Michael Bess

Anniversary Forum

Artificialization and its Discontents

I SEE FIVE main themes that environmental history could fruitfully explore in the coming decades—all five predicated on a single observation. The world around us, including our own bodies, is coming to be increasingly permeated by potent technologies of all shapes and sizes; this process of artificialization has been accelerating since the 1700s, and the rate of acceleration has itself increased dramatically since 1945. The changes now come with truly dizzying speed, and they feed on themselves, each innovation further ratcheting up the potential for still other innovations, in a spiral of technological proliferation that calls to mind the story of the sorcerer's apprentice. Over the next fifty years, this open-ended transformative process stands a good chance of turning our physical world, our society, our very identity upside down. Environmental historians can play a vital role in helping humankind to understand the gale-force of artifice that we have unleashed on our planet and on ourselves.	1
The first theme I envision has to do with survival. Thus far the social and economic changes wrought by environmentalism have made a significant dent in the world's environmental crisis: We sell ourselves short, and needlessly demoralize ourselves, if we fail to recognize that industrial civilization has come a long way indeed from the belching smokestacks and smoldering open dumps of the 1960s. But we remain far—terrifyingly far—from achieving true sustainability. One key priority for our field therefore lies in continuing the ongoing effort to comprehend how societies are mobilized for environmentally friendly transformation. What might "sustainability" actually look like, in concrete practice? How do mentalities change? Where are the best points of leverage for bringing about political and institutional reform?	2
A second theme, related to this latter one, has to do with the shifting meaning of the words "wild" and "wilderness" on an ever-shrinking planet. Environmentalists sharply criticized Bill McKibben in the 1990s for his dramatic declaration of an "end of nature," citing McKibben's excessively rigid and dualistic framing of the relation between the wild and the tame. But McKibben did have a point. What exactly are we trying to preserve, when we fence off a wilderness area? What value do we find there? And most importantly, in our increasingly artificialized world, can we discover ways to recognize the presence of that value in other places that do not fit the traditional imagery of "pristine wilderness"? Can environmental historians help to chart a path into a new set of values, in which we cherish and defend the wide range of natural-artificial hybrids that increasingly constitute our world? I am thinking of the startled pleasure I experienced when I read in William Cronon's edited volume Uncommon Ground about the Rocky Mountain Arsenal—a flourishing wildlife refuge on a toxic waste dump, "the nation's most ironic nature park." Cronon's book is taking us in the right direction, I believe: toward a reorientation and re-valuation of the relation between the wild and the tame. There is still much work to be done in this regard—and the stakes are high, for we can only defend our environment with conviction if we understand clearly what it is that we value in it, and why.	3
My third theme, in turn, spins off the last one: It has to do with outer space. Even if we optimistically assume that human civilization can achieve true sustainability over the coming century—a big assumption—I have come to the conclusion that our proliferating technologies will inexorably render the planet ever-smaller, ever-tamer. I have tried and tried to convince myself otherwise, but I have invariably concluded (after much agonizing) that all the realistic scenarios for a green future will still, unavoidably, turn the earth into a giant garden, tended by humans wielding tremendously powerful technologies. If this is the case, then outer space beckons as the next wilderness frontier—a natural place that is vast, primeval, untouched, mysterious, and as yet relatively undiscovered. The only problem, of course, is that outer space is not very green: It is mostly black and empty and cold, punctuated by (very) occasional spots of weird and extreme phenomena like nebulae and black holes. The environmentalists (and environmental historians) of the not-too-distant future will therefore face some intriguing questions: Can we find natural value in a "territory" that is so alien from that of our familiar earth? Will outer space someday come to function in human culture in a way that parallels the contemporary meanings of earthly wilderness?	4
My fourth theme concerns the changing "nature" of human bodies themselves. At what point would a human, intensively modified by medical or genetic technologies, become so artificial that he or she is considered to occupy a qualitatively different category of personhood from other (non-modified) humans? This used to be a topic for science fiction writers: I believe it increasingly will constitute a hot topic for philosophers, biologists, technologists—and environmental historians as well. We are interested, after all, in nature, and our bodies are very much a part of the natural realm—part of the world whose shape is changing under the growing pressure of technological advance.	5
A final area of interest (and concern) is nanotechnology. This field, situated somewhere between physics, engineering, and cybernetics, may or may not fulfill the hopes of its contemporary proponents. The technologies are still so young that it is hard to tell the prognostication from the hype. But if only a fraction of the things that are being said of nanotechnology come true, our physical world will not be the same again. Got a problem with an oil spill, for example? Simply walk over and pour a vial of self-replicating petroleum-chomping microbots onto the waves, then sit back and watch those little suckahs go. The oil disappears, like water off a desert floor. Such technologies would truly take the human relationship with the physical world to an entirely new level—and the dangers would of course be commensurate with the powers unleashed. (What if the teeming petroleum-chompers unexpectedly develop a taste for algae, or plankton, and the failsafe that's supposed to stop them malfunctions?) Environmentalists and environmental historians would do well to keep a close eye on this field as it develops.	6
Michael Bess is associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University. He recently published The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 (University of Chicago Press, 2003), which won the 2003 George Perkins Marsh prize of ASEH and an honorable mention from the Pinkney Prize committee of the Society for French Historical Studies. He is writing a book entitled Artificial Persons: Shifting Boundaries of the Human in the Age of Robots and Clones.

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.