the global population amounted to about 800 million people.
Despite the Reverend Thomas Malthus' dire prediction that population growth
would outstrip food production, we did limit the extent of starvation during
the 19th and 20th centuries, in large part because of the steam engine and its
successors. We manufactured increasingly toxic pesticides with which we now
douse our agricultural lands at the rate of 3 million metric tons per year,
worldwide. We are fixing nitrogen with an output that exceeds natural
processes. Cultivated lands have grown to comprise an area about the size of
South America. Rangelands occupying about a fifth of the world's land surface
support 3.3 billion cattle, sheep, and goats. Two-thirds of the world's
fisheries are being harvested beyond sustainability.
Over the past half century, we have lost a fifth of the world's topsoil, a
fifth of its agricultural land, and a third of its forests. Grain production
has fallen short of consumption for two consecutive years, reducing the
surplus to the lowest level in two decades (1). We have changed the
composition of the atmosphere profoundly, driving global temperatures upward
and depleting stratospheric ozone. Habitats throughout the world have been
decimated by intentionally and accidentally introduced plants and animals.
Most troublesome is the irreversible loss of biodiversity. For the past 65
million years, the rate of species extinction has remained at about one
species per million per year. It has now risen by approximately three orders
of magnitude, to perhaps 1000 species per million per year (perhaps 0.1% of
all species per year), and it continues to rise as habitats throughout the
world are destroyed. Species-area relationships, taken worldwide in relation
to habitat destruction, lead to projections of the loss of fully two-thirds of
all species on Earth by the end of this century (2). And these projections do
not include the inevitably negative effects of climate change, widespread
pollution, and the destruction caused by alien species worldwide, among other
factors. In addition, the ecosystem services on which all life on Earth,
including our own, depends are being disrupted locally and regionally in such
a way as to deprive future generations of many of the benefits that we enjoy
now (3).
Considering the ways in which plants and animals enrich our lives, it is
incredible that we continue to destroy them so carelessly (4). The actions
that we carry out over the next few decades will decide the fate of millions
of species of plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms, the greater number
of them completely unknown at present and likely to have remained so at the
time of their permanent disappearance from our planet.
Thus, the world has been converted in an instant of time from a wild natural
one to one in which humans, one of an estimated 10 million or more species,
are consuming, wasting, or diverting an estimated 45% of the total net
biological productivity on land and using more than half of the renewable
fresh water. The scale of changes in Earth's systems, well documented from the
primary literature by Pimm (5) is so different from before that we cannot
predict the future, much less chart a course of action, on the basis of what
has happened in the past (6).
Against this background, it is not surprising that false prophets and
charlatans have arisen who, neglecting the scientific context that must
underlie all wise decisions, pretend to deliver "good news" about the
environment. They win fame by telling people what they want to hear. Warmed by
the applause that their misstatements generate, such individuals can simply
deliver falsehoods or the products of wishful thinking.
The most recent example is the work of Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg,
who reprises many of the earlier misleading, if not outright delusional,
conclusions offered earlier by Julian Simon and Gregg Easterbrook (7), among
others. Lomborg's book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real
State of the World (8) has, remarkably, been published by the generally
respected Cambridge University Press, but evidently without critical review.
Although he appropriately questions some of the hyperbolic statements that
environmentalists have made over the years, Lomborg largely ignores the
peer-reviewed literature and frequently misrepresents the views of many of the
scientists who have analyzed these areas. He blithely attacks a series of
straw men that he resurrects from the past literature or simply constructs,
and then repeatedly exposes his ignorance of facts and critical analyses.
Lomborg's popular success demonstrates the vulnerability of the deliberative
and hypothesis-driven scientific process to misrepresentation and distortion.
It is difficult to understand why a respected journal like The Economist would
rush to his defense. Although there have been multiple excesses on both sides
of this debate, at its root it is a matter of science and factual analysis,
and that is the point that seems to have been lost in all the controversy that
followed the book's publication. All of the world's environmental scientists
cannot reasonably be classified as "dedicated greens" and their views
dismissed.
The consequences of our environmental problems are severe. About a quarter of
humanity survives on less than $1 per day. Depending on the criteria used,
one-eighth to one-half of the world's people are malnourished. Some 14 million
babies and young children under the age of four starve to death each year. In
the world's poorest societies, women and children are uneducated and spend
their time foraging for firewood or water. Such relationships are inevitable
in a world in which 20% of us control 80% of the resources, and 80% of us have
to make do with the rest.
Among the nations of the world, the role of the United States has become
particularly dominant. Although we contain just 4.5% of the world's people, we
control 25% of the world's wealth and produce 25 to 30% of its pollution. We
are dependent on the stability and productivity of nations all over the world
to maintain our level of affluence. It is remarkable, therefore, that the
richest nation is the lowest per capita donor of international development
assistance of any industrialized country. Only in public health do we support
even the rudiments of an adequate global system.
Since publication of the report of the World Commission on Environment and
Development (9), we have become accustomed to thinking of the world as a place
in which everyone could eventually become rich. This may be so, but it cannot
happen using the technologies we possess now and building to
industrialized-world levels of consumption. Many years ago, when asked whether
then-nearly independent India would follow the British pattern of development,
Gandhi replied "It took Britain half the resources of the planet to achieve
this prosperity. How many planets will a country like India require?" More
recently, Wackernagel and Rees (10) have estimated that it would take two
additional planets to support the world at the living standard of the
industrialized countries, three if the population doubled, and 12 if standards
of living doubled.
The Central Role of Science and Technology
It is generally accepted that advances in science and technology power the
world's economy and economic progress. In America, leading economists and
government policy-makers uniformly agree that the nation's extraordinary
capabilities in science, technology, and health are among its strongest
assets. U.S. investment in basic scientific, engineering, and medical research
produces a rate of return of between 20 to 50% per year.
What are the specific contributions that science and engineering can make to
the development of a sustainable society? Contemporary efforts to build the
science of sustainability as an accessible, integrating discipline are well
summarized in the National Research Council study Our Common Journey. A
Transition Toward Sustainability (11). Noting that many trends and conditions
undermine efforts to achieve sustainability, the report concludes that an
overall transition could be attained in the next two generations without the
development of miraculous technologies or drastic transformations of human
societies. The report stressed, however, that significant advances in basic
knowledge, in the social capacity and technological ability to use it, and in
the political will to turn this knowledge into action will be necessary to
achieve this transition.
Those who find comfort in the soothing words of Lomborg might wish to read
what a panel of distinguished environmental scientists (people actually
working in the area and knowledgeable about it) concluded from 3 years of
study of the pertinent facts and have presented in this report, before they
completely relax their focus on the world as it really is.
Energy is particularly important for global sustainability. The potential
savings from energy conservation and from the development and adoption of
alternative sources of energy are well understood and massive. As to
alternative sources of energy, Lester Brown cogently points out in his new
book Eco-Economy (1) that a combination of wind turbines, solar cells,
hydrogen generators, and fuel cell engines offers both energy independence and
an alternative to the fossil fuels that are driving global warming. Worldwide
and over the past decade, the use of wind power grew by 25% a year, solar
cells at 20% a year, and geothermal energy at 4% a year. During the same
period, oil consumption grew by 1% a year, while coal consumption declined by
a similar amount. Natural gas grew by 2% annually.
Unfortunately for the United States, most of the growth in alternative energy
use has taken place abroad. In 2001, the United States consumed an average of
19.6 million barrels of oil per day. Our total oil imports were 11.6 million
barrels per day, or 59% of consumption. Of the imported oil, 2.73 million
barrels per day (or 23.5% of total imports) came from the Persian Gulf.
According to the Cato Institute (12), America spends at least $30 billion to
$60 billion per year and deploys thousands of military personnel in securing
Persian Gulf oil, for which we pay approximately $21.4 billion (13). Against
this background, it seems astonishing that we would consider drilling for oil
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which at peak production would provide
barely 5% of our national needs. At the same time, we do not sufficiently
encourage inventiveness in developing and marketing sustainable energy
sources.
The challenges of the 21st century, owing principally to the combined impacts
of the globalization of markets and technology-driven knowledge as well as the
information explosion, demand increased attention to the development of
educational systems both for the United States and for the world at large.
Scientific understanding is no longer only a desirable good but clearly an
imperative for building truly representative democracies. The involvement of
scientists in an effective information network leading to an improvement of
the educational system and in promoting public understanding of science would
help greatly in building strong sustainable societies (14). Such efforts will
help informed citizens to make better decisions and will ultimately lead to
increasing the financial support for the scientific enterprise. The AAAS has
been a leader in increasing public understanding of science and in formal
science education, and we continue to stress these fundamentally significant
fields in the future.
Achieving a Sustainable World
In light of all this, one is compelled to wonder whether the current model for
international institutions, established in the wake of World War II, is
adequate for building a sustainable world. It is telling that the organizers
of the Rio Summit failed to persuade the United States, Japan, or any other
country to provide the funds necessary to redress the global imbalances.
Scientist-to-scientist cooperation between those in industrialized nations and
their colleagues in developing countries is important for achieving effective
global communication and, ultimately, sustainability. Or, as the late
Congressman George Brown said to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993:
"This work must begin first by viewing developing nations as partners instead
of as step-children . . . Of all the many ways in which we can cooperate for
the common good, the case for science and technology cooperation with
science-poorer nations is perhaps the most compelling. To do so, we must
abandon the instinct to judge others by their past accomplishments, or to
judge our own accomplishments as the proper path for others."
The problem of transferring technologies to and building capacities in
countries throughout the world in such a way that they can contribute
adequately to sustainable development is a difficult one, but one that we must
confront fully (15). Ismail Serageldin (16) has presented an argument for the
cooperative development of science throughout the world that is both moving
and compelling, stressing also the role of the scientific attitude in bringing
people together on a rational basis.
Many of us look forward with trepidation to the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, to be held this September, because
the continued deterioration of the environment over the past 10 years has been
so obvious and the signs of progress so limited. Nonetheless, there have been
some outstanding efforts to refocus and renew commitments there (17). There
also is growing evidence that corporations are increasingly realizing that
understanding and working with the conditions of sustainable development are
necessary prerequisites for success in the corporate world of the future (18).
John Browne, chief executive officer of BP-Amoco, for example, set his company
on a course that will embrace alternative energy sources and energy
conservation, reasoning that in the face of global warming, they must do this
if they are to continue to be a profitable energy company in the future.
The kinds of grassroots activities that are promoting sustainability on a
local scale have become a powerful force throughout the world. Perhaps they
are, fundamentally, only a reemphasis of what has been traditional. Whether
establishing local clinics and sustainable industries in the Biligiri Rangan
Hills of southern India, building people-based ecotourism centers on native
lands in Kenya, rebuilding a broken landscape at the Bookmark Biosphere
Reserve in South Australia, learning how to ranch sustainably on the vast
grasslands of the Malpai Borderlands of New Mexico and Arizona, or simply
rooting out alien plants on Albany Hill in the San Francisco Bay Area, the
people who are pursuing sustainability in a direct and personal way will
hugely affect the shape of the world in the future.
Within a few years, a majority of the world's people will, for the first time,
be living in cities (19). In order to build a sustainable world for the
future, it will be necessary first to develop better models for cities, taking
into account the multidimensional contributions of science and engineering,
politics and social sciences, and many other fields for designing the improved
cities of the future. On the other hand, it will be necessary to pay
increasing attention to the rights and needs of rural dwellers throughout the
world and to find ways to give them access to the information that they so
obviously require. Activities such as those of the M. S. Swaminathan Research
Institute in Chennai, India, in bringing health and agricultural information
at low cost to the villages around Pondicherry will need to be multiplied many
times over for success.
A Vision for the Future
On 6 January 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing Congress on
behalf of a nation that was moving inexorably toward full participation in
World War II, said, ". . . we look forward to a world founded upon four
essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and
expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to
worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from
want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its
inhabitants--everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which,
translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such
a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to
commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the
world. That is no vision of a distant millennium, it is a definite basis for a
world attainable in our own time and generation . . . Freedom means the
supremacy of human rights everywhere."
When the end of the war was in sight, farsighted people took the first steps
in the construction of the institutions that they thought would help to build
the kind of world that Roosevelt had envisioned. They believed that global
institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International
Monetary Fund would serve the world well, as indeed they have. None of our
national leaders could have imagined withholding support from these
institutions because of a perceived lack of control over their activities.
Instead, the nations of the world recognized themselves as a community in
which all people should ultimately be able to enjoy the kinds of specific
rights embodied in Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. Where have these dreams gone?
For reasons that are starkly obvious, we are now focusing our attention on
terrorism and the problems associated with it. As the months go by, the real
challenge facing us, however, will be whether we will come to regard the
events of September 11 as specific and short-term or will analyze their
underlying causes and learn how to deal with those causes. We must learn to
deal justly with people around the world if our own hopes and aspirations are
to be realized. Despite the Lomborgs, Economists, and Wall Street Journals of
the world, simply appropriating as much as possible of the world's goods and
processing them as efficiently as possible can never be a recipe for long-term
success.
The United States is a small part of a very large, poor, and rapidly changing
world, and we, along with everyone else, must do a much better job.
Sustainability science has a good deal to say about how we can logically
approach the challenges that await us, but the social dimensions of our
relationships are also of fundamental importance. Globalization appears to
have become an irresistible force, but we must make it participatory and
humane to alleviate the suffering of the world's poorest people and the
effective disenfranchisement of many of its nations. As many have stated in
the context of the current world situation, the best defense against terrorism
is an educated people. Education, which promises to each individual the
opportunity to express their individual talents fully, is fundamental to
building a peaceful world.
In reality, the only way to build a secure world is to change both that world
and our way of thinking about it. Obviously, there are many steps that we can
and should take now, such as better surveillance, better detective methods,
hardened infrastructure, improved methods for protecting data, a better
understanding of people living in different situations, and more secure ways
of dealing with nuclear materials. But we also must address the need for
constant supplies of renewable energy and reduce our dependence on both
foreign and domestic sources of oil, coal, and natural gas, putting high
priorities on both energy conservation and alternative sources of energy. The
technology to accomplish this is available, and the economic and security
advantages that would accrue to the nation are enormous.
Some General Principles
We have the extraordinary privilege in the United States of living in a
democracy, a system developed over the more than two centuries of our history
and based on individual expression and participation. But effective
participation involves access to an appropriate level of education, as well as
widespread active involvement in the political process.
In a democracy, governmental processes must be transparent to all,
participatory, and subject to review and improvement. People must have
confidence in their government. The mishandling of the epidemic of mad cow
disease in the United Kingdom provides a vivid example of what happens to that
confidence when inappropriate advice is given by governmental agencies.
Civil liberties are fundamental, precious, and not to be sacrificed, however
briefly, for any but the most urgent reasons. Pressures on civil liberties
will increase as the world population swells and demands for enhanced
consumption grow. In the face of these pressures, we need to be vigilant to
protect what we consider the most important.
Accepting, even embracing, diversity must become a cornerstone of society. It
is against our common interests that hundreds of millions of women and
children, living in extreme poverty, are unable make the best use of their
abilities. Such discrimination, whether we focus on it or not, is morally
abhorrent.
Clearly, a small minority of Earth's residents cannot continue to consume such
a large majority of its productivity. As Ismail Serageldin (16) has put it, ".
. . a world divided cannot stand; humanity cannot survive partly rich and
mostly poor." Population, overconsumption (20), and the use of appropriate
technology must all be brought into the equation to achieve a sustainable
world. Nothing less than a new industrial revolution (21) and a new
agriculture (22) are required to make that world possible. The task is
daunting, but it is one we must undertake. The basic conditions for change
must come from within us: We need new ways of thinking about our place in the
world and the ways in which we relate to natural systems in order to be able
to develop a sustainable word for our children and grandchildren (22).
Think about our relationship with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Once the Russians
left Afghanistan, we left. It was a clear demonstration of our lack of
fundamental interest in the people of the region, and we all know the
consequences. Although the events that followed have certainly not all been
clear examples of cause and effect, there is a relationship. In the context of
this global reality, how many collaborate with a scientist working in an
Islamic country, and how many are making the effort to nurture science there?
We need to work together to overcome the malign effects of the September 11
events, which have put on hold efforts by scientists in Islamic nations to
strengthen ties among themselves and with the West, and we should reserve
resources to make sure that that effort succeeds (23). We also must see the
estimated 6 million Muslim U.S. residents, with their unique contributions to
our society, as a bridge to the vast Islamic world that we understand so
poorly.
Think about India and the state of science and technology in that vast
country. What do we really know about India, and how are we working to improve
our relationships with the world's largest democracy? One-sixth of the world's
people live in India, constituting a major economic and environmental force.
But what does the average American really know about India? How much does he
or she really appreciate what India has to offer, or try to understand its
people in a psychological sense; socially; politically; in terms of its art,
its writers, its history, its scientists, and all of the other components that
make up that great nation? Would it not be in our common interest to engage
much more fully, to understand, to work to build communication? Can we, in
fact, hope to build a sustainable world without such engagement?
Then think about Africa. We know that many of its people are dying of AIDS; we
know that many of them are starving; we have heard of merciless dictators, of
bloody civil wars, of the slaughter of magnificent large animals. Many of us
have learned to appreciate 19th-century African art, but do we know what
Africans are thinking about now? About their dreams and hopes; their literary,
musical, and artistic traditions; their efforts to achieve democracy
throughout the continent? Are we working with African scientists to help them
develop advanced scientific and technical skills that they could use to
improve their lot, the sustainability of their lands, and their contribution
to global sustainability?
Many of the world's life-support systems are deteriorating rapidly and
visibly, and it is clear that in the future our planet will be less diverse,
less resilient, and less interesting than it is now. In the face of these
trends, the most important truth is that the actual dimensions of that world
will depend on what we do with our many institutions and with the spiritual
dimensions of our own dedication. In the words of Gandhi, "The world provides
enough to satisfy everyman's need, but not enough for everyman's greed."
At the AAAS, we must be dedicated to expanding our global leadership role on
behalf of science and society. In our connected world, both the associations
between the disciplines that are symbolized by our fellowship and the global
connections are of extraordinary significance.
If the United States can become more international, if we can all learn to
deal with the conditions of the world as they really are, much more closely
than we have done before, we can begin to think about the contours of the sort
of world that we want to build for the future. To the extent that we do that,
the operations of our individual institutions will be successful, and we will
be making a worthy contribution to the kind of a world where our grandchildren
would like to live. Being optimistic about the future by wearing rose-colored
glasses and engaging in wishful thinking in a moral vacuum constitutes a crime
against our posterity; being optimistic because of a determination on the part
of each to contribute what he or she can to make the world a better place is,
in the words of Kai Lee (24), engaging in a "search for a life good enough to
warrant our comforts." As scientists, we should understand this, and we must
contribute what we can to improve the world and to learn to respect one
another. I am confident that we will do this and determined that the AAAS will
help in important ways in achieving this all-important goal.
--
一个人只拥有今生今世是不够的,他还应该拥有诗意的世界.
※ 来源:．The unknown SPACE bbs.mit.edu．[FROM: 128.8.]
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