EDITORIAL
The Politics of Pollution
JF one looks at the biological record to see how different species have reacted to any threat to their existence the one point that asserts itself above all others, in those cases where they have survived, is the speed of the reaction itself; speed before the pressing factors become dominant, speed before the new factors, be they predator, disease or dwindling food resources, so change the scene that adaptation becomes impossible, and speed before the threatened species loses its power or even its will to make those adaptions which have become vital to its survival.
To apply these elementary points to man's situation today is to become apprised afresh of the extent to which the human situation is, biologically, out of control. Man has evolved a variety of systems whereby his lead groups take counsel together to regulate the affairs of their members, organise defence, prescribe the law, preserve the tablets and scrolls, and to give effect to certain value considerations peculiar, it would seem, to himself, such as freedom and justice. On any broad reckoning these systems are breaking down and are ceasing to function, so that no adequat·;! cognisance of the basic aspects of his situation is being taken at all.
In less than half a decade, for example, although the peril has been germinating for more than a century, the factor of pollution has rapidly come to be seen as a potent and pressing threat to human survival; there is scarcely any journal dealing with public affairs which today is not beginning to publish anxious, probing questions about the validity of primary factors in the pattern of life that technological man has created, or is seeking to create, for himself, and to remark the incidence of one or other aspect of pollution. Yet much of this probing and questioning is still at the stage of considering single evils or abuses, and this is understandable when one reflects on the enormity of the consequences of any one of them; but it is the total effect of them all which creates the real urgency in our present situation, a situation the real importance of which is still incredibly remote from the minds of those who make politics or public affairs their business.
If man could bring his collective mind and will to bear on the problem of, let us say, soil poisoning with artificial fertilisers, there is little doubt that he could win through to a solution that would remove this threat to his existence. Unfortunately, the threat arises from a combination of a great many such factors and it seems probable that because of their interreacting and cumulative nature their total effect is likely to be much greater than, as it were, the sum of their individual parts .
If one adds to soil poisoning plant poisoning with various 'sprays,' and adds animal poisoning with the antibiotics that Belsen* type farming makes necessary, and the use of anti-biotics in man himself to check the consequences of his commonly debased and devitalised diet, and adds to this the consequences of destroying numerous · forms of wild life each of which has its place in an overall balance which, however much he may destroy, he can never determine, the overfishing of the seas, the numerous forms of effluent which emanate from his growing urban agglomerations, the various means by which he is preparing to wage biological and neurological warfare on his own kind, and the gormless folly of nuclear energy with its accompanying threat to his genetic safety arising from radioactive wastes, one is aware that nowhere at all is this gigantic complex of problems being studied or evaluated as an entity. Not even at this late hour.
One reason for this is that the generality of mankind, or at least that part of it whose governments are perpetuating the worst abuses, is still trapped within the cosmological horizons of the nineteenth century when science was seen as a Johanna Southcott's Box which contained all the answers to all the problems. If only men would believe, and have faith ... !
The principal result of this new access of credulity is that the religious crackpots who are prone to add colour to the urban scene by parading with billboards announcing that 'The End of the World is At Hand' are now being joined in increasing numbers by some of our most eminent scientists.
A Fundamental Re-evaluation What is to be done? To any informed mind the consequences of the dangers to which these scientists are seeking to draw attention are as predictable as a lunar eclipse. Need they be as inevitable ? One need take only a most cursory survey of these dangers and the remedies that their presence calls for to see that they involve nothing less than a fundamental re-evaluation of the whole pattern of life that is now based on the unthinking development of science and technology. Unless man can grasp very swiftly that he now has a date with destiny and need s to subject all his actions and policies to fundamental moral criteria relating to the place and purpose of human life in the cosmos, then the consequences of his own folly, a foll y of historical dimensions and the consequences of which in some respects he has shirked for generations behind a barrage of double-think and double-talk about progress, national defence, higher standards of living, increased productivity, the balance of payments and more exports, to touch only the most obvious examples, disaster will surely overtake him, and the present phase of the human adventure can scarcely fail to end in a
*It is perhaps not without relevance that one of the earliest uses of D.D.T. was to check disease amongst the survivors of Belsen and other wartime concentration camps.
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