The Environmental Tango (an elaborate metaphor)

It should be clear from the last post that I had a great time in FL. Now I'll relate the other side of the coin, the side that will inevitably make some roll their eyes or throw up their hands in disgust. It's the philosophical side.

What disturbs me about environmental restoration, or environmentally oriented engineering generally, is twofold: 1.) it presumes that the environment is some thing out there that we can fix (as opposed, say, to participating in... think of how silly it would be to ask engineers to go fix a boring dance party. The issue in the latter case is not that there is a thing to fix, but that folks are participating poorly.), and 2.) it presumes that if we are damaging the environment that there needs to be a profession devoted to fixing it.

In many ways these two problems are just ways of stating the same issue. If the environment is not a thing but is rather all that goes on with and around us (without being to separate the "with" and the "around" - it is, after all, our environment, our surroundings, that context within which we act by definition), then it is something that we participate in, or with. Perhaps a better image than seeing the environment as an elaborate machine is to see it as a partner in whose embrace we dance to the step of the seasons. Or maybe we should see the environment as the music itself to which we dance, eliminate the physical partner that we manipulate, and rather see that our actions are the dance that is attuned to the environment. It is easy to follow the metaphor to an understanding of what an unfaithful approach to the environment would be, that is, as if we danced to a different rhythm or a different style, we waltzed to a tango. The metaphor breaks down, perhaps, in that my looking like an idiot with no rhythm does not ever directly impact the music. It does, however, affect the dance if we remember that the dance is not what I'm doing or what the music is doing, but what the two accomplish in concert. Environmental degradation is not the dancer affecting the music, but the dancer failing to dance to the music. So, I've come to the point, questioning the environment as something inherently other than man. We cannot consistently (that is, faithfully) delineate an environment separate from the man, I want to say, and this to say that in our metaphor the "environment" is not the music but the dance itself. This is a tango environment, or a waltz environment, and we know by listening to the music and watching the dancers. If the two (dancer and music) are not coherent then we arrive, rightfully, at confusion (and this is where I think we stand today).

What, in this case, would a professional devoted to restoration do? He/she might teach the dancer to dance to the music, for example. Ah, but in our metaphor that is the professional teaching the citizen something rather than fixing the environmental thing. So that can't be it. We said that the environment is precisely the dance, the concerted movement of music and dancer. To fix the environment we need to teach the dancer to participate faithfully with the given music. He could change the music, I suppose, to fit the dancer, but in such a case he still has not taught the dancer to recognize what dance goes with which music, and thus have no guarantee that this will repair the integrity of the overall performance in the least. The trouble for the engineer is that there is no physical thing to operate on. We need rather to be taught to move in concert with a rhythm around us.

I like stretching metaphors, so I'll keep going. In this little dance party, what is it that restoration engineers currently go about doing in mistaking the environment for a thing? Perhaps they change the music for a few bars where they see an opportunity to make the dancers movements coincide with a section of music. It's hard to say. What is key to keep in mind is that what they are manipulating may not be the heart of the problem. They look for a thing to fix without ever asking whether the problem is a thing in the first place. Certainly, it is logical to think first of manipulating things. We are surrounded by rivers and streams and hills and valleys, trees, soils, rocks, and animals. Things, all of them. The issue is in taking too literally the idea that the environment is some thing apart from our participation. Herein is the power of the Christian distinction between creature and creator, I think, as distinct from distinguishing man and nature.

So, environmental restoration engineers certainly go about working on the environment in our colloquial sense, but it is not clear that they are addressing any problem of real interest because they have not taught us how to dance any better. In fact, much of the action of the environmental engineer is performed in the same awkward shuffle as the rest of us who are causing the problem in the first place. The environmental engineer is no Fred Astaire in the metaphor, nor does he seem to aim at being so. It seems, on my metaphor, that there is no fixing without showing, that we need examples more than we need mechanics.

And I hope that the metaphor makes it clear that the image of an engineer seeking to mechanically repair the dance is a rather clumsy one. The mechanic who shows up wrench in hand ready to "fix" the dance has little integrity. The notion of a profession devoted to direct manipulation of the problem is rather absurd since the only way to fix the environment is to get folks dancing the tango properly when there is tango music playing. As I said, we need examples, instructors who can teach by doing and showing, rather than mechanics who can apply corrections with a wrench.

Now, a metaphor is not really an argument. So what is my argument? Why aren't restoration projects doing a wonderful thing by turning brownfield sites into functioning ecosystems? I think they are doing something wonderfully effective. The trouble, it seems to me, is that they haven't really restored the brownfield to a functioning ecosystem. They have perhaps restored the site to what it was before man invaded it (optimistically, but this is the aim), but they have not created a situation in which man is involved with the site without further degradation, much less to environmental appreciation. They have, in a sense, recharged the environmental batteries for a little while, but have not taught us how to generate power. The approach it too often seems is either to manipulate the environment so that it may exist in steady state with the practices of local people (e.g., turn it into a golf course), or to formulate a list of thou shalt not's that will preserve some minimal level of ecosystem integrity (e.g., minimum ecological discharge in a river). Neither of these confront the dancer with the idea that he might just look like an idiot on the dance floor, and that maybe it is time to consider investing in lessons.

As I have said in other posts, I do not question whether science and engineering are effective. I want to challenge their faithfulness.