Isaac Asimov: Science, Technology and Space

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And if the poorer people of the world don't start getting some benefits from the more prosperous ones, I'm afraid we're going to lose the limited global stability that we have. They aren't going to starve quietly . . . they're going to come and try to take our goods from us.

But the need to build up space—we've come back to space again—could motivate us to begin such necessary sharing.

PLOWBOY: It seems evident that we must cut back on our population growth. Do you also feel we need to cut back on our use of energy?

ASIMOV: A lot of people think that the United States should reduce its energy consumption. "We used only half as much energy in the early sixties as we do now," they say, "and life wasn't so bad then." There's only one catch to that argument: Since the early sixties, the population of the Earth has gone up by over one billion, and much of our additional energy usage has allowed our nation—with five percent of the Earth's people—to export a great deal of food to the rest of the world. So anyone who wants us to cut our energy use in half should first make some of those one billion mouths disappear!

Now there are those who say that we can avoid the whole dilemma if we develop a more labor-intensive agriculture . . . that is, have more people—and fewer machines—working on our farms. Well, I want to hear folks who say we need more agricultural laborers volunteer to become such workers. The truth of the matter, though, is that most people who move from the cities to the country these days are not likely to become agricultural workers . . . they're suburban and exurban middleclass families who live in very comfortable houses.

And the individuals who say they are moving out to raise their own food and consume less of the world's resources are often the very ones who also, so to speak, bring their electric guitars with them . . . and want to be sure there's a nice modern hospital located in a convenient nearby city.

Such people don't realize that technology is not something you can break up into little fragments. It's all of a piece.

PLOWBOY: Don't you feel that men and women can make use of modern technology and still try to live more self-reliant, less energy-wasteful, and more environmentally sound lifestyles?

ASIMOV: Yes, certainly we can all eliminate waste. As far as I know, there isn't anyone in the world who advocates using more energy than is absolutely necessary.

PLOWBOY: In other words, you feel it's overwhelmingly impor tant that we control population growth . . . and yet you almost casually take it for granted that we should reduce our wasteful energy and resource consumption. I could just as well counter your position by saying that nobody in his or her right mind could argue with limiting population, and—since it's been estimated that our country could cut its energy consumption almost in half simply by properly insulating buildings and establishing co-generation facilities in industrial plants—that we urgently need to address the issue of energy efficiency.

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