39. How ecological value arises

I defined ecological value in terms of life in its changing forms and interconnections, situated in ecosystems. That implies that I must address the question of how life arises and how it changes. As I wrote in a previous post we must start with God or Mother Nature. The choice is beyond the scope of these posts. From there, the discussion could take place at different levels of generality e.g. from concepts of basic physics and electro-chemistry or from those of cell formation and development in organisms, for example. But at a relatively basic level, the challenge seems to be to answer the question: How do we energise a collection of chemicals in such a way that they can behave as an integrated organism, interacting with its environment to survive long enough to reproduce and raise young to the stage in which they, in turn, are viable? In all cases, scientists believe that, ultimately, we depend on the sun. Plants have light sensitive cells to harvest sunlight and CO2 to produce energy. Animals depend on plants or other animals for their energy. So, at this basic level, most life on earth depends on the sun and the energy harvesting, storage and use capacities of cells. The creation of ecological value can be seen, at the microscopic level, in the cells that can harvest, store and use energy and in the processes of energy conversion. It can also be seen at the level of the organism: in those that harvest, store and use energy; in evolutionary transformation; and in the change from one life-stage to another. It is also seen in the adoption of habits, which are processes that use considerable energy in exploration to reduce energy costs in routine activities and in advanced species in many abstract ways from the setting of goals to the manufacture of solar panels and batteries. Put simply and generally, value arises in capacities to generate/transform, store and use energy for life.

At first sight, it may seem that we humans have played this game very well. Not only do we sit as the apex predator with dominion over all other species to satisfy our energy needs, but we can also harness energy in synthetic ways from coal, radioactive substances, geothermal resources, the sun and the wind, store the energy transformed, and use it more or less at will.

But all is not as it first appears. Consider this comparison: the hunting of fish by sharks and the hunting of fish by humans. Viewers of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet may have been awestruck and perhaps a little fearful watching a small shiver of sharks encounter a large shoal of fish and engage in a feeding frenzy. The odd fish, usually dead, drifts away but the sheer efficiency of the predation is near-miraculous. However, overconsumption of prey by sharks is a self-limiting exercise. If the prey species become scarce or only abundant at greater distances, the energy involved in catching a good meal increases, ultimately to the point of detriment to the shark, either directly or in the reduced quality and viability of offspring. Current concerns about human impacts on fish populations are diverse, including a watch-list of endangered species but here I will attempt a direct comparison of human activities with those of the shark. When I was young, the herring fleets had all but gone from the east coast of Britain and the main concern moved onto white fish and the cod wars with Iceland. The next sources of concern were EU quotas and massive factory ships, such as the Russian versions that spent a lot of time off the north west coast of Scotland. Now, it seems as though the Chinese have taken fishing to an even more gigantic scale in places like the West African coast. Many of the arguments are made in geopolitical terms, and you may feel that these are strong enough, but the ecological arguments are even stronger. Ironically, because of the human ability to stop the flow of habit and apply reason, the more natural limits to overfishing imposed by energy needs have been overridden to the point where we continue to fish until we want to stop. As fishermen and women, we can overcome the natural limits imposed on the shark. But only to a point. The real limits will be imposed at the more global level when the low levels of stock, or, ultimately, in the extinction of species, make the large scale methods of fishing unviable. This example reveals the key problem with pursuing benefits aggressively. Unless we ask explicitly about the impacts at the next, higher, level of generality, and specifically about the negative impacts, the undoubted benefits that human actions generate may also result in larger harms. We may be winning battles that contribute directly to losing the war. And in the case of solutions to over-fishing, that takes us straight back to geopolitics.

How, then, do we get over the Hobbesian view of life, one that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”? The answer is in recognising the fundamental interconnectedness of life and in trying to limit our megalomanic tendencies. In a natural ecosystem, such as the one that includes the shark and its prey fish, the excesses of any member of the system are usually self-limiting. As the example illustrates, humans are different, but we are still fundamentally interconnected in our ecosystems. Our excesses have consequences. They just take a long time, perhaps several generations, to crystallise. Taleb uses the medical metaphor of iatrogenics, in which the healer causes the harm to describe this particular form of human myopia:

“a cost-benefit situation, (that) usually results from the treacherous condition in which the benefits are small, and visible—and the costs very large, delayed, and hidden.”

I wrote in an earlier post that many organisms, humans included, are closely connected to others. These connections are multifaceted and deep. In humans, basic emotional systems regulate not only self-starting activity but also collaboration and competition. Some species place more emphasis on care and collaboration, others on fear and competition but, in general, there is a balance to be struck between the two, a balance that enables the organism to succeed in its environments. These emotions enable organisms to discriminate on the basis of what they perceive to be good or bad and to embed those choices in habits. Conscious collaboration and especially competition are wearing. To save energy, we look for patterns in the environment. If the patterns are sufficiently reliable, we may be justified in making an investment in a habit, a prediction that this aspect of the future will give stable responses. Even though the basic emotions can only indicate that the world is good, bad or undecidable, they underpin how we make most of our decisions and, as such, provide one of the most basic forms of value that we have.

You may say at this point: Surely our reasoning skills lie at the root of our decision-making, of how we gain value in the world. Of course reasoning is an important way for us to gain value but the argument about which is most important is far from new. I adopt David Hume’s position:

“Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

Rather than trying to ditch science, Hume’s objective was to give human science a robust basis. Instead, his conclusions imply we should be modest in the application of our knowledge, that our objectivity may not be as strong as it seems. Objectivity is a special form of intersubjectivity. To know something intersubjectively is to trust an inherited trait such as imitation or the knowledge of someone else. In these cases, there is a triangulation between two or more individuals and the truth of some aspect of the world. There is no independent arbiter of objectivity. What we take to be objective knowledge is a belief that can be justified to the satisfaction of the appropriate authority.

Universal truths are axiomatic, true by definition and elaboration or rearrangement. Everything else, everything about the real world and the suitability of the application of axioms to the real world, is a feeling or a belief. Scientific truths are intersubjective agreements just like the agreements of two lovers. They have different standards of evidence and different arbiters, and one may last considerably longer than the other but they are both truths. There is no Truth, merely truths, and these truths are the things we understand to be knowledge.

In formal contexts, e.g. in science and in policy-making, objectivity generally subsists in previously agreed and emerging higher-order reasons about a “tangle” of requirements (facts, tools, methods, evidence and so on) and agreed ways of dealing with relations among them. The What Works methods of science may be strong enough to tell us what worked in a particular place at a particular time. They are unable to tell us how much longevity they will have, nor whether they are portable nor to what extent. Reasoning and objectivity are relatively new ways to extend our perceptions of value in the world. They are valuable, powerful and dangerous.

The use of formal prediction, relying as it does on objective models, is dangerous in complex contexts and often inappropriate in single case examples. A stronger test for knowledge is what doesn’t work. For this reason, we need to consider negative conceptions of knowledge, especially with regard to ecosystems.

Value for species’ arises in effectiveness, in goodness of fit with the demands of the environment. Value is pragmatic. However, what works in one way may be dysfunctional in another. More efficient methods of fishing at the level of today’s catch may harm the environment directly e.g. scallop dredging, or indirectly e.g. by over-fishing and damaging the intricate webs of ecosystems and so diminishing the value of the environment in both the general ecological sense and, more narrowly, in the economic sense at a later date. We should concern ourselves with both current side-effects and with second- and nth order effects. The term externality used by economists in cost-benefit analysis is often inappropriate. It refers only to costs and benefits that are external to humans in the short-term; they are not external to ecosystems nor, usually, to the interests of humans in the long-term. Humans, and many other creatures, have natural preferences for their own kind, whatever that means in context. In the human context, there is a preference, in the broad order that follows, for self, family, friends, community, larger groups to which we belong e.g. nation, humanity, mammals, animals, plants, eco-systems. The logic of the ecosystem suggests that, in this age, a rational response to ecosystem evaluation is not enough. There are times when we need a super-rational response that reverses our natural tendencies, one that recognises not only our need for fish today, or even fish tomorrow, but one that will restore and maintain the systems that support life.

In summary, the answer to the question How do we value? lies in how we get, store and use energy for life. In many of the choices organisms make, this concerns energy saving, choosing not to make decisions. This is achieved by taking decisions in advance to reduce the number of live energy-sapping processes and handing them over to low-energy-using commitments such as genes and habits.

Many organisms make decisions individually and collectively, in both collaboration and competition. We gain value absolutely by having energy and access to energy potential. Many mammals also gain value relatively through their position in their societies. There is much more to be said about this but, in general, aggression is useful in getting to be the top dog, but social skills are more useful in staying there.

In humans, energy is not limited to the resources contained in food. It is also more abstract. Money gives the power to purchase energy power. And humans find value in energy beyond food and immediate consumption. We can transform, store and use energy synthetically for heat, cooking (which frees up more readily consumed food energy when eaten) and for later consumption. However, as we have seen, not all energy is equal: coal has dangerous nth order effects through CO2 accumulations; nuclear power has very long-lived and dangerous waste; and, sun and wind, although relatively benign, use resources and are a danger to some life forms.

Finally, a curious problem. In some cases, changes in quantity turn into changes in quality. In the example above of overfishing, the sharks see the quality change in fewer and weaker offspring: humans, on the other hand, see the quality change in extinctions or near extinctions of other species, and a change in the menu at the local chip shop.