FROM READERS.

Only Global Action Can Stop Collapse

Freud once stated categorically, "Worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration. Its success is never certain, for that depends upon the convergence of many factors, perhaps on none more than on the capacity of the psychical constitution to adapt its function to the environment and then to exploit that environment for a yield of pleasure." Freud was as lost in the civilization trap as anyone, though it took the professionals a long time to realize it.

When well known people speak, the lay often thoughtlessly follow their advice. The advisors are kidding themselves if they think their statements don't have profound social, political, and economic consequences. The replies to your solicitation of near-term practical steps toward long-term goals ("From Readers," November/December 1999) are interesting in that they are also based upon the assumption that we know what sustainability amounts to and that we all share the same perception of it. Without a clear idea of what constitutes a material and energy balance among the still-viable parts of the biosphere, this exercise might only accelerate the growing imbalance caused by civilization--a global concept.

One of your respondents, Wendell Berry, writing in the Atlantic Monthly of February 1991, took exception to Rena Dubos's "Think Globally, Act Locally." Berry still believes global thinkers are dangerous. In his WORLD WATCH response he concludes, "Unless one is willing to be destructive on a very large scale, one cannot do something except locally, in a small place."

On the other hand, focus on the here-and-now and immediate space makes one near-sighted. Like Berry, I take exception to Dubos. However, I believe we should not only think globally, but also that the "civilized" world must act in concert, else there will be little left to fiddle with. How long might we assume it would take to put the biosphere back on a healthy regimen through a haphazard application of individual acts, some good, others not? Do we have this kind of time and shared knowledge? I see nothing in the balance between environmental gains and losses over the past several decades that merits optimism. How long will we be content to...