Kirschenmann: Some things are priceless

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Questionnarie by Wendell Berry

How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons.
For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do? Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.
What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.
In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.
State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.

By FRED KIRSCHENMANN, Leopold Center Distinguished Fellow

As we slowly come to appreciate our embeddedness within the ecosphere, we become mindful that what sustains us is not our dazzling industrial output but what we don’t very often well understand. Looking back on our journey of knowledge accumulation . . . we finally realize that the context for our existence is better defined by an understanding of ecology, rather than industry. − Wes Jackson

In their book, Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, economist Frank Ackerman and legal scholar Lisa Heinzerling make a compelling case for the assertion that the true value of some things, such as life, health and ecological resilience, cannot be reduced to statistical evaluation. Consequently, regulating human activities by means of cost/benefit analysis in an effort to protect human or ecological health is deeply flawed. They point out that “In practice, most cost-benefit analysis could more accurately be described as ‘complete cost/incomplete benefit’ studies . . . many important benefits cannot be meaningfully quantified or priced, and are therefore implicitly given a value of zero. Thus, despite the common claims that cost-benefit analysis is philosophically and politically impartial, its very methodology systematically disfavors protections of goods that, like health and environmental protection, are priceless.”

They argue, therefore, that since we are using statistical cost/benefit analysis to evaluate something that is priceless, “there is no hope of waiting for definitive proof and scientific consensus on the effects of all the health hazards of modern life” and that we must therefore begin to act in a “precautionary manner.”

Ackerman and Heinszerling’s assertion that scientific certainty based on statistical analysis is impossible in a world that operates on incomprehensible, ecosystemic complexity is corroborated by practical experience. James Davidson (Emeritus Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Florida) years ago articulated some of the past miscalculations of agricultural sciences using such statistical analyses. Davidson pointed out that:

With the publication of Rachel Carson's book entitled Silent Spring, we, in agriculture, loudly and in unison stated that pesticides did not contaminate the environment − we now admit that they do. When confronted with the presence of nitrates in groundwater, we responded that it was not possible for nitrates from commercial fertilizer to reach groundwater in excess of 10 parts per million under normal productive agricultural systems − we now admit they do. When questioned about the presence of pesticides in food and food quality, we assured the public that if a pesticide was applied in compliance with the label, agricultural products would be free of pesticides − we now admit they're not.

In the light of the challenges posed by these observations, it seems puzzling that eminent scientists still make statements such as the one in the February 12, 2010 issue of Science magazine implying that we now know that transgenic crops are safe because "The world has consumed GM crops for 13 years without incident." What we actually know, from bitter experience living in a complex ecosystemic world, is that it often can take more than a lifetime to reach scientific consensus establishing the links between certain activities and human health − such as the link between smoking cigarettes and lung and heart disease.

So in the interest of sustaining what Aldo Leopold called “land health,” which he described as the biotic community’s “capacity for self-renewal,” how can we change our culture of science and economics to better serve those vital, long-term interests?

Two strategies, one from the sciences and one from the arts, recently have been suggested.

The first comes from ecologist Daniel A. Fiscus in “The Ecosystemic Life Hypothesis,” a delightful, brief article to be published in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. Fiscus draws on the sciences of ecology and evolutionary biology to remind us that our world does not operate “as fundamental (and indivisible) units of life,” but rather as ecosystemic units in which “sustained life is a property of an ecological system rather than a single organism or species.” (Morowitz, The Beginnings of Cellular Life, 1992 Yale University Press). This shift in our thinking from an industrial to an ecological paradigm could guide changes in the culture of science to better serve the long-term interests of sustainability.

The second strategy comes to us from poet, farmer and essayist Wendell Berry. In his new book, Leavings: Poems (Counterpoint Press, 2009), Berry suggests that naming those things that we could potentially harm by our activities (rather than doing a cost/benefit analysis) might lead to more thoughtful, cautionary action. I heartily agree.

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Kirschenmann: Some things are priceless

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