Earth’s Tenants Make Bad Matters Worse

Their remedies not only boomerang; they also set in motion calamitous chain reactions that claim millions of victims

RACHEL CARSON’S deeply moving book Silent Spring marked a turning point in worldwide concern for the environment. It was her book that first aroused the world to the danger of pesticides. But the world in general gave no heed, and that bad matter continues to worsen.

Insect pests destroy crops. To kill the pests, farmers spray with pesticides. Bugs die by the millions, but a few possess a natural immunity and survive. They pass on this immunity to their offspring, and soon a race of superbugs is eating the crops. The remedy has boomeranged. A bad matter has been made worse.

But it has done more than boomerang. It has touched off a series of chain reactions creating new calamities and new victims. The pesticides kill valuable insects that preyed on the pests, rain washes the poisons into the ground where they damage soil bacteria, water carries them to lakes and oceans where microorganisms and plankton are destroyed and fish are contaminated. Birds of prey eat the fish and can hatch no eggs. People eat the fish and the pesticides. Or the poisons enter people through another food chain​—the pesticides land on grass, cattle eat the grass, the poisons enter their milk and meat, which people drink or eat.

Pesticides are but a small part of the pollution problem. Newspaper headlines alone reveal pollution’s worldwide scope. It is not the purpose here to review what has already been widely publicized. There is a growing awareness on the part of some, however, of major crises that loom ahead, namely: The loss of topsoil. The loss of plant and animal species. The loss of caring about others. Please consider these, briefly.

Topsoil is being lost earth wide, but concentrate on the United States, which has been called “the breadbasket for the world’s hungry multitudes.” Three million acres of farmland each year are being paved over, subdivided or industrialized. Four million acres are lost annually through erosion. In Illinois 181 million tons are lost yearly​—two bushels of dirt for every bushel of corn produced. A century ago Iowa averaged 16 inches of topsoil; now it approaches 8 inches. Every second 15 tons of topsoil flow out of the mouth of the Mississippi River. “The best topsoil of Iowa,” farmers say, “can be found in the Gulf of Mexico.”

And the topsoil that is retained is being damaged. Healthy soil teems with life​—algae, worms, insects, bacteria, fungi, molds, yeasts, protozoa and other minute organisms. It is this vast community of living organisms​—five billion to a teaspoonful of temperate-zone soil, according to some estimates—​that causes organic matter to decay, becoming humus. Humus is vital. It is nourishment for plants and prevents erosion.

One authority said: “Soil losses increased 22% in the early 1970s with [the beginnings] of intensive farming.” Commercial fertilizers do not replace humus. When ammonium sulfate is used the sulfate becomes sulphuric acid, which kills the soil organisms that make humus. Pesticides also take their toll on soil life. Deep plowing buries the soil organisms inches below their natural habitat​—the upper three inches of soil. It also exposes the loosened dirt to eroding winds and waters. Nitrate fertilizers are not all used by the plants​—up to half of it is leached out into water supplies that end up in lakes. There it produces excessive algae growth, and when the algae die and decay, the oxygen in the water is depleted and the fish die. In this way dead lakes are created.

The consequences of soil abuse are far-reaching. Even more far-reaching, however, is the loss of plant and animal genetic material.

The highly productive food-crop strains developed over the last 20 years are from varieties that grew wild for thousands of years. The wild plants had a natural resistance to disease and pests, but man’s new hybrid plants, intensively farmed on damaged soil, have to get their protection from herbicides and insecticides. In many cases, the wild strains that were used to breed the new hybrids in the first place have themselves become extinct, taking with them perhaps the most precious substances on earth, their germ plasm. Without a large pool of this genetic material from wild plants, man will not have the raw materials to develop new hybrids to meet the new challenges posed by superbugs, plant diseases, weather and increasing populations.

Over 95 percent of human nutrition comes from 30 plant crops and seven kinds of animals. There is a danger in depending on so few food sources, especially in view of the intensive farming and the inbreeding that weaken resistance to pests, disease and climatic changes. An example of the value of wild species is the mustard plant. From it were developed broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage and cauliflower. Also, from a relative of corn, a wild perennial, there is hope of developing a high-yielding corn species that would be a perennial, not needing to be regrown each year from seed.

Once a plant or animal species becomes extinct, its gene pool is lost forever. And that is what’s happening earth wide. More than 200 species of animals have become extinct within the last three or four centuries. More than 800 are currently in jeopardy. The greatest threat to both animals and plants is the loss of habitats.

Every year some 27 million acres of tropical forest are lost. In the world’s temperate zones there are 1.5 million kinds of organisms; tropical forests contain 3 million. They can make big contributions to the development of new medicines and new food sources. But the forests are disappearing, and along with them their gene pools. We may never know whether there was an obscure plant in the Philippines that could cure cancer or an unknown fungus in the Amazon that could prevent heart attacks. Aside from nuclear war, it may be the worst crisis of man’s making.

More than this: When tropical forests are cleared, rains erode the soil, which is poor anyway and won’t grow crops or support cattle for more than a few years. Then farmers and cattlemen move on and repeat the cycle of destruction. The prognosis is that what was the Amazon jungle will become the Amazon desert. And still more: When forests are burned, great quantities of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. This adds to the vast amounts already being spewed into it by industry. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, carbon dioxide in the air has increased from 15 to 25 percent. This growing blanket of carbon dioxide could change the climate and imperil food production and our survival.

Last year environmentalist Norman Meyers said to a global conference: “Of earth’s five million species, we could well lose at least one million by the end of the century. We are already losing one species per day, and by the end of the 1980s we could be losing one species per hour. . . . Species and tropical forests are the great sleeper issues of the late twentieth century. It is difficult to imagine two issues of greater potential significance to humankind, yet less recognized by the general public and its political leaders.”

Whether the world’s politicians recognize this or not, they have other priorities. President Reagan reportedly has called environmental regulations an albatross around the neck of American industry. His overall aim is less regulation, less enforcement, lower standards and reduced penalties. The secretary of the interior, James Watt, has set about scuttling the environmental protections for plants, animals, air, water and soil​—and for people. Other countries are also reshuffling their priorities to put the economy ahead of the environment.

Yet, in its annual “State of the World Environment Report,” the United Nations Environment Programme claimed that pollution damage in developed countries costs more than environmental protection. The report also pinpointed a trend​—the relocation of polluting industries from developed to developing countries. It says the Japanese do this. Also American industries hazardous to the environment are being relocated in Mexico, Brazil and other developing countries.

Does this not reflect a calloused indifference to the welfare of people? A loss of caring about others? No love for neighbor, just love of money? A case of profits before people? Illustrating this disregard for others is Cubatão, Brazil. Foreign industry has so polluted the city that its four rivers are dead. Fish taken from the nearby ocean outlet are blind or deformed from ingested mercury. There are no birds, no butterflies, no insects of any kind, and when it rains it’s acid rain. Many babies are born deformed or dead, many others perish within a week. Since such flagrant pollution is not allowed in developed nations, the managing director of one of Cubatão’s steel companies very callously said that “the iron foundry is an activity more suitable to third world countries.”

We need a return to old values. Love of neighbor is the only practical course. Care for the environment is for our survival. Too often, before the danger is seen the damage is done. And even after the danger is seen, the damage continues to be done. The web of life is closely woven. Endanger a few and you endanger many. At first it’s a few butterflies, then it’s us. All are involved eventually.

“Is it really necessary,” asks Romain Gary, “to keep on saying that no man is an island? How many warnings do we need? How many proofs and statistics, how many deaths, how much beauty gone, how many ‘last specimens’ in those sad zoos? . . . The heart either speaks or it does not. . . . It is absurd to cram our museums with art and to spend billions for beauty and then to let beauty be destroyed wantonly in all its living splendor.”​—From the introduction to the book Vanishing Species.

The all-important question is, however, What will earth’s Owner do about the polluting of his earth?

[Blurb on page 6]

“The best topsoil of Iowa can be found in the Gulf of Mexico”

[Blurb on page 8]

“How many deaths, how much beauty gone, how many ‘last specimens’ in those sad zoos?”

[Blurb on page 9]

Every year some 27 million acres of tropical forest are lost

[Picture on page 7]

From the Mustard plant come

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Kohlrabi

Kale

Cabbage

Cauliflower