A Modest Proposal: The Polar Exchange

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(Note: This is a satire, purposefully bad arguments for a purposefully bad plan. See A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.)

The Overview Effect refers to a cognitive shift reported by astronauts after returning from space. Frank White describes it: “There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors.” There is profound truth to this: most boundaries on Earth are caused by human actions, and with a more scientific and global perspective we can see that many of these boundaries are irrational and unjust. But what about similar boundaries driven by human inaction? As human capability continually improves, can we afford to continue limiting our thinking towards solving human-caused-problems rather than problems more broadly?

Ecosophy or ecological wisdom is a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium. This is something that we all understand intuitively, a balance of nature is critically important. Therefore, it is my duty to alert you to a particularly grave imbalance that has persisted for far too long in some of Earth’s most important, sensitive, and pristine environments: the distribution of species habitats in the circumpolar ecosystem. This is perhaps the most clear example of an ecological imbalance in the most literal sense; our northern and southern poles have fallen wildly out of balance (don’t overthink it, one side is very different from the other side, that’s what unbalanced means). Fortunately, we are currently in a position to restore this balance using our modern logistics networks. Specifically, we can introduce breeding populations of polar bears in Antarctica, as well as penguins in the Arctic.

What I’m proposing is the removal of a great barrier that has hindered these ecosystems for millions of years. Just as the Columbian exchange unlocked many new and wonderful interactions between the new and old world (necessary for pizza, vanilla ice cream, peanut butter and jelly, etc.), we have the opportunity to enable a great new Polar Exchange, allowing interactions between the world’s northern and southern extremities.

There are surely many similar examples throughout the Earth where certain species have been unjustly limited in their habitats, but in this essay I will restrict myself to polar bears and penguins as a familiar example in an obviously unbalanced ecosystem. This ecosystem is of particular concern, with relatively little biodiversity of land animals in the extreme Arctic and Antarctic, and a greater sensitivity to climate change. Everyone knows that diversity is important for adaptation, and this species transfer could greatly increase the animal diversity in these regions.

You may have certain initial objections to this plan. Perhaps you’re worried that the polar bears would eat all the penguins. To that, I’d tell you to be serious and restrain yourself from sci-fi fantasies. Never before have penguins encountered another animal that has driven them to extinction. Penguins have always adapted to the changes in their surrounding ecosystem, and to suggest otherwise is a failure to consider history.

I would also ask you to consider the inverse scenario: if polar bears already existed in Antarctica, would you advocate exterminating every one of them that existed there? Of course not. In fact, such an act could even be considered specicide, causing extinction; it’s not unheard of for two populations with distinct habitats and very small genetic differences to be considered different species or sub-species.

In general, as humans we have an obligation to be helpful. With great power comes great responsibility. Why shouldn’t we help a baby elephant stuck in the mud? Why shouldn’t we nurse a bird with an injured wing back to health? We would help an elderly grandmother cross a busy and dangerous road, so why shouldn’t we help polar bears cross a dangerously warm and landless ocean to reach Antarctica?

More fundamental than any human desire, the base purpose of life is to spread. This principle is older than humans, animals, and even cells. Who are we to question this overarching purpose thrust upon us? We should embrace the spreading of life, including the natural desire for life to spread between the poles.

You might argue that polar bears would be an invasive species in Antarctica. But really, the whole concept of invasive species derives from a flawed static view of nature. Over long time periods, species do not have static habitat boundaries. Every habitat boundary grows and shrinks as species diverge and die out. The first photosynthetic organism was invasive as it spread around the world and killed around 80% of life on earth in an Oxygen Holocaust. Humans are invasive in most of the world by some metrics. Polar bear and penguin habitats growing is perfectly in line with normal biological patterns.

You may be concerned that this wouldn’t work because Antarctica is land while the Arctic is ocean. But there’s lots of land around the north, with Canada, Russia, islands, etc. Plus, there’s absolute proof that flightless birds can thrive in the Arctic: The great auk, also known as Pinguinus impennis, the origin of the word “penguin”. And no, the fact that it’s extinct doesn’t disprove my point; that great tragedy was humanity’s doing, and we should undo it by re-introducing semi-aquatic flightless birds to the north.

I don’t guarantee success of these species in this plan. Ecosystem balance isn’t free, and you don’t get it by making everyone happy. For ecosystems to be balanced, some species must thrive while others die out. Polar bears might die out in Antarctica and penguins might die out in the north, all I’m asking is to give them each a chance. You might be worried about the effect this plan could have on penguin suffering, as they contend with new challenges and new polar bear predators. In a way this is a general problem with all of nature, and limiting animal suffering in the wild is an almost impossible task. One way to think about it: In your moral view, what value does a penguin life have? Does an additional penguin life make the universe better or worse? There are differing views on this. If you think a penguin is positive utility (perhaps because nature in general is good or you like how cute and fluffy they are), then you should support my plan and hope that doubling the polar environment available to penguins makes more penguin lives. If you think a penguin is negative, perhaps because you think eliminating nature is ethically good because animals experience suffering, or maybe because you just happen to hate penguins in particular, then you should support my plan and hope that introducing polar bears to Antarctica drives penguins extinct (wait, did I call this a sci-fi fantasy earlier?). Overall, we don’t know how this Polar Exchange would affect each individual animal’s life, so I don’t think we can pre-judge this new merged ecosystem as more negative than any other ecosystem.

Another reason why the objections to this plan fall flat: it’s inevitable. Trying to stop species from spreading is a constant battle that we will eventually lose. Some desperate attempts to stop the spreads of animals are regularly attempted, like electrifying the Chicago river to interrupt fish swimming or dropping billions of sterile flies over Mexico. But these are temporary stopgaps, doomed to fail. Anyone with pickup truck and a bucket could carry fish over this barrier, and anyone with a fruit on a boat could carry flies over this barrier. These barriers will fall eventually, the only question is whether to accelerate this or not. You doubt that the temperate zone barrier would ever be breached by polar bears and penguins? You might just need a few really large and lucky icebergs and some extra hardy polar bears and penguins, but of course humans are a more likely cause. How could you ever stop humans from doing it? Would you start a world-wide authoritarian surveillance state to prevent anyone from doing it themselves? It’s a ridiculous idea which shouldn’t be attempted or discussed.

Note that I am proposing this purely out of the goodness of my heart, and certainly not for any selfish reasons. If I was trying to selfishly act on behalf of humans, my proposal would instead be a total inversion: make penguins only in the north, and polar bears only in the south. Polar bears are fairly dangerous and have been known to attack humans, and we in theory could make them live only in the southern hemisphere with far fewer humans. But again, I would prefer global balance even if it comes with inconvenience to humanity.

Please recognize that I’m not proposing anything really extreme here, it’s just accelerating some of the natural changes that all species deal with eventually. It’s not like I’m proposing accelerating uncontrollable artificial superintelligence (also see here), or accelerating the conversion of the universe’s free energy into entropy (also see here), or accelerating nuclear war (I think this one doesn’t need a parenthetical link to explain why it’s a bad idea).