Normally one thinks of homogenization as the process whereby the saturated fat and milk from different cows are mixed into a blend. This blog will not, however, be about milk. The emphasis will be on the mixing and blending that is occurring daily in our world and the possible amalgam we are creating—what I am hypothetically calling a virtual Pangaea.
“Pangaea” was the name the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener gave to a prehistoric world consisting of one supercontinent. Even before the discovery of plate tectonics, he could come up with no better explanation for how species were disseminated over widely dispersed continents and islands. According to Darwin, the diversity of species required separation over a long period of time. But how was it, Wegener wondered, that paleontologists had found ancient fossil remains of the same reptiles and plants on continents separated by oceans, unless these species developed during a period when the continents were joined? He was right, of course. Eventually, the theory of tectonic plates explained both Wegener’s and Darwin’s suppositions: once the tectonic plates separated, species diversified in separate biospheres. The great diversity of life found in the fossil record is the result of this separation. But, today, that diversity is diminishing at an astounding rate. If the shrinking of our modern world resembles a virtual supercontinent, how is that effecting diversity? And why are so many species disappearing? The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates 40% of the world’s species are currently at risk of extinction. Of more concern is that the rate of extinction is increasing. So what will the new Pangaea be like?
All of us have heard of the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs. But most species extinctions are gradual affairs resulting from epoch-length events like the earth’s periodic freeze/thaw cycles or the conflict/competition between species. Currently, the earth is in a thaw cycle wherein the earth is heating up at a rate unprecedented in geological time, that is, in hundreds versus tens of thousands of years. Biospheres that would normally attain species equilibrium over long periods are becoming stressed by the rapidity of change and the introduction of competing life forms, both invasive and predatory. These new life forms compete with the indigenous species. In the past, their impact was likely gradual, occurring over a long period of time, and may have been merely the result of chance—like the formation of a land bridge across the Bering Straits or a change of direction in an ocean current. But, in our modern world, humans can effect change much faster than evolution or geological transformation. We are actively intermingling life forms from all corners of the world and at an accelerated rate. This species intermixing is defeating environmental acclimation and symbiotic relationships that may have required thousands of years of evolution, resulting in the demise of many species, like bats, frogs, bees, and many others.
Humans are, of course, aware of the transcontinental migration of threats such as Ebola or Zika, which we carry with us in our travels. They represent an immediate danger to us. But we are less aware of other non-threatening bacteria and evasive species that hitchhike with us as well. They often destroy or compete with native life forms, interfering with the symbiotic relationships these life forms have evolved with each other and their environment. Moreover, human industrial and technological development is terraforming the planet making it both uninhabitable for some life forms and depleting the resources and space required for many others. Elizabeth Hubert refers to this unhappy happenstance as the sixth great extinction event. Her recent book, titled appropriately “The Sixth Extinction,” documents the scientific evidence which, if placed before an independent tribunal, would clearly call for the conviction of our species. Her book paints a future world inhabited by humans and possibly few remaining species. I wonder whether we can even project what species will survive besides our own. Perhaps only rats, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and an unlikely brew of microorganisms will survive in the wild. The only other survivors will be our pets and the inhabitants of our zoos. With our ability to transgress continents, we have shrunk the seas that separate us and created a virtual supercontinent, a homogeneous world that is a uniquely human concoction. But this new, virtual Pangaea may be a lonely place indeed, devoid of the rich diversity this planet has provided for millennia.
This new emerging Pangaea has several other components. Besides the growing numerical dominance of humans, there is the homogenous impact of globalization. Built on the hydrocarbon energy platform, the economies of nearly all nation states are interconnecting at an accelerated rate. This interconnection is not only visible in import/export trade, but in all aspects of manufacturing, technological innovation, and research. For example, the next generation of passenger planes is being engineered by an international corporation from component parts made on several continents. This new flying “omnibus” will be the result of a global consortium, where each contributing entity provides its Lego-like components. Herein is another example of our species superiority. We may have less than a 4% difference in our gene pool from the chimpanzee, our closest existing primate relative; nevertheless, only we have the capability for collective problem solving and collaborative action. It is this superiority that enables us to transform our world into one grand economic model that serves our increasingly urban lifestyle. When you travel to places like Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, London, and so on, you will find high rises, restaurants, commercial buildings, and retail outlets that mirror each other. Unfortunately, you will also find slums. The world we are creating is built of steel, concrete, and human ingenuity, unlike the Pangaea nature evolved over 180 million years ago. That Pangaea was teeming with living organisms where only the fittest would survive. In our new Pangaea, we define the “fittest” differently. While globalization may well lift millions out of dire poverty, it has simultaneously helped to propagate a huge disparity in wealth and a growing discontent. Regardless of indigenous cultures, the great cities of the world, however uniquely imposing, are all alike, the result of a vast global economy and a recognizable population of urbanites. They are ever expanding metropolises, scarred by inequality, like the graffiti scrawled on their walls.
Another component of this new Pangaea is the growing homogeneity created by the internet. Initially, the internet was instituted as a means for engineers, researchers, and educators to collaborate. Today, it can be a portico for all types of communication, crossing all barriers—cultural, racial, religious, political, and even personal. Recently, for instance, I discovered this blog has subscribers on four continents and my books can be ordered from online booksellers in several countries. When we communicate in this vast sea of the internet, our message can touch all shores. We are opening a dialogue that can transcend our differences and speak to our common humanity. But the internet has no filter for the undisciplined, the undiscerning, and the immoral. It can be a two edged sword. Social media, for example, can promote shared perspectives and, hopefully, mutual understanding. It is also possible that it may foment the trivial, the mundane, and the perverse, becoming no more than a gossip forum, or, worse, a haven for propagandists, radicals, and hate-mongers. Consider the recent emergence of right wing radicalism and religious fanaticism. It appears that as internet traffic proliferates, so may its messaging incoherence and the amplified polarization of its content. This aspect of the new Pangaea may reverse the Tower of Babel, but its content may become more destabilizing than the mere confusion of people speaking in different languages.
But more than the propagandized recruitment of terrorists or the xenophobic rabblerousing of demagogues threaten world stability. There are other ways in which this new Pangaea puts us at risk, perhaps more at risk than at any time in human history. For we are not only in the process of eliminating a vast majority of all other species on this planet, but of creating an interdependent global economy that despoils the nutrients in our land, pollutes our drinking water, and spews carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the same time as we defoliate the planet of its only atmospheric cleansing system. The carbon dioxide issue is of vital, even historic concern. A consensus of scientific authorities, as quoted in a recent Washington Post article, estimates that a global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius (that is, 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit) will lead to “increased droughts, rising seas, mass extinctions, heat waves, desertification, wildfires, acidifying oceans, significant economic disruption, and security threats.”
Living in a global economy and a universally connected world may appear to be a panacea. Many of our world leaders believe in this type of homogeneity. Perhaps more than a few Americans believe we can or should build a new world order fashioned upon our system of capitalism, democracy and technology. But our system is not yet wholly mature: we are still building “a more perfect union.” Within our midst, we have income inequality, segregated outcasts, the environmental hazards of a growing hydrocarbon industry, and the angry voices of the despairing and rebellious filling our airwaves. Besides, our attempts to impose our system on other nation states have more often led to wars than to any form of homogeneity. The mixing of peoples and cultures in this fashion is not likely to result in a solution for the human condition, for it suspends too many indissoluble parts. The building of a new world order—a new Pangaea, if you will—must follow a different path. For the current Pangaea project is built upon a fallacy: it disregards the fundamental characteristic of our human condition. We are unique individuals. We build unique societies and cultures. What can bind all peoples together into an American or even global community is not the sameness of economic, political, and communication systems, but mutual respect for our differences. That respect is born from the love and compassion we share with our intimates AND can be willfully transferred to others with whom we share this common human experience of family and friendship. The life experience of each individual human is not felt in a sterile utopia or in a vacuous Ethernet, but in relation to other humans and to the rich diversity of this planet. Those relationships are what make us evolved super-primates and spur our collective achievements.
If a new world order is to be created, it must be built upon respect for each other and for all of nature’s bounty and diversity. However, it cannot be the Pangaea currently emerging and even promulgated by those who envision it. For that vision looks more like the poet’s description of a wasteland—a dire fate for humanity indeed.
(As a postscript I might add that homogenized milk does eventually turn sour as the fat rises to the top.)
