Dr. Michael Fox: Animal Rights

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FOX: Well, any such discussion must be built on the understanding that we still live like kings and queens in North America.

PLOWBOY: But will we be able to reduce our demands upon the environment and allow the planet to reach a steady state?

FOX: Other than in terms of energy use — as it relates to our daily "income" of solar power — I don't really think there is any such thing as a steady state. Everything changes — that's one of the major ecological laws — and we must learn to live with the flow of that change. Furthermore, if we can avoid nuclear war or some other such ecocatastrophe, I feel that our very ability to adapt as needed will eventually serve to promote acceptance of, and advances in, the wholistic sciences.

We're already discovering some beautiful pieces of evidence to support such fields of study. For example, it's been revealed that estrogens, which build up while plants dry, actually bring a halt to breeding activity in mice that consume the autumn-withered vegetation . . . and do so at a time when the coming cold weather would kill any young that were produced. There's also new evidence that certain mosses in the Arctic contain a biological form of antifreeze . . . and — wonderfully — that reindeer eat such plants and that the cells in the animals' bodies actually use that substance to protect themselves against the bitter cold!

In terms of humankind, we have only to look at the Australian aborigines who go into hypothermia at night so their bodies can conserve energy, or at the bushmen whose incredibly wrinkled skin allows them to literally swell up and store water or food when it's abundant, to know that we have all the biological and genetic tools necessary to adapt to the regular rhythmic changes of nature.

The risk, of course, is that we'll foolishly do something that will break that rhythm. To avoid doing so, we must learn to apply science and technology in a much more enlightened manner than we do today.

And I believe that one of the first necessary steps in that direction will be to move our food production systems from a profit-oriented market economy to one based upon the rewards of good stewardship.

To do so, we'll need to call upon humility, empathy, and compassion. We have to allow ourselves to learn from nature and to live co-creatively. . . in harmony with — and with a deep respect for — all of life.

We are in grave danger of bringing an industrial-agricultural nemesis upon ourselves . . . and the ecological damage sustained by our farmland, coupled with the economic plight of independent farmers, is heralding its coming. There's no way to remedy the situation with a quick technological fix, either. Unless we can bring about a real change in consciousness, we will, as U Thant warned — paraphrasing the poet T.S. Eliot — "go out in either a bang or a whimper".

Most people fear the nuclear bang today, but the whimper poses an even greater danger . . . the exhaustion and pollution of our resources. The restoration of U.S. agriculture, on an ecologically sound basis, must be this nation's highest priority . . . because the monopolistic multinational agribusiness corporations that value only control and profit may well be our nemesis.

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