Media Clipping — March 31, 2001, The Chronicle-Herald ~ Voice of the People

Optimism and Sober Reality: We Need Both!

Letter to the Editor
By Ronald Colman, Ph.D

In response to Brian Lee Crowley's article Betting on human ingenuity in the March 28, 2001 Halifax Herald

In The Chronicle-Herald ("Betting on Human Ingenuity," 28 March), Brian Lee Crowley states that "it is quite incorrect to think of natural resources as exhaustible." Those who think so, he says, are "pessimists" and "false prophets of doom." If "natural resources were actually getting scarcer," he argues, "then the price would go up" and "human ingenuity comes up with cheaper alternatives, or invests time and intelligence in increasing the supply."

I would like to invite Mr. Crowley to come fishing - salmon, trout, or cod perhaps? - because we need his ingenuity to increase a few supplies: ∑ According to the Atlantic Salmon Federation, "Canada's wild Atlantic salmon runs have declined by 80% during the past 25 years." Salmon are currently extinct in 22% of Nova Scotia rivers, seriously depleted in 25%, and have only remnant populations in 32% more. All of these rivers were once abundant with salmon.

• Nova Scotia brook trout have declined by 50% since 1985.
• Overall recreational fish catches in Nova Scotia are down 70% since 1975.
• Cod and ground fish stocks have not recovered despite "human ingenuity," "time and intelligence."

Where were the price signals to prevent the cod stock collapse and the salmon decline? Yes, our lobster exports are booming. But tell that to the salmon anglers, the sports fishers, and the 40,000 people thrown out of work when the ground fish stocks collapsed. Can we calmly abide the loss of a resource and blithely substitute another?

Or Mr. Crowley may wish to join me for a walk in the woods to search for one of our few remaining old trees. Only 0.6% of our old-growth forest remains in Nova Scotia. Soil scientists tell us we have lost 30-40% of our soil organic matter in eastern Canada in the last 40 years. Biologists crunch the numbers and find we are losing plant and animal species at an unprecedented rate - 1,000 times the natural rate in fact. "Pessimism" or sober science?

I am not sure which planet Mr. Crowley is referring to, where natural resources are inexhaustible, and in which supplies can magically be increased by human ingenuity. In the planet on which I live, human ingenuity must be applied to the responsible conservation and stewardship of natural resources.

But that reality does not mean I am a pessimist. On the contrary, Mr. Crowley, I am an incurable optimist. My faith in human ingenuity is reinforced: ∑ by our remarkable 50% diversion of solid waste in just five years; ∑ by the dedicated restoration forestry practised by wood lot owners in New Germany and Pictou Landing; ∑ by Bear River's ingenious Solar Aquatic sewage and waste water treatment system; ∑ by the Western Valley Development Authority's innovative exploration of wind energy; ∑ by the Nova Scotia Salmon Association's outstanding "Adopt-A-Stream" restoration projects, and ∑ by many other inspiring models of responsible stewardship that show us the way forward to a more sustainable future.

The reason price signals have failed to signal resource decline and collapse is that we don't count the value of natural resources in our standard economic growth measures. In fact, the more fish we sell, the more trees we cut down and the more quickly we deplete our resources, the faster the economy will grow and the "better off" we think we are.

No wonder the market can't respond effectively to signals from nature, when nature's services are regarded as free, value-less and inexhaustible in our economic accounting mechanisms.

That's why Mr. Crowley's Atlantic Institute for Market Studies needs a little help from an Atlantic Institute for Non-Market Studies to incorporate natural resource values into market mechanisms so that prices will effectively "signal shortages and availability" of resource stocks, as he wishes.

That is the reason we are now constructing a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia that includes the value of our natural resources. GPI Atlantic looks forward to working with AIMS to achieve our common endeavour.

In the meantime, our differences have nothing to do with pessimism and optimism. But I do have a 9-year-old daughter and I will not entrust her future to naive or wishful thinking.

My optimism is grounded in the sober recognition that our resources are finite and exhaustible, and that it will require hard-nosed practical action and dedicated resource conservation to ensure that the world my daughter inherits is not a depleted one.

I am also completely confident that we can marshal the very best of human intelligence and ingenuity to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our children.

Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Director, GPIAtlantic