The social and human relevance of in situ sediments

Abstract

Dealing with in situ sediments is also dealing with our own identity. Our established confidence in scientific technical and economic progress and prosperity is undergoing a painful awakening. After all, sediments and pollution are a symbol of the destruction of our environment rather than an improvement of a quality of life. We are starting to see the‘wholeness’ of the issue. While in the past, manipulation of the environment left a few human concerns which were treated as residues of a view of progress, we are now faced with the fact that all environmental issues are human issues and that preoccupations with values, aspirations and interdependence need to be at center stage.

Pollution issues become a disturbance of the perfect harmony between human beings and nature, and between different human groups. The restoration of the harmony requires a revision of paradigms, values and the interactivity of systems. Ultimately, the choices will be made on the basis of very many concerns. The rational and the irrational will combine to form a series of remedial measures that may not satisfy the traditional view of progress nor the newly acquired vision of a restorated environment. However, if communities are strengthened by the experience, if physical and social sciences as well as humanities find a new vision of their interdependency in the process, maybe the present state of high apathy, isolation and powerlessness will have been replaced with a better set of values with which to assess the problem and establish our common goal.

If scientists, technocrats and decision-makers can come together in other places like this gathering, I believe that the momentum will lead to bringing together communities. Any such interaction inevitably creates its own dynamics so that interacting becomes the mechanism by which one experiences and through which one’s choices are molded by each other’s. The interactivity process does not guarantee any particular solution, it only leads to the point where humans are now the focus of the exercise.