Barry Commoner’s The Closing Circle points out the environmental damage attendant to a number of new technologies, citing them as a result of a linear model of thought and calling for the development of sustainable technology. He suggests that continued use of these technologies will lead to great challenges to human survival. The record on his predictions is somewhat spotty: many of the problems noted by Commoner have been reduced since his writing, many have not. On another note, there are categories of ecological damage that his evaluation glosses over or misses completely, particularly depletion of natural resources. Furthermore, his calls to develop more sustainable technology do not discuss incentives for encouraging this development.
Commoner’s central thesis was that humanity needed to “close the circle” by making sure that what we produce, whether for our own use or as a by product, would be reused or made into a form such that it would not be damaging to the ecosphere when we discard it. As such, he could be one of the first voices calling for recycling as an industry.
In his focus on the outputs of modern technology, he neglects other ecological problems. Humanity has just attempted to take himself out of closed ecological cycles. Humanity has damaged the environment in other ways. Resource depletion, including deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and easily accessible fossil fuels seem like an obvious element to inspect more closely, which would be in keeping with his views on “closing the circle.” While he does mention this principle with respect to metals, which is somewhat ironic in light of the continuing improvements in the supply of metals, this is a small . He does not pay attention to concerns about resource scarity to nearly the same degree that he pays attention to ecologically damaging outputs.
While his call for the development of technology which does not exemplify the faults of this linear model of production are clear, how he plans to get there from here is not. He spends a chapter examining the economics of the situation, and concludes that economic decisions should play a secondary role to ecological decisions. He never examines the role that economics has to play in informing ecology or encouraging the development of more sustainable technology. This book primarily highlights a set of problems, particularly relating to pollution and the absorptive capacity of the environment, and says very little about the solution to the problems it highlights.
The Closing Circle provides insight into issues surrounding pollution and recycling. While these are useful underpinnings, the author seems to believe that these are the central issues of ecology. The book is an informative, but narrow view at a particular set of problems, that fails to clearly situate itself as such, and fails to develop usable guidance on how these problems might be addressed.
I’m really intrigued by this critique. On the one hand, I can understand the faults you cite for this author missing what is at least half of the picture of our present environmental quandry. On the other, I think it is short-sighted to critcize a work that shines a light on some very critical components to the present problem.
If this man has done a good job of defining the problem with modern technology and consumer behavior, then he has provided us with one of the foundational building blocks for finding solutions. The Germans have an excellent program of “product stewardship” where everything most everything produced or sold in Germany can be returned to the manufacturer for recycling or disposition of specific components.
Fixing our current situation will take both ecological and sociological changes. Just because this one author downplays ecology doesn’t lessen the value of his work. Does it?
All in all, it’s a pretty good book, and I imagine it’s big on recycling advocates’ lists. My big beef with it is that it starts of saying how it is all about ecology, outlining his view of ecology, complete with 4 fundamental principles (everything is connected to everything else, everything goes somewhere ie nothing disappears, nature knows best, and there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.)
They’re not bad heuristics, but calling them the underpinnings of ecology seems a bit overblown. Especially since he doesn’t seem to explicitly reference any of them later in the book, and when the book looks at such a limited slice of ecology.
Note this was based on a quick browse, not a detailed read of the book. Alot of these books I’m hoping to go back and reread at some point.