It’s an undeniable fact that the dominant pursuit of the modern world is continual economic growth.
Thirty years ago, most people did not know their Dow Jones from their Nikkei. Today, every news bulletin worth its salt ends with a serious-looking person in a serious-looking suit, pointing to a serious-looking graph and excitedly (or disappointedly) telling us that the FTSE has gone up (or down).
Neither the person, nor the graph, explains why huge drops in the stock markets of the world are a burden taken on by the population as a whole, whereas significant increases only seem to profit the wealthiest elements of society. But that’s another story…
What’s important here is one of the main opportunities for driving that economic growth, namely the appropriation of raw materials for the lowest possible cost.
As a result of this short-term pressure, very little importance is attached to the long-term health and preservation of natural resources, be they vegetable or mineral, animal or human.
Recent studies show that wildlife populations have plummeted by around 70% in the last 50 years. And it’s not just large animals on the periphery of human activity that have suffered: from insects in the deepest jungles to caribou in the Canadian wilderness, we are destroying the entire biosphere at an alarming rate.
The consequences of this cataclysmic decline are hidden from most of us, most of the time, but this situation will soon begin to change.
When researching Amazonian frogs, I came across several beautiful species that are believed to no longer exist. This is partly as a result of a particularly aggressive fungus that penetrates the skin and eventually causes cardiac arrest in amphibians. But the wider picture is of unsustainable pressure on their habitats, pushing vulnerable species to the edge of extinction. One final shove, from a fungus, or a new wave of deforestation, and in they fall, never to be seen again.
There’s an incredibly powerful dichotomy here, between our obsession with the loftiest goals of scientific advancement and our neglect of the world we live in.
While we invest relatively little money in safeguarding the future of the amazing species that surround us, we are happily spending vast amounts on speculative scientific projects. Why? Because every now and then, as with the silicon chip, a scientific discovery leads to huge commercial rewards. And saving frogs just doesn't bring in the moola.
Globally, around $1.2 billion is currently pledged for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest.
Which hardly compares to the $13.5 billion spent by CERN on a single project: discovering the Higgs Boson, a particle… or wave… or force… or field… or whatever the hell it is, believed to be intimately connected with gravity. However, don't get too excited, as the Higgs hasn't been observed directly, in any experiment to date. That's right, the 'God Particle' remains entirely hypothetical. Rather like God.
Spending on safeguarding the Amazon also pales next to the $157 billion in deals made by companies who have signed commercial agreements with the firms responsible for global deforestation.
Now I am not a science-hater, by any means. I firmly believe every penny spent on scientific research (including space exploration) is infinitely more valuable than every penny spent on weapons. Indeed, if NASA found itself in desperate need of some unfit middle-aged men for its missions to Mars, I’d be the first to sign up.
Technology the rescue?
There used to be a good philosophical argument for investing so heavily in science, aside from the potential for profitable innovation: since the time of Aristotle, it has always seen as the pinnacle of the pursuit of knowledge, for the sake of knowledge itself.
Certain disciplines occupy the vanguard of this honourable endeavour, including mathematics and theoretical physics. Which is why experts in these fields are now household names: Prof's. Brian Cox and Jim Al-Khalili in the UK, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku in the US... the world is so fragmented and complex that nations now needs an all-knowing muse (or two), to tell them what to think.
Which is ironic, because these people attain their lofty status by focusing down on one tiny area of 'reality', to the exclusion (and detriment) of the bigger picture. Neil deGrasse Tyson's PhD is titled: A study of the abundance distributions along the minor axis of the Galactic bulge. What does he cover in his latest book, Starry Messenger? (2022). Oh, just war, politics, race, religion and gender, with brief excursions into the nature of truth and beauty.
But the ‘purity of the scientific pursuit' argument is not as strong as it once was, and our scientists not quite so pristine.
In a world of emerging nations, myriad social media platforms and other challenges to the status quo, academics increasingly find themselves obliged to explore the projects, and expound the viewpoints, that will garner maximum publicity, both for themselves and their institutions.
And with media exposure now inextricably linked to wealth, Cox, Tyson and Kaku all benefit from very healthy bank-balances, far in excess of the modest sum left by Albert Einstein when he died, back in 1955.
In reality, scientists were never the impartial arbiters of knowledge we like to imagine. Since Descartes declared "I think, therefore I am," instantly dividing the world between matter and mind, they have (wittingly or otherwise) constantly reinforced the materialist part of this dualism, such that belief in a universe made up of particles and objects (not consciousness and ideas) is now second nature.
As part of this process, they are also buying in to the notion of the ‘technological fix’.
This is the belief that science can, and will, solve each and every problem, now and forever more. That the answers to global warming, the energy crisis, over population and every other apocalyptic scenario you care to mention, are to be found in an endless string of new and improved technologies, and not in different ways of thinking.
Furthermore, the capitalist ideals of free market competition and return on investment must be allowed to drive this process, rather than woolly (dare I say 'woke') notions of friendship and cooperation.
If there is a real demand for something then, so the argument goes, someone will inevitably step into the breach, with a profit-making solution. It's just a matter of time. The more money you invest, the greater the competition, and the faster it will happen (look at Covid vaccinations).
Sure enough, just as Earth’s mineral resources are beginning to disappear, a technology-driven solution is honing into view: asteroid mining will soon be a thing.
However, the success of this particular technological fix is not guaranteed, and it could come at a huge cost. While the resources to be found in space would undoubtedly lessen the pressure on Earth’s own reserves, the huge technological push needed to make off-world settlements and space-mining a reality may result in the complete exhaustion of everything the planet has left to offer.
It’s a bit like the Buddhist monk who lay down and sacrificed his body to the lion, so that her cubs might survive. The glorious leap into space might just push those left on Earth deeper and deeper into the muck.
If you think that’s unlikely, consider how much effort a commercial enterprise (or nation state) would be willing to invest in harvesting just one asteroid, 16 Psyche. This gigantic rock, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, is estimated to contain gold worth around $700 quintillion. That's enough to boost the bank balance of every living human by $93 billion.
Needless to say, it’s highly doubtful that such an asset would ever be exploited for the benefit of the many.
No, at some point in the next century, we will have a new class of hyper-rich elites, people who make Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos look like penniless street beggars. The kind of ‘wealthy men’ that Douglas Adams envisaged ordering bespoke planets from the engineers (and fjord-designers) of Magrathea, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It’s getting hot in here...
Gil Scott Heron nailed it in 1970, when he compared government spending on poverty-stricken ghettos to the money made available for space exploration:
I can't pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey's on the moon) Ten years from now I'll be payin' still. (while Whitey's on the moon)
Was all that money I made las' year (for Whitey on the moon?) How come there ain't no money here? (Hm! Whitey's on the moon) Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill (of Whitey on the moon) I think I'll sen' these doctor bills, Airmail special (to Whitey on the moon)
Nothing much has changed, in the intervening half-century. We barely blink at the idea of spending $60 million on an image of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, but close our eyes when asked to confront the ecological black hole that’s growing right here on plant Earth.
We’ve already crossed the event horizon, the point of no return, as far as climate change is concerned. It may be possible to reverse the effects of global warming over the coming centuries, but humans alive today are unlikely to see any positive impact. Just last month, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization concluded that glaciers ‘melted at dramatic speed last year and saving them is effectively a lost cause.’
We cannot continue on the same path, with one hand carrying a shovel and the other clenched behind our back, with fingers crossed, blindly hoping that new technology will come along and sort out everything out.
It is a sign of our rapidly increasing desperation (and pessimism) that so many people are ready to believe that aliens are not only here, but here to help us. What a marvellous thing it will be, the day we shake hands with advanced beings that are happy to share their planet-saving technologies, and prepared to do so free of charge.
At least you would think so. But that’s the kind of generosity that capitalism finds abhorrent.
Indeed, in some circles it is alleged that precisely this kind offer was made to President Eisenhower, in February 1951, by emissaries from another star system. The only condition attached to their deal: we give up nuclear weapons.
Ike declined.
It’s doubtful that Eisenhower meet with extraterrestrials. However, it is entirely plausible that he would have foregone instant solutions to the world’s economic and environmental problems, in exchange for the survival of a system that had embraced the insanity of a nuclear arms race.
If and when our alien saviours do arrive, they will surely spend the first few weeks repeating the same question, over and over again:
‘Sorry, you did what to your planet?’
Additional Sources:
'Amazon Funds Summary' Climate Funds Update.com
'Economics of the Stars: The Future of Asteroid Mining and the Global Economy' Harvard International Revue (April 2022)
'How Much Does It Cost To Find A Higgs Boson?' Forbes (June 2012)
'Ike and the Alien Ambassadors' The Washington Post (Feb 2004)
'UN reports 'off the charts' melting of glaciers' phys.org (April 2023)
'Whitey on the Moon' Gil Scott Heron (YouTube) 1970
* All images Wikipedia (commons), unless otherwise stated
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