by, Stewart Brand
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS in the 1990s come in a pretty familiar litany of pretty
familiar names. The World Population problem. Climate Change problem. Loss of
Biodiversity. Ocean Fisheries. Fresh-water Aquifers. North-South Economic Disparity.
Rain Forests. Agricultural and Industrial Pollution. Identifying these issues
and making them everyone's concern has been a major triumph of environmental
science and activism in the late 20th century.
I propose that the Packard Foundation could make a contribution beyond even
the splendid effect of its funding by helping rethink-reframe-the very structure
of how environmental problems are stated. This is a common practice among inventive
engineers such as Mr. Packard. When a design problem resists solution, reframe
the problem in such a way that it invites solution.
An example of spontaneous reframing occurred in 1969, when the Apollo program
began returning color photographs of the Earth from space. Everyone saw the
photographs, and saw that we occupied a planet which was beautiful, all one,
very finite, and apparently fragile. The environmental movement took off from
that moment-the first Earth Day was in 1970. That effect of the American space
program was never intended or anticipated. Indeed, nearly all environmentalists
in the 1960s (except Jacques Cousteau) actively fought against the space program,
saying that we had to solve Earth's problems before exploring space.
I'll use the remainder of this short paper to think aloud about some further
candidate reframings. If the approach seems worthwhile, the Packard Foundation
might consider putting some people with greater knowledge and ingenuity than
mine onto the stratagem, and consider organizing its funding around the emergent
framework.
1. CIVILIZATION'S SHORTENING ATTENTION SPAN IS MISMATCHED WITH THE PACE OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS.
What with accelerating technology and the short-horizon perspective that goes
with burgeoning market economies (next quarter) and the spread of democracy
(next election), we have a situation where people in 1996 actually refer to
the year 2000 as "the future." Four years.
Steady but gradual environmental degradation escapes our notice. The slow, inexorable
pace of ecological and climatic cycles and lag times bear no relation to the
hasty cycles and lag times of human attention, decision, and action. We can't
slow down all of human behavior, and shouldn't, but we might slow down parts.
"Now" is the period in which people feel they live and act and have responsibility.
For most of us, "now" is about a week, sometimes a year. For some traditional
tribes in the American northeast and Australia, "now" is seven generations back
and forward (350 years). Just as the Earth photographs gave us a sense of "the
big here," we need things which gives people a sense of "the long now." (That
phrase comes from British musician and artist Brian Eno.)
Candidate now-lengtheners might include: abiding charismatic artifacts; extreme
longitudinal scientific studies; very large, slow, ambitious projects; human
life extension (with delayable child-bearing); some highly durable institutions;
reward systems for slow responsible behavior; honoring of patience and sometimes
disdaining rush; widespread personal feeling for the span of history; planning
practices which preserve options for the future. In a sense the task here is
to make the world safe for hurry by slowing some parts way down.
2. NATURAL SYSTEMS CAN BE THOUGHT OF PRAGMATICALLY AS "NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE."
One area in which governments and other institutions seem comfortable thinking
long-term is the realm of infrastructure, even though there is no formal economics
of infrastructure benefits and costs. (There should be and could be.) We feel
good about investing huge amounts in transportation systems, utility grids,
and buildings. Inventing countries and governments also has this quality.
Infrastructure thinking is directly transferable to natural systems. Lucky for
us, we don't have to build the atmosphere which sustains us, the soils, the
aquifers, the wild fisheries, the forests, the rich biological complexity which
keeps the whole thing resilient. All we have to do is defend these systems-from
ourselves. It doesn't take much money. It doesn't even take much knowledge.
(Though knowledge certainly helps-"deep ecology as if people mattered.") A bracing
way to think about this matter is to take on terraforming Mars-make it comfortable
for life. Then think about re-terraforming Earth if we lose the natural systems
that previously built themselves here. The fact is that humans are now so powerful
that we are in effect terraforming Earth. Rather poorly so far. We can't undo
our power; it will only increase. We can terraform more intelligently-with a
light, slow hand, and with the joy and pride that goes with huge infrastructure
projects. Current efforts by the Corps of Engineers to restore the Florida Everglades,
for example, have this quality.
3. TECHNOLOGY CAN BE GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
My old biology teacher, Paul Erhlich, has a formula which declares that environmental
degradation is proportional to "population times affluence times technology."
It now appears that the coming of information technology is reversing that formula,
so that better technology and more affluence leads to less environmental harm-IF
that is one of the goals of the society. "Doing more with less"-Buckminster
Fuller's "ephemeralization"-is creating vastly more efficient industrial and
agricultural processes, with proportionally less impact on natural systems.
It is also moving ever more of human activity into an "infosphere" less harmfully
entwined with the biosphere.
Given its roots, the Packard Foundation is particularly well suited to evaluate
and foster what an engineer Buddhist might call "right technology." It would
be helpful to assemble a roster of existing environmentally benign technologies.
Communication and remote-sensing satellites come to mind. So does Jim Lovelock's
gas chromatograph (which detected atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons)-invented
for H-P, as I recall.
The foundation might support activities like Eric Drexler's Foresight Institute,
which is aiming to shape nanotechnology (molecular engineering) toward cultural
and environmental responsibility. It might support services on the Internet
which network information about the environmental impacts of new and anticipated
technologies and their interactions. Good effects should be investigated as
well as ill effects.
4. FEEDBACK IS THE PRIMARY TOOL FOR TUNING SYSTEMS, ESPECIALLY AT THE NATURAL/ARTIFICIAL
INTERFACE.
German military officers are required to eat what their troops eat and after
they eat. That single tradition assures that meals for all are excellent and
timely, and it greatly enhances unit morale and respect for the officers. The
feedback cycle is local and immediate, not routed through bureaucratic specialists
or levels of hierarchy.
In similar fashion factories, farms, and cities that pollute rivers and water
tables could be required to release their outflows upstream of their own water
intake rather than downstream.
The much-lamented "tragedy of the commons" is a classic case of pathological
feedback-where each individual player is rewarded rather than punished for wasting
the common resource. In fact, healthy self-governing commons systems are frequent
in the world and in history, as examined in Elinor Ostrum's Governing the Commons.
The commons she dissects are maintained (and maintainable) neither by the state
or the market, but by a local set of community feedbacks adroitly tuned to insure
long-term health and prosperity of the system. Ostrum detects eight "design
principles" which keep a wide variety of commons self-balancing.
Packard Foundation could encourage feedback analysis of environmental problems
and help devise local-feedback solutions.
5. ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH REQUIRES PEACE, PROSPERITY, AND CONTINUITY.
War, especially civil war, destroys the environment and destroys caring for
the environment for generations. Widespread poverty destroys the environment
and undermines all ability to think and act long term.
Environmental activists and peace activists are still catching on that they're
natural partners, and both are averse to business boosters. Peace-keeping soldiers
are not in the mix at all. But for a culture and its environment to come into
abiding equanimity you need all four.
An example of productive joining of regional business and environmental goals
is the Ecotrust project at Willapa Bay, Washington. It also has a compelling
"natural infrastructure" angle.
By its funding choices and guidelines, Packard Foundation could foster "jointness"
in world-saving endeavors. In support of "the long now," it could promote people,
ideas, and organizations that are in for the long haul.
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