Borrowing from the remarks of our Master of Ceremonies, I would like to observe that for the two million years of our existence on Earth, a very small fraction of the 4.5 billion years of the existence of the planet Earth, we human beings have been able to enjoy autumn days and to observe the growing moon. What we are really talking about today is whether we are going to be able to continue to do so in the future. I would really like to make three points about the human condition and then several observations about the role of science and technology in dealing with it. The first point would be that science and technology in a modern sense beginning about 250 years ago in Europe with the start of the industrial revolution and spreading over the world, mainly spreading through Asia over the last century, driven by an endless supply, seemingly endless supply of energy from fossil fuels, the world population during the existence of modern science and technology has grow from an 800 million people at the start less than the population of China or India at the present time to nearly 6 billion people as the 20th century comes to an end. The second point that I would like to make is that the globe, the earth, our planet is not managed sustainably now in the 1990s. Forty percent of the total net photosynthetic output on land is being appropriated or wasted or diverted at the present time. And we have in the 50 years since the end of World War II, not only lost 25% of the world's top soil, not only lost nearly 10% of the stratospheric ozone layer, not only increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 20%, not only cut down about a third of the forest that were in existence at the end of World War II. But we are right now in these decades threatening a major proportion of the world's bio-diversity on which global sustainability ultimately depends. We assume in our discussions that we have a sustainable earth on which we are building something into the future. But in fact, the earth far from being sustainable is decreasing it's stability very, very rapidly at the present time, something that we don't like to face. And the third point that I would like to make is that these problems arise not only from population, although that's the commonest things that we like to talk about. But from a combination of population, levels of consumption and the uses of inappropriate technology and it is the product of those three terms that really is responsible for these. Now, I would like to offer some observations. One of the most important relationships for us to think about today is that in this 50 year period, the proportion of people living in industrialized countries like North America, Europe, Japan have decreased progressively from 33% at the end of World War II to 20% today and will be 15% by the year 2020. In other words, the proportion of us living in industrialized countries will be cut in half during a single 70 year period, scarcely the span of the human life. In those industrialized countries, Europe, Japan, North America, former Soviet Union perhaps and a few others, we use approximately eighty to ninety percent of everything that the earth produces and cause approximately 80 to 90% of pollution throughout the world. The obvious coalition is that we number among ourselves about 94% of the world's scientists and engineers and the connection is inescapable. Science and engineering are giving us in the rapidly shrinking industrialized part of the world the capability of using up everything that the world produces at a rate that is clearly not sustainable. These observations echo the words of Hubert Reeves, who has spoken a few minutes ago and also echoing the words of the joint communique of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the World Society of 3 years ago. Science and engineering are clearly necessary to allow us to use the world efficiently and to form a stable relationship with it, but they are not sufficient. As the National Academy of Sciences and World Society concluded, unless humanity attends to population, consumption, technology, science and engineering will not be able to save us and it is a very grave crime against humanity and one for which we scientists must be held accountable that so many people believe that science and engineering will save us and, therefore, our actions and responsibility is relatively indirect. As outlined very clearly in the fine book called "Limits to Growth" and as many other observers have pointed out that the collapse that human systems may be much near than we suppose, perhaps in the first couple of decades of the 21st century. There is really not much reason on the basis of the rapid exhaustion of global systems to assume that the world would continue to be able to function as it is for much more than an additional 15 or 20 or maybe 25 years. This is not a centuries-long progression in which we can slowly apply the findings of science and engineering and hope for a gradual improvement. Rather, we must respond immediately to the needs of a natural system under the threat of imminent collapse. As scientists and engineers, therefore, we find it particularly unfortunate that society by and large is falling back on a selfish reflection that perhaps we can go back to the past, that perhaps human greed and an emphasis on each and every human beings right somehow derive to grab as much of productivity of the world as possible for their own enjoyment. That, that has reached the condition under which science and engineering are being less and less adequately funded throughout the world by all governments in general, and thus less and less able to contribute what they can to the betterment of the human condition. Certainly in order to understand the ways in which community's ecosystems, the global ecosystem, the poorly known biodiversity of the world interact, we will need to apply more rather less effort to science and we must apply that now. When our politicians tell us that they have no money to spend on science, because human beings needed for other purposes, they are ignoring the fact that the world is tittering on the blink of a precipice and it will not be saved going over that precipice by science and engineering but we assuredly need the tools of science and engineering to help to avoid that disaster. Therefore scientists and engineers, therefore, must I argue take the lead on the basis of what we truly know in helping us to arrive at perhaps what Gorbachev called "a new way of thinking," and what some of the speakers today have called a new humanistic or holistic approach to the world. If we do not take the lead in that, do not take the lead in arriving and helping humanity to arrive at in an enhanced reference to arrive, humanity will never be willing to safeguard life. If we pompously allow ourselves to pretend through the rest of human beings that we have the key to everyone salvation and simply go on demanding more resources without being willing to contribute to these important global issues, then we shall bear a grave responsibility for the consequences. In short, science should help us to understand that human beings while we are the dominant force on earth, are not the sole purpose of the earth's existence. Here in Osaka, while we are enjoying these autumn days and the growing moon, perhaps the group assembled here in the spirit of harmonious coexistence of nature and Earth, will be able to help our fellow human being struggling amongst ourselves to lift our sights up and to use our abilities to create conditions that truly will be able to contribute to the derivation of a more peaceful and harmonious way of coexisting with the Earth.

Peter H. Raven Director, Missouri Botanical Garden, Professor of Biology, Washington University (USA, botanist, systematic botany)

< BACK >