If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways (20 page)

In the Middle Ages the universe was perceived as a thing that had come into being as a finished
object just a few thousand years ago. It was fixed, finite, and as much
known
as it needed to be. In the Renaissance, however, the universe began to be perceived in a much different way: as dynamic, infinite,
and largely
unknown
. It was this change in thinking that led not only to the great Age of Exploration but to the great age of scientific investigation that followed and that continues today.

All this seems very obvious to us today. The Middle Ages obviously couldn't last forever. Things
obviously
had
to change. But this was not at all obvious to the people of the Middle Ages. As far as they were concerned, people would go on thinking and living the medieval way
forever
.

We think the very same thing. Just like the people of the Middle Ages, we're absolutely sure that
people will go on thinking the way we think
forever
, and people will go on living the way we live forever.

The people of the Middle Ages thought this way because it seemed impossible to them that
people could think a different way. How else could people think except the way they thought? As far as
they were concerned, the history of thought had come to an end
with them
. Of course we smile at that —
but in fact we believe exactly the same thing. We, too, believe that the history of thought has come to an end
with us
.

Well, we'd better hope we're wrong about that, because if the history of thought has come to an
end with us, then we're doomed. If there are still people here in two hundred years, they won't be living
the way we do. I can make that prediction with confidence, because if people go on living the way we
do, there won't
be
any people here in two hundred years.

I can make another prediction with confidence. If there are still people here in two hundred
years, they won't be
thinking
the way we do. I can make that prediction with equal confidence, because if people go on
thinking
the way we do, then they'll go on
living
the way we do — and there won't
be
any people here in two hundred years.

But what can we possibly change about the way we think? It seems so obvious that everything
we think is just the way it
must
be thought.

It seemed exactly the same to the people of the Middle Ages.

Although several key ideas of the Middle Ages disappeared during the Renaissance, not
every
key idea of the Middle Ages disappeared. One of the key ideas that remained in place — and that
remains in place today — is the idea that humans are fundamentally and irrevocably flawed. We look at
the world around us and find that turtles are not flawed, crows are not flawed, daffodils are not flawed,
mosquitoes are not flawed, salmon are not flawed — in fact, not a single species in the world is flawed
— except us. It makes no sense, but it does pass the medieval tests for knowledge. It's reasonable — and
it's certainly supported by authority. It's reasonable because it provides us with an excuse we badly need.
We're destroying the world — eating it alive — but it's not our fault. It's the fault of human nature. We're just badly made, so what can you expect?

Another key idea that survived the Middle Ages is the idea that the way we live is the way
humans are
meant
to live. Well, goodness, that's so obvious it hardly needs saying. We're living the way humans were meant to live from the beginning of time. The fact that we only began living this way very
recently has nothing to do with it. So it took us three million years to find it. That doesn't change the fact that it's the way we were meant to live from the beginning of time. And the fact that the way we live is
making the world uninhabitable to our own species also has nothing to do with it. Even if we destroy the
world and ourselves with it, the way we live is still the way we were meant to live from the beginning of
time.

But these two medieval survivors are relatively benign. Stupid but harmless. One other key idea
survived, however, that is definitely neither benign nor harmless. Far from being benign or harmless, it's the most dangerous idea in existence. And even more than being the most dangerous
idea
in existence, it's the most dangerous
thing
in existence — more dangerous than all our nuclear armaments, more dangerous than biological warfare, more dangerous than all the pollutants we pump into the air, the
water, and the land.

All the same, it
sounds
pretty harmless. You can hear it and say, "Uh-huh, yeah, so?" It's pretty simple, too. Here it is:
Humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living
community
. There's us and then there's Nature. There's humans and then there's the human environment.

I'm sure it's hard to believe that something as innocent sounding as this could be even a little bit
dangerous, much less as dangerous as I've claimed.

As I've said, it's conservatively estimated that as many as two hundred species are becoming
extinct
every day
as a result of our impact on the world. People take in this piece of horrendous information very calmly. They don't scream. They don't faint. They don't see any reason to get excited
about it because they firmly believe that
humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the
rest of the living community
. They believe it as firmly in the twenty-first century as they did in the tenth century.

So as many as two hundred species are becoming extinct every day. That's no problem, because
those
species are
out there somewhere
. Those two hundred species aren't in
here
. They aren't
us
. They don't have anything to
do
with us, because
humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the
rest of the living community
.

Those two hundred species are out there in the
environment
. Of course it's bad for the
environment
if they become extinct, but it has nothing to do with
us
. The environment is
out there
, suffering, while we're
in here
, safe and sound. Of course we should try to
take care
of the environment, and it's a shame about those two hundred extinctions — but it has nothing to do with
us
.

Ladies and gentlemen, if people go on thinking this way, humanity is going to become extinct.
That's how dangerous this idea is. Here's why.

Those two hundred species... why exactly are they becoming extinct? Are they just running out
of air or water or space or what? No, those two hundred species are becoming extinct because they have
something
we need
. We need their
biomass
. We need the
living stuff
they're made of. We need their biomass in order to maintain
our
biomass. Here's how it works. Go down to Brazil, find yourself a hunk of rain forest, and cut it down or burn it down. Now bring in a herd of cows to pasture there. Or plant
potatoes or pineapples or lima beans. All the biomass that was formerly tied up in the birds, insects, and mammals living in that hunk of rain forest is now going into cows, potatoes, pineapples, or lima beans
— which is to say into food for
us
.

We
need
to make two hundred species extinct every day in order to maintain the biomass of six
billion people. It's not an accident. It's not an oversight. It's not a bit of carelessness on our part. In order to maintain our population of six billion, we need the biomass of two hundred species a day. We are
literally turning two hundred species a day into human tissue.

But all too many people — most people, I'm afraid — tend to think, "Well, so what? Humans
belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community. Since we're separate,
it doesn't matter how many species we destroy — and since we're superior to them anyway, we're
actually improving the world by eliminating them!"

We're like people living in the penthouse of a tall brick building. Every day we need two hundred
bricks to maintain our walls, so we go downstairs, knock two hundred bricks out of the walls below, and
bring them back upstairs for our own use. Every day... every day we go downstairs and knock two
hundred bricks out of the walls that are holding up the building we live in. Seventy thousand bricks a
year, year after year after year.

I hope it's evident that this is not a sustainable way to maintain a brick building. One day, sooner
or later, it's going to collapse, and the penthouse is going to come down along with all the rest.

Making two hundred species extinct every day is similarly not a sustainable way to maintain a
living community. Even if we're in some sense at the top of that community, one day, sooner or later, it's going to collapse, and when it does, our being at the top won't help us. We'll come down along with all
the rest.

It would be different, of course, if two hundred extinctions a day were just a temporary thing. It's
not. And the reason it's not is that, clever as we are, we can't increase the amount of biomass that exists on this planet. We can't increase the amount of land and water that supports life, and we can't increase
the amount of sunlight that falls on that land and water. We can
decrease
the amount of biomass that exists on this planet — for example, by making the land sterile or by poisoning the water — but we can't
increase it.

All we can do is shift that biomass from one bunch of species to another bunch — and that's
what we're doing. We're systematically shifting the biomass of species we
don't
care about into the biomass of species we
do
care about: into cows, chickens, corn, beans, tomatoes, and so on. We're systematically destroying the biodiversity of the living community to support ourselves, which is to say
that we're systematically destroying the infrastructure that is keeping us alive.

As I've said, it's conservatively estimated that our population will increase to nine billion by the
middle of the century — and people take in this hair-raising piece of information very calmly. No one
screams. No one faints. People are as untroubled about our mushrooming population as they are about
those two hundred daily extinctions. They see no reason to get excited, because they firmly believe that
humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community. They don't see
that the extinction rate is going to increase as our population increases — and probably exponentially.
This is because when we make species extinct, we don't gain 100 percent of their biomass. A great deal
of it is simply lost, contributing to the desertification of the planet. By the middle of the century, if our population has indeed increased to nine billion, then the number of extinctions will be a thousand a day
or ten thousand a day (the number is incalculable at this point).

If there are still people living here in two hundred years, they'll know that humanity doesn't
belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community. They'll know this as
surely as we know that the earth revolves around the sun. I can make this prediction with confidence,
because if people go on thinking we belong to a separate order of being, then there
will be
no people living here in two hundred years.

What everyone wishes I could do (and what I myself wish I could do) is describe how people
will be living here in two hundred years — if there still
are
people living here. All I can tell you is how they
won't
be living: They won't be living the way we do. But why is that? Why can't I tell you how they
will
be living? The answer is: because no one can tell you that.

You can see why this is so if you put the question back into the Middle Ages. You might very
well have been able to convince Roger Bacon that people would be living differently in three hundred
years, but how in the world could he have predicted the Age of Exploration, the rebellion against feudal
oppression, the Industrial Revolution, the emergence to power of a capitalist bourgeoisie, and so on? To
expect such a thing would be absurd.

You could say that if the Middle Ages had been
able
to predict the Renaissance, then it would
have
been
the Renaissance.

Social evolution is inherently chaotic — which is another way of saying inherently unpredictable. This is true even in relatively stable times. Consider the fact that every intelligence
agency in the world was taken by surprise by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which days before had
looked as stable as Great Britain or the United States.