Science Leads Government!
Science and the Purpose of Government
in
A
Crumbling Biosphere II
The purpose of government is rarely debated yet it is
before us daily in legislatures, committees, boards of selectmen, our courts
and in all the news. And purpose changes profoundly with time, with the growth
of the human population, with technology and with experience and aspirations. There is no doubt: the purposes of government
are manifold and complex and ever mutable. And they are tested ever more
intensively as the biosphere comes under
greater pressures. For the moment,
however, for simplicity I focus on civil rights, the protection of each from the
activities of all, and all from the activities of each. The golden rule in some
form has been the core of governmental purpose for all of time in every
civilization worthy of respect. It has many formulations. Much of the world
recognizes it as the principle of Sic
Utere (Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas)“Carry yourself in such a way
as not to interfere with others”
That charge
has stood the tests of time and continues to emerge as the core of civil rights
whose protection we steadfastly assign to governments the world over.
Yet the
world of the 21st Century is a new world, crowded beyond precedent with 7 billion
humans whose numbers continue to expand. It is changing drastically as humans
disrupt climates globally and change the
chemistry of air, water and land, and invent ever new ways of interacting and
communicating with one another. The mechanical demands of life in this new
crowded world are ever more stringent, esoteric, difficult to interpret, let
alone to see through to a just conclusion protecting the interests of all.
That point
became abundantly clear in the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s as the world recognized for the first time that
humans had made an indelible mark on the earth with radioactivity and a global
contamination with agricultural poisons and industrial chemical wastes. The US government responded wisely with
famous legislation that became a model for the world. We established the
Environmental Protection Agency and a series of laws designed to protect air
and water and land and people from industrial and other poisons. Recognizing the technical difficulties, the
Congress also established within itself and for its own support in legislating,
a special Office of Technology Assessment in 1972. The office accumulated a
superb staff of specialists who functioned in helping the Congress develop
insights and laws in a more and more complex world, quite beyond the ken of
most citizens and lawmakers. It was a brilliant move and a very valuable agency
until short sighted, conservative interests in the Congress in 1995 managed to
snuff it out in favor of allowing industrial interests greater license to
intrude on human welfare for profit.
Meanwhile,
the issues become more intensely threatening, more complicated, more subtle.
Large corporations have money enough to control government at the cost of the
public welfare. Corporations can effectively claim and use the entire global
atmosphere for their wastes and extract a subsidy from the global public in the
form of a disastrously eroding climatic
system. The exploitive interests thrive on public and governmental
ignorance. And government, too, becomes
an offender as various agencies pursue their missions with narrow purpose. The
Navy, for instance, enters the oceans with very high energy, low frequency
sound used to detect submarines, and kills marine mammals over large areas. .
There are many other effects of that intrusion , difficult to determine, but
real enough. The counter-pressures in
the public interest come from non-profit, non-governmental agencies such as the
conservation law groups, some, such as the NRDC and the EDF, brilliantly staffed with scientists and lawyers
who struggle with the politically
possible moment by moment. They cannot change the context, only modify the
direction at the moment. Changing the context requires much more fundamental
insight, scientific power, and persistence in advancing basic ecological
facts..
I use these
as examples of the complexity and range of interests in environment that emerge as the human occupancy
of the earth intensifies. There is no easy flow of information on how the world
works supporting legislators, who, no matter their academic experience, are
bound to be behind the frontiers of demand for information. Their sources are
limited. By far the bulk of the scientific community resides in universities
whose purpose, not surprisingly, is to offer students as wide and interesting a
menu in education as possible. It is not focused specifically on issues before
the government, although universities can do anything they wish. But the point
is that the university has an educational mission, not a public service mission
in government, whatever the needs of government at any time.
There is a
new and urgent need for science in the public service, specifically aimed at
protecting the public welfare. Although
buried in confusion and complexity, respect for the golden rule persists and
requires well focused attention in the context of biophysics. That realm is the
scientific world of environmental research, ecology, and it sets the
requirements for governmental effectiveness. . It is, or should be, the realm of the national laboratories with
specialized missions such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the
one-time Nuclear Energy Laboratories of the Department of Energy, the NOAA
laboratories and the EPA research programs.
It is also
an array of non-profit laboratories and agencies that address specific
environmental topics from energy and basic ecology to the global oceans. Laboratories in Woods Hole fit that class,
especially The Woods Hole Research Center,
The Ecosystems Center, and The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, for examples. The Carnegie Institution of
Washington has long served that function, although its recent programs have
been more limited than in the earlier years when they made major advances over
decades in basic ecology, agriculture and land management. The Rocky
Mountain Institute serves those purposes in energy magnificently. These
scientific enterprises define purpose, methods and success in government.
Economics and politics are tools, not objectives per se.
Once again
there is a screaming need for insights into the issues of ecology now emergent as
issues of global human welfare. The most important is the restoration of the
integrity of function of the biosphere as a whole. That array of topics
requires the development of experts cultured deliberately over time. It may
take private financing for they will be challenging corporate interests at
every turn, forcing the government to do its core job in protecting the public
interest over corporate interests. This argument is not for the fusion of such
interests into the university structure. Quite the opposite. It is for the
proliferation and encouragement of such independent laboratories operating with
the express purpose of providing
scientific insights into global biophysics. It is a tragedy that we do not have
arguments raging at this moment and searing the skin of political leaders who
are reluctant to take the steps needed immediately to reverse the climatic
disruption. The scientific community should be up in arms and offering the
steps to effectiveness. Instead they are wilting into a suicidal policy of
Adaptation. The industry could not ask for more!
The human
future now entrained assures the melting of all the ice in the world and a sea
level rise of 225 feet. No one knows for sure the time schedule. The melting is
proceeding far more rapidly than anticipated as are other transitions. Problems
exist now and will only be intensified in years to decades. There are not many
who would set that transition as an acceptable objective for the common purposes
of mankind, already challenged by seven billion people. Avoiding it requires
action now, concerted action in reversing current global trends. Science has
defined the problem and must be engaged in developing a plan for a New World
that can assure support for a vigorous human presence into the foreseeable
future. Defining that world and how to build it is an urgent mission. It will
not flow easily from the free-enterprise science of the university system. Nor
will it flow from conservation interests focused on “biodiversity” in all of
its myriad meanings and forms commonly preserved in parks and refuges. It must
become a core purpose of government, assigned as a responsibility to each
nation to preserve the functional integrity of its land and water in the
interest of preserving a biosphere as the habitat of all life. Success is not
simply defined for the chemistry required is in fact detailed and
demanding. Many industrial processes
rely on dumping wastes that are inconsistent with these interests and must be
abolished or changed fundamentally.
Science has
s big role in defining purposes, methods and tools of government in meeting its
obligations in protecting the public welfare, now and into the future. That role
is not the business of universities, although they can and do claim it on
occasion. And it does not necessarily
flow automatically from government or governmental agencies which become from
time to time political tools and must be redirected. There is now a new, soaring need not only for non-governmental environmental
action agencies pursuing conservation law (NRDC, EDF, CLF) but adjunct agencies defining
the essential qualities of the biosphere and how to restore and protect them.
Those are biophysical essentials, some esoteric such as pheromones and some as
common as bees and pollination.
Scientists
have a large new job to pursue on an emergency basis. Our institutional job is leading that transition. Well defined it will be well supported with private as well
as public funds.
George
M. Woodwell
Woods
Hole
August
8, 2013
