Mobility without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship Book

Interesting oddity - Peter Gretener was a geologist who compiled his thoughts on education, progress, the human condition, and the state of the planet in a manuscript written through his career, mostly in the 1970s, but not discovered, edited, published until after his death. Gretener talks about the past, present, and future of man in plain and uncompromising language, with minimal editing and updating by his son.

Modern man's predicament? "man's collision course with nature--his attitude of ruthless exploitation leading to the depletion of non-renewable resources, the pollution of the environment, overpopulation, with its accompanying increase in human aggression, and other effects. This predicament is a result of the options provided to man by his technology."

Writing in the 1970's, Gretener was heavily influence by "The Limits to Growth," the infamously doom-ridden Jeremiad whose most pessimistic models and predictions have been proven wrong, or at least premature. As such, Gretener is gloomy about the prospects for humanity. Like most gloom-and-doomers of that era, Gretener made some wrong assumptions and failed to predict some coming revolutions in technology that were just beyond the short-term horizon:

1. Economic growth based on non-material production - the information economy that was nascent in the 70s and about to explode in the next quarter-century.

2. Rising natural resource prices would spur innovations in three 3 R's: reuse, recycling, and reduction. This has enabled economic growth to continue beyond the capacities predicted by the Limits-to-Growth model.

But the point is well taken--we are approaching limits in many natural resources, the spiritual costs of economic progress are becoming higher--and spiritual, political, and academic leadership is lacking (p. 113).

While one could go through any 30-year old book or journal article on the topics covered by Gretener and point out statements that the subsequent three decades have proven wrong, but the particular timing of his book makes it a fascinating historical document. One reason his pessimism (usually right, he says, while optimism is more pleasant to listen to--p. 123) has not yet been realized is revealed in the statement that technology can only be "a little improved perhaps"--written on the cusp of huge advances in the rate of technological change! These advances still haven't resolved the problems Gretener identifies, but they have delayed the worst and redirect history toward new sorts of problems that may yet prove unresolvable but at least provide some cause for optimism.

I think the areas of Vanishing that I find most interesting are:

1. Gretener's prescient awareness of the potential of China based on its huge population then shackled and impoverished by radical economic socialism and uncompromising political Communism. He uses the concept of "effective population" to calculate the economic and resource demands of the world as it attempts to match the affluence of the United States (which he finds wasteful, immoral, and threatening to the future of the human race). The concept explains some of the impact of China's economic growth of the last decade on the world economy. To date, the impact of the burgeoning Chinese economy under restrained capitalism hasn't been as great as his formula predicts because

--rising affluence is not distributed equitably and equally across the population as the Chinese economy grows, depressing the macro impact.

--natural resource prices have driven (or stalled) economic growth to some extent.

--environmental costs in China are all still external to production manufacturing and consumption, which have kept prices low and sustained growth.

Of course, hidden in these positives are the seeds of the concerns Gretener raised, like the massive environmental issues in China today based on the past 20 years of unregulated industrial effluents. Gretener may still be correct in his ultimate conclusion: "Closing the gap will result in a reduction in the standard of living for the affluent West." It would be interesting to hear Gretener's take on China, the world economy and the state of the predicament today.

2. His awareness of and common-sense approach to environmentalism, which at times makes Vanishing seem startlingly today's-headline relevant. The chicken-littles of today would be wise to listen to take such an approach as this: "The planet is doing just fine, and the minor skin cancer it has developed will in no way effect the future existence of this planet. It is not the planet we wish to save but rather our personal and collective existence, which is quite a different matter" (p. 215). You can hear the geologist speaking here, from his knowledge of the age, solidity, and stolidity of the rocks he knows intimately. He is also very clear on the dangers to our human existence--particularly in the area of clean water, which he predicted will become a bigger crisis sooner than oil, a prediction which may yet be realized.

So what is Gretener's solution to the predicament? It starts with a revolution: not a political one ("political revolutions have never really changed anything, except personal fortunes"--p. 221), but a "human revolution." This starts with a reintegration of knowledge (he is heavily influenced by C. P. Snows "The Two Cultures"--humanities and sciences) to combat the very narrow focus of solutions developed along increasingly specialized academic fields. The solutions must come from holistic views of the problems strongly grounded in science but determined by human beings, not driven by what is technically possible. Finally, the solution must involve a change away from material affluence toward spiritual and intellectual affluence.

Realizing that this is a book published posthumously by a small publisher, that doesn't make startling claims or break new ground, Vanishing is still an interesting, enlightened, and worthy use of time for the thinking reader.