In this book I have tried to deal with the subject of environmental pollution in Britain in an objective way. The public, and particularly those members of the public who are interested in the conservation of wild life, are very familiar with many types of pollution, but they cannot always judge their importance. Sometimes atomic radiation seems to be all-important, particularly when questions of military strategy are discussed. Our many fishless rivers are clear evidence of the serious effects of the pollution of fresh water, and every year our newspapers have pictures of dead seabirds covered with oil on our beaches. Great publicity has been given to agricultural chemicals. The remarkable impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring has suggested that insecticides are the greatest danger. I have deliberately avoided dealing with this book in the text, not because I underrate its contribution to the subject, but because I think that the time has come to try to look at all sides of the problem. Rachel Carson, when dealing with insecticides and herbicides, was careful to give us the facts as they applied to the United States, but she selected her facts, and gave us an advocate’s case. At the time, this was a useful service to science, and equally selective rejoinders from the chemical industry have done little to reassure the public. Other and more objective books on the effects of pesticides are listed in the bibliography. One of my main tasks has been to try to fit pesticides into the general picture of pollution from all sources.
The writer of a book like this needs to call on many others for help. Over a good many years I have discussed these problems with scientists from many countries, and I have tried to digest their views and the contents of their publications. The question of pesticides must have special mention. I have been fortunate in being able to discuss these problems with Dr. N. W. Moore, head of the Nature Conservancy’s Toxic Chemicals and Wild Life Section at Monks Wood Experimental Station, and with the members of his team. Dr. Moore was the first scientist in Britain to organise research work on this subject, and he and his colleagues have made major contributions towards the understanding of their problem. I have received immense help from them at all stages and have taken up a great deal of their time in detailed discussion. I hasten to add, however, that they are in no way to blame for any faults in my presentation of the subject.
The editors of this series have given valuable help. Sir Julian Huxley originally suggested that I should write this book, and made useful proposals as to its contents. Sir Dudley Stamp also gave me much encouragement, and the most courteous application of the spur whenever I fell behind my schedule. Without this I would never have finished the book. He read the manuscript and I shall treasure the appreciative letter he wrote me about it not long before his untimely death.
As I have already said, I have tried to make this book an objective account of pollution. I fear that I shall be attacked from all sides. In discussions I have been accused of exaggerating the dangerous effects of industrial processes and of beneficial agricultural chemicals. I have also been told that I play down the dangers of these substances. So long as the attacks do indeed come from these different quarters I shall not feel that I have entirely failed in my objective.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
This book is essentially an account of the way in which man is unintentionally contaminating his environment. This is a world-wide problem, but for the most part I am restricting my scope to consider the situation in Britain. I do this for two reasons, first because this treatment seems appropriate to a volume in the New Naturalist series, and secondly because although the problem is more acute in these small, developed and densely populated islands than in many other parts of the world, it is possible that what we do can help and guide others, and serve as a warning to prevent damage in the countries at present undeveloped which might otherwise accompany their economic development.
I think it is quite logical to bring together in one book the effects on our environments and on our wild life of pollutions which arise from urban conditions and from industry, and the rather special case of pesticides, which have recently been shown to constitute such an important contribution to environmental pollution. In all cases we are dealing with effects which were not deliberately planned by those who produce them. Pollution, including radiation, has grown as a side effect of the increase in human population, and of increased material productivity. Pest control began in quite a different way, but it is the side effects of modern pesticides, substances which could only have been produced and developed in an industrial system, and which may be effective weapons when properly used, which are causing so much concern.
In this book I have attempted to review the present situation, show how it has arisen, and discuss how man may either continue to pollute the earth and to impoverish it by destroying and restricting its flora and fauna, or alternatively may control his own activities for the benefit of posterity. The situation is serious. Much irremediable damage has already been done. On the other hand, we have learned how to avoid the worst types of pollution. Public opinion is strongly in favour of controlling pollution, and we are not so dogmatically in favour of eradicating any forms of life we consider to be “pests” as perhaps we used to be. If mankind is prepared to make a determined effort, to support much more research to make that effort effective, our descendants may not be condemned to live on an impoverished planet devoid of so much of the varied life which has made it so interesting and so beautiful. There is one other point which should be noted. Some pollutions, particularly from insecticides, seem to be harmful to wild life but not, as yet, to man. Air pollution is more often seen to damage plants than to harm man. Perhaps we should look upon these as useful “early warning” systems, and use the opportunity to reduce the chances of future damage to our own species.
Man deliberately alters the face of the earth, to a degree to which no other species of animal has aspired. He builds cities, factories and roads which wipe out wild life over large areas. He does this quite intentionally, assuming that the gain far outweighs the loss, though his pollution of the surrounding countryside with domestic and industrial effluents is not intentional. However, important as are the effects of urban and industrial development, it is as a farmer that man has the most profound effects on the landscape, and on the plants and animals which live there. An excellent account of these changes is given in Man and the Land by Sir Dudley Stamp. Farmers destroy the natural vegetation, and substitute wide areas of alien plants grown in monoculture. They deliberately try to get rid of plants which compete with their crops – that is, weeds. They try to destroy animals which eat their crops and so reduce the amount harvested – that is, pests. As agriculture has developed, new methods of dealing with weeds and pests have been discovered and put into use. To-day we are all conscious of the fact that chemical controls have been developed, and that poisonous substances are widely used to achieve control. We know that these poisons may kill birds and other forms of wild life, and we fear that they may endanger human health. However, we tend to forget that these possible toxic side effects may be less catastrophic to wild life than are the ecological effects of “traditional” agriculture.
Man has existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but it is only within the last ten thousand that he has had any considerable ecological effect, and only within the last millenium that he has really begun to change the whole appearance of the earth’s surface. Until about 8,000 B.C. man was a hunter and a gatherer of wild plants, with no domestic animals and no crops. Life, as Hobbes has said, was “nasty, brutish and short.” Man had little effect on his environment. He ate fruit and berries, and helped to disperse the seeds as do birds and animals to-day. His waste-products were probably dispersed over the land and helped to
