A column about us, “Optimistic about our environmental future”, is syndicated in many newspapers across the country.
By MITZI PERDUE, Scripps Howard News Service
September 11, 2000
As director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, Jesse Ausubel doesn’t have a lot of faith in man’s capacity for sacrifice and responsibility. Nevertheless, he’s optimistic about our environmental future.
We’ll get to the reasons for his optimism in a moment. But first, why is he so pessimistic about changing human behavior?
“Human nature hasn’t changed much since biblical times,” he points out. “We have to be very cautious in expecting abstinence or self-control.”
And he goes on to remind us, “The seven deadly sins are still very much with us today. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about the president or a local auto mechanic, people are still driven by avarice, envy, jealousy, pride and so on.”
In Ausubel’s view, there’s a biological reason why these kinds of behaviors are difficult to change. It has to do with how our brains are structured.
The most primitive part of our brains has structures and functions that closely resemble a reptile’s brain. This reptilelike part controls such things as self-preservation, aggression, patrolling territory and displays of dominance or submission.
A second, less primitive, part of the human brain has a lot in common with the brains of other mammals. This section controls emotions and behaviors such as care of the young and mutual grooming.
The third and largest area of our brains, the neocortex, is the part that makes humans unique. The neocortex makes possible intellectual tasks such as reading, writing or abstract thinking.
Unfortunately, the reptilelike part of our brain is resistant to change. It’s extremely difficult to change, for example, the instinct for territoriality. The instinct to maximize territory, whether actual territory or physical possessions, is deeply wired into our brains and not easily satisfied. “Bill Gates may have $100 billion,” Ausubel points out, “but he hasn’t run out of ideas on how to spend his money.”
Ausubel can imagine a time when people may no longer have an innate desire for space and mobility and possessions, but unfortunately, the time scale for this could be a million years. He’d rather see us rely on changing technology instead of hoping that the human brain will change.
The good news is that technology is enabling us to have less impact on the environment. For example, improved agricultural technology means less land needs to be cultivated.
“If, during the next 60 to 70 years the world farmer reaches the average yield of today’s USA corn grower, the 10 billion people likely to live on Earth will need only half of today’s cropland.”
To show how this has already worked, he noted that since 1966 wheat farmers in India have increased yields so much that they have been able to save 50 million hectares of land from being plowed. That’s an area equivalent to the size of Spain.
Or take energy production. “The total efficiency of the energy system, from extracting a kilo of coal to the light it ultimately generates so you can read Harry Potter, is only about 5 percent. We’re far from the potential performance of what we could do,” he says.
Ausubel hopes that environmental engineers will help change technology since our brains aren’t going to change anytime soon. If you know of a young person who is looking for a career where he or she could make a difference, why not suggest environmental engineering?
On the Net: https://phe.rockefeller.edu.
(Mitzi Perdue writes about environmentally related matters for Scripps Howard News Service.)
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