By Claude Martin
There is often a technological solution to environmental problems. But it is
important to carefully select the best rather than rush to implement the
first available. The consequences, otherwise, can be far-reaching and
disastrous.
Gland, Switzerland: Ever since man began to make tools, his belief in
his ability to invent his way out of trouble has steadily increased. Such
confidence is not entirely misplaced. From the wheel and the stone axe to
the internal combustion engine and the computer, technology has been
crucial to the evolution of human society, increasing the capacity for
action and intervention in terrestrial processes and helping to solve many
problems of health, shelter, and the general conditions of life.
But as our reliance on technology has increased, so the ambivalence of
its effects has become more apparent. For machines and technological
processes can damage and destroy the life of our world even as in some
respects they save and enhance it.
Nowhere has this technological dilemma been better exposed than in the
growth of the environmental movement during the past 35 years or so.
Environmentalists have drawn attention to the disastrous consequences
of industrial pollution, of the slavish reliance on chemicals to boost food
production, of the profligate burning of fossil fuels, and of many other
effects of the human obsession with tool-making.
Yet even within the environmental movement there is disagreement over
the pace, scale, and future possibilities of technological development.
Some would argue, for example, that the rapid spread of electronic
communications - telephone, television, the Internet, and e-mail, will
ultimately reduce dramatically the world's demand for paper, thus
allowing the replacement of forests we have lost during our years of
dependence on the printed word.
Others, more pessimistic - or merely realistic - point out that many,
perhaps most people in the world today have never seen a telephone,
much less a television or a computer: they have yet even to reach the
stage of the thoughtless consumption of paper and other resources
about which the advanced industrialised world is now finally beginning to
have a conscience. The possibilities offered by technology, for the basic
quality of life, let alone for environmental improvement, depend very much
on where you live.
Moreover, the demands of technologically advanced societies have so
far tended to increase rather than diminish pressure on dwindling natural
resources. That fact not only increases the imbalance between the rich
and poor countries but also raises grave doubts about what will be left
for the future if "progress" continues at its current frantic pace.
My own view is that there is a place for technological solutions to the
problems of over-consumption, pollution and environmental degradation,
and unsustainable use of resources. But if such solutions are really to
work, we must design them appropriately and make sure the technology
is the best we can devise, rather than committing ourselves blindly to the
first new discovery that comes to hand.
To illustrate my point, take the case of DDT, once seen as the miracle
pesticide that would not only increase food production but also combat
killer diseases spread by mosquitoes. Widely used in agriculture, DDT
was identified by the mid-1950s as the chief weapon against malaria, one
of the main causes of death in developing countries. The World Health
Organization made the chemical the centrepiece of an ambitious campaign
aimed at nothing less than the total eradication of malaria.
At first, it appeared to be an outstanding success. Spraying with DDT
certainly saved millions of lives as malaria was wiped out or dramatically
reduced in 37 countries. But agricultural use of the pesticide was already
leading to serious concern about its safety, as demonstrated forcefully in
1962 by Rachel Carson's seminal environmentalist book, Silent Spring,
which first raised the alarm about the deadly effects of indiscriminate use
of highly toxic chemicals.
Among such chemicals is DDT, one of a group of what are called
Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs, resisting degradation by light,
chemical reaction, or living organisms. These highly toxic substances
dissolve much more easily in fat than in water, accumulating in the fatty
tissue of all living things, with serious consequences for long-term health.
And because they evaporate at relatively low temperatures, POPs can be
transported atmospherically to cause damage far away from where they
are actually used.
Over the years since Rachel Carson's book, a body of evidence about
the harmful effects of DDT has been collected. It is highly toxic to fish and
invertebrates, can cause sex changes and eggshell thinning in bird
species and damage the heart, liver, and nervous system in mammals.
DDT has also been associated with reduced lactation in human mothers
and is thought to cause cancer.
As a result DDT is banned from agricultural use virtually worldwide. Yet,
although it failed actually to eradicate malaria - which currently still kills
up to three million people out of 500 million annual clinical cases - and in
spite of the availability of more sophisticated alternative techniques, DDT
remains in many cases the weapon of choice against the disease. Some
30,000 tonnes are produced each year in countries such as Russia,
India, Mexico, and China.
The eradication of malaria is no longer an aim of the World Health
Organization: local control of the disease is the order of the day and this
can be achieved by more benign chemicals and by biological methods
such as the introduction of predators to reduce mosquito numbers. The
continued use of DDT is a classic example of an inappropriate
technological solution that survives because it is seen as an easy way
out of what is, admittedly, a desperate problem.
WWF has set out to create the conditions in which the production of DDT
can be phased out by 2007 at the latest. If that is achieved, it will have
taken 45 years to replace a clearly harmful technological solution - and
one that in any case was bound to become ineffective because of
evolving resistance among the insects it was meant to wipe out - with
another technological approach that is both more effective and more
sustainable.
If we are to put our faith in technology to overcome the range of
environmental dangers that beset us, then at least let us avoid the sort of
carelessness in the use of tools that led to so much of the degradation of
our environment in the first place.
*Dr Claude Martin is Director General of WWF International, based in
Gland.