intelligent coexistence between humans and nature. The greatest evils are war and poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment, disease and hunger, the miseries that deprive people of opportunities and limit their freedoms. As Bertolt Brecht wrote in
The Threepenny Opera
, “Feeding comes first, morality second.” If people do not have enough to eat, we cannot expect them to put much effort into protecting the biosphere. In the long run, preservation of the biosphere will only be possible if people everywhere have a decent standard of living. The humanist ethic does not regard an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as evil, if the increase is associated with worldwide economic prosperity, and if the poorer half of humanity gets its fair share of the benefits.
Vernadsky, as Smil portrays him, was a humanist. He foresaw the gradual transformation of the biosphere into a noosphere. The word “noosphere,” a sphere of mind, means a planetary ecology designed and maintained by human intelligence. He recognized that, as thenoosphere comes into existence, “the aerial envelope of the land as well as all its natural waters are changed both physically and chemically.” He understood that the maintenance of a noosphere places heavy responsibilities on human shoulders. But he had faith in the ability of humans to rise to the challenge. The main conclusion of Vernadsky’s thinking, and the main conclusion of Smil’s book, is that life is complicated and any theory that attempts to describe its behavior in simple terms is likely to be wrong.
Postscript, 2006
After this review appeared, Vaclav Smil published another book,
Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties
( MIT Press, 2003), dealing directly with the practical issues of energy supply and demand. The new book makes a good complement to
The Earth’s Biosphere
, which describes the larger framework of ecology within which practical policies must fit. I am grateful to Smil for sending me the new book, and sorry that I had not seen it when I wrote the review.
1. MIT Press, 2002.
2. V. I. Vernadsky,
The Biosphere
, translated by D. B. Langmuir (Copernicus, 1998).
3. W.S. Broecker, “Thermohaline Circulation, the Achilles Heel of Our Climate System: Will Man-Made CO 2 Upset the Current Balance?,”
Science
, Vol. 278 (1997), pp. 1582–1588, cited by Smil.
6
WITNESS TO A TRAGEDY
THOMAS LEVENSON IS a filmmaker who produces documentary films for public television. He has a sharp eye for the dramatic events and personal details that bring history to life. His book
Einstein in Berlin
1 is a social history of Germany covering the twenty years from 1914 to 1933, the years when Albert Einstein lived in Berlin. The picture of the city’s troubles comes into a clearer focus when it is viewed through Einstein’s eyes. Einstein was a good witness, observing the life of the city in which he played an active role but remained always emotionally detached. He wrote frequent letters to his old friends in Switzerland and his new friends in Germany, recording events as they happened and describing his hopes and fears. His daily life and activities come intermittently into the narrative but are not the main theme. The main theme is the tragedy of World War I, a tragedy that began in 1914 but did not end in 1918. This tragedy continued to torment the citizens of Berlin through the years from 1918 to 1933 and led them finally to put their fate in the hands of Hitler. Hitler was able to gain his power over them because he promised to erase the tragedy and bring them back to the happy days of the empire when Germany was prosperous and united.
Every aspect of Einstein’s life, the personal, the political, thescientific, and the philosophical, has been described in detail and analyzed in depth by his various biographers. The world does not need another Einstein biography. Fortunately, Levenson’s book is not a biography. He has borrowed everything he needs from
The Threepenny Opera
, “Feeding comes first, morality second.” If people do not have enough to eat, we cannot expect them to put much effort into protecting the biosphere. In the long run, preservation of the biosphere will only be possible if people everywhere have a decent standard of living. The humanist ethic does not regard an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as evil, if the increase is associated with worldwide economic prosperity, and if the poorer half of humanity gets its fair share of the benefits.
Vernadsky, as Smil portrays him, was a humanist. He foresaw the gradual transformation of the biosphere into a noosphere. The word “noosphere,” a sphere of mind, means a planetary ecology designed and maintained by human intelligence. He recognized that, as thenoosphere comes into existence, “the aerial envelope of the land as well as all its natural waters are changed both physically and chemically.” He understood that the maintenance of a noosphere places heavy responsibilities on human shoulders. But he had faith in the ability of humans to rise to the challenge. The main conclusion of Vernadsky’s thinking, and the main conclusion of Smil’s book, is that life is complicated and any theory that attempts to describe its behavior in simple terms is likely to be wrong.
Postscript, 2006
After this review appeared, Vaclav Smil published another book,
Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties
( MIT Press, 2003), dealing directly with the practical issues of energy supply and demand. The new book makes a good complement to
The Earth’s Biosphere
, which describes the larger framework of ecology within which practical policies must fit. I am grateful to Smil for sending me the new book, and sorry that I had not seen it when I wrote the review.
1. MIT Press, 2002.
2. V. I. Vernadsky,
The Biosphere
, translated by D. B. Langmuir (Copernicus, 1998).
3. W.S. Broecker, “Thermohaline Circulation, the Achilles Heel of Our Climate System: Will Man-Made CO 2 Upset the Current Balance?,”
Science
, Vol. 278 (1997), pp. 1582–1588, cited by Smil.
6
WITNESS TO A TRAGEDY
THOMAS LEVENSON IS a filmmaker who produces documentary films for public television. He has a sharp eye for the dramatic events and personal details that bring history to life. His book
Einstein in Berlin
1 is a social history of Germany covering the twenty years from 1914 to 1933, the years when Albert Einstein lived in Berlin. The picture of the city’s troubles comes into a clearer focus when it is viewed through Einstein’s eyes. Einstein was a good witness, observing the life of the city in which he played an active role but remained always emotionally detached. He wrote frequent letters to his old friends in Switzerland and his new friends in Germany, recording events as they happened and describing his hopes and fears. His daily life and activities come intermittently into the narrative but are not the main theme. The main theme is the tragedy of World War I, a tragedy that began in 1914 but did not end in 1918. This tragedy continued to torment the citizens of Berlin through the years from 1918 to 1933 and led them finally to put their fate in the hands of Hitler. Hitler was able to gain his power over them because he promised to erase the tragedy and bring them back to the happy days of the empire when Germany was prosperous and united.
Every aspect of Einstein’s life, the personal, the political, thescientific, and the philosophical, has been described in detail and analyzed in depth by his various biographers. The world does not need another Einstein biography. Fortunately, Levenson’s book is not a biography. He has borrowed everything he needs from
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