BAGS Seminar
September 2000 BAGS Luncheon

Global Resource Ethics --
Aldo Leopold, the Land Ethic, and the Lifeboat Problem

Allan Lindh

USGS, Menlo Park

September 13, 2000

Abstract

Thanks to the geometric growth in the human population, the people of this country and the world, face a crisis quite unlike that faced by prior generations; it is variously referred to as a population, environmental, biospheric, or climate change crisis, but irrespective of the words used two things our certain:
  • 1. The problems will get worse, likely in areas we cannot anticipate today, and
  • 2. Our evolving understanding of the problem(s) depends largely on progress in the earth sciences, taken in the broad sense.

    The earth sciences also face a crisis, as some of our traditional areas of focus fade in relevance in the face of the looming "environmental crisis", and the impact of our growing energy, land, water and mineral resource use is already having serious consequences for the environment and the biosphere, and because these impacts are cumulative, problems will escalate in this century. Yet relatively few of us are trained in those areas that would broaden our ability to respond to the problems of the 21st century, rather than those of the 19th.

    This talk will attempt to outline some of the ethical and practical dilemmas posed by these two intertwined "crises," from the idiosyncratic, and very personal perspective, of one blue-collar seismologist whose children are environmental activists.

    The talk divides roughly into three parts:

  • 1. Vernadsky and the Biosphere. The living system that covers the surface of the earth -- the biosphere in current terms -- consists of three intertwined "fluxes" -- energy, material and information. This perspective seems to have originated with Vladimer Vernadsky, a Russian geochemist, a student of Mendeleev, who during the chaotic years of the Russian revolution, formulated a view of life on the surface of the earth as an intertwined system of fluxes, which was eventually published in France as le Biosphere in the mid-1920's.
  • 2. Aldo Leopold and the "Land Ethic." Wrote monograph in 1920's, after working on wolf extermination in mountains of New Mexico, quoting from PD Ouspensky's Tertium Organum as to the character and rights of living systems. This work eventually ended up as final section of Sand Co. Almanac on the "Land Ethic" -- our ethical responsibilities to the entire living system and the earth. This provided the starting point for what is known today as the Environmental Ethics movement.
  • 3. The Lifeboat Problem. You are in a lifeboat, your ship is sinking. The lifeboat is full. Around you are people drowning, trying to crawl into your boat. If you let them in, the boat will sink and you all will drown. Today, and everyday, somewhere in the world approximately 40,000 children under the age of five die from starvation, or malnutrition related disease.

    Speaker's Biography

    Allan G. Lindh was born in Mason City, Washington on 18 March 1943. He studied at Caltech, Yale, the University of Oregon, and U.C. Santa Cruz; he received a Ph.D. in 1980 in Geophysics from Stanford University.

    In his youth he worked as a carpenter, logger, truck driver, farm worker, and real estate salesman. For the last 30 years he has worked on earthquake prediction and ground motion estimation, at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California . His major research interests are:

    The integration of seismic, geologic and deformation data into a single coherent quantitative model of the seismotectonics of the San Andreas fault system; The use of the understanding gained from this model to quantify the hazard and further earthquake prediction, and The transmission of this understanding to the public in such a manner as to reduce the risk from large earthquakes.

    He was involved in the creation of the Parkfield Prediction Experiment, and efforts to forecast large earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the long- and short-term warnings before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In the early 1990's he served as Chief of the Branch of Seismology at the U.S.G.S.'s Western Headquarters in Menlo Park.

    His other interests include seismic retrofitting of his house, gardening, backpacking, kayaking, the origin of life and the evolution of complexity, philosophy of science and religion, limiting human population growth, reducing the risk of nuclear war, the risk of a run-away greenhouse effect, etc.

    He lives with his wife Julie near the top of the Ben Lomond pluton north of Santa Cruz, ten miles from the San Francisco Peninsula segment of the San Andreas fault, and five miles from the San Gregorio fault.


    Lunch: 11:20 am
    Talk: 12:00 Noon
    Location:
    San Ramon Mariott Hotel,
    Salon Rooms A, B, & C
    [2600 Bishop Dr.- just
    2 blocks north of Chevron]
    		 Lunch Buffet:
    $10 - for non-members, includes membership
    Free - for paid BAGS members

    Please RSVP by noon on Monday September 10 via email to Donna Shotwell at djsh@chevron.com.

    This is a BAGS membership drive, so lunch is free to paid members, and the $10 lunch charge for nonmembers includes Annual 2001 BAGS membership due.

    Thanks to Chevron for sponsoring the event and subsidizing the cost of the meal!

    Please book ASAP due to room limits. Note: the cost of the Meal alone is ~$25, so please don't be a "no show." If you have not paid the 2001 Membership fee, you can commit to paying $10 in your RSVP E-Mail, and pay at the door, but RSVPers that are "no shows" will be billed. BAGS Membership: If you are not sure of your 2001 "PAID" status, contact Anna Villella at acvi@chevron.com.