Environment: A Sci-Fi Parable For Our Times

June-July 1995

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

The ones that get away

by David Suzuki

Science fiction is often a way for us to assume a different perspective from which to view ourselves. The other day, I came up with a plot for a sci-fi story that goes like this:

Scientists succeed in building a time-capsule which they send back through tens of thousands of years. A Stone Age 'caveman', who is nevertheless a modern Homo sapiens, is picked up and brought back to the present. In this fantasy, intelligent computers enable us to decipher his language and communicate with him.

The caveman turns out to be remarkably tough and survives the shock of time travel. He is astounded and entranced by our world of cars, phones, television and computers. After a while, he begins to pull these devices apart. When asked what he's doing, he answers, "You have lots more where these come from. I can take the pieces home and become a powerful man. We don't have metal, glass, wire or nuts and bolts, and they can be very useful. What we can't use, I'll just leave here with you. Now, put me in that time capsule with all these treasures and send me home, please."

The scientists protest in disbelief, "These technologies can do all kinds of useful things if they're not taken apart," but the 'primitive' visitor is unfazed and self-confident. He replies, "We have our own experts-shamans, medicine men- and they will be able to duplicate those things." Of course, when the caveman returned to the Stone Age, his specialists can't reassemble the pieces because they don't know all the parts or how they were put together in the first place.

I'm sure this story idea would be rejected for publication as an absurd plot because no one would be so short-sighted or arrogant. And, yet, that is exactly what we-sophisticated modern people-are doing right now. The attitude of the visitor in this science fiction parable is congruent with the viewpoint that underlies the actions of modern industrialized civilization.

Far more than our most advanced technologies, the natural world is incredibly complex and exquisitely constructed to enable millions of organisms to survive and flourish. That mix cleanses and replenishes the air, water, soil and variety of life. Scientific knowledge of the spectrum of species that inhabit the planet and the conditions that sustain them, remains exceedingly meagre. For example, estimates of the current number of species on Earth vary between ten and 100 million. To date, about 4 million species have been assigned a name. Now, when a species is identified, that merely means a dead specimen has been traced down into its proper category and named, but it should not be infered that anything is known about how many there are, its habitat or reproductive needs. Yet, even though we know such a small proportion of the living components of this planet and remain ignorant about their basic biology and interactions, we are systematically dismantling vast and complex ecosystems-forests, prairies, wetlands, coral reefs, ocean floors, rivers and lakes- with alarming speed. If we don't even know what we are losing, how will we ever be able to reconstruct them?

When I was born in 1936, over 90% of the world's forests remained intact. Today, a mere third remains untouched! When I was a boy, air was invisible, water clean and food free of toxic chemicals. Our technology was simpler, consumption was far less and there were just over two billion of us. In my lifetime, the global human population has increased by more than 150%, while each of us, on average, consumes more than four times as much as our grandparents. We seem blind to the consequences of what we are doing, by a perverted notion of progress called 'economic growth', which impels us to seek an impossible goal of endlessly growing consumption and profit. The incidental casualties of this mass delusion-workers, communities, ecosystems, children, future generation-were once the very reason for, and basis of, the economic system in the first place.

Today, even young people, like their elders, often preface their memories of childhood with, "I remember when..." or "There used to be..." Once life-rich creeks, weedy vacant lots, woods and swamps, rivers and lakes have disappeared or changed. My children listen to their grandparents' reminiscences of childhood with disbelief that such a world actually existed so recently. My children find it difficult to grasp the loss of their grandparents' world as 'the price of progress' or 'economic neccessity.' The cavemen in my story might be considered primitive, but he came from another time and was ignorant. What's our excuse?

For information, write the David Suzuki Foundation, Suite 219, 2211 W. 4th Ave, Vancouver, BC V6K 4S2

Geneticist David Suzuki is a writer, broadcaster, and leading analyst of social and environmental issues.