The European Dream

by Jeremy Rifkin

  The constant interaction and feedback between living creatures and the geochemical content and cycles act as a unified system, maintaining the Earth’s climate and environment and preserving life. The planet, then, is more like a living creature, a self-regulating entity that maintains itself in a steady state conducive to the continuance of life. According to the Gaian way of thinking, the adaptation and evolution of individual creatures become part of the larger process: the adaptation and evolution of the planet itself. It is the continuous symbiotic relationships between every living creature and between living creatures and the geochemical processes that ensure the survival of both the planetary organism and the individual species that live within its biospheric envelope.

  Many other scientists have since weighed in on the Gaia thesis, moderating, qualifying, and expanding on Lovelock and Margulis’s work. For more than two decades, the idea that the Earth functions as a living organism has become a critical avenue of exploration for rethinking the relationship between biology, chemistry, and geology.

  If, in fact, the Earth does function as a living organism, then human activity that disrupts the biochemistry of that organism can lead to grave consequences, both for human life and the biosphere as a whole. The massive burning of fossil-fuel energy is the first example of human activity, on a global scale, that now threatens a radical shift in the climate of the Earth and the undermining of the biosphere that sustains all living creatures.

  Our dawning awareness that the Earth functions as an indivisible living organism requires us to rethink our notions of global risks, vulnerability, and security. If every human life, the species as a whole, and all our fellow creatures are entwined with one another and with the geochemistry of the planet in a rich and complex choreography that sustains life itself, then we are, each and all, dependent on and responsible for the health of the whole organism. Carrying out that responsibility means living out our individual lives in our neighborhoods and communities in ways that promote the general well-being of the larger biosphere within which we dwell.

  This is precisely the mission that the European Union has set for its twenty-five member states. The precautionary principle represents a deep acknowledgment that human beings’ first obligation is to the biosphere that sustains life, even if it means waylaying a commercial development or suspending a particular economic activity. No economic activity, regardless of how lucrative or beneficial it might be, can be allowed to compromise the integrity of the life-support systems that make up the indivisible biosphere in which we all dwell, and from which we draw our sustenance. In those instances where there is reasonable, but not conclusive, evidence that a specific scientific experiment, technological application, or product introduction could do great harm to any part of the biosphere, the precautionary principle serves as a watch guard, ensuring that society will not act precipitously but will instead act conservatively, by forbidding or halting potentially adverse activity, until either the body of scientific evidence suggests that it is all right to proceed or alternatives are found to advance the same ends.

  The precautionary principle is more than just a gatekeeper. It is also a more sophisticated methodology for assessing risks than the old linear models still in force in the United States. Its guiding principles and operating assumptions are based squarely on systems thinking. It takes a holistic approach to evaluating risks, asking how a said activity might affect the totality of relationships within the biospheric envelope. It requires an interdisciplinary approach to risk assessment and evaluation that examines all the possible impacts to the Earth as a whole of an intended activity.

  I suspect that for Europeans, systems thinking is not so much of a stretch as it is for us in America. Here, the very idea of being part of a system seems a bit constraining. We don’t easily take to the idea that we are not only a part of but also completely dependent on a larger community of relationships.

  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the new science, with its emphasis on relationships and feedback, is how closely it mirrors the network way of thinking that is beginning to permeate the commercial realm and governance. The science of ecology and the notion of a self-regulating biosphere are all about relationships and networks. Ecologist Bernard Patten has observed that “ecology is networks. . . . To understand ecosystems ultimately will be to understand networks.”41 Physicist and philosopher Fritjof Capra points out:

  As the network concept became more and more prominent in ecology, systemic thinkers began to use network models at all systems levels, viewing organisms as networks of cells, organs, and organ systems, just as ecosystems are understood as networks of individual organisms. 42

  In other words, every organism is made up of smaller networks of organs and cells while it is also part of larger networks that comprise biotic communities, whole ecosystems, and the biosphere itself. Each network is nested in networks above it while also made up of networks below it, in a complex choreography—what Capra calls “the web of life.” Over aeons of evolutionary history, says Capra, “many species have formed such tightly knit communities that the whole system resembles a large, multicreatured organism.”43 If this description of the web of life seems remarkably similar to the emerging “network Europe” with its layers of embedded networks—the localities, the regions, the civil society organizations, the cultural diasporas, transnational companies, the member states, the European Union, and global institutions—the analogy is apt.

  A new science is emerging—a second Enlightenment—whose operating principles and assumptions are more compatible with network ways of thinking. While the old science is characterized by detachment, expropriation, dissection, and reduction, the new science is characterized by engagement, replenishment, integration, and holism. The old science views nature as objects, the new science views nature as relationships. The old science is committed to making nature productive, the new science to making nature sustainable. The old science seeks power over nature, the new science seeks partnership with nature. The old science puts a premium on autonomy from nature, the new science on reparticipation with nature.

  The new science takes us from a colonial vision of nature as an enemy to pillage and enslave, to a new vision of nature as a community to nurture. The right to exploit, harness, and own nature in the form of property is tempered by the obligation to steward nature and treat it with dignity and respect. The utility value of nature is slowly giving way to the intrinsic value of nature.

  The second scientific Enlightenment has been in the making for nearly a century. The new fields of thermodynamics and organismic biology at the turn of the nineteenth century and the introduction of the uncertainty principle, quantum mechanics, process philosophy, and ecology in the early twentieth century; the birth of cybernetics and systems thinking along with information theory after World War II, and more recently the emergence of complexity theory; and the theories of dissipative structures and self-organization have all contributed to the deconstruction and fall of the scientific orthodoxy of traditional Enlightenment science, while helping to chart a fundamental new path for science in the coming century.

  Unfortunately, much of our thinking about commerce, governance, and society and our relationship to the environment is still bound up in the old scientific paradigm. The new science needs to be more firmly imprinted in the public mind as well as in public policy to make a real difference. Still, the European Union is the first political unit to seriously entertain the new vision of the Earth as an indivisible living community deserving of respect.

  By championing a host of global environmental treaties and accords and institutionalizing the precautionary principle into its regulatory policies, the EU has shown a willingness to act on its commitment to sustainable development and global environmental stewardship. The fact that its commitments in most areas remain weak and are often vacillating is duly noted. But at least Europe has established a new agenda for conducting science and technology that, if followed, could begin to wean t
he world from the old ways and toward a second scientific Enlightenment, one more in accord with its dream of inclusivity, diversity, sustainability, quality of life, and harmony.

  Walking the Walk

  The European Union is currently engaged in a number of initiatives, some small, others more grandiose, that represent a breakthrough in the way it approaches science and technology. All of these initiatives share a common theme. They are ecologically sensitive and designed and executed with an eye toward systems thinking and sustainable development. Together, they are vanguard projects of a second Enlightenment science.

  At the very top of the list is Europe’s new plan to become a fully integrated renewable-based hydrogen economy by mid-century. The EU has led the world in championing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. To ensure compliance with the terms and deadlines outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, the EU has made a commitment to produce 22 percent of its electricity and 12 percent of all of its energy using renewable sources of energy by 2010.44 Although a number of member states are lagging behind on meeting their renewable-energy targets, much to the consternation of Brussels, the very fact that the EU has set benchmarks at all puts them far ahead of the United States in making the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The Bush Administration has consistently fought back attempts in the U.S. Congress to establish similar benchmarks for ushering in a renewable-energy regime in America.

  In June 2003, the EU announced a bold plan to become a clean hydrogen economy by mid-century.45 Interestingly enough, when U.S. industry got wind of Europe’s plan, it lobbied the White House for an American initiative, fearing that the EU might leap ahead of the U.S. in the race to a hydrogen future. President Bush announced his administration’s intentions to lead the world to a hydrogen economy in his State of the Union Address in 2003. But President Bush’s approach to hydrogen differs significantly from the European undertaking.

  Hydrogen is the basic element of the universe, the lightest element in existence, and, when used, emits only two by-products, pure water and heat. It is not, however, free-floating in nature but, rather, has to be extracted from other sources. Hydrogen can be extracted from fossil fuels, especially natural gas and coal, but then we’re still left with CO2 emissions. Nuclear power can also be harnessed to the task, but then we’re left with nuclear waste that is dangerous to transport and not yet safe to bury. The other approach is to use renewable sources of energy—solar, wind, hydro, geothermal—to create electricity, and then use some of the excess electricity to electrolyze water, separating out hydrogen for storage and later use for transport needs or for backup generation for the power grid. Hydrogen can also be extracted from renewable energy crops and garbage. In other words, there’s black hydrogen and green hydrogen, depending on the source from which the hydrogen is extracted.

  Here’s the problem. While Europe is committed to making a green hydrogen future, the Bush White House plan is to promote a black hydrogen future, using coal and nuclear power as the favorite means to extract the hydrogen. Critics accuse the administration of using hydrogen as a Trojan horse to bolster the interests of the old-energy industries. That’s not to say that Europe is not engaged in the old energies as well, but its objective is to quickly wean the continent off of fossil fuels and nuclear power and move it toward a renewable-based hydrogen economy.

  In his opening speech at the EU Conference on the Hydrogen Economy in June 2003, President Prodi warned that “our current approach to energy relies overwhelmingly on fossil and nuclear fuels. And this cannot go on forever.”46 The real issue, observed Prodi, “is whether we have enough air, land, and sea to dispose of the gaseous, liquid, and solid wastes from spent fossil and nuclear fuels used to produce energy. The answer is a clear ‘no.’ ”47 “The rational solution,” said Prodi, “would be to turn resolutely towards renewable energies . . .” with hydrogen as the means to store them.48 Prodi acknowledged that other countries were moving toward extracting hydrogen from the old-energy sources but said that he wanted to be “clear about what makes the European hydrogen programme truly visionary. It is our declared goal of achieving a step-by-step shift towards a fully integrated hydrogen economy, based on renewable energy sources, by the middle of the century.”49

  When President Prodi announced the European hydrogen initiative, he said it would be the next critical step in integrating Europe after the introduction of the euro. He likened the effort to the American space program in the 1960s and 1970s, whose multiplier effect helped spawn the high-tech economy of the 1980s and 1990s.

  The European game plan is being implemented with a sense of history in mind. Great Britain became the world’s leading power in the nineteenth century because it was the first country to harness its vast coal reserves with steam power. The U.S., in turn, became the world’s pre-eminent power in the twentieth century because it was the first country to harness its vast oil reserves with the internal combustion engine. The multiplier effects of both energy revolutions were extraordinary. The EU is determined to lead the world into the third great energy revolution of the modern era, with the hope that it can combine its goal of sustainable development with new commercial opportunities that fit its new superpower ambitions.

  The EU’s commitment to sustainable development and a systems approach to the application of science and technology is showing up in a diverse number of fields and endeavors. Not surprisingly, given its deep cultural identification with rural life and food, Europe is taking the lead in the shift to sustainable farming practices and organic food production. While the U.S. sports a growing organic food sector—it represents the fastest-growing sector of the food industry—the U.S. government has done little to encourage organic food production and sustainable agricultural practices. Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture fields a small organic food research program, it amounts to only $3 million, or less than .004 percent of its $74 billion budget, hardly a serious effort. Moreover, while American consumers are increasing their purchases of organic food, still less than 0.3 percent of total U.S. farmland is currently in organic production.50

  By contrast, many of the member states of the European Union have made the transition to organic agriculture a critical component of their economic development plans and have even set benchmarks, just as the EU did for bringing renewable sources of energy online. Germany, which has long been the economic engine of Europe and, more often than not, the leader in setting new environmental goals for the continent, has announced its intention to bring 20 percent of German agricultural output into organic production by 2020. (Organic agricultural output is now 3.2 percent of all farm output in Germany.)51

  The Netherlands, Sweden, the U.K., Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, France, and Austria also have national programs to promote the transition to organic food production.52 Denmark and Sweden enjoy the highest consumption of organic vegetables in Europe, and both countries project that their domestic markets for organic food will soon reach or exceed 10 percent of domestic consumption.53

  Sweden has set a goal of having 20 percent of its total cultivated farm area in organic production by 2005. Italy already has 7.2 percent of its farmland under organic production, while Denmark is close behind with 7 percent.54

  The U.K. doubled its organic food production in 2002 and now boasts the second-highest sales of organic food in Europe, after Germany. According to a recent survey, nearly 80 percent of U.K. households buy organic food.55 By comparison, only 33 percent of American consumers buy any organic food.56

  The contrast between American and European approaches to the future of farming highlights the differences between an older Enlightenment view of science and the new biosphere perspective. As we noted earlier in the chapter, in the U.S., more than half the agricultural fields are already given over to the production of genetically modified food crops. GM food crops, say critics, represent the ultimate expression of the Baconian approach to science, with its emphasis on waging war against nature and creating greater di
stance between human beings and the natural world. GM food crops are like tiny warriors in the fields. Armed with genes to ward off pests and viruses and tolerate large amounts of herbicides, the goal is to keep the forces of nature away—to create, if you will, islands of artificial order that are impenetrable by the wild.

  Organic agriculture is organized along an entirely different set of principles. The idea is to use an array of agricultural practices to integrate farm production back into its local environment. The goal is not autonomy but, rather, embeddedness. To make that happen, farmers take a systems approach to agriculture, based on establishing symbiotic and mutually reinforcing relationships between crops, insects, birds, microorganisms, and the soil. Organic farms rely on organic fertilizers rather than petrochemical fertilizers, and natural pest controls as opposed to toxic-producing genes, insecticides, and pesticides. Organic farms treat the soil as a “living community” and use state-of-the-art technologies to nourish microbial inhabitants that release, transform, and transfer nutrients, always with an eye toward working with nature rather than holding it at bay. Organic farmers also use cover crops and crop rotation as a way of preventing weeds, insects, and disease organisms from inflicting harm on their fields. They also use various means to attract beneficial insects and birds to keep pests checked. Organic farmers plant crop strains whose genomic makeups are compatible with local ecosystem dynamics while paying close attention to the natural rhythms of recycling. Organic agriculture takes a systems approach, bringing together plant pathologists, entomologists, microbiologists, plant geneticists, breeders, and others to reconfigure arable land into mini-ecosystems made up of networks of symbiotic relationships that function together as total communities.