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作者：Donella H. Meadows，09.11.00
我曾聽過一個關於熊的笑話，也許你也聽過：兩個傢伙坐在森林露營區的帳棚外時，看到一隻巨大、憤怒的熊迎面而來。其中一個人開始綁緊球鞋鞋帶。另一個問道，"你瘋了嗎？你不可能跑的比熊快的！" 他回答，"我不需要跑得比熊快。我只要跑得比你快就夠了。"
這不是熊的笑話
照片：Art Wolfe, Inc.
哈哈，這真的一點也不幽默，在我記憶裡的，盡是別的笑話。然而，最近它又回到我的腦海，讓我不停地想起。
這是一場關於森林產業的會議。我們談論到新英格蘭的鋸木場快速增加。我們在想，森林成長的速度，是否快到足以供應工廠日益增加的需求量。也想到，工廠的擁有者在擴張業務前，是否也考慮到這個問題。試想，若是工廠經由自己的判斷而擴張，比森林的成長更快，會發生什麼結果。
對於這項產業有深入了解的人們表示，在效率上來說，工廠必須擴張，採用節省勞力與木材的新技術，以降低成本，才能在市場上低價競爭。他們無法得知其它工廠的擴張計劃，直到計劃開始進行。他們沒有辦法追查所有工廠的木材需求總量，以對照森林所能供應的總量。他們只知道，若是擴張工廠，就可以降低成本；然後就可以存活下來，並且再次擴張。若是他們落後了，就會有一家更大、更廉價的工廠接收他們的業務。你只能選擇擴張，或是被淘汰。
此時，一位有經驗的林務員，談到了關於熊的笑話。它的牽連廣泛，因為我們遇在其它的事件時，也聽過相同的故事。
用玉米餵飽市場
中西部的玉米農，其玉米產量是全世界所欽羨的。他們願意做任何事情、或是購買任何東西，來增加產量。肥料、除草劑、殺蟲劑、基因轉殖種子、最新的牽引機、更多的田地 - 任何可以增加產量的方法，他們都願意去嘗試。
他們也知道 -- 我很驚訝地聽到他們其中的任何一人說 -- 當他們提供越多玉米給市場，玉米的價錢就會直線下滑。他們栽植越多玉米，價錢就會越低，他們得生產更多玉米，以得到相同收入。他們的工作很單調，除了自己，沒有人可以改變。每個人都知道，若是自己最先採用了新技術，他的產量就會超越別人，然後就可以生存下來。若是他沒有，他的農地就是下一個被拍賣的。
你不需要真的打倒熊，你只要打倒另一個試著去打倒熊的可憐笨蛋。
墨西哥海灣的捕蝦拖撈船
照片：Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program.
在墨西哥灣的捕蝦船隊上，相同的狀況也在上演。在這裡的每一個人，從水產專家到船上的工人，似乎都贊同讓大約 30% 的捕蝦船停留在灣內， 比全部出去捕魚划得來。換句話說，他們待在岸上，少花3成的時間出海捕蝦賺錢，還比較划算。
由於蝦量非常豐富，這艘船過量捕捉，並不會耗盡資源 -- 總有一天會的。(這種情況已經發生在許多其他種類的水產上了。) 這只是耗盡利益。總有一天，每個船隊的船長得耗盡心力在更大、更快、更有效率的船隻上，以擊敗其它的船隊，以限制蝦子的供應量。由於資源有限，當有些艘船隻可以捕獲更多，其它的則較少。他們只能選擇擴張、或是被淘汰。
一個無聊的笑話，可以應用到三種不同的產業上。也許，也能應用在許多其它的產業上。
在這三個我所知道的產業上，嘗試超越別人以逃脫熊的代價，也是很大的。這是一個不必要的投資，閒置的機器、擱置的工人、破產的家庭、瀕臨死亡的社會。如此擴張使用、或是超越限制使用資源，將會使環境付出無數代價。北方的森林已經全面遭到砍伐，現存的盡是年幼的樹木。墨西哥灣的海底持續被捕蝦拖撈船犁過，使得好幾噸不同種類的幼魚，被捕蝦船的漁網連帶一起捕獲、並丟棄死亡。價值數百萬的肥料與殺蟲劑淋洗過玉米田，流入密西西比河流域的水井與溪流。(bycatch應指附帶之意外捕獲物)
也許，我們所創造出的經濟制度，讓大多數的基層、以及必需品的生產者，在凶暴的行情市場下，處於崩潰邊緣、生活在恐懼中；他們彼此獵殺，並且浪費金融、人類、社會與自然資產。
如果我們能夠多花點時間來思考的話，停止互相競爭以應對難題，開始合作來解決"這頭熊"的問題，也許才是最聰明的方法。
Donella H. Meadows為達特茅斯學院永續研究所所長，暨環境研究所副教授
全文及圖示詳見: http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen091100.stm
版權歸屬 Grist magazine 環境信託基金會 (黃曉菊 譯，鄭伊娟 審校)
中英對照全文：http://news.ngo.org.tw/reviewer
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by Donella H. Meadows，09.11.00
I've heard the joke about the bear before, and so, probably, have you. Two guys are sitting outside their tent in a forest campsite when they see a huge angry bear charging toward them. One starts lacing up his running shoes. The other says, "Are you crazy? You'll never outrun that bear!" The first says, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you."
Not beary funny.
Photo: Art Wolfe, Inc.
Ha ha -- kind of sick humor, really, down the memory hole it goes with all the other jokes. But recently it came back up for me in a setting that got me to keep thinking about it.
It was a meeting about the future of the forest industry. We were talking about the rapid growth of sawmills in New England. We were wondering whether the forest can grow trees fast enough to supply the rising capacity of the mills. Wondering whether mill owners ask that question before they expand. Wondering what would happen if (or when) the mills, through their independent expansion decisions, collectively outgrow the forest.
Folks who know the industry well were saying, in effect, that the mills expand because they have to, to adopt new labor-saving and wood-saving technology, to cut costs, to underbid each other in the marketplace. They can't know the expansion plans of other mills until those plans are underway. They have no way of tracking the combined wood demand of all mills against the total supply capacity of the forest. They only know that if, by expanding, they can cut their costs, then they can survive to expand again. If they fall behind, a bigger, cheaper mill takes their business. Grow or die.
That's when an experienced forester told the joke about the bear. It cut deep, because we've been hearing the same story in other contexts.
Corn-ing the market.
Corn farmers in the Midwest, who get corn yields that are the envy of the world, will do or buy just about anything that will help them grow more corn. Fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, gene-spliced seed, newfangled tractor, more land -- whatever boosts output, they go for it.
They also know -- it's amazing to hear every blessed one of them say it -- that as they put more corn on the market, the price of corn goes down, down, down. The more corn they grow, the lower the price, and the more they have to grow just to make the same income. They're on a treadmill that no one is turning but them. Each one knows that if she's the first to adopt the new technology, her yield gets a bit ahead of the others, and she survives. If she doesn't, hers is the next farm on the auction block.
You don't have to beat the bear, you just have to beat the other poor suckers who are trying to beat the bear.
A shrimp trawler in the Gulf of Mexico.
Photo: Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program.
You can see the same thing happening with shrimp fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone there, from the fisheries experts to the guys working on the boats, seems to agree that there are about 30 percent more trawlers out in the Gulf than there should be for the fishery to be profitable. Another way to say this is, 30 percent of the time they lose money fishing and would be better off staying ashore.
Because shrimp are wonderfully prolific, this boat excess doesn't appear to be wiping out the resource -- yet, anyway. (That is happening in dozens of other fisheries.) It is just wiping out profits. Yet every fleet captain puts all he can into bigger, faster, more efficient boats to beat the other guys to that limited supply of shrimp.
Since the resource is used to capacity, for every boat that catches more, another catches less. Grow or die.
One sick joke applies to three very different industries. Probably many other industries as well.
Even in these three I know, the cost of trying to outrun the other guy to escape the bear is immense. There's the wasted investment, the idled machines, the laid-off workers, the bankrupt families, the dying communities. There's the incalculable environmental cost of pushing a resource to, or beyond, its limit. The northeast forest has spreading clear-cuts and ever-younger trees. The seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico is constantly plowed up by shrimp trawlers. Tons of bycatch, young fish of many species, are dumped out dead from shrimp nets. Millions of dollars worth of fertilizers and pesticides wash off cornfields into the wells and streams of the Mississippi watershed.
Somehow we have created an economy that keeps our most basic and necessary producers on the edge of ruin, living in fear, preying on each other, wasting financial, human, social, and natural assets at an enormous rate.
If we had just a minute to think, might it not be wiser to stop racing each other against disaster, and start working together to address the problem of the bear?
Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen091100.stm
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