Silent Spring, Nuclear Winter, Gaia and Medea

2012 will mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, an event that launched the modern environmental movement and altered human history. 

The late 18th and early 19th century environmental efforts were primarily concerned with conservation and protection of wild areas, prompted by the Romantic era's idealization of nature and the growing awareness that "the frontier" was rapidly disappearing around the world.  There was also a growing awareness of the health impact of the most obvious pollutants of the Industrial Revolution.

But it was Rachel Carson who first opened our eyes to the damage being done to the environment by the toxic chemicals being released daily to the land, sea and air.  Pesticide chemicals based on World War II chemical weapons and nerve gas technology (chemical weapons and nerve gases modified to act as pesticides) were sprayed across the globe trying to eradicate insect pests.  Silent Spring documented the far-reaching impacts of this war on nature.  Governments began to put environmental protection agencies in place and the poisoning was reduced.  People began to understand the inter-relatedness of all creatures and their environment.  Indeed, the term ecology is derived from Greek words meaning "study (or knowledge) of the house".  Mankind took the first steps towards putting its house in order.

As science progressed in the second half of the 20th century, we became aware of subtler, but no less potentially devastating, environmental issues - the impact of radiation from mid-century nuclear testing, the hole in the ozone layer, mercury in the air and in the sea, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants, species extinctions, and the pending disaster due to human-induced global warming. 

James Lovelock published Gaia in 1979 and took inter-relatedness to the next level.  Tim Flannery summarized Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis nicely: "...[as] cooperation at the highest level - the sum of unconscious cooperation of all life that...[gives] form to our living Earth."  Gaia is a self-regulating mechanism that moves to correct imbalances.  However, Flannery in his 2011 book, Here On Earth: A Natural History of the Planet, also describes and warns against a competing view.  The Medea hypothesis, a term coined by paleontologist Peter Ward, is rooted in the ruthless selfishness of Darwinian competitiveness  - a nature "red in tooth and claw".  Ward argues that, if left unchecked, species will destroy themselves by "exploiting their resources to the point of ecosytem collapse."  If a species competes too successfully, it will inevitably go extinct.

So where are we 50 years after Silent Spring?  Will we be led to our extinction by a ruthless and ignorant selfishness?  Or will we build on what we've been learning for the past 100 years about the interconnectedness of all things?  The time to choose is now.