Today’s solutions, tomorrow’s problems | The Press

My title paraphrases a quote from American author and scientist Peter Michael Senge, who said that “today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions”. Sapiensit is the species that destroys everything in its path, because it is convinced that its great intelligence will allow it to repair everything.

Bees are disappearing all over the planet. No problem, a Japanese company is working on the development of mini pollinator drones. What do you want ? Looking for a replacement technology is much less engaging than a real desire to get rid of agricultural practices and poisons that massacre pollinators. It is very pretentious to think that, in a few years of research, we can replace the co-evolution between bees and flowering plants which required 150 million years of research and development. Welcome to the solutionism human who is leading us little by little to the brink of disaster! Here, we sow chaos by telling ourselves that we will find in science a way to settle everything. However, history does teach us that the brilliant ideas of today are very often the insurmountable problems of tomorrow.

It’s recent scientific news that made me think of Peter Michael Senge’s quote. A few weeks ago, a team of Spanish researchers reported having discovered in the larvae of a moth enzymes capable of degrading polyethylenes, which are the compounds most represented in the hundreds of millions of tons of plastics produced annually. on the planet. As soon as the preliminary results were published, this moth called the wax moth (Galleria mellonella) has become the Critter of Hope. In the background, we secretly cherish the dream of solving the plastic peril without changing our habits or showing political courage. We dream of using the skills of these larvae to get us out of the plastic quagmire in which we are up to our necks.

The Asian carp threatening to enter the Great Lakes system are a prime example to put a picture to the deleterious effects of human solutionism. After invading the Mississippi River’s water system, these carp are preparing to frolic in Lake Michigan. First stage of an invasion that could lead them to the four other Great Lakes and, ultimately, to the fluvial section of the St. Lawrence. In fact, since 2012 individual catches of Grass Carp have been reported in the waters or tributaries of Lakes Huron, Ontario, and Erie. Which suggests that the wolves may already be in the fold.

This enormous problem of today comes from solutions of yesterday. The Mississippi basin and the Great Lakes basin formed systems with no direct communication. At least until a sanitation project that we thought was brilliant brought the City of Chicago, at the end of the 19^e century, to dig a channel uniting the two worlds. Now that the carp are wandering around this hyphen, preventing them from advancing towards Lake Michigan has become a colossal undertaking. In question, when these invasive fish (silver carp, bighead carp, grass carp, black carp) settle in waters, they quickly lead the first residents towards extinction. On the Illinois River, where they have become the majority, silver carp put on a show. She is the one we see jumping up to three meters in the air when she feels disturbed by the vibration of boat propellers. Go see the videos on the web of these fish flying around the boats and you will go crazy.

Now, how did this ecological disaster originate? It is the result of this human propensity to see nature as a simple work of engineering that can be corrected, improved, or on which parts can be replaced by others without any consequences.

These carp, primarily from China, were introduced to the southern United States in the early 1970s to address issues of snail, algae and other invasive plant growth in fish ponds and ponds. As is often the case, this solution, which we thought was brilliant, fell through and the carp accidentally entered the Mississippi basin before starting their journey north.

It was when scientists saw them in the Chicago Sanitary and Naval Canal that panic set in. The jitters were so bad that neighboring Great Lakes states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago to force it to step up to the plate. the threat. As solutions, people thought of pouring poison into the canal to kill carp, irradiating the waters with ultraviolet rays, warming the canal or installing filters in it. Among the solutions proposed by the specialists was also an anti-carp dam project which was to cost 18 billion and require 25 years of work. A radical proposal which was not retained. Finally, we relied on an electrification system to cut off the invaders. Alongside this technological solution, we also fish and slaughter all the carp we can catch. Will that be enough to stop them? Nothing is certain.

This story is proof that nature is a complex system that cannot be patched up with simple solutions. Sapiens, the biped has the solution to everything! The biosphere is in danger, no problem, we are already on it. There is talk of a trip to Mars for an experimental colony or the discovery of a twinkling star millions of light-years away around which a large pebble might revolve that would have the same characteristics as the Earth. But to see how humans, next to whom Asian carp are ultimately only harmless critters, have screwed up the planet with all their “progress” and “brilliant ideas”, there must be many creatures on these exoplanets crossing their fingers hoping that our next miracle solution is to keep both feet on Earth, to change our behavior and to respect the natural order of things and the fragile balance of what surrounds us. When we see how, despite our real genius, we can sometimes be collectively stupid, it’s hard not to think that it’s not just the universe that is infinite.