Can We Be Sure that All the Dinosaurs are Dead?

Question for Discussion: What are some of the clues Crichton leaves the reader that all the dinosaurs won't be destroyed?

Readings: Jurassic Park, pp. 367-399;
Malcolm's theory of Species Extinction;
Preamble to the Earth Charter ;
UN Global Environmental Outlook 3

Video: Chernobyl 10 years Later (1997); Moyer's "Earth on the Edge (2004) ;
YouTube: Chernobyl Disaster & Pripyat - The Dead City;
Brilliant Greenpeace video on Chernobyl

Response Paper: Based on the reading, class discussion, and the web notes, what do you thinkare the five major design flaws in JurassicPark? Are some flaws more important than others?
(1-2 paper paper due Monday, Sept. 28).

The Lessons of Jurassic Park

Krugman: Cash for Trash:
On the $700 billion Financial Bailout ( in-class)
Malcolm's Larger Conclusion ( in-class)
Malcolm on Evolution and Complexity ( in-class)
Lewis: The Larger Lessons of Jurassic Park
( in-class)
Preamble to the Earth Charter (in-class)
UN Global Environmental Outlook 3 (in-class)
The Lost World
What do the Challenger Explosion and the
breakdown of Jurassic Park have in common
(in-class)
Earth Trends: The Envionmental Info. Portal

Lessons from Chenobyl

UN page on Chernobyl Disaster (in-class)
Health Impacts of Chernobyl 10 years later
Chernobyl: The Site and Accident Sequence
(in-class)
Chernobyl Radioactive Cloud over
Asia and Europe (in-class)
Reactions of National Authorities to Chernobyl
(in-class)
Chernobyl: The Health Consequences
Problems created by the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster (in-class)

Lessons from Jurassic Park for the Future

Malcolm on Evolution
Warning from the Earth Charter (in-class)
Global Environmental Outlook 2002 (in-class)
Earth on the Edge Transcript
Grant on Responsibility
Ways in which the Dinosaurs might survive
the Bombing (in-class)
Historical Events in the rDNA Debate (in-class)
The Current Dilemma in rDNA research (in-class)
See Frank Herbert's The White Plague (1982)

Facing Mass Extinction

The Dangers of a Sixth Mass Extinction (in-class)
Mass Extinctions Underway: Links
Scientists Agree, Worlds facing Mass Extinction
(in-class)
Earth on Edge of Mass Extinction
The Sixth Extinction
Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems
(in-class)
James Lovelock: Earth's Revenge (in-class)
Review of Earth's Revenge
UN Report on the Global Environment:
Conditon Critical (in-class)
Vanishing Before Our Eyes: by E.O.Wilson
Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems:
Intro to Study (in-class)
Earth Trends: Global Environmental Information
WRI: Decisions for the Earth
The Earth Charter (in-class)
Graph of Global Rich and Poor (1997)
The Global Rich and Poor: Percentage share (1997)
(in-class)
Where the Rich live in the Global Economy

Jurassic Park and the Environmental Crisis

Krugman: Cash for Trash:
On the $700 billion Financial Bailout ( in-class)
Risk Assessment: The Opposite of the Precautionary Principle
(in-class)
Challenging Risk Assessment (in-class)
Risk Assessment vs. the Alternatives (in-class)
The Precautionary Principle Replaces
Risk Evaluation (Risk Assessment) (in-class)
What do the Challenger Explosion and the
breakdown of Jurassic Park have in common
(in-class)
Malcolm's Larger Conclusion ( in-class)
Facing Mass Extinction (in-class)
Malcolm on Evolution and Complexity ( in-class)
Ways in which the Dinosaurs might survive
the Bombing (in-class)
Grant on Responsibility (in-class)
Historical Events in the rDNA Debate (in-class)
The Current Dilemma in rDNA research (in-class)
See Frank Herbert's The White Plague (1982)
Lessons from Jurassic Park for the Future (in-class)
Lewis: The Larger Lessons of Jurassic Park
( in-class)
Warning from the Earth Charter (in-class)
Global Environmental Outlook 2002 (in-class)
GEO--The Future in 2032: Choices for the Future
Lessons from Chernobyl (in-class)

Three questions to consider when designing a system as complex as Jurassic Park:

1. What do we know about the environment and its complex systems?

2. Given that knowledge, how do we design technology to control and profit from that environment?

3. Given our knowledge, technology, and science, how can we be sure our use and development of the environment is safe--that it won't hurt us in the present or in the future?

Malcolm's Larger Conclusion:

"My point is that life can take care of itself. If we are gone tomorrow, the Earth will not miss us....Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet--or to save it. Be we might have the power to save ourselves."
Malcolm, ( Jurassic Park, pp. 369)

The Dangers of a Sixth Mass Extinction

"Today the Earth is again in extinction’s grip—but
the cause has changed. The sixth extinction is
not happening because of some external force.
It is happening because of us, Homo sapiens,
an “exterminator species,” as one scientist has
characterized humankind. The collective actions
of humans—developing and paving over the
landscape, clear-cutting forests, polluting rivers
and streams, altering the atmosphere’s protective
ozone layer, and populating nearly every place
imaginable—are bringing an end to the lives of
creatures across the Earth. “I think we must
ask ourselves if this is really what we want to
do to God’s creation,” says Pimm. “To drive it
to extinction? Because extinction really is
irreversible; species that go extinct are lost
forever. This is not like Jurassic Park. We can’t
bring them back.”
Virginia Morell, The Sixth Extinction

Warning from The Earth Charter

The Global Situation

The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous--but not inevitable.

The Challenges Ahead

The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living. We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more. We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all and to reduce our impacts on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive solutions.
(See The Earth Charter)

Global Environmental Outlook: Full Report (2002)

"Over 70 per cent of the Earth's land surface could be affected by the impacts of roads, mining, cities and other infrastructure developments in the next 30 years unless urgent action is taken.

Latin America and the Caribbean region is likely to be the hardest hit with more than 80 per cent of the land affected, closely followed by Asia and the Pacific region. Here, over 75 per cent of the land may well be affected by habitat disturbance and other kinds of environmental damage as a result of rapid and poorly planned infrastructure growth."

" Meanwhile more than half the people in the world could be living in severely water-stressed areas by 2032 if market forces drive the globe's political, economic
and social agenda.

West Asia, which includes areas such as the Arabian Peninsula, is likely to be the worst affected with well over 90 per cent of the population expected to be living in areas with "severe water stress" by 2032. "

"Over 1000 people, many from a global network of collaborating centres,have contributed to the preparation of GEO-3. The report says the planet is at a crucial cross-roads with the choices made today critical for the forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, wildlife and other life support systems upon which current and future generations depend."

"But generally there has been a steady decline in the environment, especially across large parts of the developing world.

The declining environmental quality of planet Earth and the apparent increase in strength and frequency of natural hazards such as cyclones, floods and droughts are intensifying peoples' vulnerability (GEO-3 Chapter 3) to food insecurity, ill health and unsustainable livelihoods, says the report.

The poor, the sick and the disadvantaged, both within societies and in different countries and regions, are particularly vulnerable. Everyone is vulnerable to some extent to environmental threats but there is evidence that the gap between those able and those unable to cope with rising levels of environmental change is widening."

"GEO-3 concludes that one of the key driving forces has been the growing gap between the rich and poor parts of the globe. Currently, one-fifth of the world's population enjoys high, some would say excessive, levels of affluence. It accounts for nearly 90 per cent of total personal consumption globally. In comparison, around 4 billion people are surviving on less than US$ 1 to $ 2 a day."

"The main driving force, putting pressure on land resources, has been the growing global population. There are 2,220 million more mouths to feed than there were in 1972."

"Soil erosion is a key factor in land degradation. Around 2 000 million (2 billion) ha of soil, equal to 15 per cent of the Earth's land cover or an area bigger than the United States and Mexico combined, is now classed as degraded as a result of human activities.

About one-sixth of this, a total of 305 million ha of soils are either "strongly or extremely degraded". Extremely degraded soils are so badly damaged they cannot be restored."

"Around half of the world's rivers are seriously depleted and polluted. About 60 per cent of the world's largest 227 rivers have been strongly or moderately fragmented by dams and other engineering works."

"Some 80 countries, amounting to 40 per cent of the world's population, were suffering serious water shortages by the mid-1990s.

Around 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion to improved sanitation, mainly in Africa and Asia."

"The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that forests, which cover around a third of the Earth's land surface or 3,866 million ha, have declined by 2.4 per cent since 1990. The biggest losses have been in Africa where 52.6 million ha or 0.7 per cent of its forest cover has gone in the past decade."

"Mangrove forests, natural sea defences, nursery grounds for fish and prime nesting and resting sites for migratory birds, are threatened by impacts such as over-harvesting for timber and fuel wood, tourism and coastal developments. Up to 50 per cent of recent mangrove destruction has been due to clear cutting for shrimp farms.

The loss and fragmentation of habitats such as forests, wetlands and mangrove swamps have increased the pressures on the world's wildlife."

"By 1994, an estimated 37 per cent of the global human population was living within 60 kilometres of the coast. This is more than the number of people alive on the planet in 1950.

Globally, sewage is the largest source of contamination by volume with discharges from developing countries on the rise as a result of rapid urbanization, population growth and a lack of planning and financing for sewerage systems and water treatment plants."

"Just under a third of the world's fish stocks are now ranked as depleted, overexploited or recovering as a result of over-fishing fueled by subsidies estimated at up to US$20 billion annually."

"Depletion of the ozone layer, which protects life from damaging ultra violet light, has now reached record levels. In September 2000, the ozone hole over Antarctica covered more than 28 million square kilometres."

"Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main gas linked with global warming, currently stand at 370 parts per million or 30 per cent higher than in 1750. Concentrations of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and halocarbons, have also risen."

2032: Choices for the Future

We are at a crossroads with the future in our hands. The decisions taken today and tomorrow will define the kind of environment this and future generations will enjoy. GEO-3 in its Outlook chapter outlines four policy approaches leading to different outcomes over the next 30 years. Here we highlight two of the most contrasting scenarios: Markets First and Sustainability First. One envisions a future driven by market forces; the other by far reaching changes in values and lifestyles, firm policies and cooperation between all sectors of society.

Malcolm on Evolution

"My point is that life on Earth can take care of itself...This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We have been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we are gone tomorrow, the Earth will not miss us....Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet -- or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves." (p. 369)

Malcolm from The Lost World

"But the point," Malcolm said, "is that this intricate developmental.process in the cell is something we can barely describe, let alone understand. Do you realize the limits of our understanding? Mathematically, we can describe two things interacting, like two planets in space; Three things interacting-three planets in space-well, that becomes a problem. Four or five things interacting, we can't really do it. And inside the cell, there's one hundred thousand things interacting. It's so complex -- how is it even possible that life ever happens at all? Some people think the answer is that living forms organize themselves. Life creates its own order, the way crystallization creates order. Some people think life crystallizes into being, and that's how the complexity is managed."

"So maybe living forms are a kind of crystallization. Maybe life just happens. And maybe, like crystals, there's a characteristic order to living things that is generated by their interacting elements. Okay. Well, one of the things that crystals teach us is that order can arise very fast."

"I'm talking about all the order in the natural world," Malcolm said. "And how perhaps it can emerge fast, through crystallization. Because complex animals can evolve their behavior rapidly. Changes can occur very quickly. Human beings are transforming the planet, and nobody knows whether it's a dangerous development or not. So these behavioral processes can happen faster than we usually think evolution occurs. In ten thousand years human beings have gone from hunting to farming to cities to cyberspace. Behavior is screaming forward, and it might be non-adaptive. Nobody knows."

"If you map complex systems on a fitness landscape, you find the behavior can move so fast that fitness can drop precipitously. It doesn't require asteroids or diseases or anything else. It's just behavior that suddenly emerges, and turns out to be fatal to the creatures that do it. My idea was that dinosaurs -- being complex creatures -- might have undergone some of these behavioral changes. And that led to their extinction."

"It just takes a few," Malcolm said. "Some dinosaur roots in the swamps around the inland sea, changes the water circulation, and destroys the plant ecology that twenty other species depend on. Bang! They're gone. That causes still more dislocations. A predator dies off, and its prey grow unchecked. The ecosystem becomes unbalanced. More things go wrong. More species die. And suddenly it's over. It could have happened that way."

"Just behavior . . ."

Grant on Responsibility

"No, you shirked your responsibility all along, from the very beginning....You sold investors on an undertaking you didn't fully understand. You were part owner of a business you failed to supervise. You did not check the activities of a man whom you knew from experience to be a liar, and you permitted that man to screw around with the most dangerous technology in human history. I'd say you shirked your responsibility" (p. 372)

Historical Events in the rDNA Debate

In the summer of 1971, experiments were planned to introduce SV40 DNA into an E. coli cell. This was of concern because SV40 is a monkey virus that can transform monkey as well as human cell lines into a cancerous state. These experiments were postponed.

In June 1973, a Gordon Conference discussion related to safety issues of rDNA lab workers was held. National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Insitute of Medicine (NIM) was asked to appoint a committee to study the matter. At the same time, letters were sent by notable scientists to the journals Science and Nature calling for a temporary halt to rDNA experiments. This request was unheard of before in the history of science. A Recombinant DNA advisory committee (RAC) set up at the behest of the scientific committee by the NIH.

The Current Dilemma in rDNA Research
( from The Recombinant DNA Debate, by Hong Lim Oei, Ph.D.)

Today, rDNA has become one of the few indispensable tools in genetic research. By using rDNA, scientists can insert well-characterized genes into an organism, usually into the bacterium E. coli. And by growing the bacteria, large quantities of the product of the inserted gene, for example, insulin, are produced in a relatively short time. Or, specific genes can be inserted or deleted from plants to create new plant varieties in a few generations. In the preliminary phases of somatic applications of human gene therapy altered cells are introduced in patients to alleviate gene defects. The technique is precise, effective, and requires less time than traditional production, breeding, or therapeutical methods and often permits steps not possible by traditional means. The Molecule of the Year 1994, the DNA repair enzymes, would not have been detected without the breakthrough of the rDNA technique. The repair enzymes are crucial in preserving our health. In spite of these marvelous achievements, the development of rDNA has not been without controversy, as we have seen.

Opponents of the technique have always feared its potential hazards. The first cloning and hybridization experiments were assumed unsafe because of the pathogenicity of the organisms used in those experiments. Monkey virus SV40 has tumorigenic capacity, while the host bacterium E. coli, is common in intestines of a wide variety of mammals, including human beings. Consequently, SV40 in E. coli was considered dangerous for its presumed capability to transmit and express the tumor virus in humans. Although successive rDNA experiments use "enfeebled" (EK2) or "disarmed" (EK3) E. coli strains as hosts, the initial fear, unfortunately, persists. An enfeebled EK2 does not multiply in a germ-free laboratory animal, such as a mouse born and developed completely germ-free. When EK2 does not propagate in such an animal, it can definitely not survive in other living beings that are full of germs. Similarly, a disarmed EK3 cannot live outside artificially created laboratory conditions. It can only grow under special laboratory conditions.

In spite of these precautions, antagonists continue to fear for the hazard of recombination techniques. They fear for transfers of rDNA from crippled E. coli to healthy E. coli which can invade human beings and other animals. Although one cannot completely rule out the possibility of those transfers, theoretically they are not feasible. Such risks and other potential biohazards related to genetic engineering are hypothetical. Yet there is no total guarantee they could not happen. In short, risks associated with rDNA and genetic engineering are uncertain.

The uncertainty of risks in rDNA research is in part generated by the unpredictability of the evolving science of genetic engineering itself. In an unfolding research field such as genetic engineering, the unknowns are revealed in sequences of experiments. Scientists design their experiments based on available theoretical knowledge and in anticipation of certain results, but they cannot entirely prevent unwanted surprises. Thus, although experiments presume certain scientific knowledge and anticipation, it is impossible to guarantee exclusion of undesirable results. Furthermore, the esoteric and uncertain theoretical knowledge itself may lead to unpredictable human decisions, either in anticipation of research results or in experimental
design .

What do the Challenger Explosion and the breakdown of Jurassic Park have in common:

1) They are the result of multiple, interdependent causes.
They don't have single, simple direct causes.

2) They are caused by modern industrial society's
acceptance of risk as a necessary part of life, despite
the fact that such risks often have dangerous, unpredictable outcomes.

3)They are caused by the desire to quickly develop technology and get it to the market before it is completely tested and understood.

4) They are caused by the desire to make profits or protect existing profits or funds.

5). They are caused by the failure of engineers and designers to understand the limits of our scientific knowledge and our ability to build and predict the performance of technology.

6). They are caused by political conflict and struggles for dominance and control.

7). They are caused by public pressure for new advances
and the desire to acquire the latest technology.

8). They are caused by the failure of scientists to properly understand the limits of their knowledge and inform the larger society about the consequences of their limited knowledge and limited ability to control and predict events in the larger natural world.

9). They are caused by the human obsession to defy nature, challenge the limits of nature and technology, and impose their control on the Earth.

10). They are caused by our failure to properly assess the long-term costs of developing science and technology given our limited knowledge and control of complex systems.

The global environmental crisis is the result of the same multiple causes that led to the Challenger explosion and the breakdown of Jurassic Park. The crisis is expanding, accelerating, and getting worse because, like Hammond, modern, industrial civilization insists on believing that we will very shortly completely understand the global environment, know how to use science and technology to control and predict the environment, and understand the short- and long-term costs of our actions. The breakdown at Jurassic Park is a serious warning that these assumptions are often wrong, and the results can be catastrophic. But how do we change our assumptions. If every time we witness a major technological breakdown, we deny there is a larger problem and keep hoping that next time we will know what we're doing we won't learn the larger lesson from the breakdown of Jurassic Park. There are unpredictable risks that lead to unacceptable catastrophes and death that should limit our development of science and technology, our efforts to use technology to control and predict complex systems, and limit our unbounded faith in the power of human reason and will to control the Earth. Until we accept this larger lesson, we will continue to have dangerous technological breakdowns and face growing global environmental problems.

Problems created by the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Forced the abandonment of a medium-sized
modern city, Priash.
Forced the evacuation and of thousands of
people from their homes.
People were not evacuated until 36 hours after
the disaster, which caused increased exposure
to deadly radiation by tens of thousands of people.
Left a 80 to 100 tons of highly radioactive dust
in the collapsed plant.
Continued to run the two remaining nuclear
reactions are Chernobyl despite the fact that
they knew their design was fundamentally
flawed.
Contaminated hundreds of square miles of
agricultural land with radioactive material.
The Ukraine and Byelorussia don't have the
money and resources to monitor the health
affects of those people exposed to the
Chernobyl radiation.
There are still 15 Chernobyl style reactions still
running in the former Soviet Union, despite
the real risk that one will blow up again.
The radioactive material at the collapsed plant
is too dangerous to move and will require
monitoring for thousands of years.
There are still dozens of nuclear power plants
operating in the former Soviet Union and Europe
despite the horrible lesson that Chernobyl
taught about the danger of nuclear power.
The people exposed to the Chernobyl radiation
will continue to die of cancer and other affects
for years and years to come.
What will happen to the children born of these
Chernobyl radiation survivors? Will these
children have horrible birth defects and pass
on dangerous genetic mutations?

Crichton could have ended Jurassic Park after Grant and the others regain control of the Park headquarters by killing the Raptors. In the movie, the story ends at this point. But in the book, Crichton adds a whole new section. Why does Grant insist that he take a party to find and explore a Raptor nest? Isn't this rather foolhardy, even suicidal, given their larger inability to regain control over the entire park? Afterall, at one point Malcolm argues that the park is now reaching a new equilibrium point with the dinosaurs creating and forming a natural community of dinosaurs. Given this, why would Grant and the others want to go into this natural, uncontrolled community of dinosaurs and explore a Raptor nest? The larger answer involves Grant's concern that if all the dinosaurs on the Island are to be destroyed, we need to know how they breed, how many of them there are, and what is the nature of their communities.

The larger problem facing this last major section of the book is this: Having failed to control the dinosaurs, can we now be sure that we have killed them all in order to protect the larger human world from dinosaurs. Crichton's larger answer is that because we don't know enough about dinosaurs in their natural state we can't be sure that we have destroyed them all. But, moreover, we can't be sure we have killed all the dinosaurs, because dinosaurs like all organism are adaptive, they will try to overcome and adapt to changes in their environment. If the Costa Rican government firebombs the island, the dinosaurs will try to avoid being burned to death, they will try to take cover and avoid extinction, just like any successful, adaptive organism.

Grant argues that a team must inspect the Raptor nest because "We have to find them, and inspect them, and count the eggs. We have to account for every animal born on the island. Then we can burn it down." But, given what they have already learned and experienced from the dinosaurs can they be sure that they can account for all the dinosaurs and be sure that they all will be killed? No! In fact, after observing the Raptors in their nest, Grant concludes: "The dinosaurs might be truly different animals, that they might possess behavior and social life organized along lines that were utterly mysterious to their later, mammalian ancestors." After visiting the Raptor nest, Grant concludes that dinosaur behavior appears to be similar to birds, and that like birds they have an instinct to migrate.

On the basis of his observations in the nest and their experiences with the dinosaurs on the island, Grant would be forced to conclude that they couldn't be at all sure that firebombing the island would kill all the dinosaurs. Afterall, they had proved to be intelligent, resourceful, adaptive creatures.

Ways in which the dinosaurs might survive this bombing:

1). They could hide in the numerous underground bunkers and storage areas on the island.

2). They could avoid the firebombing by jumping into the ocean or the lakes and rivers until the bombing has stopped.

3). They could try to swim off the island to avoid the bombing. Some dinosaurs swim like crocodiles!

4). They could hide in the caves, near hillsides, and rough terrain where bombing would be difficult.

5). They could escape to the mainland in some of the ships taking the remaining staff and supplies off the island.

6). Many dinosaurs have already escaped the island and now live on the mainland. We can't be sure of the numbers of dinosaurs that already have escaped the island, and therefore won't be threatened by the bombing.

7).The dinosaurs could already be hiding in numerous underground nests, like the Raptor nests, that the bombers don't know about.

8). The dinosaurs could be hiding in the secure, reinforced concrete buildings of the main park compound. The pilots wouldn't think to look for
dinosaurs there.

9). The pterodactyls could fly away to the mainland after
their dome is destroyed.

10). We don't know the exact number of dinosaurs on the island, what their behavior is, and how they will attempt to adapt to the bombing.

The Larger Lessons of Jurassic Park
by Chris Lewis, Ph.D.

The larger argument Crichton makes in Jurassic Park is that we must more tightly regulate and control the development of science and technology. If we don't try to regulate and limit the accelerating development of new technologies, we will create environmental problems that we won't be able to predict, control, and avoid serious injury from. If we continue, as Hammond does until his death, to believe that a little more knowledge, a little more advanced technology, and a little more human effort and will allow us to gain complete control over the environment, we will create even larger and more deadly environmental dangers and catastrophes. But Hammond's dogged determination to start over and build another Jurassic Park, with embryos stored in Palo Alto, despite the death and destruction caused by dinosaurs in his first failed park, serves as a warning for those who believe that modern, industrial civilization, despite all the environmental problems it has created and is creating, can solve its problems and gain control over nature and technology. Our dogged faith in our own reason and power, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is created by deeply held cultural assumptions about the human place in the larger world. Hammond is evidence that many will hold onto this faith despite the larger environmental catastrophes looming around us, such as global warming, acid rain, ozone depletion, deforestation, loss of topsoil, destruction of fisheries, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Despite these problems, the leaders of our modern, industrial civilization are supremely optimistic in the ability of our civilization to go on doing what it's doing, trying to control and dominate the natural world. The breakdown of Jurassic Park is a warning about what will happen if we don't recognize the limits of our knowledge and the havoc our efforts to control the natural world have already caused.

In our globalized economy, individuals and global corporations use technology to change the environment for profit. Like Hammond, they are more interested in making money than worrying about the impact of this technology on the global environment. The more interconnected our globalized economy is, the more interdepenendent it is. The growth of the ozone hole above the North and South Poles and the increasing levels of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere are two great examples of how individual's daily actions can affect the global environment. Because our actions affect our local, regional, national, and global environments, we must work together to make sure that we are not harming our environment. Because we are so interdependent, we need local, national, and global governments to regulate the development, use, and disposal of new technologies. Without careful regulation and control, new technologies could threaten the global environment. Jurassic Park is a great model of how one corporation's actions affected an entire region and led to the death of dozens of people. Supporters of globalization argue that the "free market," "economic growth and development", and "more science and technology" will solve the problems created by globalization. Jurassic Park is a warning that just doing more of the same thing-- pursuing profit as the central goal, and ignorance about science and technology and the human impacts on the larger environment--can lead to deadly consequences. If we don't better regulate economic growth, the development of science and technology, and increasing human impacts on the global environment, then we face real dangers of undermining the ability of that environment to support our complex, industrial civilization. Malcolm worries that some of the actions we are taking now could already doom us. Jurassic Park warns about the impact of the global environmental crisis on the viability and future of our modern, industrial civilization.