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THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

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Editor’s note:

In reproducing the following article the Lumber
Worker is not endorsing it or the author’s point of
view but has merely reprinted it as a matter of
general interest to readers. ,

All good citizens — be they individual or cor-
porate — are concerned about conservation and the
quality of the environment. Much has been written
and spoken on this subject; some of it extreme in
tone and inaccurate in content. In some quarters this
has resulted in a revulsion against science and
scientists.

The article which follows is a calm, interesting,
thought-provoking paper which, in the words of the

| author, seeks to ‘‘write on the other side of the wall”
/ and expresses the view of a highly qualified chemist

and biologist. The author, Dr. David G. Hessayon, is

| president of Pan Britannica Limited, a division of

Tennant’s Consolidated Limited of England, a
company which supplies and distributes raw
materials to industry. This paper is the script of a
speech which Dr. Hessayon delivered to the British

Society of Chemical Industry in 1972.

CHEMISTS LEADING US
TO BRINK OF DOOM?

It must seem to some of you that either you or I
have wandered into the wrong lecture theatre. After
all, this is the Society of Chemical Industry, and
previous Memorial Lecturers have talked about
pyrites and sulphuric acid, about radioactive tracers
and other classically chemical matters.

-Now as you have heard, the subject of my lecture
this evening is a biological one — Homo sapiens. Of
course, we all have a general interest in the subject.
{ We married one. We work for one (despite our doubts

on occasion) and whether we like it or not we are
going to die as one of this species.
' But as chemists and industrialists we do have a
particular involvement in the health and future of
| Homo sapiens. But the conservationist and ecologist
} view is that the survival of mankind is their par-
ticular province. They would have us believe that
they must be on their guard against the chemist, lest
his experiments take us to the brink of doom. And
they must be ever-watchful against the industrialist,
to ensure that his greed for profit does not endanger
sus all.
We read, we hear, and we constantly see on TV
_ that because of one chemical or another the writing
is now on the wall. If that wall has to take on any
more messages it will be the wall that falls down.
Tonight I want to write on the other side of the wall,
the side away from the spotlight where there is
hardly any chalk at all. But I don’t want to paint it
with white-wash. Of course there are chemical and
ecological problems in the modern world. We hear of
these constantly, but we rarely hear the benefits of
chemistry. We have for too long tried to answer

Now I believe that we have a duty to a perplexed

emotionalism and distortion with dignified silence.

¢_public to start writing on the other side of the wall.

\N — THE SPECIES THE
NSERVATIONIST FORGOT

Chemistry and Industry have transformed this
world into a place where Homo sapiens can at.last
expect to live out his three score years and ten. We
who invent and make things must never forget our
responsibility to the environment, but in our desire to
preserve all species and in our desire to ensure that a
chemical drum never washes up on a beach, we must
be careful not to put man at risk. Man is at risk, and
ironically the risk is greatest from just those people
who are so loudly talking about the balance of
nature. Homo sapiens could become the species that
the conservationist forgot. That is my subject
tonight.

So let us begin at the beginning. The genus Homo
first loped into this land about 250,000 years ago. For
scores of thousands of years these hunters let the

the earth and they did not tear metals out of the

balance of nature swing freely. They did not tear up

rocks. They disturbed nothing, and the population of

‘southern England reached about seven hundred
_ families ee time the first farmers and metal
Pe a

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MAN —

Seven hundred families after nearly a quarter of a
million years! This brings us to our first appalling
truth — under completely natural conditions Homo
sapiens is a fringe species, a naked ape which must
constantly stare at extinction. Nature has time for
the fungi and the flies, but has little time for man.
This is not°theory; there is a multimillenium of
prehistory to prove it. And we can see it today. Des
Wilson, writing about Upper Volta in West Africa,
described a land where nature is nicely balanced,
and where one in every five babies dies and where
the life expectancy is 35.

The second truth is that it was only when man
began to harness nature to his will that civilization

. developed. Yes, I will spell it out in plain words — it

was when man decided to upset the balance of nature
that he first emerged from his cave and his skins.

Let us now, like Dr. Who, swing the pendulum
right across the time scale and look at Homo sapiens
in Britain as at 10 February 1972. Even in the last
handful of years there have been staggering changes
in our health and life span. In 1900 a child’s life ex-
pectancy was 44. Today, it is 75.

Forty years ago 3,017 children per million died
annually — today it is less than 500. So less than one
sixth the number of mothers have to grieve today

compared to those mums just before the war.:

Whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet fever,
poliomyelitis, . . . all museum pieces now. Ah, but
what about cancer? Well, listen to this — deaths from
cancer in the 1-14 age group have halved since 1930.
Remember that the next time you read that we are
drowning in a sea of cancer-forming residues and
food additives.

So Homo sapiens britannicus is now far healthier,
better fed and longer living than ever before. We owe
it to Technology, and the chemist has played a vital
part. And didn’t we know it! Before the war the
scientist was a lord of creation. He was looked up to
by everyone, he was accountable to nobody. He was
always right.

A RESEARCH CHEMIST!

A research chemist! How proudly it tripped off
mothers’ tongues, and the Chemical Faculties of our
Universities attracted the brighter boys. Suddenly
things changed, and it began with a mushroom cloud
over a town in Japan. As Anthony Sampson wrote in
the New Anatomy of Britain ‘“‘The invention of the
atomic bomb has left its searing marks on the’ con-
science of science.”

And so science began to think about its place in
society. A crankist fringe arose — extreme,
emotional and not taken seriously by the scientific
priesthood. This fringe complained that their small
‘prophetic voice could not be heard above the mighty
roar of industry.

Then another milestone appeared, a book this
time and not a bomb. Silent Spring transformed an
obscure but talented marine biologist into a
household name. Here in science-fiction style were
warnings about a future destroyed by chemicals.
Here, to many journalists, was news. Here, to many
biologists, was a mission and the road to fame.

The-“‘small prophetic voice’”’ gew steadily into a
roar. The thin trickle of print turned into a torrent. It
fed on the tragedy of thalidomide. The wheel had
turned full circle. Now anti-science acted as lords of
creation. Conservation at all costs. Ecology was
never wrong. As Shirley-Williams said in February
1971 “For the scientist the party is over.”

If the party is over for scientists then it is over for
mankind. That is what I am saying tonight, and my
deep concern centres on six main points.

Firstly, I am concerned that the ecology and
conservation movements have become too extreme.
There is a thing called the Menton Statement. This
demands a ban on technological innovations such as
new pesticides .. . the damning of great rivers...
the reclamation of jungle land ... even nuclear
power and undersea mining projects. Madness? Well
it has been signed by over 2,000 environmental
scientists.

Next there is the Blueprint for Survival signed by
a distinguished group. This recommends that the
whole of our society be restructured so that nature
can return to her former glory and technology be
relegated. Commenting on this document Dr.
Maddox, the editor of Nature, wrote recently ‘“‘That

THE SPECIES THE
CONSERVATIONIST FORGOT

professional people should lend their names to at-
tempts like these to fan public anxiety about
problems which have either been exaggerated or
which are non-existent is reprehensible.”

For God’s sake, be careful. Technology is like a
wife ... if you criticise it long enough and loud
enough then it must surely leave you. Any marriage
counsellor will tell you that an occasional bunch of
flowers works wonders. But there are no roses for
technology and industry from these people. The
Blueprint for Survival snarls ‘‘Industrial man in the
world today is like a bull in a china shop. Homo
sapiens industrialis is determined that the china
shop should adapt to him, and has therefore set
himself the goal of reducing it to rubble in the
shortest possible time.”’

DEATH RATE SLASHED

Is that what we have been trying to do during the

. past 70 years? Is that what we were doing when we

almost doubled ‘the life expectancy? When we
slashed the death rate from those scourges such as
tuberculosis, puerperal sepsis, pernicious anaemia
and diabetes. In India we reduced malaria from 75

million to 5 million cases in a single decade. In .

Britain, according to Dr. Mellanby of Nature Con-
servancy, pesticides save crops worth about £ 200
million every year. Where else would this food come
from? Are we technologists really turning the world
into rubble? 3

My second point of concern is that the mass media
seem to have adopted the eleventh commandment:
“Thou shalt not look on the bright side.’’ Now I know
that the popular press and TV is harangued as much
as the chemical industry, and a good deal of the
criticism is unfair. The press has on many occasions
pricked bureaucracy, defended the underdog and
safeguarded liberties. But in presenting’a one-sided
view of chemicals in the world today it could start a
chain reaction which would rank as the greatest
diaster of all time.

As I said earlier, I do understand the problem. I
worked on newspapers before I was a chemical
manufacturer, and I appreciate that ‘‘end of the
world”’ stories are good copy, and improvements in
the environment are not. But as the Times editorial
said in its very first issue — ‘‘It is the purpose of a
paper to hold the balance even between rival in-
dividuals.” If the media don’t do this in this vexed
and complex issue then both public and political
opinion can take us on a perilous path.

There is growing concern that the ‘‘scare”’
movement can go too far and I am delighted that
some responsible papers have found room to express
this opinion. An editorial in the Guardian, which is
certainly not the house magazine for Technology,
said ‘‘ecologists will be overplaying their hand if in
the name of the ecological balance of insect life they
turn too snooty on our pest destroyers.”

LOOK A BLOODY FOOL |

Dr. David Bellamy, a distinguished ecologist of
Durham University, put it in stronger terms.
“People are starting to get frightened. It is all right
saying the world is coming to an end on Friday, but
when Friday dawns and the world is still here, you
look a bloody fool. The world must take notice of
what ecologists are saying but we have got to get our
facts right.”

The media must now see the point. An occasional
levelling of the balance of their reporting is
necessary for the sake of human sanity. If not, then
they could be the cause of the disruption of society
that they are predicting.

For evidence I have no complicated charts or
tables which abound in Blueprint for Survival. Just a
single quote from an unknown woman speaking to
the Sunday Times. She said ‘A UNESCO conference
in 1968, concluded that in 20 years’ time the world
would be uninhabitable due to air pollution. So what
does marriage matter anyway?” A warning signal.

My third point of concern is that this harangue by
the ecologist has come before our work is finished. It
is only in the last split second of man’s time that we

SEE “SPECIES” — PAGE 14