Where we're at
Here's my take on it:
Humanity is in a race to see if its ingenuity and save it from its ingenuity.
Because here's the problem: the earth cannot support 10 billion who live like Americans, even if everyone could afford the cash to do so. The deforestation, fossil fuel consumption, overfishing, and pollution would create a fairly uninhabitable place.
So, the race is on to see if human ingenuity, science, and engineering can come up with ways to power and feed us that are environmentally sustainable. If we can't do that, we're going to fight wars. That's the bottom line. If we can do that, then we won't fight as many wars.
It also may be the case that the American standard of resource consumption is too damn high. If the competition for resources gets high, the prices for them will go up, and not as many people will be able to afford them. For instance, maybe Americans will just have to retire the notion of the great American road trip. We might have to accept that extensive travel and commuting are luxuries that we cannot afford. We may have to pursue more concentrated communities that require less travel or more mass transit.
I don't know...I just feel like we're in a precarious spot right now where we could either start down a path of a very peaceful and prosperous age, or we could head downa path of regression toward a divided, bellicose, and scarce world. The 20th century saw so much blood, but it also saw so much innovation. I hope that blood was a type of childbirth that has yielded a now toddler-aged world of increasing peace, prosperity, consensus, and equality. That would be sweet.
posted by Joe @ 7:55 PM
23 Comments:
Those who demand we regress for the sake of survival lack historical perspective and imagination. I think it's rather naive to assume our present situation is that much different from the many other times humanity has had to replace some increasingly scarce resources with others.
The world is getting better for the extreme poor not worse and it's not a matter of if 10 billion people live like Americans, but when. They won't be denied what we already have.
BOOBIES!!!
are you having humor at the expense of Vijai?
I diagree with you, anonymi #1, in this respect: I think there are reasons to believe that humanity's position today IS quite unique in human history.
The primary uniqueness is the unprecedented size of the population. It took, oh, several hundred thousand years for humanity to reach 1 billion people (around the beginning of the 19th century). We're now approaching 7 billion. So, in 100 years, we've done what took humanity millenia to do, and we did it 6 times over. So, there are a lot more people on the same amount of land.
I also feel like the interconnectedness of our modern world, economically and politically and interpersonally, is unprecedented. You're right that most poor people around the world want better lives, and that desire is reinforced by streaming internet videos of rich rappers on their cell phones. So, I feel like the rise in global prosperity only makes those left out feel all the more alienated and angry and ready to find a big bomb to drop on the great Satan. Not that i'm dissing economic development...just realizing that progress has unintended consequences.
You also misunderstand me...I'm not prescribing "regression" as a policy. I'm predicting it as a result of resource shortages. Or, rather, I'm projecting it as the future of our current path unless we can think our way out of it.
And curbing our consumption does not necessarily mean a loss in our happiness. The wealth of a country is very poorly correlated with the happiness of its citizens.
And much of our consumption is just lazy...over packaging of food, inefficient vehicles, huge houses..."luxuries" that have very dubious value in terms of adding utility to people's lives. Some very simple changes in terms of city planning, building designs, etc, could improve things a lot without having much if any impact on people's perceived standard of living.
Personally, i expect (and to a certain expect want) to see the world's poor get easier lives, and I'd like to see Americans have more reasonable lives in terms of consumption.
But, maybe we can figure out some technologies that will allow us all to live like hogs in the fat house forever. I doubt it, though.
Isn't the population unprecedented every time it's the biggest ever? Dontcha think there were more than a few times in Europe when people felt there were too many people? I think your contention that we’ve hit some kind of population ceiling is king of arbitrary. And even if you’re right, aren’t most of our social programs dependant on a pyramid shaped demographic structure? Isn’t a declining replacement rate currently wreaking havoc on the European welfare state?
Also isn’t the definition of “luxury” and “wasteful” just a little subjectively Marxist? So what if the New Yorker looks down on Cletus having a pickup with dualies. There are lotsa of Manhattenites that eat organic, and live in tiny little apartments using public transportation that have as big or bigger carbon footprint than McMansion dwelling, luchables eating flatlanders due to lots of long haul travel.
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Um...let me repeat my original point about population with some clearer statistics, which I think demonstrate that the last 100 years of human existence have been completely unlike anything else. (check out http://www.deathreference.com/Nu-Pu/Population-Growth.html)
I'm not exactly sure when humans came around, but I think it was a couple million years ago. From then until about 1000 B.C. the growth rate was zero. Which is pretty much all of human history. At that point, the population was 300 million. The population increased very slowly to about 1 billion by the 20th century. And in the last 100 years, it's increased from 1 billion to almost 7 billion.
So, yeah, technically, any time population has gone up, it's "unprecedented." But, aside from a few island nations that have outgrown their resources, we've NEVER BEFORE faced a situation where the human demand for natural resources presents the prospect of long-term collapse of environmental systems.
We're on the beginning edge of those collapses, and we may be able to adapt or invent our way out of it.
The replacement rate does not require the presence of a large population. That's just a ratio of young people to older people. It doesn't have to be a pyramid...just a column.
And I'm certainly not going to accept the label of Marxist simply because I'm criticizing pointless waste. Just as I wouldn't call somebody a fascist simply because they express support for market solutions.
I'm just saying that a natural decline in American consumption resulting from the increased prices that will come from increased global demand combined with finite resources might not yield a proportionate decrease in happiness (utility, etc).
Global population growth has slowed, and many (but not all) demographers predict an eventual decline in population that will correspond with global ec. dev, such as we've seen in Western nations.
Look...my bottomline point is this. The modern economy and modern western prosperity has depended on cheap fuel and disregard for the deleterious environmental consequences of production. These are not the only inputs to our production function, but they're big parts.
Here's what i'm saying...that cannot be the path of global prosperity. If we try to do it that way, we’re gonna hit a wall where our air, water, and bio systems are fucked, and we’re gonna run out of fuel. And if that happens, especially if it happens relatively suddenly (which could happens, if the rest of the world takes off in the same way China has), then it very well might get ugly.
Unfortunately too many of your commodity scarcity arguments can be explained away by the recent housing crisis.
In order to fend off a credit crisis the fed printed a bunch of money depressing the value of the dollar. Investors seeking a currency hedge invested heavily in commodities, artificially boosting their prices. If the dollar and Euro were in parity like they were a few years ago oil would be in the $70-80 range and food would remain appallingly cheap.
You’re far from the first person to feel the way you do regarding natural resource scarcity and you’ll be far from the first to be wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon-Ehrlich_wager
Your contention that the "end is near if we don't reform our wasteful ways" is in no way new.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon-Ehrlich_wager
Wagers against mankind historically have had pretty weak odds. The current rate of innovation seem to make them even weaker.
Well, first off, you're mischaracterizing my position. You might go back and notice that I do see the possibility of continued innovation saving us from the Malthusian Trap of finite resources.
You, however, seem to willfully refuse to acknowledge the indisputable fact that land, water, minerals, and other fossil fuels are FINITE, NON-RENEWABLE resources. 1) more people with 2) more money will create 3) more demand. More demand without a corresponding increase in supply will raise prices. You're very confident that continual technological advancement will allow that increase in supply. I'm not as confident as you.
And commodity prices are up everywhere in the world, not just in places who use dollars. The weak dollar doesn't explain food riots in Africa.
But, regardless, I didn't say anything about current prices! I'm forecasting one possible FUTURE scenario.
Wagers against mankind have weak odds? What history book are you looking at? How bout the millions and millions of people who killed each other in the 20th century in wars? How bout the genocides and slavery and general meanness, disease, and brutality that have characterized human society for pretty much all of its existence? How about coming a pubic hair away from obliterating each other with nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile crisis?
I think there are PLENTY of reasons to be skeptical about humanity's ability to take care of itself.
I'm not predicting "the end" as you suggest that I did. I have no doubt that humanity will survive in some form for a long time (until we're smashed by an asteroid or the sun goes out). But, mere survival is not necessarily a victory.
Anyway...maybe i should talk about the other possible path, just to prove i'm not a complete and total pessimist.
By the way, sorry about the comment moderation. I turned it on to edit my comment and forgot to turn it off.
I like it when boobies smell like baby powder.
I also like boobies.
So let’s say the US reforms it ways and becomes a model state in virtuous resource conservation. What would prevent other developing nations from simply soaking up whatever excess commodity supply we free up? At most this would satisfy some arbitrary standard of fairness but wouldn’t we all still end up in your “Malthusian Trap”.
Conservation isn’t a solution for anything, It just delays the inevitable. Solutions only come through innovation. As the worlds primary innovator it seems foolish to me to focus resources on half-measures involving social upheaval than letting the scientists and engineers do their work.
One note: Africa is a participant in the Global economy. If wheat pries go up in the US they will go up in Africa. Even in its weakened state, a lot of dollars have been pumped into commodities futures artificially inflating their cost.
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/why-not-perpetual-progress/
Timely Editorial in the New York Times:
The Cassandras have been warning of limits and resource depletion and population crashes for thousands of years, but as Julian Simon explained, we’ve kept finding exceeding limits and finding new resources and extending our life expectancy. The new problems lead to new solutions that leave us better off in the long run. Today’s Cassandras are focused on climate change, which could bring real problems, but to think these problems are insurmountable seems to me as short-sighted as the prophecies of the 1960s (”overpopulation” leading to worldwide famines) and 1970s (the exhaustion of energy supplies).
There were plenty of famines in the 20th century, and plenty of people died because of them.
Conservation is not useless. For one thing, it can buy us some time to come up with the technical solutions that you seem so confident in. For another thing, there are some resources that can can be harvested in a sustainable manner, such as forests, crops (which are a form of mining...turning minerals into edible plants), and water. The comsumption rate has to equal the replacement rate, a goal which would be furthered by conservation.
Well designed conservation, city planning, and transportation systems are every bit as much of an innovation as are new types of fuel, new drilling technologies, etc. These are all systems that are engineered and that can be improved. I don't see the justification for spurning one kind of engineering (human systems) and only putting faith in machines.
Which brings me to your point about the rest of the world sucking up resources that we don't use. I have a few responses.
There are clear economic benefits to conservation (not wasting money), and there are clear health and psychological benefits to having less pollution and more recreational wilderness. So, even if U.S. conservation didn't eliminate the possibility of global resource shortages, it would still have benefits.
Second, the U.S. is still the Hegemon, and our leadership still makes a difference on the global stage. I foresee a multi-polar world emerging over the next 50-100 years, but while we're still in control, what we do still matters.
Which is to say that I agree with your concern and very much see the need for an international approach to these issues. We need all the very smartest people in the world to be figuring out new energy solutions, green design, etc, and we need international trade policies that respect the global commons (mainly, the oceans, the air, and the climate).
Anyway...thanks for the thoughts. I'm gonna go ahead and call this thread closed. I'm sure we'll pick up these issues again down the road sometime.
There wasn’t a single day in the 20th century where mankind didn’t produce enough food to maintain itself. I can’t think of a single famine in the 20th century that was not political in cause. The mother of them all, the Chinese famine of 1958-1960, was a direct result of the human (social) engineering you suggest would be benign when applied to conservation.
I think there is a distinction to be made between efficient resource utilization and “conservation”. The former seeks to satisfy economic goals while the latter’s objectives are moral in nature. Using resources efficiently through innovation (getting the same thing for less) will lead to higher living standards while government mandating people ride the bus to work or abolishing air conditioning will not.
Man, can't I get the last word once in a while on my own blog?
I think it's an over-generalization to say that conservation's goal's are moral in nature. Take wilderness preservation for instance. Economically speaking, the recreational use, and even the "existence value" of those spaces can be assigned a monetary value using accepted research methods, and that value has real economic import for purposes of cost-benefit analyses.
So, I'm not seeing the distinction you're making. I guess there those who ascribe some consciousness to nature and say that it deserves respect, but i think most people are concerned about the environment because they are concerned about health, about recreation and scenic land, and about the resources they are leaving for their children and grandchildren (not because they love Gaia).
One of the government's main jobs is to protect the commons, which the market won't protect because it has no incentive to do so. Those commons have real public value. Regulation can protect those commons, and therefore regulation can increase or maintain public value (i.e., standard of living).
What do parks have to do with starvation and war?
One must also be wary of good-faith limits on individual freedoms which often easily lead to abuse by subsequent generations. Imagine how Orwell's Big Brother must have originally began or how the ideals touted at the start of the Russian and Chinese "revolutions."
The most important point that isn't being discussed on this thread is that the consumption of resources has incidental consequences. Even if humanity develops the technology to recreate non-renewable resources or to replace non-renewable resources at a faster rate, the incidental consequences of consumption may still destroy the planet. If Eistein Jr. wakes up tomorrow and invents a cost-efficient desalination machine, it won't make much of a difference if Iowa ends up having great Atlantic and Pacific coastal areas.
Doesn't everything have incidental consequences? Couldn't one argue that conservation has incidental consequences?
DDT Ban = tens of millions of malaria deaths is one for starters.
Come on, folks...nicknames, please! I am not a smart man and get easily confused with all these anonymi!
Also, i'd really like to get Vijai's take on all this. Where you at, Vij?
You american cry like bitch over baby seal and tree. wa wa!!
I have ford focus 1.6TDI and smoke tires whenever I desire!
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