Smarter than a fifth grader, but are you wiser than an ant? Philippine Daily Inquirer
November 08, 2009
WHAT is the environment? Is it the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees? Yes, I have learned that it is all those and more.
The difficulty with the word “environment” is that it is in a language not our own. To say that it is about our surroundings is to minimize its importance. Perhaps that is why the environment is given marginal priority. Its meaning simply does not sink into our deepest consciousness.
The environment is about life, and the sources of life—land, air and water (LAW). Land is the carpet of living matter that enables us to grow our food. Air is that delicate mixture of gases that enables us to breathe. Water makes up 70 percent of the human body.
Rule of threes
There is what is called the rule of threes. Generally, without air for three minutes, we die; without water for three days, we die; and without food for 30 days, we die.
The trees and the forests are the lungs, the land and the soil are the skin and the flesh, and the seas and the rivers are the blood and bloodstreams of life.
When we understand the environment as life and the source of life, it assumes a much greater importance. The environmental crisis that is unraveling today is a product of wrong mindsets, of treating the environment like it is only about the birds and the bees.
Albert Einstein said one could not solve a problem with the same mindset that created the problem in the first place. It is time to change mindsets. Change words, you change meanings; change meanings, you change implications; change implications, you change mindsets.
On ants and humans
Which animal is wiser and more civil? The ant or the human?
Before answering that question, we must first ask another question: What is the purpose of transportation? The answer: to move humans and things from one point to another.
Let us now compare ants and humans as they move from one point to another:
1. Despite their number, ants do not have traffic jams. The reason is simple: They travel in a single file.
In contrast, human beings, who claim to be the wisest animals on Earth, insist on individual and chaotic movement. They want to travel when and how they want, congesting the limited space they use for travel. As one wit puts it, “Our insistence on individual mobility has resulted in serious collective immobility.”
Take for example our so-called South Luzon Expressway or South Superhighway. It is neither express nor a highway; rather it is a slightly-moving parking lot. That is, when there are no accidents or stalled vehicles.
2. Ants do not take up more space than necessary for their movement.
In contrast, a human being alone in a car occupies 10-12 sq m; that is, when the car is not moving.
3. Ants do not use a lot of materials to move from one point to another.
In contrast, cars use so much metal and fossil fuels. Metals, as we know, come from the earth—tons of ore are mined to produce a small amount of metal. Tremendous amounts of energy and water must be used, and abused, to produce metals.
The oil that cars use came from fossil fuels that took at least 100 million years to form. The fossil fuels are taken from the depths of the Earth in a matter of hours, and the oil taken from them is burned in a matter of seconds.
4. Ants do not poison the air that they breathe.
Humans, on the other hand, are burning fossil fuels and emitting toxic and poisonous gases into the very air that everyone breathes. Is that smart?
In addition, human activities produce carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat and is now a major cause of the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere that has a perplexing and catastrophic impact on human life.
How strange humans are! Despite their claims of high intelligence and great wisdom, they are the only animals that dirty the air they breathe, poison the water they drink, and kill the soil that is the base of all their food.
5. Ants do not cover their paths with concrete.
In contrast, human beings pave the road they use for travel. First, concrete absorbs heat, roads become very hot, and cities and places of dwelling become islands of heat. Second, because concrete does not absorb water, water runs off and is wasted, instead of replenishing the groundwater that human beings extract for their needs. Third, because water is not absorbed by the soil and the vegetation, flooding occurs, resulting in damage to human beings. Is that smart?
6. When civilized ants bump into each other, they bow to each other.
In contrast, vehicular collisions often lead to heated arguments, sometimes even fistfights or, worse, shooting. Ants do not have road rage. Humans do.
I have learned that ants are indeed wiser and more civil than human beings.
Are we happy with that?
If human beings wish to prove this proposition wrong, it is time to re-think the way we travel to get from one point to another. The solution is a “revolution,” i.e., a turn-around in the way we think and act.
We have to shift our mindsets from individualized and pollutive transportation systems to collective and non-pollutive locomotion.
For example, not all transportation must be by motor vehicles. We can walk or bike. The lack of physical activity of modern human beings is one of the major causes of diseases like obesity, stroke, heart ailment and diabetes.
What does it take to change?
It does not take the genius of a rocket scientist or a Nobel laureate. All it takes is pure and simple common sense, the sense to understand that we are infinitely more intelligent than ants, as we like to think.
Among others, the following must be done:
1. Reform the road system, with a preference for non-motorized locomotion systems. Ramon Magsaysay said, “Those who have less in life must have more in law.” Let us apply that principle to the road: “Those who have less in wheels must have more in road.” A revolutionized locomotion system gives people priority over cars. Wide lanes are set aside for pedestrians, another for bicycles, another for collective transportation systems and still another for fire trucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles.
The concrete between the lanes must be removed and the space planted to vegetables and fruit trees.
2. With cars and parking lots becoming more and more irrelevant, concrete parking lots can be turned into parks, greenbelts and vegetable gardens. One important reason there is hunger in urban areas is that we have turned highly productive land into concrete. With this turn-around, concrete will be broken up and the space turned into arable and productive land.
3. Some of the land that is opened up must be turned into rainwater collectors, receptacles for run-off waters from buildings and concrete spaces.
4. Collective transport systems must be rail-based. Imitating the single file system of ants, it will result in no traffic jams and will have perfect, easy traction. To power these trains or trams (known in the past, before cars became fashionable, as tranvias), we can use the energy that is in great supply these days—so great it has become a problem called unemployment—manpower. A working model of this man-powered mini-train is now available at the Baywalk of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan and may be viewed at www.thelawofnature.org .
The benefits are too numerous and obvious. But, to summarize: a) no traffic congestion; b) a healthier people; c) clean air; d) cheaper transportation; e) food (especially vegetable) availability ; f) cooler climate; g) replenishing of groundwater (by rainwater collectors).
Filipinos will set an example and show the world the meaning of sustainable transportation.
Realistic goals
Are all these goals possible? Of course, they are. Using high technology, humans have landed on the moon and reached outer space. What is needed here is only very basic technology, the technology of trains and of breaking up concrete to restore the soil so plants can grow. It only requires a return to the understanding that long before the power of the combustion engine, long before the power of horses, there was the power of men.
What have I learned? Not much yet. As of press time, the jury is still out. It is this jury that will decide who is actually wiser—ant or human.
But being a member of the human race, it is my most ardent hope that, as a species of animal, we are not as stupid as we seem to be.
Yes, “sometimes words and ideas have to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts upon the unthinking.”
Tony Oposa Jr. received the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award for using the power of the law to protect the environment. He is currently president of The Law of Nature Foundation, Inc. Oposa was commencement speaker of his Harvard graduating class and the only Filipino to be the subject of a full-length feature in the Harvard Law Bulletin.
