Isaac Asimov: Science, Technology and Space

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ASIMOV: Well, there's a difference between the two issues. There are, you see, no religious, moral, or social teachings that say using a lot of energy is a wonderful thing to do. Instead, when the price of energy goes up—or its availability goes down—almost everyone automatically makes a push for energy conservation. On the other hand, there is still much propaganda that advocates having children.

PLOWBOY: Would you also claim that it should be relatively easy to conserve our material resources . . . since there's no religion preaching "Thou shalt not recycle"?

ASIMOV: That's exactly right. Now I admit that we've moved in the wrong direction by cultivating planned obsolescence and conspicuous consumption. And it's going to be difficult to control waste as long as people see the ability to squander as a sign of status, and businesses feel that it's economically beneficial to make things that break down quickly.

PLOWBOY: How do we combat such practices?

ASIMOV: Well, you might argue that it's difficult to eliminate waste in a capitalist economy which is based on continually making unimportant product improvements in order to convince customers that one item is better than another. On the other hand, if we were to regulate such competition out of society, we could end up with the wastefulness of institutionalized inefficiency. So I'm not sure how best to deal with that problem.

PLOWBOY: Do you want to take a stab at suggesting a solution?

ASIMOV: I suppose we're going to have to indulge in peer group persuasion. How, for instance, can people be prevented from wearing eaglet feathers on their hats? The answer, of course, is to put so much concern for conservation into the public mind that anyone who does wear an eaglet feather becomes persona non grata in respectable society. Perhaps the socially conscious minority can, in a similar manner, create a kind of spearhead movement for resource and energy conservation.

PLOWBOY: Dr. Asimov, your hope for the future is based on expansion into outer space. But do you feel that humankind could, instead, learn to be so truly efficient in, and conscious of, our use of energy and resources that we could stabilize our consumption—just as we need to stabilize our population—and survive perfectly well on Earth . . . without having to expand into space? A lot of thinkers believe that we can do so.

ASIMOV: I suppose you could argue that if we develop nuclear fusion—or if we somehow stabilize our population and energy demands—we might be able to survive indefinitely without leaving the surface of the Earth. But my own feeling is that, even if we could manage it technologically and economically, human psychology would defeat the attempt. Earth would become a prison. There would be no unifying purpose to help us transcend the nation states . . . people would forever feel themselves to be ethnic groups, language groups, and racial groups . . . and we would be defeated eventually by our incessant quarreling.

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