Re: finite world/resource depletion

[Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad@xxxxxxx>]

Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant) wrote:

> To conclude, I am unimpressed with finite
> world/resource depletion arguments.

Everything written before this simply points out the weakness of using
the fact of a finite world to frame arguments *within* the framework of
convenitional ecoomic thinking.  I concur 100%.  The reason to point out
that the world is finite is to suggest that an entirely different
starting point is needed.

Because of the impending promise of nanotechnology and other
breakthroughs, on purely technological grounds I'm very much an
optimist.  But, that optimism requires *severe* reconsideration on the
basis of what's happened during the past 30 years, despite enormous
technical advances (some of them, as Gregoire notes, producing enormous
reductions in ecological impact).  Social and economic inequality has
increased, both within advanced industrial societies and between such
societies and the poorest on Earth.  Increased technological advances
that exacerbate this inequality will only be used to further justify
further destruction of the environment.

In the meantime, right now, we continue to destroy ancient ecosystems
for only transitory economic benefit.  From the standard economic POV,
this makes perfect sense.  The point of a finite-planet POV is to help
establish another POV that will see things differently.

> I am much
> more concerned with carrying capacity arguments
> especially with regard to pollutants, but I
> find that there is a mixed bag here due to
> the fact that changing technologies impact
> differently and change carrying capacity.

Our knowledge of the effects of pollutants is still relatively minimal.
So many chemicals have never been studied for their effects. Of those
that have been studied, we are just beginning to understand their
synergetic detrimental effects.  A key factor here is simply defining
the problem away, by treating the loss of human life as a negligable
economic cost, low-balling all the figures, demanding impossible levels
of proof, etc.

A sobering look at what's going on here is *Living Downstream: An
Ecologist looks at Cancer and the Environment* by Sandra Steingraber.
Particularly unsettling is her discussion of global distillation, how
compounds, for example, evaporate in the tropics and circulate in the
atmosphere till they are deposited in the Artic.  In effect, we are
conducting a HUGE one-time experiment in many variables upon the Earth.
(And we're not even whispering about global warming here!)

What happens if we decide the property-relation assumptions underlying
the current system are all wrong?  That there is no right to pollute?
To externalize unkown costs into the environment?  What if we take
traditional public use-rights seriously?  What if we decide that fatal
consequences constitute murder?  What if we simply require that
corporations not poison us?  And that they obtain sound scientific proof
ahead of time?  In asking questions like these, the political nature of
political economy once more comes to the fore.

In sum, Gregoire is quite correct that taking the finite Earth and
plugging into the existing economic paradigm does not produce compelling
arguments.  Rather, the finite Earth further strenghtens the argument
for replacing that economic paradigm, and offers the possibility of PART
of the starting point needed for another approach.

--
Paul Rosenberg
Reason and Democracy
rad@xxxxxxx

"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"