ESA 2009: War and the ordinary scientist
Powerpoint presentations at ecology conferences are usually dominated by pretty landscapes: flowering plants, cute little pikas, soaring mountain vistas. So it was a bit of a shock today to sit through pictures of corpses at the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, American warplanes spraying deadly Agent Orange on Vietnam, and refugees lining up at camps in Darfur. 
The cheerful topic of the morning: warfare ecology, a newly-dubbed sub-field of ecology. Gary Machlis, an ecologist at the University of Idaho, gave an impassioned lecture about why all scientists should care about warfare and why ecologists should help figure out how to restore devastated landscapes.
The litany of environmental disasters was depressing: General Patton scarring the delicate landscape of California's Mojave desert with thousands of tanks. Bombings of chemical plants in Serbia that sent pollutants coursing downstream into non-combatant nations. Saddam Hussein draining the marshlands of Iraq to destroy the livelihoods of the Marsh Arabs there. Elephants that stampeded over the border from Uganda into the Congo, then back, as war raged back and forth.
But in his oddly infectious, impassioned-professor sort of way, Machlis seemed to get the audience - primarily younger researchers, with a smattering of military types - inspired. "Like conservation biology in the 1970s, or restoration in the ecology in the 1980s, warfare ecology reflects an interdisciplinary approach to a global challenge," he said, pacing back and forth. "The scientific community must continually evaluate its ethical responsibility toward warfare."
Ecologists might engage, he said, by figuring out how to build a refugee camp with the right resources to save lives. Or supporting swords-to-ploughshares restoration efforts like restoring the Korean demilitarized zone. Or working with remote sensing to better monitor war's impacts on civilian populations. Only then, Machlis argued, can scientists truly be responsible.
What do you think? What responsibility do scientists have to salve society's ills? And how best might they go about it?
Image: Car bomb in Iraq, DoD
