Ecological Literacy (1992)

Abstract

L teracy is the ability to read. Numeracy is the ability to count. Ecological literacy, according to Garrett Hardin, is the ability to ask “What then?” Considerable attention is properly being given to our shortcomings in teaching the young to read, count, and compute, but not nearly enough is being given to ecological literacy. Reading, after all, is an ancient skill. And for most of the twentieth century we have been busy adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and now computing. But “What then?” questions have not come easy for us despite all of our formidable advances in other areas. Napoleon did not ask the question until he had reached Moscow, by which time no one could give any good answer except “Let’s get outta here.” If Custer asked the question, we have no record of it. His last known words at Little Big Horn were “Hurrah, boys, now we have them.” And economists, who are certainly both numerate and numerous, have not asked the question often enough. Asking “What then?” on the west side of the Niemen River, or at Fort Laramie, would have saved a lot of trouble. For the same reason, “What then?”is also an appropriate question to ask before the last rain forests disappear, before the growth economy consumes itself into oblivion, and before we have warmed the planet too much.