Most in the Goulburn Valley are either “Vogtians” or “Borlaugains”.
That is, with a few exceptions, they have a vision for the rest of this century being rooted in either technological wizardry leading to growth or, for the “Vogtians”, a willingness to step away from the relentless idea of “more”.
Author Charles C. Mann alerted us to the work of Norman Borlaug and William Vogt in his book “The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Groundbreaking Scientists and Their Conflicting Visions of the Future of Our Planet”.
He wrote: “Prophets look at the world as finite, and people as constrained by their environment. Wizards see possibilities as inexhaustible, and humans as wily managers of the planet”.
Yes, we have many here as I personally know both prophets and wizards.
Mann continues: “One views growth and development as the lot and blessing of our species; others regard stability and preservation as our future and our goal. Wizards regard Earth as a toolbox, its contents freely available for use; Prophets think of the natural world as embodying an overarching order that should not casually be disturbed”.
The ideas and values of Borlaug prevailed personally from boyhood through to my early fifties when an almost sleeping penchant for what was public as opposed to private arose from its slumber slamming into my consciousness, waking, again, my Vogtian beliefs.
Author Charles Mann noted early in his book that the future of the world depended on science, and politicians being guided by science, and, of course, he was correct.
The Goulburn Valley is recognised as one of Australia’s food bowls and that niche has been carved out through adherence to ideas and values that reach back, and beyond Borlaug’s tireless efforts that led to what became known as the “green revolution”.
The Nobel Prize winner was relentless in his efforts to create seeds that given sufficient fertilizer and water would survive various diseases and other threats to thrive, producing bountiful crops.
It was his belief in science and its ability to feed the hungry that manifested what is known today as industrial farming; such farming has saved billions of lives, but in doing so has ruptured a nexus between humans and their environment, a connection William Vogt believed should never have been broken.
However, broken it is and now that fracture is manifesting itself as a disrupted climate system that many scientists and authors see as humanity’s greatest-ever challenge.
And we don’t know what to do. We just don’t get it.
Adherence to Borlaug’s vision has enriched the world in many ways, and the Goulburn Valley has been among the beneficiaries, but now we find ourselves in a cul-de-sac; a dead-end street and we need to look to the likes of William Vogt, and science to find an exit and navigate out way clear of this difficulty, an escape no one alive today will experience as the changes to our climate are baked-in, and so are with us for hundreds of years, if not thousands.
Well, we really do know what to do, but those changes to our behaviour are so socially unacceptable and foreign to what we are accustomed that little will happen until it is too late, which it largely is already.
Vatican climate scientist, Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan, recently noted that the fate of the world was no longer in the hands of the researchers and academics, “It’s now up to us,” he said.
The final word goes to Mann: “One (wizards) sees nature instrumentally, as a set of raw materials freely available for use; the other (prophets) believes each ecosystem has an inner integrity and meaning that should be preserved, even if it constrains human actions. The choices lead to radically different pictures of how to live. What looks like a dispute over practical matters is an argument of the heart.”
