The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change. . - Biospheric Fears - book review

Architectural Review, The, Jan, 2003 by Adam Voelcker

By Vaclav Smil. London: MIT Press, 2002. [pounds sterling]21.95

'Finally we have an accessible, highly integrated account of the environment: wise rather than clever, responsible rather than glib, comprehensive rather than confused, comprehensible rather than new. Smil's unique biospheric narrative, devoid of hype and patriotism, transcends academic apartheid. This immensely learned story of the past history and current state of the third planet is destined to become required reading for anyone who seeks the environmental context for human activity.' (Lynn Margulis, on back cover of book)

Comprehensible to scientists maybe, but hardly to architects, I fear. The text of this work, Vaclav Smil's latest, is forbidding indeed, and peppered with calculi, formulae, tables which only a specialist is likely to understand. Entire sentences run with words I've never heard of- and yet it gripped me nevertheless.

Smil tells the story of our biosphere. It seems he covers all aspects of its physics, chemistry, geology, oceanography, biology, energy, climate and ecology. He traces its beginnings and he surmises its end. He outlines the history of scientific theory and research, bringing it up-to-date so thoroughly that Hawkins and Love-lock seem already old-fashioned. The prose style is tight, with an occasional touch of humour lurking beneath the dense text. Had I not read the concluding chapter first, I would have wondered where it was all leading and maybe would have drowned in its depths of unfamiliar knowledge.

The conclusion one might reach after Smil has finished with his awe-inspiring exploration of the biosphere is this--if the universe around us is so vast, if the way it works is so complex, if time stretches to infinity both backwards and forwards, and if as a result we, industrialized human civilization, are so incredibly minuscule and insignificant in comparison, how can we possibly harm it? Smil's frightful message is that we can. And this comes from a scientist, not an amateur doom-monger. Smil is equivocal on whether or not we will succeed in harming and destroying our planet irrevocably. He is frank enough throughout the book to confess that he does not have the answers to many of life's great riddles.

But he leaves us with a fascinating scenario. It is quite possible that our increasingly sophisticated machines will survive us. When our planet becomes uninhabitable, either through our own fault or through natural cosmic causes, these machines will cope on their own. Some will stay and adapt. Others (those imbued with human values) will leave the biosphere and search for other planets where they might settle and re-create Earth's biosphere. Just suppose they felt disposed to re-creating human civilization again--would we deserve a second chance, or would the machine-race be better off without us?