Marine biologist Helen Scales returns for her third book with Bloomsbury’s popular science imprint Bloomsbury Sigma. After shells and fish, she now drags the reader down into the darkest depths of the deep sea. Both a beautifully written exploration of the ocean’s otherworldly wonders and a searing exposé of the many threats they face, The Brilliant Abyss is Scales’s most strident book to date.
The Brilliant Abyss: True Tales of Exploring the Deep Sea, Discovering Hidden Life and Selling the Seabed, written by Helen Scales, published in Europe by Bloomsbury Publishing in March 2021 (hardback, 352 pages)
Sir David Attenborough has probably said it best: “No one will protect what they do not care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced“. Both Scales and the publisher have taken that message to heart and the book is neatly designed. As with her previous book, illustrator Aaron John Gregory is involved again, this time providing two beautiful end plates and an eye-catching cover, while the colour plate section contains some outstanding photos. But at the heart of The Brilliant Abyss is Scales’s captivating writing.
First, consider the landscape. As she explains, the seabed, shaped by plate tectonics, is far from a featureless bathtub. Spreading centres create mid-ocean ridges, colossal mountain ranges that girdle the planet, while subduction zones where oceanic crust plunges back into the planet form deep-sea trenches of terrifying depths. The abyssal plain in between is studded with active or extinct underwater volcanoes that form seamounts of great import to marine life. Wherever magma approaches the surface, percolating seawater becomes superheated, rising back to the surface laden with dissolved minerals and metals. They form hydrothermal vents: towering structures that are home to unique fauna and are “the deep-sea equivalent of hot springs and geysers on land” (p. 97). Woven throughout is a history of scientific exploration, from the first oceanographic expeditions to today’s robotic submersibles, and from pioneering deep-sea explorers to today’s trench-diving billionaires.
Otherworldly as the landscape is, the real stars of this realm are its fauna. Scales’s knowledge and love of marine biology shine through here, as she populates the pages with a bewildering cast of creatures. Notable examples of bizarre deep-sea fishes are included, but she gives you so much more. Whale carcasses, so-called whale falls, become complete ecosystems, home to bone-eating Osedax worms with unusual sex lives. Large gelatinous members of the drifting plankton, such as colonial siphonophores and giant larvaceans, form previously underappreciated links in the food web. Hydrothermal vents are crowded with worms and furry Yeti crabs that domesticate symbiotic bacteria capable of chemosynthesis, the “dark alternative to photosynthesis” (p. 104). Meanwhile, one species of snail makes its shell out of iron! And then there are the corals. No, not the familiar tropical corals who “hog not only the sunlight but the limelight” (p. 129); the lesser-known cold-water corals that occur at great depths and grow even slower.
“[…] the real stars of this realm are its fauna […] whale falls become complete ecosystems, home to bone-eating Osedax worms with unusual sex lives. […] Meanwhile, one species of snail makes its shell out of iron!”
And if the intrinsic value of biodiversity does not sway you, Scales is no stranger to discussing the deep’s instrumental values. The capacity of seawater to absorb heat and carbon dioxide. The role of global oceanic currents in regulating our climate. Or the carbon pump provided by marine snow; the constant rain of dead plankton, fish poop, and other organic debris that descends into the depths. And what of the quest for new classes of biological compounds with antiviral, anti-bacterial, or anti-cancer properties that could form the pharmaceutical drugs and antibiotics of the future?
Two-thirds through the book Scales switches gears. Now that she has your attention, it is time to highlight the many dangers the deep faces. Deep-sea fishing targets long-lived, slow-growing species such as orange roughy. Vulnerable seamounts with millennia-old corals are destroyed by trawlers in a matter of hours. Meanwhile, the promise of food for everyone is not being met. Vast catch volumes are being turned into fish meal for aquaculture and pet food, or questionable nutraceuticals such as omega-3-oil supplements. And where Daniel Pauly already gave me reason to be suspicious of the Marine Stewardship Council, Scales lays bare their dubious raison d’être: funded by royalties from sales of their eco-labelled fish, there is an imperative to keep certifying fisheries. She calls their scandalous certification of the “recovering” orange roughy population a “case of a dead cat bouncing, with a green-washed eco-label tied to its collar” (p. 204).
Scales made me shudder with her stories of pollution, especially the persistent legacy of the large-scale dumping of chemical weapons. But the topic that concerns her most is the looming spectre of deep-sea mining. Though much is still on the drawing boards, mining licenses are being issued and exploratory missions are taking place. What for? The minerals and metals contained in seamounts, hydrothermal vents, and the polymetallic nodules littering the seabed, which take millions of years to form. As with fishing, “the slow pace of the deep is out of step with the timescale of impatient human demands” (p. 205). Here too, the position of the body that oversees protection of the seabed, the International Seabed Authority, is incredibly compromised. Next to issuing mining permits they unbelievably have already assigned areas to be exploited by their own mining company!
“To think that [deep-sea mining] will result in anything but the rapacious plundering of ecosystems we have seen on land seems highly unlikely in her eyes. Meanwhile, the mining PR-machine is already running at full tilt […]”
Scales’s focus on deep-sea mining is urgently needed. Scientists have been sounding alarm bells in the peer-reviewed literature regarding its impact, but this topic is still mostly hidden from the public at large. Her descriptions of the destructive practices and the size of the machines involved are chilling. To think that this will result in anything but the rapacious plundering of ecosystems we have seen on land seems highly unlikely in her eyes. Meanwhile, the mining PR-machine is already running at full tilt, and Scales deftly disarms their arguments as to why deep-sea mining is necessary. She agrees that the shift to renewable energy requires infrastructure that needs tremendous amounts of diverse metals. However, as a detour into the design of wind turbines shows, predicting which ones will be needed is difficult. And whether the seabed is the best place to get them is highly questionable.
Scales tackles many of the same topics that Alex Rogers covered in The Deep. Her tone is more strident but no less knowledgeable and, as opposed to The Deep, her book does include endnotes with references. I recommend them both highly. Meanwhile, her call “to declare the entire realm off limits [to] extraction of any kind” (p. 286) meshes seamlessly with Deborah Rowan Wright’s bold vision laid out in Future Sea.
Whether you enjoyed her previous books or are new to her brand of writing about marine biology, I urge you to read this book. Next to an unforgettable trip, she provides a rousing rallying cry for the preservation of the deep sea. The Brilliant Abyss is, true to its title, brilliant.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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In his book Half-Earth, the famous biologist E.O. Wilson proposed setting aside half of the planet’s surface for conservation purposes. Deborah Rowan Wright will do you one better; given how important they are for life on the planet, how about we completely protect the oceans. What, all of it? Yes, not half, all of it. We need a gestalt shift, from “default profit and exploitation to default care and respect” (p. 11). Such a bold proposal is likely to elicit disbelief and cynicism—”Impossible!”—and Wright has experienced plenty of that. But hear her out, for sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Future Sea is a surprisingly grounded, balanced, and knowledgeable argument that swayed me because, guess what, the oceans are already protected.
Future Sea: How to Rescue and Protect the World’s Oceans, written by Deborah Rowan Wright, published by The University of Chicago Press in November 2020 (hardback, 192 pages)
This was the book’s most surprising revelation, at least for me. Legally speaking, the oceans are already under full protection. Having worked on topics such as ocean governance reform and public-trust law, Wright is perfectly positioned to dig into law statutes and serve up the relevant sections to prove her point. Between the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS III), the 1992 Convention on Biodiversity, and a raft of other global codes and treaties, 96.5% of the Earth’s oceans are already legally protected from exploitation, pollution, and other miscreants. This is where Wright starts asking the first of a series of very simple, seemingly naïve questions, a strategy she repeats throughout the book. The laws are there, why are they not working?
Unfortunately, like so many other international laws, they are paper tigers that are not really enforced. We have no planetary government, if you will, that has the power to hold individual countries to account. And although countries can exert pressure on one another via high-level organisations such as the United Nations: “when it comes to the sea the weight of the upright majority isn’t available to force compliance because much of the upright majority is itself breaking the laws that protect it” (p. 22).
Of all the perils facing our oceans that Wright mentions—plastic pollution, deep-sea mining, marine aquaculture, climate change, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, ghost fishing—she focuses on overfishing. She explains that vital concept of shifting baseline syndrome: the creeping form of collective amnesia that makes each generation accept a progressively more degraded environment as the new normal. How industrial-scale overfishing came about, and how government subsidies are now keeping it afloat. And how many regulatory bodies such as Regional Fisheries Management Organizations seem set up to fail by focusing on profit rather than protection. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) is mentioned here as a particularly egregious example.
“[…] Wright starts asking the first of a series of very simple, seemingly naïve questions, a strategy she repeats throughout the book. The laws are there, why are they not working?”
However, as she clarifies early on, “Protection doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use something. It can also mean using something well” (p. 12–13). She is balanced enough in her argumentation to highlight that properly managed large-scale fisheries do not necessarily deplete fish populations (this was also an important theme of Ocean Recovery). Furthermore, the benefits of Marine Protected Areas and marine reserves have been well documented. Fish and other species can recover so quickly that even sceptical fishermen frequently become their staunchest defenders when their livelihoods improve again. Next to these top-down approaches, she discusses successful examples of community-based marine conservation, such as small-scale fisheries in Fiji and Palau.
Another important concept to understand is how the sea is divvied up. Every coastal country has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that extends for two hundred miles seawards where they have exclusive jurisdiction. Everything outside of that (64% of ocean surface, 95% of ocean volume) is the high seas. A global commons* that, on paper, should be a jointly owned resource set aside for public use. In reality, it is a lawless wild west where some of the most depraved excesses of human cruelty play out. Yet, where overfishing is concerned, it need not be so. Ecosystem-based management, which considers whole ecosystems with all their interdependencies, is all the rage nowadays. We already have an example of this strategy working on the high seas: the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which was initially negotiated to protect Antarctic krill.
So, how can Wright’s bold plan of protecting the oceans become reality, she asks? In short by modernizing, implementing, and enforcing the law. As she shows here, all three steps are already underway or can be achieved. Political inertia is great, however, and time is running out. So, how do you get governments to act now? As Adam Ansel once wrote in Playboy, horrified: “we have to fight our own government to save our environment” (p. 79). Recent years have seen unprecedented legal cases where citizens have taken governments to court for neglecting environmental laws. And won. We, the people, have to hold them accountable, for they do not have to live with the repercussions of their poor decisions. Wright pointedly observes of politicians and business leaders that: “They’re mostly wealthy men in their fifties, sixties, and seventies and will be dead before very long” (p. 84).
“[…] Wright [points] out the power of language in shaping our perception. Take that loaded term “ocean management” […] “we should be managing ourselves […] “Ocean management” then becomes “people management”“.”
At this point in the book I started shifting in my chair uneasily. As I have written elsewhere, I am frustrated with the environmental movement’s narrative that casts politics and business as evil overlords. These discussions are hollow, hypocritical even, if they do not also consider the question of self-limitation: what is each of us willing to forego and give up for a better world?
I was very pleased, therefore, that Wright fully acknowledges and embraces this ethos. Best of all, she discusses more than just token efforts such as “shop responsibly” and “avoid single-use plastics”, tackling the big topics such as dropping meat and dairy from your diet and, significantly, having fewer children (I am so pleased to see this becoming part of the mainstream conversation around environmental issues). On that note, one last noteworthy thing is how Wright takes a leaf from Eileen Crist’s Abundant Earth when it comes to pointing out the power of language in shaping our perception. Take that loaded term “ocean management”. Given that oceans have existed for billions of years before we appeared (and did just fine, thank you very much) “we should be managing ourselves […] “Ocean management” then becomes “people management”” (p. 97)
I admit that Wright’s initial brief raised my eyebrows. However, her even-handed treatment of the subject and her insights into environmental law quickly tempered my scepticism. The way forward proposed here will not be easy, and she never pretends it will be, but the urgency with which she makes her case is utterly convincing. Future Sea is a galvanising book.
* The term “commons” was made famous by ecologist Garrett Hardin’s 1968 Science paper The Tragedy of the Commons, though it need not be a tragedy, political economist Elinor Ostrom would later argue in Governing the Commons.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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The best way to introduce this book is to quote the first sentence of the blurb: “Techno-Fix challenges the pervasive belief that technological innovation will save us from the dire consequences of the 300-year fossil-fuelled binge known as modern industrial civilization“. Stinging, provocative, and radical, Techno-Fix puts its fingers on many a sore spot with its searing critique.
Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, written by Michael Huesemann and Joyce Huesemann, published by New Society Publishers in September 2011 (paperback, 435 pages)
You might ask why, in 2021, I would bother reviewing a book published ten years ago. Both for the prosaic reason that I have had this book for some years without reading it, and because I am working on a little something that I cannot divulge yet. Plus, as it turns out, because this book is still relevant despite having been published in 2011.
The Huesemanns, Michael a biotechnologist with an interest in sustainability, Joyce an academic and activist, pull no punches in Techno-Fix. Our technology has brought us tremendous affluence and a world population growth spurt, but it also has unintended consequences that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. Some examples discussed here are climate change resulting from the generation of energy, the unknown effects of most synthetic chemicals, the pollution accompanying industrial activities, or the way the introduction of the car reshaped the world.
Even more outspoken is their statement that most technology is exploitative, abusing ecosystems, animals, and other humans. The industrial and globalised nature of much technology blunts us to this by creating distance in either space or time between exploiter and exploited. Do you know where your stuff comes from and who made it? Do you have a care for the planet your grandchildren will inherit? With the same fury that would later characterise Abundant Earth, the authors speak of the human domination of nature and the brainwashing by television and other mass media. The frequent references to TV might seem outdated given how online social media has ballooned in the last decade, but it has arguably not changed the beast much. And where free-market trade does not get us the needed resources, “high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.
“”high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.”
Surely, new technology can fix the problems old technology created? To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies such as geo-engineering schemes are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences. Furthermore, they write, efficiency gains (e.g. dematerialisation) have their limits and are often followed by increased consumption, a phenomenon known as the Jevons paradox. Ironically, despite increased affluence in the developed world, psychological research shows that happiness and well-being have not increased. Instead, we are stuck on a hedonic treadmill, furiously desiring ever more. The profit motive behind most technological developments results in solutions that benefit corporations and their shareholders, not the public at large.
Since these drawbacks are known, why does the belief in technological progress persist? The authors draw parallels between religious faith and techno-optimism, with the latter rising as the former waned. Furthermore, seemingly objective practices such as risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses are skewed towards continued technological development, downplaying or neglecting externalized costs. Finally, they take serious issue with the uncritical acceptance of new technologies due to the widespread belief that progress is inevitable and that technology is value-neutral, i.e. just a tool that can be used for good or evil.
Up to this point, much of what they write resonates with me, but I found their proposed solutions a mixed bag, strongly disagreeing with some of it. Since we cannot hex our way out of our problems with more technology, we need, I agree, a paradigm shift. They draw an interesting parallel with Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Just as scientific dogmas disappear not because minds are changed but because the old guard dies, future generations will change the way we live. Current generations will, by and large, be too set in their ways, too unwilling to give up their affluence. Plus, expect pushback from industries and corporations that stand to lose the most.
“To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies […] are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences.”
I think it should be stressed at this point that the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly. To avoid stepping off the Seneca Cliff into wholesale collapse, they envision a transition to a steady-state economy that acknowledges planetary boundaries (some Planetary Accounting might help) and practises long-term sustainability.
The latter would require three things. First, 100% renewable energy generation. This, they admit, brings its own share of problems, one of which they remarkably do not even mention: the need for a vast infrastructure constructed from non-renewable materials. Speaking of which, second, we need to use renewable resources exclusively and phase out non-renewable resources, or fully recycle them where this is not possible. Other than the difficulties—if not impossibility—of finding replacements for most non-renewable resources (including basic ones such as all metals), they pass over the fact that materials cannot be endlessly recycled, requiring a constant input of virgin material. Third, waste can only be discharged at rates than can be assimilated by ecosystems, and those that cannot be biodegraded (read: most synthetic chemicals) should be discontinued. They acknowledge that, clearly, this would require a sea change in our attitudes: a society that embraces self-limitation rather than unfettered abundance. All of this is necessary, I agree, but it also seems almost unimaginable. If the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed one thing, it is how willingly people will relinquish liberties and accept restrictions imposed upon them.
There were a further three issues raised here that I mildly to strongly disagree with. First, they are justifiedly very critical of the corruption of medicine by the so-called medico-industrial complex, specifically pharmaceutical companies. Rather, we should focus on prevention and lifestyle changes (sure), accept the inevitability of death (agreed), and embrace holistic medicine (hmmm). Once they start talking of the power of placebo effects and the body’s innate ability to heal itself I become a bit uneasy. There is a kernel of truth in there but, in my opinion, you are at the top of the slide that reads “pseudoscience this way”. Second, they appear to contradict themselves by stressing the importance of efficiency in saving precious resources but also wanting things to go small-scale and local again, holding up organic agriculture as a shining example (something of which I am sceptical). You cannot have it both ways, we scale up production processes for more than just profitability. Third, they surprisingly really have it in for genetic engineering. Other than completely ignoring the pervasiveness of horizontal gene transfer (one could say nature invented genetic modification billions of years before we did), they are unwilling to acknowledge it will be one of the necessary tools to keep feeding the world, deal with the impact of climate change on crops, or that we can take the best of both approaches.
“the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly.”
The Huesemanns acknowledge human overpopulation at several points: “More people generally translate into more problems” (p. 44) and unless “the size of the human population [is] stabilized and reduced, and the materialistic consumer lifestyle largely abandoned, there is little chance that our environmental problems will be solved” (p. 83). This is more than most authors do. Shame, then, that they do not dedicate a chapter to the thorny questions of whether we should control world population, what population size is optimal for the planet, and how many children to have (if any).
Instead, their last chapter felt to me like barking up the wrong tree. It calls for “critical science” (sensu Ravetz), which would stand in opposition to current scientific practice. Scientists need to take responsibility for their work, refuse dubious research financed by corporations, and abandon the excuse that they are not responsible for the end-uses. These are some really good points, but to put the onus almost completely on scientists struck me as, frankly, ridiculous. Some of their claims here really irked me. People choose this profession because of the relatively good income? Or the claim on page 329 that scientists and engineers do not really mind that problems are not solved as it guarantees their long-term employment? I normally hear a related version of that argument from climate-change deniers. I do not know what planet the authors live on, but my personal experience in academia showed me a world where you routinely work 60 to 80 hours a week on grant money or (if you are really lucky) a 40-hour contract while chasing short-term projects (known as PhD and postdoc positions) well into your forties before having a shot at a permanent position. When conditions are this exploitative it is no wonder many choose the job security and decent income offered by companies. If you want to keep scientists out of the clutches of well-paid corporate jobs and have them act as whistle-blowers you will have to properly reward and protect them, something only briefly acknowledged here.
In light of my criticism, would I recommend Techno-Fix? Yes, there is much I thoroughly agree with here. I applaud the authors for tabling controversial ideas and challenging readers with probing questions and assignments in an appendix. Furthermore, the book is thoroughly researched and annotated, very readable (including regular, useful summaries), and still relevant.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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Despite its purposefully provocative title, Limits is not a pro-growth book that panders to the illusion of endless economic growth. Starting with a thought-provoking re-reading of Malthus, ecological economist and political ecologist Giorgos Kallis examines how his ideas have influenced economics and have been misinterpreted by environmentalists, before ending with a call to collective self-limitation. Along the way, there is a healthy dollop of reflection and pre-emptive defence of his arguments. Though I have some points of criticism, Limits by and large concisely formulates ideas that I have found myself gravitating towards more and more lately.
Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care, written by Giorgos Kallis, published by Stanford University Press in August 2019 (paperback, 168 pages)
Despite having reviewed both the 1803 edition of Malthus’s essay and Mayhew’s biography, Kallis’s take on his work was an eye-opener for me. I can see at least three reasons why we continue to disagree over how best to interpret classical authors such as Malthus: concepts, aims, and language.
Malthus is best remembered for his argument that, if left unchecked, population growth would outstrip food supply. What he is not remembered for is his pro-growth attitude. He believed that food production could expand without limit. What hat he pulled that absurd assumption out of is another question, but the point that Kallis makes is that the concept of economic growth we think of today did not exist in Malthus’s time.
On the other side, neo-Malthusians have drawn on his work to argue for birth control, and to warn of resource exploitation and population overshoot. But birth control was something he never advocated, seeing it as one of the “species of misery or vice”. Malthus had different aims. Writes Kallis: “Remember, Malthus was not a demographer; he was a priest and a philosopher arguing for the impossibility of a classless society” (p. 23), and “Malthus was not an advocate of limits, but someone who invoked the specter of limit to justify inequality and call for growth” (p. 16).
Add Malthus’s flowery and verbose prose that is often ambiguous, and you can see why we still argue over his words. For example, a popular critique of Malthus today is that he did not foresee technical and scientific developments that led to e.g. the Green Revolution. But, Kenneth Binnmore’s contribution to the Yale reprint of the essay also points out that upon careful reading you find that he made allowance for future technological developments.
“Malthus is best remembered for his argument that, if left unchecked, population growth would outstrip food supply. What he is not remembered for is his pro-growth attitude.”
Both economists and environmentalists get Malthus wrong, claims Kallis here. In his opinion, Malthus was wrong because he could not or did not want to entertain the idea that we could voluntarily limit our numbers and still be happy. Or, to put it more explicitly, that recreational sex is an option.
There is another principle that has gone almost unremarked in discussions of his work, writes Kallis. By observing that population had the potential to grow much faster than food supply, Malthus introduced the concept of scarcity. And without realising it, many environmentalists have embodied this concept. For them, limits are external, our environment is precious and scarce. Calls for limits to growth seem driven more by a desire to stave off collapse than a desire to change how we behave. Bar radical fringes, mainstream environmentalism is still framed in terms of growth; think of self-contradictory concepts such as “green growth” or “sustainable development”. Environmentalists seem to think that if only we do this right, we can keep this show on the road. Rarely do they have the timefulness and deep time reckoning to extrapolate their forecasts beyond the immediate future and ask “sure, but for how long?”
Kallis puts his finger on a sore spot when writing that: “Our world is limited because our wants are unlimited” (p. 35). As he clarifies, the aim of this book is not to continue the debate over the when and how of growth and collapse, but to question the debate’s framing. Yes, Kallis acknowledges, there are hard limits out there, but many are a matter of choice (take for instance the widely adopted aim to limit the rise in global warming to 1.5°C). This might seem mere semantics, but, as highlighted in Abundant Earth, language powerfully shapes our perception. By talking of nature as being limited we conveniently side-step discussing how we should change our behaviour: nature is the problem, not us. He then proceeds to give five very good reasons why this narrative is dangerous and counterproductive. The remainder of Limits is a call for practising and reclaiming a culture of self-limitation, taking the Ancient Greeks as an example of a culture that did so, as well as some pre-emptive responses to criticism of his argument.
“By talking of nature as being limited we conveniently side-step discussing how we should change our behaviour: nature is the problem, not us.”
Especially the second half of Limits articulates ideas I have found myself gravitating towards more and more. My problem with much environmentalist discourse is the clamour to “do something” without ever going a step further and taking responsibility for our problems by asking “what are we willing to sacrifice?” Or, seeing I just said that language shapes our perception, maybe we should think of them as adjustments. In that sense, I disagree with Kallis’s criticism of the ecological footprint and planetary boundary concepts. He writes that they perpetuate the idea of external limits being the problem. That may be. But I think they are helpful to quantify the necessary behavioural adjustments and make explicit what a culture of self-limitation would actually look like. Planetary Accounting, which I review next, explores this idea much further. My hope is that quantification will bring about more meaningful action. My fear is that we will not like what we hear and rebel. But, as Kallis pleads in defence of self-limitation: “the truth or ethical value of an argument does not rest on whether it is politically correct or viable” (p. 101).
Although I was impressed overall with the thought-provoking arguments put forward in Limits, I am going to call Kallis out on a few things. How radically do we have to reimagine our way of living to make this self-limitation possible and what would the consequences be? Probably there was not the space to explore this here and I should turn to his other books about degrowth. But the bigger miss, especially in a book that discusses Malthus, is to not bring up overpopulation. If we are talking about practising self-limitation, the questions of whether we should control world population, what population size is optimal for the planet, and how many children to have (if any) are the big ones.
Whether you are interested in Malthus, growth and its limits, or issues of sustainability, I recommend Limits as a pleasantly concise and thought-provoking book that is sure to stimulate discussion.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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]]>Climate change, pollution, habitat fragmentation, species extinction – there is no shortage of daily press coverage of the slow-motion collapse of our planetary ecosystem. So why are we barely acting? In this radical and thought-provoking book, sociologist Eileen Crist eloquently lays out the familiar causes. More importantly, she exposes and calls out the dominant anthropocentric mindset that is keeping us on the runaway train to destruction. There is another way, she contends, but will it find mainstream acceptance?
Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization, written by Eileen Crist, published by the University of Chicago Press in February 2019 (paperback, 307 pages)
Though not fuming with the misanthropic rage of Nicholas Money’s The Selfish Ape, Crist’s book is nonetheless a pointed and furious cross-examination of anthropocentrism. Something she rather calls a human supremacy complex driving relentless expansionism. What we are doing to the planet is nothing short of terraforming on a totalitarian scale, she writes. Wildlife is under systemic assault, its freedom obliterated and constricted. What you quaintly call fishing is a regime of plunder. Our actions are best described as colonization, domination, slaughter, destruction, genocide, annihilation, a biological holocaust – in short, violence in many guises. I could go on – and the book provides many, many quotable passages – but I think I made my point.
One of the book’s main themes is the power of language in shaping our thoughts and actions. Our very perception of the world – to the exclusion of other modes of thinking. Crist purposefully uses emotive language – not to shock, but to expose how anodyne descriptions normalize our actions. And, she emphatically says, there is nothing normal about deforestation, overfishing, industrial agriculture, or mountaintop removal mining. We commodify nature by speaking of natural resources, ecosystem services, or fish stocks (also a humbug of Daniel Pauly). “Repurposing Earth as humanity’s resource colony” thus becomes an acceptable course of action, nay, our god-given right. As quotes from historical sources show, the ideas of “taming nature” and “progress” go back millennia. It also conveniently glosses over the death and destruction involved.
Ironically, though Crist is lyrical in her descriptions, she does occasionally go overboard on the academic sociology-speak. To write that “the relationship between people and nature is always shaped by ideational-actionable constructs”, or that it is “within the horizons of our imaginative-pragmatic capacity that we may become a people who abdicate human empire instead of struggling to ensconce it and clean up its self-endangering corollaries” are verbose and not helpful in transmitting her important message to a wider audience.
“What we are doing to the planet is nothing short of terraforming on a totalitarian scale.”
Next to providing an overview of our planetary crisis, the first part of the book criticizes technological fixes and the oxymoron of sustainable development, both of which seek to find solutions within the existing framework of perpetual growth. These two philosophies have a long history of clashing with each other. My big bug-bear with both is that nobody ever seems to ask the question: “Even if we manage to keep this show on the road for another century, where will that leave us? What will be left of our planet? And will people still not want more?”
The second part of the book turns to three discursive knots holding back even the environmental movement. In other words, she debunks three commonly heard refrains. One, that our impact and actions are natural, and that we have a long history of such behaviour. This is often propped up with Paul Martin’s Pleistocene overkill hypothesis. Two, that the idea of wilderness is defunct because there is no true wilderness left anymore anyway. Three, that our actions are (supposedly) spreading freedom to humans around the globe. If, to quote my favourite blogger Mark Manson, that freedom means “more brands of cereal to choose from, or more beach vacations to take selfies on, or more satellite channels to fall asleep to”, then “maybe what we want sucks”. #FakeFreedom. And, adds Crist, spreading this “freedom” requires us to destroy yet more of our natural environment.
Many books are lamenting our current predicament. Complaining is easy. Whether they are actually worth reading stands or falls on their proposed solutions. This brings us to the book’s third and final part: Crist’s call for scaling down and pulling back. Her insights into the worldview-constricting power of language were reason enough for me to give her one thumb up. Here is where the second thumb comes up. She head-on confronts overpopulation, calling it *the* big multiplier when considering the environmental impact of everything we do, and urging readers that we *have to* break the silence around this final taboo. Long-time readers of this blog will know my thoughts on this. For others, I will just leave you with my review of Should We Control World Population? and references therein. (My answer, by the way, is “Yes!”)
“Scaling down means not just curbing population growth but actively depopulating. […] a ball-park figure for optimum population size is two billion”
Scaling down means not just curbing population growth but actively depopulating. If we want to give all humans a fair and healthy standard of living without it costing the planet, a ball-park figure for optimum population size is two billion (see also A Planet of 3 Billion – the exact number will depend on what you plug into your equations). Crist sees the empowerment of women, and the universal availability of contraception and family planning as the only solution. We have good evidence that this works. (Though, hey, what about men? Who is getting all these women pregnant? Yes, she remarks that “patriarchy needs to be fast-tracked out of existence”, but it is made almost as an afterthought.) She adds that past, more radical solutions, such as forced sterilisation or China’s draconic one-child policy, are examples of how not to do it. Although I agree that this is the only palatable solution (and still a hard one to sell), I do always worry it will be too little, too late.
The pulling back part is where the book’s subtitle, Towards an Ecological Civilization, comes into play. I do think that much of what she writes here, interspersed as it is with frequent quotes from historical naturalists and radical environmental thinkers, becomes a bit woolly and does not offer a particularly actionable blueprint. Furthermore, Crist seems to draw a lot on Native American worldviews on how to relate to the world. For me, her talk of reconnecting with nature and honouring our relationship with the earth goes into cringeworthy spiritualism territory, but you may call me prejudiced. At least we both agree it will beat our current modus operandi.
To wit, to get towards an ecological civilization, Crist suggests, amongst others, to curb overconsumption, have fewer or no children, decentralize our economies, reduce global trade, stop eating meat, and pursue rewilding efforts on a planetary scale. Basically, we need to reset our thinking on what makes a good life and foster decency, virtue, and restraint.
“[…] the notion of our language shaping our perception is one of those “what has been seen cannot be unseen” ideas. When you pay attention to it you realise just how habitually we all […] speak of nature as a mere larder. “
She also pushes for a switch to organic farming. Now, I’ll be the first amongst the detractors to flag up the ongoing debate on whether or not there is a yield gap (see also Lynas’s excellent piece Organic farming can feed the world — until you read the small print). Pleasingly, Crist is realistic enough to add that overhauling our current agricultural system, geared as it is towards merciless efficiency, has unavoidable consequences for human population size.
To be clear, Crist does not advocate retreating to the caves, overthrowing civilization, and rejecting all modern technology. But what can stay and what should go? She remains vague on the particulars, adding in her epilogue that “it is impossible to foresee what such a civilization will look like; that will be a work in progress for future generations to shape”. Calling this a cop-out would be too easy, her book makes crystal clear that our current approach – where destruction is a feature, not a bug – is broken. But transitioning or reforming our economic system to deal with a shrinking population is a tall order, and that is but one challenge these ideas raise upon further reflection. The devil will be in the implementational details, so it remains to be seen if this is blue-sky thinking or not.
Despite some minor personal gripes, Abundant Earth is a very powerful book that will hopefully become influential. I especially found the notion of our language shaping our perception one of those “what has been seen cannot be unseen” ideas. When you pay attention to it you realise just how habitually we all (environmentalists included!) speak of nature as a mere larder. Will Crist’s radical ideas go mainstream? Time will tell. But as an eye-opening book and conversation starter, this one comes highly recommended.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
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“Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things“, written by Elizabeth R. DeSombre, published by Oxford University Press in June 2018 (hardback, 252 pages)
There is a paradox at the heart of this book that DeSombre immediately lays bare. She focuses on how individual behaviour creates global environmental problems, yet she does not believe that change by individuals is the solution. Listicles with “ten simple things you can do to save the planet” are not going to cut it. The reason, then, for her focus is that it reveals what the constraints are to behaving in environmentally friendlier ways. But changing individual minds, the way many activists are trying to do, is grossly inefficient. The efficient thing to do, DeSombre argues, is to make systemic changes at the level of institutions, infrastructure, and regulations.
The thing with environmental problems, DeSombre says, is that nobody consciously sets out to cause them. They are so-called externalities: unintended and unpriced consequences that happen while we do something else. And the reason for that is that the political and economic structures of today were not developed with the environment in mind. Additional aspects that make them hard to tackle are that they often affect people far away from us in place or time (read: future generations). And that they often take the shape of “tragedies of the commons” – they affect communal resources that are hard to fence off, hard to police, and vulnerable to free-riders that choose to exploit them anyway (e.g. fish in the open ocean).
Changing the system is hard, and it will only happen is there is enough of a push for it. The bulk of the book considers four approaches to changing behaviour as a prelude to systemic changes, looking at incentives, information, habits, and norms. In the process, DeSombre surveys research from a range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, economics, and political sciences. All of this verbiage may sound daunting, but what struck me is how understandable the book is. Explanations of research and easy-to-grasp examples are given at every turn, and the structure of her arguments and chapter summaries make this a very clear book.
“[…] the political and economic structures of today were not developed with the environment in mind.”
DeSombre points out many interesting caveats regarding her four approaches. As things stand, doing the environmentally right thing is often harder or costlier. There is often no incentive, no encouragement to behave in the right way. Incentives sometimes even point the opposite way, e.g. government subsidies resulting in overfishing (see my reviews of Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries and All the Boats on the Ocean: How Government Subsidies Led to Global Overfishing). Unfortunately, it is not as simple as making the environmentally right thing easier, quicker, or cheaper. DeSombre argues that people like rewards but respond better to punishments, removing existing subsidies is hard, incentives do not encourage voluntary cooperation, and there is the risk of a rebound effect: money or energy saved through efficiency gains will often be used for other environmentally damaging activities. But at least incentivizing people can get everyone on board, even those who do not have time or resources to normally prioritize the environment.
Though a lack of knowledge is problematic, information is overrated – solving environmental problems is not simply a matter of educating people more, as many activists hope. Frightening people into action rarely works (see my somewhat sceptical review of The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future). DeSombre discusses caveats of options such as feedback, prompts (reminders to e.g. recycle), and labels and certification. An example of useful information is showing people how to do things (e.g. recycling). But people are not necessarily good with information. We suffer from cognitive biases, underestimate risks, and get defensive or deny things that run counter to our worldview (see also Climate Psychology: On Indifference to Disaster).
Another reason we ignore information are our habits and routines, whether as individuals or institutions. They, too, are often formed without considering the environment and are notoriously hard to change. But this can be used against them. DeSombre cites the success stories of organ donation and retirement savings as examples that removing choice by making certain options the default is very effective.
“Social norms can be very powerful […] We care what other people think of us.”
Our attitudes, values, and identities are formed early in life and quite stable, so DeSombre is not sure they are the best route to changing people’s behaviour. Changing them is useful, but doing so is playing the long game (see also Navigating Environmental Attitudes). Social norms, however, can be very powerful (see also Who Rules the Earth? How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives). I was very much reminded of what Mark Manson writes in Everything Is Fucked: A Book About Hope – it is easy to forget that the world does not run on facts but on emotions. We care what other people think of us.
Some of DeSombre’s repeatedly mentioned examples seem rather marginal (taking your own mug to the coffee shop, separating waste for recycling). That is not really going to contribute much, is it? Technological and economic developments have ratcheted Western expectations and lifestyles to levels of unnecessary comforts and choices. Rather than meeting these in more environmentally friendly ways, what about the hard choices? Not doing things in the first place, consuming less, or (my favourite talking point and the reason I am no longer invited to parties) deciding not to have children? How would you apply these approaches there?
“DeSombre’s pragmatic conclusion is that people’s environmental concern need not be the driving factor behind their environmentally-friendly behaviour”
To her credit, DeSombre’s final chapter ties things nicely together and it is here, while giving examples of day-to-day behaviours that could be improved, she touches on these deeper issues. For instance, she points out how addressing the problem of household waste would be best achieved by consuming less to begin with, which means addressing the logic of capitalism with its constant push for replacing of items and increasing consumption. These are big changes that will not happen quickly so it is sensible to focus on the more immediately feasible steps first.
Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things is a book that will get you thinking and there are valuable lessons in here for the activist community. She concludes that, of course, you should care about the environment. But to really make a difference we need to include everyone, even those who do not care. Environmental concern should not be required for environmentally-friendly behaviour. This might surprise some, but it is a conclusion that I find as ballsy as I find it pragmatic.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
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“The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future“, written by David Wallace-Wells, published in Europe by Allen Lane in February 2019 (hardback, 310 pages)
The Uninhabitable Earth expands on the essay published in New York magazine in July 2017. The piece quickly attracted criticism from climate scientists for being rather cavalier with its facts. Amidst the many responses, a useful summary is the piece published by science education NGO Climate Feedback in which 17 prominent climate scientists evaluated the essay. To its credit, New York magazine was quick to publish an annotated edition.
The near future sketched in the first half of The Uninhabitable Earth is one of a planet tortured by epic wildfires, rising sea levels, megadroughts, famines, acidifying oceans, polluted air, and rising temperatures amidst which hundreds of millions of climate refugees wander a planet in the throes of collapsing economies and emerging conflicts. In short, Wallace-Wells would like you to know that, unless urgent action is undertaken to combat climate change, we are all royally fucked.
He is not the first to sound a desperate alarm, and his book joins a budding subgenre that some critics disparagingly label “climate porn”. James Hansen, the well-known climate scientist who has chastised colleagues for not speaking up out of fear of being labeled alarmist, has done so before (see Storms of my Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity), while others have declared the fight over (see Too Late: How We Lost the Battle with Climate Change or Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed – and What It Means for Our Future). Some climate scientists are annoyed by what they perceive as scaremongering, arguing that frightening people will result in fatalism rather than galvanizing them. I guess people will respond in different ways, and recent climate protests suggest that his approach certainly works for some. Either way, Wallace-Wells does not mind being called alarmist, his (touché) defence is that he is alarmed, and you should be too.
“[…] Wallace-Wells would like you to know that, unless urgent action is undertaken to combat climate change, we are all royally fucked.”
Now, Wallace-Wells openly states he calls on predictions, on science that is in flux as new findings come to light. Even if he gets some of the details wrong, the overall pattern is pretty clear. As I have written elsewhere (see my reviews of The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions and The Oceans: A Deep History), the findings from palaeoclimatology leave little doubt as to what happens when you keep pumping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The author brings together many poignant observations. Global warming is not a moral and economic debt that has been accumulating since the Industrial Revolution – about half of all fossil fuels have been burned in only the last three decades. And our epoch could very well be a blip on the timeline, the result of a gigantic one-off injection of fossil fuel into our economy, allowing us to live in a temporary mirage of “endless and on-demand abundance for the world’s wealthy” (I told you he was poetic).
“[…] our epoch could very well be a blip on the timeline, the result of a gigantic one-off injection of fossil fuel into our economy”
The Uninhabitable Earth is not a book of solutions though, and Wallace-Wells spends a good part of the second half of the book railing against what he thinks will not work. Against the hallucinatory fantasies of Silicon Valley who hope to escape into a virtual reality, uploading their consciousness into computers. Against as-of-yet hypothetical technofixes such as carbon capture and storage or negative emissions technology. Against ecological nihilism by burned-out environmentalists such as Paul Kingsnorth (see Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist). If you want practical advice, you are better off reading There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years.
The Dutchman in me can appreciate his in-your-face polemic style. This is why I am surprised he overlooks one vital aspect: overpopulation. As soon as this topic comes up, Wallace-Wells seems blindsided. Part of him is excited for his daughter and the world she will inhabit, one which will be “doing battle with a genuinely existential threat”. This seems mildly perverse given the litany of terrors he lays out in this book. And those who abstain from having children over their concerns for a world ravaged by climate change “demonstrate a strain of strange ascetic pride”.
“For a book that prides itself on its fierce frankness, not addressing overpopulation feels like a serious omission.”
One problem I have with this line of argumentation, that our lifestyle and economy are wrecking the planet, is that it ignores numbers. Yes, our ancestors were not despoiling the planet, but I would argue it was not for want of trying, but for want of numbers. Now, I have no data to back this assertion up with, so I am going out on a limb here, but how much damage do you think a population of 7 billion stone age hunter-gatherers would have inflicted on the planet? Or 7 billion people trying their hand at farming some ten thousand years ago? I would not at all be surprised that if you work out the numbers, the reason our ancestors did not bring about climate change has more to do with their lack of numbers than with a lack of impact of their lifestyle.
And Wallace-Wells comes so close when he observes that most emissions have only happened in the last three decades. Could it be that the doubling of our world population has something to do with this? For a book that prides itself on its fierce frankness, not addressing overpopulation feels like a serious omission. It is a thorny topic (see my review of Should We Control World Population?), but if you want to talk solutions, addressing it should be a vital part of a multi-pronged approach he envisions to avoid the bleak future sketched here.
The Uninhabitable Earth is lyrical and stirring, but also controversial and not without its flaws. Is taking the predictions of climate change impacts to their logical extremes a valuable exercise? I am left feeling conflicted. I can sympathise with the urge to want to grab people by the scruff of the neck, but whether it ultimately is constructive is something I am not fully convinced of.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however. This review has been slightly edited since its publication to emphasize that I consider the author frank rather than alarmist.
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“The Omega Principle: Seafood and the Quest for a Long Life and a Healthier Planet“, written by Paul Greenberg, published by Penguin Press in July 2018 (hardback, 292 pages)
So, let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. Omega-3 fatty acids are part of a healthy diet and Greenberg is not out to disprove this. But in that one sentence lies the essence of the problem. Our eating patterns in the Western world (Greenberg’s narrative is US-centric, but this applies to much of the developed world) have shifted us away from that healthy diet towards one which is poor in these fatty acids. Greenberg draws heavily on the book Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them, which is recommended if you want to know more about this. Rather than address the root cause, a vast supplement industry has filled the gap with omega-3–rich fish oil pills. And this is where the claimed benefits of omega-3 become fishy.
As Greenberg explains, a loophole / feature of US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) regulations is that supplements are not beholden to the same strict rules as food and medicine. This allows supplement manufacturers to make the wildest claims without having to back them up with scientific evidence. Most studies to date have been so-called association studies which can establish correlations (between omega-3 and, say, cardiac health), but do not necessarily say anything about causation (do these fatty acids actually cause the changes in cardiac health?). Rigorous, randomised, double-blind clinical trials have only recently completed, or were still underway as this book went to print. But, more and more, the claims of the supplement industry do not stand up to scrutiny.
“a loophole / feature of US FDA regulations […] allows supplement manufacturers to make the wildest claims without having to back them up with scientific evidence”
Surprised? Understandably, I wasn’t. And if that was all that he had to say here, this book would not make much of a splash. Instead, Greenberg casts his net wider. With an estimated worth of some 15 billion US dollars, the fish oil supplement industry churns out a lot of fish oil, which has to come from somewhere. This particular industry is but the latest use the reduction industry has found for its products. The reduction industry?
“Reduction” is a euphemism for what happens to about a quarter of the fish caught globally – the smaller fish that we do not or only barely eat. Most of that is reduced, i.e. literally boiled and ground down to fishmeal, fertilizer, and oil. This is an industry that until not so long ago reduced whole whales to meat and oil, the latter destined to be used as lubricant and lamp oil (see The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century and my review of Energy: A Human History). And, in accordance with overall patterns in the fishing industry, it is an industry that has overfished and exhausted fish stock after fish stock (see also my review of All the Boats on the Ocean: How Government Subsidies Led to Global Overfishing), including the menhaden, profiled in the book The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America. Lately, the industry has started focusing on krill – the very same Norwegian company and boats that made an appearance in The Curious Life of Krill: A Conservation Story from the Bottom of the World also get a mention here.
“all these farty ruminants […] would emit far less methane if fed on a diet more natural to them, such as grass rather than fishmeal.”
Greenberg traces the threads further, describing what happens with the products of this reduction industry as it feeds the industrialised farming of livestock and, yes, other fish (see also the forthcoming The Fishmeal Revolution). Without being preachy, he describes an agricultural system out of whack with our dietary needs, supplying us with far too much protein we do not need in the form of excess meat, and too little of what we do need. And accompanying it are the numerous environmental problems in waterways and estuaries in the form of fertiliser runoff, algal blooms, episodes of hypoxia and anoxia (low or no oxygen in the water column), as well as the large contribution of methane emissions from all these farty ruminants to climate change. Though this should come as no surprise, I still found it remarkable to be reminded that they would emit far less methane if fed on a diet more natural to them, such as grass rather than fishmeal.
Despite the ruinous state of the world brought on by these industries, Greenberg has not penned a book of despair with The Omega Principle. In the last chapter, he profiles the many bold initiatives to change dietary patterns and develop healthier aquaculture practices (look out for mussels in your future). He even goes so far as to suggest how the energy sector and the fishing industry could work towards the same ends. Energy supplied by offshore wind farms instead of burning coal will reduce mercury emissions, making seafood healthier, while also offering habitat for (there they are again) mussel aquaculture. He acknowledges these have their own environmental price-tag, but pointedly asks the reader: which price would you rather pay? The take-home message (one that I keep hammering home since my review of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise) being, of course, that there is always a price to pay.
Supplied with exemplary annotated notes, The Omega Principle is not afraid to branch out from its starting topic. Whether you have an interest in the efficacy or lack thereof of fish oil supplements, the seafood industry, or the health of our oceans, there is something in here for everyone. This is a wonderfully written, engaging reportage that comes highly recommended.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
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“Should We Control World Population?“, written by Diana Coole, published by Polity Press in July 2018 (paperback, 138 pages)
Divided into three parts, Diana Coole first asks whether there actually is a problem, as plenty of people will disavow overpopulation as being a problem to begin with. Covering developmental, environmental, existential, and economical arguments, she concludes that there are good reasons to try and control human population numbers. An example of a developmental argument is that overpopulation is not in the interest of poor countries. An example of an existential argument is whether a world completely dedicated to supporting a huge human population is in the interest of our well-being. Economical arguments on the other hand often end up pro-growth, given the costs of a large, ageing population.
Out of these four, especially the environmental argument is one that is rapidly becoming impossible to ignore, and I happen to think that overpopulation is the mother-of-all-problems where environmental degradation is concerned. As I argued in my review of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise and is also recognized in this book, a large human population multiplies the impact of our lifestyle. No matter what lifestyle this might be, you always have an impact. I get the impression this is often lost on advocates of sustainable development and green alternatives such as renewable energy. Coole touches on the framework of planetary boundaries developed by Johan Rockström and colleagues. In my opinion, it is important to realise environmental concerns go well beyond the extinction of some cute, furry animals. This is affecting the very fabric of our planetary ecosystem that we as humans also depend on. Ecologists describe this under the umbrella term of ecosystem services (there is a large literature on this, the Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services is but one of many starting points).
The other two chapters deal with the ethics and the means by which we could actually control population numbers. Coole argues that there are some clear ethical boundaries that cannot be crossed, especially where women’s rights and bodily integrity and autonomy are concerned. It stands to reason that we think forcing an abortion on a woman violates basic human rights. But the other side of the coin, that forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy by making abortion illegal, is equally problematic, but far less widely accepted. She discusses access to reproductive health services such as family planning and birth control, and whether it is ethical to yield these as tools to steer decision making by couples. Finally, there is the question of the ethics of family size. I found the argument put forth by Sarah Conly’s book One Child: Do We Have a Right to More? very relevant.
“[…] environmental concerns go well beyond the extinction of some cute, furry animals”
Last but not least, how do we actually go about influencing population numbers? Coole makes a strong argument that in democratic societies we already have a system of mild coercion through laws, taxes etc. to influence people’s behaviour. And often such tools have already been used to influence people’s reproductive decision making through tax reliefs, childcare support, housing schemes etc. used either to encourage or discourage population growth and family size. If we see no problem in governments manipulating consumer behaviour to mitigate environmental degradation, cold logic says we should apply this to human population numbers as well. A tiny problem that Coole also highlights is that many countries where the problem most urgently needs addressing are not democratic countries, but authoritarian regimes or failed states.
It is only all too easy to fall into extremes when trying to discuss this topic. My own views could safely be called controversial. It is widely documented that increased economic development and education of women reduces family size and is, in the long-term, predicted to lead to global population stabilisation if we could realise this globally. However, I am seriously concerned that it will be too little, much too late, which logically would force our hand to more drastic measures. On a bit of a tangent, I never cease to be amazed that couples wishing to adopt have to go through many hoops to show that they will be reliable parents, but that literally any nitwit can have children the old-fashioned biological way. Isn’t it time we introduced compulsory certification for prospective parents, thereby capping population growth? (I will immediately admit that this is far from a well-developed argument, and I can see it being problematic to implement – who judges the judges?)
Obviously, my ideas will be way too extreme for most, and this book has forced me to think about more widely applicable and realistic measures. Though the reading might sometimes be a bit heavy on theoretical ethics, Coole immediately convinces that we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. This slim volume does not provide all the answers, but it is an opening salvo for a much-needed, broader discussion.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
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“Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics”, written by Jonathan A Newman, Gary Varner, and Stefan Linquist, published by Cambridge University Press in October 2017 in paperback and hardback (441 pages)
After some definitions and an overview of the environmentalist agenda (i.e. those things that environmentalists want to achieve), the book is split into two parts. The first half analyses arguments of instrumental value (i.e. the usefulness of biodiversity to humans), while the second half analyses arguments of intrinsic value (i.e. the value of biodiversity in and of itself, without considering its usefulness).
I found the first half of the book easily accessible and understandable, as this takes a look at the empirical data in favour of conservation. Four arguments are examined: ecosystem functioning and stability (e.g. soil fertility or air quality that is provided by functional, highly biodiverse ecosystems), the precautionary principle (when in doubt, let’s err on the side of caution and conserve a species), agricultural and pharmaceutical benefits, and nature-based tourism.
There has especially been a lot of empirical work done on ecosystem functioning, but closely examining the data shows that most work is done on artificially created grassland communities that are very species-poor. It is very hard to extrapolate from these findings, and they have little relevance to support the idea of more biodiversity supporting better ecosystem functioning (this is just one of a raft of problems the authors highlight).
The precautionary principle is often touted in favour of proper ecological risk assessments or quantitative cost-benefit analyses. Furthermore, the precautionary principle is usually invoked to stop something from happening (usually human action that could lead to biodiversity loss), without ever asking what the benefit is from said action, and the cost if said action is prevented.
Agricultural and pharmaceutical benefits only apply to a very small number of plants that are already well protected, leaving much biodiversity out of the picture. And as far as nature-based tourism is concerned, the link between biodiversity and the enjoyment people get out of it is weak.
I only highlight some of the findings that struck me as particularly relevant or surprising, but the authors analyse each topic in much more detail. Furthermore, in many cases, a corollary of each argument is that if you apply it consistently, it would suggest actions that many environmentalists would oppose. For example, the idea that biodiversity supports ecosystem functioning could be an argument for species introductions, or causing local extinction of a species if it benefits the ecosystem. Actions most environmentalists would baulk at.
“Most people would agree that it is important to conserve wildlife and the environment it lives in. But can you clearly articulate why?”
The second half examines arguments that biodiversity has intrinsic value. I’ll be honest with you, this is where the book largely lost me. Now, I have no formal background in philosophy. The introductory chapter to this section is aimed at people like me who are not familiar with how ethical theories and principles are defended. The different chapters look at sentientism (the idea that the lives of all sentient animals, including humans, have intrinsic value), biocentric individualism (the lives of all organisms, sentient or not, have value), ecoholism (ecological wholes such as species and ecosystems have intrinsic value), Aldo Leopold’s land ethic (his book A Sand County Almanac has had a large influence on modern environmentalism), and the importance of aesthetic value. Here, too, the authors provide analyses of what some of the weak points are of each of these arguments, but I feel ill-equipped to summarise them.
The overall conclusion is that none of the arguments that environmentalists normally put forward address all the points on their agenda. Combining arguments doesn’t necessarily make things better as some of them are in conflict with each other. This does leave me wondering how we can improve our arguments in favour of biodiversity conservation. The book doesn’t provide clear answers. Largely, I think, because these answers are not yet apparent. Where the instrumental values are concerned, reading between the lines, Defending Biodiversity highlights what sort of research we would need to do, and what sort of data we would need to gather in order to answer such questions. For the intrinsic values debate the authors highlight that theories have not been fully developed yet, and that this is still an area of ongoing effort.
The academic discipline of environmental ethics, which examines the ethical arguments of how humans ought to treat the natural environment, has been around for a few decades. This book seems to me to be the first to try and build a bridge to the practical discipline of biodiversity conservation practised by environmentalists. My impression is that this book would be an excellent textbook for a course on environmental ethics, where you read each of these chapters and discuss them in a group setting, led by an environmental philosopher. I could see how, in such a setting, a biologist like myself with little formal training in philosophy could get more out of it. As it stands, reading it is interesting, but the book feels like an opening salvo. It highlights many problems, which is valuable, but it provides few answers or directions to better answers. I understand that this book wants to engender reflection, but I’m a bit worried that practising biologists and conservationists reading the book will finish it feeling lost for both answers and a way forward.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
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