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The question is not can we. The question is what standard of living do we want for species in the long term. We can always live more comfortably today by cons
by spodek 12y ago
The question is not can we.
The question is what standard of living do we want for species in the long term.
We can always live more comfortably today by consuming non-renewable resources that make our world sustainably enjoyable, but at the loss of the benefit that resource would later give. Slash-and-burn farming does this. As do putting up a mall over untouched land, burning fossil fuels, and overpopulation, for example, all of which do the opposite of setting aside part of the planet.
Business people know the concept better than anyone. They know a company is in trouble if it sells an asset whose operation produces profit to pay for current operations.
We can set off as much of the planet as we like and live in as much abundance per person as the planet can sustain indefinitely, though not as much abundance per person as we can today by consuming non-renewable resources. Using up those resources today only impoverishes future generations.
We can do either. What do we choose?
- msluyter 12y agoI think the problem is that it's not possible (or rather, extremely difficult) to choose in any global sense, due to co-ordination problems. A very interesting (though long and occasionally whimsical) essay called "Meditations on Moloch" dwells on this problem: "A basic principle unites all of the multipolar traps above. In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse." http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ So, basically we can't choose your former path above because we're stuck in one of these "multipolar traps." I recommend checking out the entire essay. It's long but rewarding.
- spodek 12y agoSounds like a Nash equilibrium. I think you're saying the path of using up non-renewable resources and maximally populating is a Nash equilibrium so stable we can't get out of it, I admit it could be a possibility.
- Daishiman 12y agoOne of the purposes international treaties and organizations attempt to solve is this very coordination problem. The fact that such organizations have had a certain level of success as far as deweaponization (as far as biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons), commerce treaties, and pollution control guidelines means that a global framework for reducing carbon emissions and increasing land conservation efforts is possible. A minor example of this is the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which have a certain protected legal standing, which has been fairly effective in its goal. Maritime laws and emissions control for large ships is another one where global legal frameworks have worked.
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- Brakenshire 12y agoIf you wanted coordinated global action on climate change, with teeth, you would make it a prerequisite of the trade treaties.
- Daishiman 12y agoWe might be getting there, since the Chinese have most of the parts in place for a carbon tax framework. The only question is whether it's too little, too late.
- graeme 12y agoSo far the emphasis has been on the wrong end --≥ final emissions. Don't get me wrong, those have to stop. But all current treaties, carbon taxes and unilateral actions have focussed on emissions from trackable sources. I think the only reliable way to stop emissions is to stop extraction at the source. So far, our global policy appears to be to extract every fossil fuel we can economically extract. At the other end, debates go on about whether to tax this emission or ban that emission. But there will always be leaks. Tax one type of emission, and fossil fuels will flow to other sources that aren't taxed. Markets are very good at this. Make it more expensive for a car to burn gasoline, the price of gas falls, and it becomes economical to use gas in some way that wasn't covered in the regulation. Shut down the oil field and the refinery, and you have an effective solution. An effective solution we are making no efforts to pursue. You'll know something has changed when the policy is no longer "extract all that can be extracted".
- 7952 12y agoIf you assume that the basic intent of human life is to grow population then we self organise very effectively. The only way we will ever make room for nature is if population growth becomes dependant on other forms of agriculture that do not need large amounts of land and sunlight.
- angersock 12y agoThat quote is a perfect summation of all software engineering projects.
- qq66 12y agoObligatory: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/why-john-j-mearsheimer-is-right-about-some-things/308839/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/why-john...
- civilian 12y agoSo. It might not need to be a global effort. A handful of large countries could foster their forests and get near half. Here's an article about Brazil successfully reducing the destruction of their rainforests: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21603409-how-brazil-became-world-leader-reducing-environmental-degradation-cutting http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2160340...
- jessriedel 12y ago> The question is what standard of living do we want for species in the long term. Your framing assumes a fixed supply of non-renewable resources and rough stability in our technology for both extracting and consuming them. Yes we should minimize irreparable harm to the planet, and yes we should obey the precautionary principle, but it would be silly to plan our current consumption of resources as if we will have the same technology in a thousand years.