We Walk Among Them

The belief that one is an alien is usually associated with some form of insanity presumably brought on by reading too much science fiction; and, it may be imagined, with a desire to attract attention in a society where it is all too easy to feel ignored. Yet I feel like I think an alien might. I dwell less in my environment than on it. I look around the surrounding countryside, and I have no idea how to survive in it. I don’t know what plants are safe to eat or where to find them; I don’t know how to catch prey; I don’t know how to build a shelter from local materials; I don’t know how to treat illness; I don’t know how to light a fire or make tools. To be honest, I don’t particularly want to know either – it is interesting in an abstract, academic way of course, but I don’t think I would enjoy suddenly being forced to live a hunter-gatherer existence on a permanent basis. Instead, my head is filled with knowledge about computers, technology, brands, celebrities, insurance policies, TV shows and power tools.

All things that sustain me come from somewhere else that, as far as the ecosystem I inhabit is concerned, may as well be from another planet. The power that heats my house is generated elsewhere; the food I eat is grown elsewhere; the water I drink treated elsewhere; my medicines manufactured elsewhere; my waste disposed of elsewhere. My home planet is the global supply chain and the infrastructure that allows me to access it. It is a fragile planet I can just about survive in, as opposed to the natural environment on which my home is layered, which is a planet in which I stand no chance of survival (in the long if not medium term). It has nothing to do with the rock, the water and the earth where I am, which is only there to provide aesthetic and recreational amenity.

Chances are I think you are an alien too. Before you scoff, how irresponsible does it feel to go for a hike in the wilderness (or as close to wilderness as you can access) without the following: a waterproof jacket, stout footwear, warm clothes, a hat, sunglasses, suncream, GPS-enabled mobile phone? Of course, even these items are in some ways not specific enough – your clothes should be multiple layers, constructed using special breathable man-made fibres that won’t soak up your sweat and put you at risk of hypothermia. Your waterproof jacket would likely also be made of advanced materials. Even suncream now contains nanoparticles. All this technology is designed to protect you from the elements. Adventures into the wilderness even involve taking space food with us: dried food that we can reconstitute on a camping stove with carefully boiled water (the only resource we trust ourselves to collect from the environment, and interestingly, a resource that would need to be abundant on any other planet we might one day colonize). We must be the only animal to go to such lengths before venturing into the environment.

How would you recognise an alien species that had been living on a planet for several thousand years? Certainly initially you might find them living in geodomes, leaving them only carefully in space suits. But over time, given enough resources, perhaps they might have bred plant species that could survive outside the geodomes, and the aliens themselves might have evolved a little (or modified their genome) to tolerate better the differences in environmental conditions between their home planet and the colonized planet. The atmosphere might have been adjusted using industrial processes. There could be networks of tunnels, perhaps. Technology might have been developed to enable the aliens to roam more freely – for longer time periods and further distances from the geodomes. We are reaching a point where in principle we might not be able to tell the difference between an alien planet that humans had colonized for a few thousand years, and our habitation of our home planet.

This boundary becomes more blurred when the weather is extreme. When I visit hot countries (and personally, I start to feel uncomfortable when the temperature reaches 25C), I find myself moving between one air-conditioned space after another: from my air-conditioned hotel room to the air-conditioned public transport network to the air-conditioned conference venue that is usually the reason I am in the ‘hot’ country in the first place. Every minute spent in the open air is a minute longing for the next air conditioned space. Equally, in winter in Scotland, I move from my centrally heated house to my car with the hot air blowing on maximum, to my centrally heated workplace. If my car, house and workplace were air-sealed, and I moved between them in a space suit, I might as well be on the moon! If Passivhaus design takes off, buildings will soon become more air-tight. And if the predictions of climate change scientists are right, extreme weather will become more and more normal and we will need to adapt our homes and infrastructure to cope.

The alienation of humanity from its environment is reflected in the fact that we see ourselves as separate from it in the first place. The conceptualisation of the relationship between humans and their environments using terms such as ‘coupled’ (as in: ‘coupled’ human and natural systems) suggests such separation. More than this, it not only suggests that human systems can be decoupled from natural systems, but that they were so at some point in the past, and have only recently been joined! Even scientists think we are aliens!

Though we ourselves are aliens, we are (ironically) increasingly concerned with aliens in our environment. Aliens that we have introduced to our local ecosystems from other ecosystems: some harmless, others dangerous, denoted by the use of the adjective ‘invasive‘. It is not just species that are aliens in our environment, but also manufactured chemicals and biochemicals. These ‘pollutants’ defile our conceptions of the purity of the natural environment – by which we are horrified even as we decadently consume the goods that are responsible for it. It is a kind of prurient Victorian hypocrisy.

It may seem like playing into the hands of those who work to belittle concerns of environmental activists to reframe pollution as a hypocritical attitude to the myth of the pristine ecosystem. Particularly if it were then argued that pollution is an ‘opportunity’ for evolution (the linked articled doesn’t) – a shock to the ecosystem that sends it on a journey to another supposedly ‘harmonious’ equilibrium. Conservation efforts are essentially methods of preserving what we think ‘ought’ to be present in the environment – though well-intentioned perhaps, they are in some sense no less industrial than activities traditionally regarded as environmentally exploitative. Indeed, sometimes conservation efforts are just as damaging as the supposed problem they aim to solve. And conservationism doesn’t have an entirely comfortable political history. Nowadays, conservationists could be seen simply as extorting ‘penances’ from the public to assuage their guilt about environmental ‘sin’, and using them to create an environmental commodity: a nature ‘reserve’, a species ‘saved’ from extinction. Yet the species chosen are those regarded as valuable to humans – usually mammals. There are not offers to adopt a threatened slug, insect, bacterium or virus as there are for snow leopards, dolphins, tigers, elephants, gorillas, orangutans. (Though there is this blog and a joke both of which I came across whilst searching the internet for such things as ‘adopt a smallpox virus’ and ‘adopt a Yersinia pestis‘.)

Instead, perhaps we should recognise that endochrine disrupting compounds, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, carcinogens, dioxins, parabens and C8 are now irrevocably a part of the global ecosystem, and species that cannot cope with them are irrelevant; they are the dinosaurs of the present day. And since dinosaurs evolved into birds, perhaps we should wait and see what interesting species evolve from the new chemical soup we are creating. (Assuming we are not among the dinosaurs…) The same applies to introduced species, frankencrops, and the other ghouls and ghasts of ecoarmageddon. Conservationists need to embrace change.

And if nature is too slow to adapt, industry (a hotbed of positive thinking) can exploit the ‘opportunities’ it creates for the benefit of its customers. For example, reduced fertility arising from endochrine disruption can be handled by in-vitro fertilisation. Cancers caused by dioxins can be treated with chemotherapy drugs. Probiotics can replace the bacteria removed by antibiotics. Vitamin and mineral supplements can compensate for the decreasing nutrition in food. Pharmaceuticals are part of the human adaptive process to living in the environment we are creating, just as anxiolytics, antidepressants and virtual realities are there to help us bear it. Instead of seeing medication as a sign of ill-health, we should see it as a positive expression of our adaptation to the new environmental reality, and a further step on the path of our transition to full alien-ness: intergalactic citizens of nowhere.

Nature, the Replicator and the Holodeck

Nature is typically cast as a mother. As such can be seen along the lines of the feminist charicature of the stages in the life of a woman. As a virgin, we see a pristine ecosystem, a bounty waiting to be exploited. As a mother, Nature’s provision is bountiful and sufficient, and her authority beyond question. As a whore, nature’s resources are exploited and spoiled. As a crone, the exploitation has gone on long enough that she has dried up: withered, wrinkled and infertile, Nature’s bounty is no longer enough. There are two trajectories after that – one is death; the other, resurrection: ‘Nature’ is rebuilt to serve human needs.

Many years ago, I listened to a talk given by Dr. Keith Farnsworth, an ecologist now based at Queen’s University Belfast. It has stuck in my mind. He did not use language such as the above, but the parallels in his theorization of stages of human-environment interaction are striking. The first stage he described as ecosystem occupation — humans move in to an ecosystem. The second stage is ecosystem adaptation, in which humans make alterations to the ecosystem so it better meets their needs. The third and final stage Dr. Farnsworth outlined is ecosystem domination: humans completely control the ecosystem so it meets only their needs.

His theorized trajectory, which I cannot find written up among his extensive list of publications, could be refined with a fourth stage: ecosystem elimination. Ecosystem elimination occurs in two ways: destruction and substitution. The cause of the former case is simply that the control the humans have exerted over an ecosystem in the domination stage is temporary because we have not fully understood the processes by which the resources we rely on are renewed and regenerated. The domination is unsustainable and after a period of time, the ecosystem collapses. There are plenty of examples of this in the history of agriculture, especially where agricultural practices that have evolved in one biome have been transferred to another. That’s beside the point that domination of any kind seems rarely to be sustainable indefinitely. Worms turn.

Ecosystem elimination by substitution is still in the realms of science fiction; but it happens when we no longer need ecosystems to sustain human life. In Star Trek, ecosystems have disappeared into a machine, the replicator, that creates food presumably from waste, by decomposing the latter into its constituent atoms and reconstructing it as a meal. This is the ultimate junk food; quite literally, eating shit! (This is not entirely fantasy I suppose, since faecal coliforms have been found in hamburgers.) Recognising the amenity value provided by ecosystems, a holographic projection suite with haptic enhancements, the holodeck, is provided for the crew of the Starship to enjoy some recreation. These simulated spaces presumably have none of the inconveniences of real ecosystems (unless requested by the user): no biting insects or ticks; no poison ivy; no allergens or pathogens; never too hot or too cold. Instead, simulated wind in simulated trees on a simulated balmy evening; breathing simulated fresh air while listening to simulated birds singing simulated songs as they go to a simulated roost. All available at the push of a button, whenever the mood takes you, without having to wait for the sun to set. This is Eden made real, or as real as needed to pass the environmental equivalent of the Turing Test.

Are contemporary cities much different from space ships in science fiction? Instead of replicators, we have supermarkets. Supermarkets are increasingly moving away from selling fresh ‘raw’ ingredients to providing ready-meals. These have more ‘value-added’ than raw ingredients, and hence better profit margins. One could almost pretend the microwave oven was a replicator. Of course, supermarkets obtain their produce from farms, arguably dominated ecosystems, but for how much longer? Architects have already designed skyscrapers where each floor is given over to hydroponic systems for growing food. Hydroponics are indeed already widely used for growing fruit and vegetables under glass, allowing their availability on the shelves even when not in season.

If supermarkets are replicators, then parks (or ‘green spaces’) are holodecks. These spaces, which are too small and too disconnected to support much in the way of wildlife, often consist of an expanse of lawn with a few trees growing in them. Sometimes there are shrubs and flowerbeds, and a pond, lake, river or stream. Paths will be provided so we can walk and enjoy the amenity without getting our shoes muddy. The countryside is not really needed. This matter was brought into sharp focus for me when I left an employer based in London to take up a position in Aberdeen. My colleagues were mystified as to why I would want to move away from the UK’s capital. “What is there in Scotland,” they asked, “that you could not get in London?”

Wasp on a train

A while ago, I was riding in a train between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The interior of the ScotRail class 170 turbostar train is a mass of plastic panelling and nylon seats. There are no windows one can open to let in fresh air, but at one of the stops, while a door was open, a wasp must have been let in. There was nothing inside that could be of interest to the wasp. Sometimes on trains there is the detritus of provisions people have brought with them for the journey and consumed, which might have provided some sustenance, but not, for some reason, in this particular carriage. The wasp buzzed its frustration against the window, doubtless keen to get outside in the countryside that we were speeding through.

Luckily for the wasp, no-one seemed overly perturbed by it. Wasps’ interactions with humans are usually accompanied by a flurry of whirling hands, panicked screaming, and/or a rolled up newspaper. However, either everyone in the carriage was unconcerned by its presence, or they were more afraid of embarrassment than they were of the wasp. The wasp in question was, to be more precise, probably Vespula vulgaris (I am no naturalist, but I imagine this is one of the most common ‘yellowjacket’ (the North American name for this kind of wasp) species in the area). These wasps build intricate paper nests from wood that they gather and chew to make into a pulp. Hearing the quiet “scritch scritch scritch” of a wasp gathering (untreated) wood with its mandibles is, to me, one of the many pleasures of spring and summer.

It is fair, I think, to say that most people regard wasps as pests even in their native habitat in Europe. This, perhaps, is mostly due to their ability to deliver a painful sting when they feel threatened, and their propensity to come into contact with humans because of a shared love of sugar. September in particular, when wasps are a bit groggy from the cold, has always been, to me, a time when wasp stings are more likely. I remember all too clearly trying to avoid them at breaktimes when at school. Picnics were also a time when they made a nuisance of themselves, hovering around the jam sandwiches just as you are about to eat them. Nowadays I mostly meet them at the recycling bins, where they are often to be found around the plastic drinks bottle bin trying to get at the last few drops of drink we leave behind.

However, wasps play a really important role in European ecosystems, and life without them is almost unthinkable. Besides pollinating plants when they visit flowers for nectar, wasps also hunt other insects to feed their young. In turn, wasps themselves are prey to various animals.

Perhaps because everyone on the train ignored the wasp, perhaps because it was so desperate to get out, or perhaps because there was nothing on the train it could use, I was suddenly struck by the fact that it did not belong there. At the same time, all the humans (some of whom were WASPs!), clearly did. If the wasp was incongruous with the train, were the humans in it incongruous with the world outside? Why weren’t we as desperate to get out of this fearful space of blue and white plastic?