So why is it so important people recognize interconnections?
“The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between
living things and their surroundings,” answers Carson. Leopold stops
puffing on his pipe to add, “Civilization is not, as they [historians]
often assume, the enslavement of a stable and constant earth. It
is a state of mutual and interdependent cooperation between human animals,
other animals, plants, and soils which may be disrupted at any moment by
the failure of any of them.” He pauses, then continues, “These wild things,
I admit, had little human value until mechanization assured us of a good
breakfast, and until science disclosed the drama of where they come from
and how they live.”
If history is full of these interconnections, then why don’t people
understand their value and what ignoring them could mean?
Carson addresses this question. “There is still very limited awareness
of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each
of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger
frame into which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom
challenged.”
Then do ecologists, those who study connections, have a leg up on
everyone else, especially when they integrate cost into an issue?
Leopold smiles and shakes his head from side to side. “The emergence
of ecology has placed the economic biologist in a peculiar dilemma: with
one hand he points out the accumulated findings of his search for utility,
or lack of utility, in this or that species; with the other he lifts the
veil from a biota so complex, so conditioned by interwoven cooperations
and competitions, that no man can say where utility begins and ends.”
Some people think that society will be better off if we can identify
and actively manage and regulate these interconnections. What do
you think?
Carson slowly shakes her head to disagree, “The ‘control of nature’
is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology
and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience
of man.” She softens and continues, “Only by taking account of such life
forces and by cautiously seeking to guide them into channels favorable
to ourselves can we hope to achieve a reasonable accommodation...”
In terms of future development and our growing understanding of interconnection
what final thoughts do you have?
This time Leopold begins. “There can be no doubt that a society
rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements. Stability
seems to vary inversely to the mental distance from fields and woods.”
Carson adds one last comment, “Future generations are unlikely to condone
our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that
supports all life”
Very true. Thank you both
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