\ Op-Ed Section Editor: Erin Culhane April 2, 2003 opinionsubmit@hotmail.com Broad’s Eye View J.ALL. OP Columnist ow susiain- able is our develop- ment? Science Matters Sustainable development is a popular concept based on the assumption that we know enough to “manage” our natural resources in a way that will enable them to flour- ish indefinitely. With so many people in the world and a steeply rising demand for consumer products, it’s certain- ly an enticing idea. But do we really know enough to manage natural resources sustainably? Well, if we owned a business like a bakery that we wanted to operate and pass on to our children and grand- children, what would we need to know? I would think before we even got into the question of markets, prices, distribution, advertising, etc, we would need two basic things: an inventory of everything in the bakery and a blueprint showing the role of everything in the invento- ry. With those two critical pieces of information, we © page 6 I confess I have a crush on all things retro. Now, retro can mean a lot of different things to different people. For some, the eighties qualify as retro and for others it’s all about the 1970s and ‘60s. Personally, I am fond of the 1940s and early ‘50s. The word “retro” means fashion reminiscent of the past. So whatever era tickles your nostalgia bone meets the criteria. In my opinion, in order for something to be really retro it has to be at least 20 years old. Having said that, I should stipulate we're not talking about pioneer days or, say, the Renaissance, here. “Retro” is a term mainly applied to the 20th century. Anything before that starts to become history. What do I love about the 40s and 50s? I suppose I’m attracted to the glamour that | attribute to that time. Men were men and women were dames. I love the cloth- ing, the hairstyles and the music. Even the war, while atrocious, was romantic. There were defined enemies and real heroes. People you don’t really find making today’s headlines. The movies stars from those years seem more impres- sive to me: Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, and one of my all-time favourites ,Gene Kelly. Modern day stars pale in comparison. Movie making, although seriously affected by the war, was the ultimate entertainment for North Americans. While the Hollywood gossip mill flourished even back then, stars weren't publicly raped by tabloids as they are today. There was still a great deal of mystery surrounding the silver screen that I feel is sorely lacking presently. Of course, you can't go around mourning a time you never lived. But, you can bring a little of that old magic into your life. Websites like Forever Vintage.com and Atomic are excellent references to the retro way of life. Forever Vintage.com’s front page asks you if you've had enough of being a square and welcomes you to “the most could proceed to market prices, costs, sales and profit. Unfortunately, when it comes to the natural world where we find “resources” galore, too often potential profit is reason enough to begin exploiting them without regard to inventory or blueprint. In British Columbia, nature abounds and we have embarked on a radical pro- gram of exploiting resources we know little about. That’s why forests and hundreds of salmon races have already disappeared while abalone, rockfish and geoducks are in catastrophic decline. How much of an inventory of life forms do we really have? In Canada, a committee of distinguished scientists makes informed guesses about species that are in various stages of decline. The number is rising. This year, there are 415 listed compared with 404 last year. But even those lists have to be based on species that have been offi- cially identified, given a taxonomic name and sufficient- ly studied for us to know their numbers are changing. So do we even know how many species there are? The only honest answer is, no. More than half of all insects in the national collection in Ottawa have never been identi- fied because we lack the personnel. (Collecting and iden- tifying species, called systematics and taxonomy, is very low on the totem pole of glamour in biology.) I have seen estimates of the number of species on the planet that range from two million to 100 million —that’s a 50 fold range! In a gram of soil, there may be one billion individual single-celled organisms and millions more multicells. In that same soil sample, there may be 4,000 different the other press comprehensive guide on the web to living in the age o cool.” With information and photographs of everything from hairstyles and fashion to pinups and recipes, I would have to agree with that statement. It’s a very cool site and it grows a little each time I check it out. I par- ticularly like the bar recipes. P’'ve thrown a few retro themed cocktail parties and have found that they have the best recipe for Harvey Wallbangers. Atomic.com—The Essential Guide to Retro Culture, is a swankier looking site that also distributes a print magazine. It has a lot of the same information that Forever Vintage does, but it’s a little better organized. Atomic is well-known as the stomping grounds of those who have decided to live their lives almost completely retro. There are guides explaining how to decorate your home, dress yourself and even dance retro. There are enthusiast groups who work together to eliminate all modern culture from their lives and if you search around on the web, you find they often link from their sites to Atomic. One of my favourite things about the site is the Atomic Girl contest they run. Readers of the magazine and users of the site are welcome to enter themselves in a pin-up girl contest. The winner is prominently featured on the site and gets the cover of the magazine. There is always a story attached and photographs of the photo shoot so you can see how they transform the woman into a cheesecake girl. I don't even attempt to devote myself to the retro lifestyle, but I do like to collect clothing and barware from the 40s and 50s. My apartment is decorated with some of the amazing finds I’ve unearthed at vintage shops and I’ve recently acquired a lovely console televi- sion that is my pride and joy. So, if you're hankering for a new hobby/obsession, allow me to recommend retro culture. It’s just good, clean fun. species - almost all of them completely unknown to sci- entists. Soil is the foundation upon which the rest of ter- restrial life depends - the total weight of microorganisms underground exceeds the weight of all life above - yet knowing almost nothing about its makeup, we deplete its organic content and alter it with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. If we ignore soil microorganisms, how well do we know the animals and plants of the world? Remember that 70 per cent of the planet is covered in water, an alien medi- um to us. Probably the best-known organisms are trees— they're big, they don’t move, and we've got lots of uses for them. There are about 90,000 known species of trees and about 200,000 other species of plants. But the kicker in this is that we now know a species isn’t just the sum of all the individuals, but their diverse genes as well. In other words, we may find the same species from valley to val- ley, but when genetic makeup is analyzed, there may be characteristic differences within the same species. Those differences are crucial for the well being and resilience of a species over time. We know very little about such intraspecies variability (called genetic poly- morphism) although new molecular tools for DNA analysis hold out the exciting potential to gather those data if we make the commitment of time and resources. Right now, however, we're still selling bread without knowing what's in the bakery. Next time, Pll demonstrate the deficiencies in inventory and blueprint for the entire planet.