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Discordant Harmonies
by Daniel B. Botkin
Reviewed by Max Jacobs
$12.95 list price
$10.36 if you buy it here (20%
off).
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You would think that ecologists, being so close to biology, would
have been able to avoid machine age metaphors. You would be wrong. In Discordant
Harmonies, Daniel Botkin, who spoke at our 5th Annual Conference, discusses how the
steady state view of nature -- where nature is pristine, calm and in perfect harmony -- is
erroneous. This insight, alone, is a powerful one.
Part I begins with the example of Tsavo National Park in Kenya
where the classic view of nature actually caused an environmental disaster of sorts. David
Sheldrick, the park's first warden, devoted years to providing year-round water for the
wildlife and eradicating poaching, and it was his success that ultimately doomed the park.
His policies led to a rapid buildup in the number of elephants who took the park from a
state of heavy vegetation to a state closer to that of the lunar landscape. Instead of
taking action in order to decrease the elephant population, Mr. Sheldrick decided not to
do anything, writing, "the conservation policy for Tsavo should be directed towards
the attainment of a natural ecological climax, and that our participation towards this aim
should be restricted to such measures as the control of fires, poaching, and other forms
of human interference." Unfortunately for the elephants, that "climax"
meant a drought that ended up causing the starvation of 6,000 elephants who destroyed what
little vegetation was left foraging for food.
So how did such a distorted view of nature come to pass?
According to Dr. Botkin it's because of too much theory and not enough observation (sounds
a lot like Keynsian economics doesn't it?). Because chemists and physicists were
considered at the top of the scientific totem pole, their mathematical equations -- which
often are Newtonian -- were accepted without much question. Dr. Botkin goes into detail
showing how some of these equations are completely wrong, through simply providing
observational evidence to the contrary. Luckily, this trend towards Newtonian mechanics
has reversed recently and observation is becoming more and more en vogue, leading to some
very positive results. In the 1960's scientists and conservationists had noticed that the
number of Kirtland's warblers had been declining. Kirtland's warblers nest only in
jack-pine woods on one soil type, called Grayling sands, which occurs in central Michigan,
and don’t like to nest too far from where they were born. The problem is that
jack-pine is known as a "fire species" which can only persist in areas that have
periodic forest fires because their cones only open up when heated by fire. Because of a
policy of fire suppression, jack-pine numbers started to dwindle. Once this was discovered
through observation by conservationists, a plan for controlled forest fires was enacted
and Kirtland's warbler numbers are starting to recover, along with the jack-pine.
Part I was by far the strongest part of the book. It makes it
clear that if only ecologists would change their thinking that many of our current
environmental problems could be dealt with swiftly. Part II deals with the evolution of
the steady state view of nature. From the view of the Romans and Greeks of a divine order
to things to the more recent view of nature as literally a machine. Part III deals with
how modern technology, namely computers, are revolutionizing the way we observe nature by
enabling highly complex models and the ability to track the movements of large numbers of
animals.
While the book starts strong, it ends a little weak. The last
part of the book is a call to action. I was expecting it, since this book was written by
an ecologist, but I expected more concrete suggestions. First, while claiming that the
previous view of nature is wrong he does not specifically replace it with anything. While Bionomics had replaced
the metaphor of the economy as a machine with the economy as an ecosystem, Dr. Botkin is
not nearly so obvious. I got the sense that he believes that nature is a complex and
dynamic system but I felt like he wasn't quite sure which specific metaphor to use. He
can't quite call it organic because he showed how the organic view has its problems in
Part II. Sort of a downer. Second, his big call to action is simply a call to observe
nature more. While I do admire his rejection of environmental regulations on the grounds
that they often develop a life of their own, I felt rather helpless. Since I'm not an
ecologist I felt like there was nothing I could do to help.
Of course, Discordant Harmonies is still worth reading,
for a couple reasons. First, it brings to the fore the surprising problem of machine-age
thinking among ecologists. Second, the examples of unintended consequences ruining even
the more honorable of plans hits the mark. It is just so amazing to realize how Machine
age thinking has permeated through so much scientific thought without us consciously
knowing. It is clear we have a lot of work to do. My recommendation? If ecology without
geekspeak interests you or if you like reading about the history of ideas or the
philosophy of science then this is the book for you. If you're expecting the next Stephen
Hawking or Stephen Jay Gould to pop up from the pages, you might want to check back here
in the months ahead. We're still looking. |
