Writing in Quadrant magazine, the Australian journal of ideas, literature, poetry and historical and political debate, Dr.Walter Starck observes that before "the ascendancy of environmentalism, the scientific ideal was an objective, evidence-based, value-neutral search for truth. Basic research, aimed only at better understanding the world in which we live, was pursued with considerable success. Over recent decades, however, basic research in natural history has been largely supplanted by studies predicated on environmental concerns. As a consequence, acquisition of new understanding of the nature and functioning of the natural world has declined. In addition, much of the research into purported environmental problems suffers from bias and distortion arising from adherence to faith-based notions of environmental correctness." Dr. Starck holds a PhD in marine science from the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Miami. He was a pioneer in the study of coral reef biology and the development of undersea technology.
This shift in emphasis from basic research to environmentalism began innocuously in the 1960s and 1970s when an expanding scientific community began to outgrow its funding, and competition for research grants became stronger. At the same time, government was also coming to realise that scientific research was a black hole that could devour any amount of funding and always be hungry for more. Moreover, much of the research appeared to be highly esoteric with little prospect of ever yielding anything of practical or even intellectual value. Governments started to demand a greater consideration of utility.
For those schooled in the ideal of basic research, finding practical relevance was not always easy. Coincidentally, environmental concerns were on the rise in public awareness and were gaining political traction. Grant-seekers found that with a little imagination some environmental aspect could be suggested to attend to the basic research one actually wanted to pursue. Initially this worked to advantage; but competition soon demanded something stronger. Grant applications began to shift their focus to environmental concerns themselves with basic research receiving diminishing attention.
An environmental problem suitable for grant-seeking is not as easy to find as it might seem. It needs to be one that has credibility as a problem or, better still, public perception as being one. It also needs to be one that is not already over-subscribed by competing researchers. It further needs to appear both solvable and important enough to warrant considerable expense to do so. Preferably it should be something that involves a human cause, as this not only makes it amenable to correction but provides a dimension of moral rectitude as well. The moral aspect always goes down well politically and makes any criticism look shabby.
Just any old problem won’t do. Most are too hard, too unimportant or too uncertain to attract significant research funding. This limitation was met by manufacturing new ones. An early and highly successful effort in eco-threat manufacture here in Australia was the great crown-of-thorns starfish plague.
Population explosions of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef first came to scientific and public attention in the late 1960s. The starfish threat was soon deemed by academic “experts” to be unprecedented, even though earlier scientific research and underwater exploration on the reef which might have found any earlier outbreaks were almost non-existent. Once a few such outbreaks had been found, the “problem” was deemed to be on a scale which threatened the entire reef. It was even predicted that unless something was done (that is, generous funding for research) the reef would be killed and then wash away, causing massive coastal erosion as well.
When it was discovered that the triton’s trumpet shell was a natural predator of the crown-of-thorns starfish, it was immediately concluded that shell collectors were to blame for the starfish outbreaks. That trumpet shells are never abundant enough anywhere to control an outbreak of starfish and most of the reefs involved had never been subjected to shell collecting was ignored.
Although a geologist found good evidence for ongoing earlier crown-of-thorns outbreaks in the form of varying amounts of their distinctive skeletal elements at different levels in the reef sediments, this too was simply ignored. As far as the crown-of-thorns bandwagon was concerned, the science was quickly settled: the starfish plague had to be unprecedented and somehow caused by humans. All that was needed to solve the problem was more funding for research.
The Great Barrier Reef is a national icon and the success of the starfish threat in releasing government purse strings founded a substantial new industry for the region. “Saving” the reef from various purported threats has continued for almost half a century. This has entailed a total expenditure in the hundreds of millions of dollars with no real threat ever being confirmed and, of course, no solution ever being found. As old threats lose credibility and public concern fades, new ones always seem to be found.
Following the starfish plague, overfishing became a major concern. This generated more millions in research and culminated in the creation of a vast complicated array of green zones comprising about a third of the entire region where the already highly restricted fishing activity is prohibited entirely. While there is voluminous evidence to refute the existence of a threat from overfishing, just one fact alone demonstrates the utter absurdity of this claim.
Read the complete story from Quadrant Online.