Man and the Environment by Arthur S. Boughey, and: Environmental Insight by Robert M. Chute (review)

Leonardo, Vol.7, pp. 73-91. Pergamon Press 1974. Printed in Great Britain BOOKS Readers are invited to recommend books to be reviewed. Only books in English and in French can be reviewed at this stage. Those who would like to be added to Leonardo's panel of reviewers should write to the Founder-Editor, indicating their particular interests. Man and the Environment. Arthur S. Boughey, Macmillan , London, 1971. 472 pp., illus. £1.50. Environmental Insight. Robert M. Chute. Harper & Row, New York, 1971. 241 pp., illus. (Paperback). Reviewed by: J. C.Kapur* During the last five years the literature on man and his environment has proliferated and the books under review make a valuable contribution to it. Boughey graphically portrays the biological history of the Earth from the origin of life dating back, perhaps three and a half billion years, to the ecological predicament of contemporary man. Chute's book is a collection of research and review papers designed through their variety and scope to provide a greater insight into the relationship of man to non-human nature. In both studies, to the holistic concept of human ecology has been added an urgent demand for the re-examination of inexorable processes of resources exploitation. The studies in Chute's book particularly stress that 'the finite resource of the world, the limited material base for life, is the common which all organisms, including men, must share. The tragedy is the seeming inability of man to administer limited resource in an equitable way'. Most authors on the subject of human ecology stress the pressure of population growth behind the misuse of the common (the Earth's resources). Boughey also contends that 'all other developments for the future are contingent on immediate population control in all nations and all segments of a nation'. The emphasis on all nations and all segments ofa nation is most important because it is the rich nations and the rich in poor nations that consume the most resources and generate the most non-biodegradable pollution. One of the papers in Chute's compilation explodes 'the vandal ideology' and the dogmatic beliefs and assertions that sustain such values and systems but the important elements of national and human greed and the socio-politico-economic institutions that permit such greed remain unstated. A small number of nations and a small number of people within most of them are trying to maintain their overlordship of the Earth's resources so that they can maintain their wasteful mode ofaffluent life in the midst ofpoverty for many. They use the Earth as the dumping ground for ever increasing amounts of pollutants, some with a dangerous radioactive half-life of tens of thousands of years. In the arrogance to conquer nature to satisfy the needs of many and the greed of a few people the rights to resources of other living organisms have * Apartment 3C, Rashmi, Carmichael Road, Bombay 26 WB, India. 73 been ruthlessly usurped and in this process the balances ofnature have been, and continue to be, disturbed to the detriment of all. The misuse of the common has gone far beyond the satisfaction of man's basic needs; it has extended way beyond his immediate environments, where some control should be exercised. While there is some concern for the condition of man and society, it appears that the thinking and effort are overwhelmingly directed towards finding short term technological solutions and towards extending to the maximum extent the use of the Earth's resources for narrow interests. Steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security, rising standards of living and depreciating quality of life, increasing population and decreasing quantities ofresources are related, in one way or another, to the manner in which technology is used. While Boughey concludes that 'ultimately' decisions which must be taken regarding the future of the species are political', Hardin (one ofthe contributors to Chute's compilation) believes that 'under the contemporary condition the subset of technically insolvable problems is also politically insolvable-values are the criteria of judgement and that such a system of values exists beyond the confines ofthe nation state is hardly tenable'. It is, therefore, necessary to emphasize that so long as...