GLOBAL TRENDS B PREDICTABLE ATROCITIES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       Francoise Hall, M.D., M.P.H.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number of words: 10,107                                                                                              June 4, 2005

Number of pages: 29

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                          Copyright 2005, Francoise Hall, all rights reserved

 

 

                                             Global Trends B Predictable Atrocities

 

Contemporary Global Trends

Contemporary global trends threaten life as we know it on the planet.  It is painful, though useful, to look at some of the ethical implications of this fact for our generation.  At the same time, we can recognize that present threats are very different from previous technological risks and that their new, insidious characteristics interfere with the ability of humans to take appropriate action.

 

Our biosphere is precious.  Living organisms are sparsely distributed through a one kilometer-thick layer of soil, water and air around the earth.  If the world were the size of an ordinary desktop globe and its surface were viewed edgewise at arm=s length, no trace of the biosphere would be seen with the naked eye.  Life, as represented by the approximately 13,620,000 species into which it has divided itself, is now at the edge of fundamental alterations.*  Homo sapiens is one of the species which will be affected.

 

Claudia Card, in her 2002 book, The Atrocity Paradigm B A Theory of Evil, gives us tools with which to look at some of the ethical implications of global trends.  Card=s Theory is strictly secular and is focused on suffering.  Evil, as a moral concept, has two components: (1) A foreseeable, intolerable harm (a harm that ruins a life), and (2) A culpable moral agent (a perpetrator).  Examples of evil include child abuse and individual murder.

 

Card=s paradigm for her Theory is the atrocity.  Atrocities are evil on a large scale and hence deserve priority of attention.  Examples of atrocities include the Holocaust, the bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the killing fields of Cambodia, the genocides in Rwanda, Burundi and East Timor, and the damage to life on the planet imposed by global warming, the destruction of natural habitats and environmental poisoning.

 

While atrocities as a whole cannot and, out of respect for the victims, should not be ranked,  certain aspects of the harm they impose can be compared.  Thus, atrocities can be analyzed with regards to the following aspects:

1.                  The number of victims.

2.                  The intensity of suffering.

3.                  The duration of the harm.

4.                  The containability of the harm.

5.                  The reversibility of the harm.

6.                  The effects on the children of the survivors.

 

These are ethical tools which we can apply to present global threats.  Let us consider five major trends B nuclear radiation, global warming, the extinction of species, genetic engineering and the unsustainable use of resources.

 

Nuclear Radiation

Nuclear radiation has many of the characteristics paradigmatic of the 21st century global trends which threaten the biosphere.  In 2003, worldwide, the stockpile of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) B derived from military and civilian reactors B totaled 3,700,000 kilograms (3,700 tons).  The inhaled dose of plutonium which is lethal to half of exposed humans within 30 days, is 0.000,2 kilograms (200 milligrams).  Assuming the lethality of plutonium for the stockpile as a whole, this amounts to three lethal doses, if inhaled, per person on earth. 

 

In addition, in 2001, worldwide, the stockpile of depleted uranium (DU) B uranium-238, a waste by-product of the Aenrichment@ of uranium B totaled 1,017,900,000 kilograms.  In terms of radioactivity, this is the equivalent of 185,868,540 Hiroshima bombs.

 

To my knowledge, the number of victims to date has not been estimated.  All species are affected.  Human victims have been those affected by:

Testing.  Globally, as of 2004, the radioactivity contamination of the atmosphere  from nuclear testing, was approximately the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs.

The use of nuclear radiation in wars B Nuclear bombs: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945.  Weapons containing depleted uranium (DU): Bosnia, Montenegro and Southern Serbia, 1994-1995; Kosovo and Macedonia, 1999; Afghanistan, 2001; Kuwait and Iraq, 1991; and Iraq, 1992 to the present.

3.                  Human error. The usual inventory category, Amargin of error,@ is called Amaterial unaccounted for@ (MUF) or Ainventory difference@ (ID).  The United States Atomic Energy Commission estimates that the lowest MUF/ID capability is 0.1 percent.  The actual performance of the U.S. during the period 1944-1994, was  2.5 percent.  Assuming a worldwide stockpile of 36,000 nuclear warheads, each with a typical 4.5 kilograms of plutonium at its core (the explosive yield of 18.06 Hiroshima bombs), this means that at a minimum, 36, and more realistically 900 warheads are unaccounted for at any one time B equivalent to 650 and 16,254 Hiroshima bombs, respectively. 

4.                  Accidents.  On a worldwide basis, from 1950 to 1994, an average of one accident involving nuclear weapons was reported publically every six months.  From 1964 to 1996, there was an average of one accident involving a nuclear-powered military spacecraft or satellite every four years.  Note here that Aaccidents@ are, in fact, normal.  The nuclear accident is not something extrinsic to a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon.  It is part of the technological design B AThe reactor (or weapon) is expected to operate within expectations x times out of 100 for y hours of operation,@ specifies the probability of functioning according to design, and the probability of an accident.  If the weapon or reactor continues to be used beyond the specified time of operation, the probability curve for an accident asymptotically reaches 100 percent.

5.                  Terrorism: I have no data on any possible victim of nuclear terrorism.  Incidents of terrorism using conventional arms are increasing throughout the globe.


 

 

 

Affected persons have a wide array of symptoms and a high probability of early death from cancer.  The duration of the harm is 240,000 years for plutonium, 7,100,000,000 years for enriched uranium, and 45,000,000,000 years for depleted uranium B in each case, ten times the half-life of the element.  For purposes of comparison, we can note that the half-life of depleted uranium (4,500,000,000 years) is approximately the age of the earth (4,500,000,000 to 5,000,000,000 years).  Life on earth began 3,850,000,000 years ago.  The harm from radiation is not containable in that at present, we have no technology to stop a radioactive substance from emitting its deadly rays.  The harm is not reversible, in that once a tissue has been affected, the damage cannot be undone.  And the harm is trans-generational, offsprings of subsequent generations subject to a high rate of congenital abnormalities.  

 

The parameters of the harm caused by contamination of the biosphere with radioactivity can be compared to the damage of present-day wars.  The thirteen-year-old civil war in the Sudan (1992-2005), including the two-year genocide in the Darfur region (2003-2005), has killed between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 people.  The Iraq War (2003 to the present), has killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people.  Wars are atrocities but their damage is mostly containable and at least partly reversible.  Subsequent generations are affected but wars do not put in jeopardy the very continuity of life for future generations.

 

Global Warming

The atmospheric temperature is now 0.6 degrees Celsius higher than it has been for the past 10,000 years.  In the Antarctic, the warming is five times that of the average for the earth as a whole.  The rate of warming is increasing.  It was one degree per century from 1900 to 1975,  three degrees per century from 1976 to 2000, and is predicted to be from 2 to 11 degrees in the present century.  Such warming will be accompanied by a rise in sea level of more than one meter, severe droughts and the spread of mosquito-transmitted diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever.  By approximately 2040, the world=s forests could begin to die off and turn from Asinks@ (absorbents of carbon dioxide) to Asources@ (releasers of carbon dioxide).    

 

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution (approximately 1760), atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 35 percent B from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 377 ppm.  Due to their absorption of carbon dioxide, the oceans are becoming more acid.  Due to increased evaporation, they are also becoming more saline B except for the North Atlantic where the increased in salinity is more than counterbalanced by the addition of fresh water from melting glaciers and sea ice.  On the average, the Arctic Ocean ice cover is disappearing at the rate of almost one percent per year.  Marine ecosystems are collapsing and marine diseases surging.  

 

On land, mosquitoes and ticks are expanding their habitats, food crops are harmed by increased temperatures, and animals are shifting north at an average of nearly 0.4 miles per year. 

 

In 2003, direct human victims of global warming numbered in the range of 160,000.  Victims of rising sea levels include the more than 40,000 inhabitants of the Duke of York Islands (off the coast of Papua New Guinea), and the 10,000 inhabitants of the Island of Tuvalu (in the West Pacific Ocean).  For them, the suffering is existential.  The future is now organized around the discourse of threat, disaster and death.  Within the next decades, expected victims include the tens of millions of people living in low lying areas, such as China=s Pearl River Delta, much of Bangladesh, and the most densely populated area of Egypt.  Half the world=s population lives near coastlines.  In these areas, global warming will affect first and foremost the poor.

 

The duration of the harm is indeterminate.  The inertia and magnitude of the forces involved make the harm predicted for this century in large part not reversible.  The harm is trans-generational in that our descendants will live in a more hostile climate.  Whole indigenous cultures are likely to become extinct.

 

The Extinction of Species                                        

A species is a closed gene pool that perpetuates itself in nature.  It consists of a population whose members are able to interbreed freely under natural conditions.  A conservative estimate of the total number of living species on earth (both described and un-described) is 13,620,000.  A reasonable estimate of the number of species which are Arecognized@ is 1,600,000.  The number of species which have been scientifically described is about 1,413,000.

 

Species are becoming extinct at a rate of between one and ten percent per decade.  The combined average of all the estimates is 6 percent B that is, 0.6 percent per year, or 9.3 species per hour.  After each of the five previous greatest extinction spasms which the biosphere has sustained (440,000,000, 365,000,000, 245,000,000, 210,000,000 and 65,000,000 years ago), it has taken evolution an average of about 35,000,000 years to restore pre-disaster levels of diversity.  Since we depend on an abundance of functioning ecosystems to cleanse our water, enrich our soil, and manufacture the very air we breathe, biodiversity is an inheritance which is key to the maintenance of the world as we know it.  Diversity is the property that makes the resilience of life possible.  The restorative power of the fauna and flora of the world as a whole depends on the existence of enough species to penetrate and reinvigorate degenerate, eroded ecosystems.

 

Life operates on 10 percent of the energy from the sun which reaches the earth=s surface B this is the portion of the sun=s energy which is fixed by the photosynthesis of green plants.  The free energy is sharply discounted as it passes through the food webs upward to the top carnivores B  eagles, tigers, great white sharks, etc...  Top carnivores live on such a small portion of life=s available energy that they always skirt the edge of extinction and are the first to suffer when the ecosystem around them starts to erode. 

 

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report reveals that from 10 to 30 percent of mammal, bird and amphibian species are currently threatened with extinction.  In 2004, 41 percent of the 4,473 mammal species on earth for which data were available, were either extinct (73 species) or at various levels of threat of extinction (1,756 species).

 

 

The human victims of the present loss of species consist of homo sapiens as a whole.  The first victims, however, will be the poor whose already meager food supply is put in jeopardy by the lack of diversity in the crops, fish and domestic livestock on which they depend.  These foods are increasingly derived from mono-cultures which are much more vulnerable than diverse cultures to the onslaught of droughts, floods and diseases.  

 

The suffering is psychological for all of us.  We are destroying our home.  For those who depend on specific species for their livelihood, the suffering is also physical.  The duration of the harm is indeterminate.  The harm is in a practical sense extremely difficult to contain.  It is not reversible.  It affects all subsequent generations in terms of both excess deaths due to a more brittle, less hospitable, less homeostatic environment, and the impoverishment of the beauty and resources of nature.

 

Genetic Engineering

Genetically-modified (GM) crops were first introduced for commercial production in 1996.  Worldwide, that year, 4,300,000 acres were planted with GM crops.  In 2003, the area planted with GM crops was167,200,000 acres, and in 2004, it was 200,000,000 acres B an increase of 20 percent from 2003 to 2004.  In the United States, more than two thirds of conventional crops are contaminated with genetically-modified material.  Genetically-modified organisms threaten to annihilate native and wild populations of corn, rice, wheat, fish and other sources of food.   

 

Health concerns abound.  Just to mention one example B the genetically-modified corn MON-863, produced by the giant company Monsanto which is heavily invested in genetic engineering.  In May 2005, Monsanto made public the results (the results, not the raw data) of a study which it previously had kept confidential (secret).  These results show that rats fed for three months on a diet rich in MON-863 corn, developed a decreased number of white blood cells, reduced, immature red blood cells, an increase in blood sugar and frequent physical irregularities in internal organs, such as kidney inflammation.  Monsanto has refused to release the raw data on the ground that they contain Aconfidential business information which could be of commercial use to our competitors.@

 

Two years ago, in 2003, Monsanto began the process of requesting governments to approve its MON-863 corn for use in human foods.  As of September 2004, nine governments had approved the corn for humans.  Among these were the governments of Australia and New Zealand which jointly approved the corn in October 2003 B without, however, mentioning the confidential Monsanto study in their report, thus raising questions as to whether they were aware of the study.  The same month, October 2003, the government of France refused approval of the corn, mentioning the confidential Monsanto study in its report.  In the event, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) overrode France=s concern and, in April 2004, approved MON-863 for use in human foods within the European Union.

 

 

 

 

There have been numerous instances of the introduction of unapproved genetically-modified food entering the human food chain.  Among these have been, in 2000, the GM corn variety Starlink and, in March 2005, the GM seed corn variety Bt-10.

 

The number of human victims from GM foods is extremely difficult to assess, particularly in countries which have no labeling laws for these foods.  The dysfunction is likely to involve a number of organ systems.  The duration of the harm is indeterminate.  Once a genetically-modified food is released into the wild, it cannot be contained.  The harm is irreversible and extends to all future generations.  Genetic engineering is a giant uncontrolled experiment perpetrated on many of the earth=s species, including homo sapiens.  

 

Unsustainable Use of Resources

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (mentioned above under The Extinction of Species), consists of a worldwide analysis of 24 ecosystem services (fresh water, capture fisheries, natural hazards and pests, air and water regulation, regional climate regulation, etc...).  Of these 24 ecosystems services, 15 (63 percent) were found to be either already degraded or presently being used unsustainably.  Among the consequences of this ravage of resources, will be the emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, the appearance of Adead zones@ along coasts, the collapse of fisheries, and shifts in regional climate.  Fresh water and capture fisheries are now well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future demands.  Deforestation and other ecosystem changes are likely to increase the prevalence of human pathogens, such as malaria and cholera.                                                           

 

Fresh Water: In 1999, about 10 percent of the global harvest was being produced using water supplies that were not being replenished.  In 2003, half of the world=s population B 3,150,000,000 people B lived in countries where water tables were falling and wells were drying up.  That year, 434,000,000 people faced water scarcity.                                                           

 

Fish: In 2002, 70 to 75 percent of all fisheries were being fished at or beyond sustainability, some to the point of collapse.  Between 1950 and 2000, the world stocks of the larger predatory species B including cod, halibut, tuna, swordfish and marlin B decreased by 90 percent. 

 

Land: World harvest has decreased from a peak of 339 kilograms per capita in 1984, to 308 kilograms per capita in 2004.  Worldwide, the area available for grain production has decreased from 0.568 acres in 1950, to 0.272 acres in 2004 B a reduction of 52 percent.  A third of the earth=s crop land is losing topsoil through erosion faster than new soil is forming.  In 2004, 135,000,000 people were threatened by desertification.  

 

 

 

 

The inability of the earth to sustain the present human population at its current rate of resource use, poses a threat to all of humanity.  However, the greatest share of the burden is already and will increasingly be born by those least equipped to control their circumstances B the defenseless and the poor: 

C                  In 1999, 2,800,000,000 people were living on less than $2 per day.

C                  In 2000, 2,400,000,000 people were without access to improved sanitation.(a)

C                  In 2000, 2,000,000,000 people were without electricity.

C                  In 2001, 1,700,000,000 people were living in countries facing water stress.(b)

C                  In 1999, 1,560,000,000 people were living in countries where more than half the population had no sustainable access to affordable essential drugs.

C                  In 2003, 1,100,000,000 people had no access to safe water.

C                  In 2001, 924,000,000 people were living in urban slums.

C                  In 2004, 800,000,000 people went hungry on any given day.

C                  In 2002, 641,000,000 people were living in countries in which life expectancy has decreased from 62 to 46 years during the past 20 years.

C                  In 2001, 467,300,000 people were living in countries where development, as measured by the United Nations human development index (HDI), had decreased during the past 10 years.(c)

C                  In 2001, 354,300,000 were living in countries in which the international debt was 25 percent of exports or more.

C                  In 2003, 135,000,000 people were threatened by desertification. 

C                  In 2002, 55,000,000 people were either infected with HIV or were AIDS orphans.

C                  In 2001, 40,000,000 people had been displaced from their homes.

C                  In the late 1990's, 27,000,000 people were slaves.                                        

 

Special Issues:

Inequality: In 2001, the average ecological footprint in the United States (288,000,000 people, 4.7 percent of the world population), was 2.0 acres per person.(d)   That same year, the average ecological footprint in Adeveloping@ countries (4,863,800,000 people, 79 percent of the world population), was 0.2 acres per person.  Such a 10:1 disparity, if continued, will add ferment to the revulsion of the Adeveloping@ world, as people realize that they may never have the amenities now taken for granted by the rich.

 

Oil: World oil extraction is probably at its peak as this is being written.  The end of oil may force the industrialized nations to come to terms with the limits of the earth=s resources, and it will decrease their ecological footprint.  But the end of oil will also increase the frustration of Adeveloping@ nations, as they realize that the bonanza of concentrated, cheap, flexible, versatile and easily transportable energy which has driven the industrialization of the now Adeveloped@ nations, will forever be out of their reach.  The prize will have been used up.  The shrinking supply of oil will add to the turmoil and convulsions of a world whose ecology is breaking down.

 

Women: Lloyd deMause has demonstrated the critical influence of women on the later need of their children to have enemies.  The present worldwide discrimination against women has an enormous influence on the well-being of the next generation.  Oppressed, powerless and resentful women are more likely to have children who harbor unassimilated anger and hence, who later rely on violence rather than negotiation to resolve conflicts.  Worldwide, the harm done to women is much more than the unjust inequalities encountered by white women in developed countries, such as a lower salary than men for the same work, and the Aglass ceiling@ preventing advancement.  Throughout the world, women are the victims of major atrocities, such as domestic violence, childhood incest, genital mutilation (clitoridectomy and infibulation), sexual slavery, Aforced prostitution,@ and rape as terrorism, as an instrument of war, and as torture.  In all countries, the human development index as defined by the United Nations, is lower for women than it is for men.                                       

 

Population Growth: We have to recognize that the planet cannot sustain the present world population at the current rate of resource use.  Much less can it sustain larger numbers of us, at our rate of resource use.  With the use of today=s technology, it would require two more planets like our Earth for the present world population to achieve the standard of living which now prevails in the United States.

 

The number of victims from an unplanned encounter with the limits of the earth=s ability to sustain life, is likely to be in the millions B if not billions.  The intensity of suffering is already high.  The duration of the harm is indeterminate.  In theory, the harm is containable and reversible.  The effects on subsequent generations include character deformation, lowered intelligence, and painful, shortened lives.

 

Characteristics of Contemporary Threats to Life on Earth

In his 2005 book, Signs of Danger B Waste, Trauma and Nuclear Threat, Peter van Wyck  identifies the characteristics of contemporary nuclear and ecological threats, and notes that the high number of threats and the newness of their characteristics, conspire to make the trends particularly resistant to appropriate human response.  While on the level of natural catastrophes, the threats originate from technological progress and thus are, if not known, then at least foreseeable B though one would be unlikely to know this from the daily messages of  manufacturers.  The trends are artificial in the sense that they are engendered by human activities. These are activities from which some benefit and to which many aspire.  The threats bring death to the individual (painful enough), but also bring a second, extremely painful death B the death of  ecology as we know it, the very cycles of life and death.  The trends present us with a Adiscontinuity@ in human affairs.  The future can no longer be projected from the past.                                                         

Modern threats differ from the risks which have accompanied our technology in the past.  Risks, such as of car accidents, for instance, are local, circumscribed and insurable, the costs calculated and distributed over the whole of a given population.  Contemporary threats overwhelm calculations of risk.  They are diffuse.  The harm is neither calculable nor the responsible party 


 

 

determinable.  The threats are insidious, with vague beginnings and indefinite ends.  They

are invasive, in the sense of being both trans-national and trans-generational.  And they are

mostly invisible (virtual) to the ordinary person not directly affected by them.  While approaching us at a vertiginous speed in terms of geological time, they are slow in terms of a human life span.  They are insufficiently traumatic to the powerful, who are in a decisive position to act, to move them into action.  Modern threats are numerous, interrelated and synergistic.  They converge to a point of immense suffering.  Their very number and unimaginable consequences paralyze one in disbelief.  Threats du jour lend themselves to political manipulation.  The magnitude of successive episodes of suffering may produce numbing, even in the well-intentioned.    

 

Present world threats make it clear that nature is now political.  Nature is no longer where or what we once thought it was.  We live in a world where nature exists at the discretion of humans.  The amount of radioactivity in the atmosphere and in space, the temperature of the earth, the number of glaciers, the number and kinds of species which live on earth, the genetic make-up of these species, the ability of oceans and rivers to sustain life, the size, shape and types of forests and wetlands B all now depend on human decisions.  Nature no longer exists Aout there.@  It is a contested, political subject.  Many disasters previously considered engendered by nature, such as floods, are now likely to be as much due to technology as to nature.

 

An Ethical Response

An ethical response to the impending atrocities predictable from contemporary threats to life, begins by making the effects of the threats real and palpable rather than virtual and invisible.  One concrete transformation which the threats produce now, before their actualization, is the trauma inflicted on those who are aware of them.  There is considerable anxiety and even dread about the future.  For the privileged, an accompanying guilt may increase recourse to denial.  Our trauma is the present, actual Aevent@ on which we can focus.  For to focus only on the actualization of the threats, is to focus on an event which will come too late for ethical action.  The call and response must occur now.  The difficulty of grasping the implications of the magnitude, uncontainability, irreversibility, synergism and convergence of present world trends, is the Aevent@ on which we can take ethical action now.                                                                                                                                                   

We must reduce the invisibility of nuclear and ecological threats by identifying, naming, understanding, classifying, and prioritizing them.  The challenge is to make the threats coherent, comprehensible and assimilable.  We should encourage affective and verbal reflection now.  We need to reassess our place within the biosphere that supports us.  Recognition of the insidiousness of the global threats and the trauma they are inflicting on us now, are the first steps toward a responsible and humble affirmation of the value of life as we know it.  The approach should be a psychoanalytic one, putting ourselves B the traumatized perpetrators B on the couch.   

 

 

 

Denial, Projection and Unconscious Assumptions

Global threats have been in public consciousness for between one and two generations: 

C                  The effects of radiation shocked the world in 1945.  Worldwide, at least 18 nuclear power reactors were built between 1955 and 1965.  The Three Mile Island accident in the United States occurred in 1979, and the much more serious Chernobyl accident in the USSR occurred in 1986. 

 

C                  The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), dedicated to climate research, was founded in 1970.  During that decade, public curiosity about climate turned into concern.  Anxiety rose markedly in 1988, after news media covered heavily a summer of record-setting heat waves and droughts.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established that same year. 

 

C                  In 1962, Rachel Carson=s influential book, Silent Spring, sparked the beginning of the environmental movement in the United States.  The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970.  In 1978, the Love Canal tragedy in New York state became the first hazardous waste contamination scandal to sear the public mind.  

 

C                  Frogs were first cloned in 1963.  In 1980, after a nine-year legal battle, the United States Supreme Court declared legal the patenting of genetically-modified life.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of bovine growth hormone (BGH) in 1992.  Dolly, the sheep, became the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, in 1997. 

 

C                  Paul Ehrlich=s best-seller, The Population Bomb, was published in 1968.  The Club of Rome, a group of professionals from five continents, published its landmark report, Limits to Growth, in 1972.  The Report was translated in 37 languages and sales eventually totaled 12,000,000.

 

Mothering, said Donald Winnicott, in 1965, does not have to be perfect, but it does need to reach a certain level of adequacy to produce psychological well-being and independence in the child.  Mothering has to be Agood enough.@  In the Winnicott sense, the human response to the major changes which have occurred in our relationship to the environment during the past 50 years has been inadequate.  Denial reigns.  We, particularly in the privileged countries, hold on to Aour way of life@ and still hope that science and technology will provide us with the necessary fixes.  Like the 7th century B.C.E. legendary King Midas, we are ecstatic when what we touch turns into gold, never pausing to anticipate the consequences of our feats.  It was only when his little daughter turned into a statue of gold B a commodity B that Midas begged to be relieved of his supernatural power.

 

The world is a Rorschach blot B a reflection of our own projections.  The magnitude of the forces at hand demands a commensurately deep analysis of the unconscious assumptions which have brought us to our present impasse.  Three examples will suffice.

 

The Great Chain of Being is a cultural model which places forms of being (forms of existence) on a vertical scale.  For instance, thoughts in humans are Ahigher@ than instincts in animals.  Animals are Ahigher@ than plants, and these in turn are Ahigher@ than inanimate substances.  The model is unconscious and influences many of our socio-political beliefs.  The denomination, AThird World,@ is a consequence of this world view whereby more powerful, industrialized nations are Ahigher@ on the scale than those which are Aunder-developed.@  But prokaryotic cells were the first organisms to learn how to live, and algae are primary producers of organic matter at the base of the food chain.  Are they really Alower@ than ourselves?  How can we Aforget@ that the AThird World@ has given us so many great religions B Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam and Judaism?

 

We conceptualize the nation metaphorically as a family, and in doing so, unconsciously extend to the nation our family-based morality.  If in our idealized family, the father has primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family in an inhospitable world, we may, on the national level, emphasize obedience to legitimate authority, reward and punishment, power, self-discipline and self-reliance.  We may see regulations, such as of the nuclear, oil, coal and genetic engineering industries, as interfering with the reward corporations deserve for their ability to be strong, enterprising and self-reliant.  We may see man=s domination of nature as natural.  If, on the other hand, in our idealized family, the two parents share responsibilities in a hospitable world, we may, on the national level, emphasize cooperation, empathy, fair distribution, equal rights and interdependence.  We may see regulations protecting citizens from possible harm as necessary.  We may see ourselves as the recipients of nature=s nurturance and hence be committed to sustainability.  Bringing these unconsciously held assumptions into awareness might cut across a number of issues and take the discourse closer to where we need it to be B Are the atrocities now in the making morally acceptable to us?                  

  


The Western quest for knowledge, analytic and objective to the core, has unseen violence built into it.  To know analytically is to reduce the object of knowledge B however vital and complex B to precisely this: an object.  In a tragic sense, this may be our final exploitation and a direct link to current world trends.  The dominance of our temporal, linear and logically-adept left brain hemisphere, may lead us to undervalue our more spatial, intuitive and holistically-adept right hemisphere.  In terms of the human trajectory, the development of rationality and science in the West, during the 16th century, is a very recent phenomenon.  Science has benefitted human life immensely.  But it does not thereby automatically follow that the controlled experiment is the only way to arrive at valid conclusions.  Science does not speak to the qualitative aspects of our experiences, the values we espouse, the meaning of life, or the bond we feel with the universe.   It does not vibrate with us as we experience the awe of realizing that we live in a home 15,000,000,000 light-years in diameter.  Rationality is founded on distinctions and can at best only grope toward wholeness.  Rooted in materialistic assumptions and procedures, Promethean science cannot accompany us when we apprehend the universe directly, all at once, as a unit.  It cannot remind us that our deep Self is an essential jewel in the celestial tapestry wherein each jewel reflects not only every other jewel, but also the reflections in every other jewel.  It cannot revel with us as we feel the sea in our veins, sense the skies= enveloping clothes, and walk proudly, crowned by the stars.  It is silent when we see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower.  It is mum when we exclaim, ABut there are no >others!=@  

 

What is today=s equivalent of Guernica?  In 1937, Pablo Picasso was able to portray the trauma of the inhabitants of that small Basque town as they experienced death being dropped from the skies for the first time in the history of Europe.  How would Picasso paint our present state of mind, as we are assailed by forces as disparate as the roar of a nuclear bomb and the silence of an extinct species?  

 

Not an Environmental Problem

What we have at present is not an environmental problem, a crisis of Anature.@  It is rather an institutional crisis.  In 1995, the German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, characterized the threats as:

AProduced industrially, externalized economically, individualized juridically, legitimized scientifically, and minimized politically.@

 

In 1992, before his death, French psychiatrist, Felix Guattari, explained the crisis thus:

AAll the bearings B economic, social, political, moral, traditional B break down one after the other.  It has become imperative to recast the axes of values, the fundamental finalities of human relations and productive activity.  The ecology of the virtual is thus just as pressing as ecologies of the visible world.@

 

As the world population encounters the limits of the earth=s ability to sustain life, all of the human species, but particularly we, who are in a position of privilege and power, have to find the courage within ourselves to come to grips with present-day threats B their indefinite, yet extreme parameters, and their diffuse yet enormous lethality.  We can minimize their impact, if we understand them and on the basis of that understanding, act now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       Note on Cardinal Numbers

 

*          Numbers: I have written out at full length all the cardinal numbers, no matter how many zeros, in order to impress on the reader the order of magnitude of the forces at hand.  It seems to me that this is lost if one only replaces one letter by another B billions too easily turn into millions.  For the same reason, I have given all weights in kilograms rather than going from tons to milligrams as tradition has it.  We need all the help we can get to grasp the nature of the threats so that we can assimilate them and then prioritize them.

 

                                                                     Definitions                    

 

(a)          Sanitation: The percentage of the population without access to improved sanitation facilities is the percentage without access to adequate excreta disposal facilities, such as a connection to a sewer or septic tank system, a pour-flush latrine, a simple pit latrine or a ventilated improved pit latrine.  An excreta disposal system is considered inadequate if it is public (that is, not private or shared) and if it cannot effectively prevent human, animal and insect contact with excreta (United Nations Development Programme 2003, 357).

 

(b)         Water Stress: Countries facing water stress are those consuming each year more than 20 percent of their renewable water supply (United Nations Development Programme 2003, 125).

 

(c)          Human Development Index (HDI): A composite measure of

Life expectancy at birth.

Adult literacy (2/3 weight) and combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (1/3 weight).                                              

Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) U.S. dollars.  Purchasing power parity is a rate of exchange which accounts for price differences across countries, thus allowing international comparisons of real output and incomes.  At the PPP US $ rate (as used in the UN Report), PPP US $1 has the same purchasing power in the domestic economy as $1 has in the United States (United Nations Development Programme 2003, 341 and 356).

 

(d)         Ecological Footprint: The amount of productive land needed to supply each person with food, water, energy, living space, commerce, transportation, and waste management.  It is composed of where food is grown, petroleum drawn, clothing manufactured, roads built, waste dumped, and public buildings raised (Wilson 1992/1999, xi). 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                            References and Notes           

 

Our biosphere is precious:

Living organisms are sparsely: Wilson 1992/1999, 35.                                              

If the world were the size: Wilson 1992/1999, 35.                                                                 Life, as represented by: Wilson 1992/1999, xiv.

 

Claudia Card, in her 2002 book: Card 2002, 3-7.

 

Card=s paradigm for her Theory: Card 2002, 8                                                                    

 

While atrocities as a whole cannot: Card 2002, 15-16.  I have not included three criteria offered by Card because they are inapplicable to present world threats.  Two are qualitative (the effects on one=s ability to function, for example, work; and the effects on the quality of one=s relationships with others).  World threats present us with issues of survival and put quality of life in abeyance.  The third is the possibility for compensation.  As the United States 1957 Price-Anderson Act acknowledges by capping the liability limits for accidents occurring at nuclear electric utilities, present world threats resist the ability to calculate a circumscribed damage and then spread the risk over a given population group (van Wyck 2005, 85).

 

Nuclear radiation has many of the characteristics:

In 2003, worldwide, the stockpile: Albright and Kramer 2004, 14-16; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 12.

The inhaled dose of plutonium: Dumas 1999, 86.

 

In addition, in 2001, worldwide:                               

The stockpile of depleted uranium: van der Keur 2001, 1.

In terms of radioactivity: Yagasaki 2003.  Professor Yagasaki estimated that  800,000 kilograms of DU were used in Afghanistan, and stated that this is the radioactivity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs.  The Nagasaki bomb equaled 22 kilotons of TNT while the Hiroshima bomb equaled 12.5 kilotons of TNT (Committee on Damage by Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1981; cited in Levine undated, 1-2).  Thus, the ratio between the two bombs of (22/12.5) = 1.76.  Therefore, 83,000 Nagasaki bombs are the equivalent of (83,000 x 1.76) = 146,080 Hiroshima bombs.  Every 1000 kilograms of DU deposited is the radioactivity equivalent of (146,080 / 800,000) x 1000 = 182.6 Hiroshima bombs.  Therefore, 1,017,900,000 kilograms of DU is the radioactivity equivalent of [(1,017,900,000 / 1000) x 182.6] = 185,868,540 Hiroshima bombs. 

 

 

 

 

 

To my knowledge, the number:

Testing: Moret 2004, 3.

The use of nuclear radiation in wars:

Bosnia: Moret 2003, 9.  Moret 2004, 8 and 12.

Montenegro and Southern Serbia: Bein and Parker 2003, 5 and 20-21.

Kosovo: Bein and Parker 2003, 5.  Moret 2003, 9.  Moret 2004, 8.

Macedonia: Johnson 2002, 7.

Afghanistan: Yagasaki 2003;  cited in International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan at Tokyo, 2004, Final Written Opinion of Judge Niloufer Bhagwat, March 10, 2004, 29 and 36-37; cited also in Phillips and Project Censored 2004, 50.  Uranium Medical Research Centre 2003a; cited in Phillips and Project Censored 2004, 49 and 149.  Uranium Medical Research Centre 2003b; cited in Phillips and Project Censored 2004, 52.  Bein and Parker 2003, 4.  Moret 2003, 10.  Moret 2004, 8 and 12.  International Criminal Tribunal 2004, 16 and 38-39.

Kuwait: Uranium Medical Research Centre undated, 4.

Iraq:

1991: Durakovik 2004, 38.  Uranium Medical Research Centre undated, 4.  Bein and Parker 2003, 4-5 and 23.  Moret 2003, 9.  Moret 2004, 8, 10, 12 and 16. Kettner 2004.                                                             

1992-2003 (No-fly Zones): Bein and Parker 2003, 4.                      

1998: Bein and Parker 2003, 4.

2003: Moret 2003, 10.  Moret 2004, 16.  International Criminal Tribunal 2004, 16.  Uranium Medical Research Centre 2003a; cited in Phillips and Project Censored 2004, 49 and 149.  Uranium Medical Research Centre  2003b; cited in Phillips and Project Censored 2004, 52.

 

Human error: Dumas 1999, 58, 60-61, 63 and 86.

Accidents: Dumas 1999, 89-93, 95-96 and 100-105.  van Wyck 2005, xx and 13-14.

Terrorism: Dumas 1999, 54-55.

 

Affected persons have a wide array:

Half-lives of plutonium, enriched uranium and deplete uranium: Uranium Medical Research Centre undated.  Columbia Encyclopedia 2000.

Age of the earth: Columbia Encyclopedia 2000.

Life on earth began: Wilson 1992/1999, 186.

 

The parameters of the harm:

Sudan: Farah 2003, 1. Smith 2005, 5.

Iraq: Roberts et al. 2004.

 

 

The atmospheric temperature:

Is now 0.6 degree Celsius: Rapley 2005.  Environmental News Service, 2004b; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005b, 40.  Gelbspan 2004, 33.

In the Antarctic: Rapley 2005. 

The rate of warming is increasing: Karl, Knight and Baker 2000; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 29.  Environmental News Service 2004b; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005b, 40.

Is predicted to be from 2 to 11 degrees: Allen 2005.                                                

Such warming will be accompanied: Gelbspan 2004, 6.                                           

By approximately 2040, the world=s forests: Cox et al. 2000; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 4.  Reuters News Service 2002; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 4.                                                     

 

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide: IPCC 2001; cited in Brown 2003, 95.  Worldwatch Institute 2005b, 40-41.  Gelbspan 2004, 31 and 160.              

Due to their absorption of carbon dioxide: Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2003; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 9 and 89.  New Scientist 2003; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 89.

Due to increased evaporation: Boston Globe 2003; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 91.     

Except for the North Atlantic: Curry, Dickson and Yashayaev 2003; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 59 and 91-92.                                                                 

On the average, the Arctic Ocean ice cover: NASA 2002; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 21.

Marine systems are collapsing: Independent 2003; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 7 and 65.     Harvell et al. 1999; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 65.   

Planetark.org.  2002; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 63.  Reuters News Service 2001; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 64-65.  World Wildlife Fund 1999; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 64.

 

On land:                                                                                 

Mosquitoes and ticks are expanding their habitats: Harvell et al. 2002; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 119.  Gelbspan 2004, 122.

Food crops are harmed: International Rice Research Institute 2004.  Ritter 2004.

Animals are shifting: Root et al. 2003; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 33.

 

In 2003, direct human victims of global warming                             

Numbered in the range of: Haines and Patz 2004, 99-103; reported in Reuters News Service 2003; cited in Worldwatch 2005a, 113; cited also in Gelbspan 2004, 122. 

Victims of rising sea levels:                           

The more than 40,000 of the Duke of York Islands: Independent 2000; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 145 and 171.

The 10,000 inhabitants of the Island of Tuvalu: Reuters News Service 2000; cited in Gelbspan 2004, 2 and 172. 

Within the next decades: Gelbspan 2004, 6.

Half the world=s population lives near coastlines: Gelbspan 2004, 21.

In these areas: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 124.

 

 

A species is a closed gene pool:                                                                                             

It consists of a population: Wilson 1992/1999, 38.

A conservative estimate: Wilson 1992/1999, xiv.

A reasonable estimate: Wilson 1992/1999, xiv.

The number of species which have been scientifically: Wilson 1992/1999, 134.

 

Species are becoming extinct:                        

At the rate of between one and ten percent: Wilson 1992/1999, xviii.

After each of the five previous greatest extinction: Wilson 1992/1999, xxii, 31, 189-191.

Since we depend on an abundance: Wilson 1992/1999,  xxiii, 14-15.

 

Life operates on 10 percent of the energy: Wilson, pp. 36 and 158.                         

 

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report reveals:

From 10 to 30 percent: Millenniumassessment.org 2005, 1-2.

In 2004, 41 percent of the 4,473 mammal: IUCN 2004; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005b, 86-87. 

 

Genetically-modified (GM) crops were first introduced:

For commercial production: Pew Initiative 2005, 2-3.

In 2003, the area planted: James 2005, 5.  Pew Initiative 2005, 1 and 3.                

Genetically-modified organisms threaten: Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 70; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 12.                                                                  

Health concerns abound:

Just to mention one example: Fitzsimmons 2004, 1-3.  Lean 2005, 1-2.                              Monsanto has refused: Lean 2005, 2.

 

Two years ago, in 2003, Monsanto began: Fitzsimmons 2004, 1-2.                                                                          

There have been numerous instances of the introduction: Kleiner 2005, 1-2.

 

The number of human victims from GM foods:

Genetic engineering is a giant: Lean 2004; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 71.

 

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (mentioned above): Millenniumassessment.org 2005, 1-2.

 

Fresh Water:                                                                           

In 1999, about 10 percent: Postel 1999, 80.

In 2003, half of the world=s population: Brown 2004b.

That year, 434,000,000 people: Population Action International 2003; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 62.

 

 

Fish:

In 2002, 70 to 75 percent of all fisheries: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization 2002, 23; cited in Brown 2003, 94; and Brown 2004a, 47-48.

 

Between 1950 and 2000: Myers and Worm 2003, 280-283; cited in Brown 2003, 94; and in Brown 2004a, 48.

 

Land:

World harvest has decreased: United States Department of Agriculture 2004; cited in Brown 2004a, 5.  United Nations 2003; cited in Brown 2004a, 22.

Worldwide, the area available: United States Department of Agriculture 2004; cited in Brown 2004a, 26-27.  United Nations 2003; cited in Brown 2004a, 22.

A third of the earth=s crop land is losing: Brown 2003, 43. (One third is the author=s estimate).

In 2004, 135,000,000 people: Environmental News Service 2004a;  cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 8.

 

The inability of the earth to sustain:

Less that $2 per day: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 41.  World Bank 2002, vi; cited in Worldwatch 2005a, 46.

Sanitation: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 103-104.

Electricity: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 126.

Water Stress: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 10 and 125.

Drugs: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 232-235 and 251-253.

Safe Water: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 103.                           

Slum Dwellers: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 127.

Hungry: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization 2003, 6 and 10-11; cited in Worldwatch 2005a, 7.  United Nations Development Programme 2003, 87-88.

Life Expectancy: United Nations 2003.  United Nations Development Programme 2004, 155.  Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 2002, 44; cited in Brown 2003, 5.  (The people in question are those living in sub-Saharan Africa and the principal cause of the decrease in life expectancy is the AIDS epidemic).

More AUndeveloped@: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 40, 242-244 and 251-253.                                                                                                                      

Debt: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 230-231.

Desertificaton: Environmental News Service 2004a; cited in Worldwatch Institute 2005a, 8.

HIV/AIDS: United Nations Development Programme 2003, 41.

Displaced: Phillips and Project Censored 2003, 77-79.                                             

Slaves: Bales 1999, 240.

 

 

 

 

Special Issues:

Inequality: Wilson 1992/1999, xi.  United Nations Development Programme 2003, 250-253.       

Oil: Heinberg 2003.   

Women:

Lloyd deMause has: deMause 1982.  deMause 2002.

Worldwide, the harm done: Card 2002, 23 and 96-165.

In all countries: United Nations Development Programme 2004, 217-220.

Population Growth: Wilson 1992/1999, xi.                                                   

 

In his 2005 book, Signs of Danger: Van Wyck 2005, 86, 99 and 118-119.                          

 

Modern threats differ from the risks: van Wyck 2005, xi-xii, xvi, xix, xxi, 13, 86-87, 91-92 and 102.

 

Present world threats make it clear that nature: van Wyck 2005, vi-vii and xix.                  

 

An ethical response to the impending atrocities: Van Wyck 2005, 101-102 and 114-115.

 

Global threats have been in public:

The effects of radiation: Dumas 1999, 21, 130,195 and 226.

The United States National Oceanic: Weart 2004a, 2-3.  Weart 2004b, 2-3.

In 1962, Rachel Carson=s:                                                                

Influential book: Carson 1962.  NRDC 1997, 1-3.

The first Earth Day: Weart 2004b, 2.

In 1978, the Love Canal: Gibbs 1998, 1-7.

Frogs were first cloned:                                             

In 1963: McKibben 2003, 12 and 15.

In 1980: Kimbrell 1997, 230-234.                 

The FDA: Kimbrell 1997, 163.

Dolly: McKibben 2003, xii and 12.

Paul Ehrlich=s:

Best-seller: Ehrlich 1968.

Club of Rome: Club of Rome 1972. Suter 1999, 1.

 

Mothering:

Said Winnicott: Winnicott 1965, 81-87.                                            

Like the 7th century: Campbell 1949/1968, 189-190.

 

 

                                                                                                                                   

The Great Chain of Being:

Is a cultural model: Lakoff and Turner 1989, 166-167 and 211.

But prokaryotic cells: Wilson 1992/1999, 36-37, 183, 186 and 189.

How can we Aforget@: Smith 1958/1994.                             

 

We conceptualize the nation: Lakoff 1996/2002, 6, 13, 31, 33-35, 108, 113, 153-156, 159, 169,  173 and 212-217.                                                                              

 

The Western quest:                                                    

For knowledge: Smith 1976/1992, 65, 125-126. 

In terms of the human: Oldmeadow 2004, 16-19.  Coomaraswamy 1979, 80; cited in Oldmeadow, 18.

Science does not speak: Smith 2001, 12, 37, 50-51, 54-55, 64, 71, 86, 97, 100, 146, 193,  197-199, 205, 213 and 231.  

It does not vibrate: Smith 2001, 34, 38 and 250.  Columbia Encyclopedia.

Rationality is founded: Smith 1976/1992, 66.

Rooted in materialistic: Oldmeadow 2004, 396-397.  Smith 1958/1994, 96.  Smith 2001, 263.  (The tapestry is Indra=s cosmic net in Buddhism).

It cannot revel with us: Traherne 1908; cited in Oldmeadow, 406.

It is silent when we see: Blake 1789; cited in Oldmeadow, 406.

It is mum when we exclaim: Suzuki (no date); cited in Pennington 1997, 133; and re-cited in Oldmeadow 2004, 383.

 

What is today=s equivalent of Guernica?: Picasso 1937.  Lindqvist 1999, 5 and 72-74.  Martin 2002.

 

What we have at present: Beck 1995, 2; cited in van Wyck 2005, 91.                                 

 

In 1992, before his death, French psychiatrist: Guattari 1992, 91.

 

 

 

 

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