To: letters@nytimes.com
Re: Observing the observers of Spaceship Earth
Date: Tuesday, 10 May 05

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

According to a report in today's New York Times, ecologists and biologists are monitoring the planet using " . . . networks of small sensors . . . . [which] will produce a new era of ecological insight and, in time, help save the planet" ("A Web of Sensors, Taking Earth's Pulse").

I've been observing the observers, and what I see are creatures (people) who in studying the natural environment are themselves occupying particular niches in the artificial "socio-economic environment ", which for them, as for all "civilised" members of our species, have become the primary focus of our primitive (more animal than human) behavioural programming.

This is why, at great peril to our children and coming generations, we persist in giving the economy (the household of man) priority over ecology (the household of our planet). Which - in case anyone fails to notice - is the most important insight for saving our planet; in fact, the social sciences' equivalent of E = mc2.

Hopefully, someone will take notice.