tenv bugbomb

Uniting Democrats and Experts

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 14, 6 Jalal, 165 BE

 

It has been centuries since a lone genius like a Galileo or a Newton could knock down major obstacles in several branches of science all on his own. The laboratory method, invented in Napoleonic times, combined the efforts of many experts in testing out a hypothesis. Only many laboratories in many lands can test the findings that any one lab comes up with. Since the invention of the computer, even mathematics is increasingly a collective activity, though often among thinkers separated by thousands of kilometers. A recent issue of Science News uses a striking analogy to explain the brute force approach that in recent years has made major advances in pure mathematics,

 

"Mathematicians attack really hard problems like the Riemann hypothesis with a strategy that might initially seem odd: they try to prove a claim that is even bigger and bolder than the original one. By embedding the problem in a larger context, they can build bigger tools to attack it. To see why that might be useful, imagine that a mosquito is pestering you. If you can't manage to swat it, you might instead try a bug bomb, killing every insect in the room -- and being sure to get that darn mosquito in the process. Thus killing all the bugs might be easier than simply killing the one wily mosquito. This technique of generalization is the same one that brought down both Fermat's Last Theorem and the Poincare conjecture." ("Creeping Up on Riemann, Mathematicians move a step closer to unraveling the mystery of prime numbers," Julie J. Rehmeyer, <http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080405/mathtrek.asp>)

 

The environmentalist in us winces at these wild-eyed mathematicians exploding bug bombs indoors. Hey, that is a poison gas attack! Still, the analogy captures well the approach we need to take, not only in science but in building a sustainable world. We all feel instant depression when we read about the latest animal going extinct, or split in the arctic ice cap. There is a veritable cloud of little mosquito-like problems being lumped under the label "the environment." And it seems impossible to take on more than one at a time. Our sense of impotence comes from the fact that we confine ourselves to that lone, bothersome mosquito buzzing around our head right now.

 

What is the environmental bug bomb?

 

The underlying causes of global warming, endangered species, and so forth, seem so inaccessible because they are so deep within the structure of society and our understanding of who and what we are. Most of all, our helplessness comes from an unwillingness to work together to solve problems, in the way that science long ago learned to do. By the laboratory method science routinely uncovers the very knowledge that made the technology that is plowing under the environment. Why not use the laboratory method to invent big bug-bombs, mega-solutions, to blow away the many niggling ecological problems at once?

 

My friend Gord, who is on a local woodlot association, told me an anecdote about his tenure there that I think tells a lot about the nature of the problem, about what breed of mosquito is bothering us. The members of his woodlot association were made aware by experts that nature around here is increasingly stressed. A hundred years ago, a squirrel could swing from tree to tree the fifty kilometers from Niagara Falls to Dunnville without once touching the ground. Now that is impossible. We need more acreage to be forested in order for nature to recover, so that trees will be able to resist the new diseases and parasites that are attacking them.

 

When they learned that, these woodlot owners decided to do something about it. They looked around at all the land owned by the township in the entire area. At last they found an unforested lot near Caledonia, perfect for reforestation. They made all the laborious arrangements for a tree planting. The place was surveyed and assessed, and the Scouts and other non-profits were all ready to come and assist in putting in trees of the species needed around here.

 

Then without warning the project was nixed by town council. It transpired that a housing project had been just built nearby. A new resident had come over with a lawn tractor and hacked down the bushes. He then circulated a petition among his neighbors saying that they look at this land now as their own little park. "We don’t want no trees hereabouts!" Since the number of names on the petition outnumbered the voters on the woodlot association, it was no contest. Democracy in action.

 

What sort of bug bomb would kill that kind of mosquito?

 

It is easy to give a theoretical answer. An integrated planning process could connect housing developments with the farms and natural areas that surround them. Easy to say. But this mosquito is ubiquitous. Again, it is easy to say that we need to connect local processes with educators and planners on the national and international levels. But how do you do that?

 

To my mind, this is not only a pressing practical problem. It is also an essential philosophical question. Worse, it is not even being asked by professional philosophers, much less the people involved. That is why I proposed the following question for our next Philosopher's Cafe meeting in the Wainfleet Library.

 

"Democrats and Experts, How can we unite them?"

 

Democracy and meritocracy combined? This is not entirely unheard of in history. It is well known that in the latter part of 19th Century the teachers of Japan led that nation into one of the most impressive development turnarounds ever recorded. They let in Western traders on their own terms, and then worked out a plan combining expertise with systematic popular enlightenment. A society that can follow the lead of enlightened, unified teachers approaches the ideal that Plato envisioned in the Republic.

 

==========

 

Chris Turner, "The Geography of Hope, a tour of the world we need."

A couple of readers have recommended this book on the environment, which they say offers optimism and practical ways we can all help solve the environmental problem. I include below some reviews from Amazon dot com. Plus, here is a video interview of the author talking about it.

<http://video.aol.com/video-detail/chris-turner-on-his-book-the-geography-of-hope/84327614>

If I can get a hold of it, I may offer some more comments on it.

 

"With a mix of front-line reporting, analysis and passionate argument, Chris Turner pieces together the glimmers of optimism amid the gloom and the solutions already at work around the world, from Canada's largest wind farm to Asia's greenest building and Europe's most eco-friendly communities. But The Geography of Hope goes far beyond mere technology. Turner seeks out the next generation of political, economic, social and spiritual institutions that could provide the global foundations for a sustainable future -- from the green hills of northern Thailand to the parliament houses of Scandinavia, from the villages of southern India, where microcredit finance has remade the social fabric, to America's most forward-thinking think tanks.

 "In this compelling first-person exploration, punctuated by the wonder and angst of a writer discovering the worlds beacons of possibility, Chris Turner pieces together a dazzling map of the disparate landmarks in a geography of hope."

 

==========

 

Another environment book that I am reading right now is:

 

Earth Odyssey, Around the World in Search of our Environmental Future, by Mark Hertsgaard, Broadway Books, 1998, 352 pages

 

Here is a snippet from a review of this book that I found somewhere on the Internet,

 

"During a six-year worldwide investigation into our shared environmental predicament, Hertsgaard determined that the gravest environmental problem facing humanity is poverty. As he relates his encounters with individuals from Sudan to China to Brazil, he shows how desperately the impoverished people of developing nations deserve a better life, and, at the same time, how inconceivable it is, under current models of development, that the world's poor will be able to significantly improve their lot without wreaking havoc on global life-support systems. His depiction of a steadily developing China, with nearly a quarter of the world's population, is particularly fascinating and jarring."