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Hi all,
At Yaneer's suggestion, I've transplanted this email discussion to NECSI's online forum. The original Newman article appears at the bottom of this post.
I've also created accounts for everyone on the original distribution list (minus those who requested off) and subscribed them to this topic. Whenever someone posts a new comment, you will receive an email notification. To receive the full text of the post, click on "Profile" in the top nav bar, then select "Privacy" from the left-hand menu. Check the "Include post in subscription emails" checkbox. If you want to turn this feature off, click on the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of this page.
I'm sorry for the delay in getting the discussion up and running here; I hope you can pick it up where it left off. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.
All the best,
Greg Wolfe
NECSI Web Admin
web@necsi.org
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,5389 … 70,00.html
/Start of article
Comment
It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both
Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only
response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change
Robert Newman
Thursday February 2, 2006
Guardian
There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social
change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the
edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the
present economic system.
Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on
infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in
a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central
organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it
will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green
initiative anybody cares to come up with.
Much discussion of energy, with never a word about power, leads to the
fallacy of a low-impact, green capitalism somehow put at the service of
environmentalism. In reality, power concentrates around wealth. Private
ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in
the world is private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law
and regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore
stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate
change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under social
control will we be able to overcome the global environmental crisis.
On these pages we have been called on to admire capital's ability to take
robust action while governments dither. All hail Wal-Mart for imposing a
20% reduction in its own carbon emissions. But the point is that
supermarkets are over. We cannot have such long supply lines between us
and our food. Not any more. The very model of the supermarket is
unsustainable, what with the packaging, food miles and destruction of
British farming. Small, independent suppliers, processors and retailers or
community-owned shops selling locally produced food provide a social glue
and reduce carbon emissions. The same is true of food co-ops such as
Manchester's bulk-distribution scheme serving former "food deserts".
All hail BP and Shell for having got beyond petroleum to become
non-profit eco-networks supplying green energy. But fail to cheer the
Fortune 500 corporations that will save us all and ecologists are
denounced as anti-business. Many career environmentalists fear that an
anti-capitalist position is what's alienating the mainstream from their
irresistible arguments. But is it not more likely that people are stunned
into inaction by the bizarre discrepancy between how extreme the crisis
described and how insipid the solutions proposed? Go on a march to the
House of Commons. Write a letter to your MP. And what system does your MP
hold with? Name one that isn't pro-capitalist. Oh, all right then,
smartarse. But name five.
We are caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of climate change and peak
oil. Once we pass the planetary oil production spike (when oil begins
rapidly to deplete and demand outstrips supply), there will be less and
less net energy available to humankind. Petroleum geologists reckon we
will pass the world oil spike sometime between 2006 and 2010. It will
take, argues peak-oil expert Richard Heinberg, a second world war effort
if many of us are to come through this epoch. Not least because modern
agribusiness puts hundreds of calories of fossil-fuel energy into the
fields for each calorie of food energy produced.
Catch-22, of course, is that the very worst fate that could befall our
species is the discovery of huge new reserves of oil, or even the burning
into the sky of all the oil that's already known about, because the
climate chaos that would unleash would make the mere collapse of
industrial society a sideshow bagatelle. Therefore, since we've got to
make the switch from oil anyway, why not do it now?
Solutions need to come from people themselves. But once set up, local
autonomous groups need to be supported by technology transfers from state
to community level. Otherwise it's too expensive to get solar panels on
your roof, let alone set up a local energy grid. Far from utopian, this
has a precedent: back in the 1920s the London boroughs of Wandsworth and
Battersea had their own electricity-generating grid for their residents.
So long as energy corporations exist, however, they will fight tooth and
nail to stop whole postal districts seceding from the national grid. Nor
will the banks and the CBI be neutral bystanders, happy to observe the
inroads participatory democracy makes in reducing carbon emissions, or a
trade union striking for carbon quotas.
There are many organisational projects we can learn from. The Just
Transition Alliance, for example, was set up by black and Latino groups in
the US working with labour unions to negotiate alliances between
"frontline workers and fenceline communities", that is to say between
union members who work in polluting industries and stand to lose their
jobs if the plant is shut down, and those who live next to the same plant
and stand to lose their health if it's not.
We have to start planning seriously not just a system of personal carbon
rationing but at what limit to set our national carbon ration. Given a
fixed UK carbon allowance, what do we spend it on? What kinds of
infrastructure do we wish to build, retool or demolish? What kinds of
organisational structures will work as climate change makes pretty much
all communities more or less "fenceline" and almost all jobs more or less
"frontline"? (Most of our carbon emissions come when we're at work).
To get from here to there we must talk about climate chaos in terms of
what needs to be done for the survival of the species rather than where
the debate is at now or what people are likely to countenance tomorrow
morning.
If we are all still in denial about the radical changes coming - and all
of us still are - there are sound geological reasons for our denial. We
have lived in an era of cheap, abundant energy. There never has and never
will again be consumption like we have known. The petroleum interval, this
one-off historical blip, this freakish bonanza, has led us to believe that
the impossible is possible, that people in northern industrial cities can
have suntans in winter and eat apples in summer. But much as the petroleum
bubble has got us out of the habit of accepting the existence of zero-sum
physical realities, it's wise to remember that they never went away. You
can either have capitalism or a habitable planet. One or the other, not
both.
Robert Newman's History of Oil will be broadcast on More4 next month
rnewman@dircon.co.uk
/End of article
Offline
From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 5, 2006 1:40:32 PM EST
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
I think there's a credible genuine answer to "the bizarre discrepancy
between how extreme the crisis described and how insipid the solutions
proposed".
Many natural systems, and ordinary individual business plans,
demonstrate how systems can maintain vitality after growth. It's by
spending the returns on investment, rather than compounding them.
Self-interest presently causes people to reinvest their returns
regardless and that's the cause of hyper-capitalism. It deserves
discussion, naturally, but I think a relatively smooth way to introduce
a new principle of growth balance would be to make capital gains tax
deductible, if they are spent...!!
see http://www.synapse9.com/issues/left_behind2.htm or my 'Construction
Estimate's for building a 10ft sea wall on the world's shoreline,
http://alongshot.blogspot.com/.
what's anybody think?
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Offline
From: "Edwina Taborsky"
Date: February 5, 2006 1:55:38 PM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
I don't agree with consuming everything; the returns should be further invested. Investment is future-oriented; without a future investment, no society can exist for longer than 'now'. So, investment puts its money into long-term future oriented systems..which may not provide returns for many years - such as research.
Offline
From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 5, 2006 5:32:47 PM EST
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
How you invest is always the more difficult question. How much you
invest is what I was raising. If you always add a percentage return to
the principle you always drive the system exponentially. That's what is
see as inherently unsustainable, for all kinds of reasons.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Offline
From: "Stanley N. Salthe"
Date: February 5, 2006 6:16:02 PM EST
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Providing a more general framework for Phil's posting, note that all
dissipative structures appear to go through a developmental sequence of
stages: immature -> mature -> senescent, with a mature stage found only in
the most stable systems, mostly those with living systems involved.
Capitalists often cite an ideological chant: "grow or die!" But this only
applies strictly to abiotic dissipative structures, like tornadoes. It
seems to me that our culture ought to recognize maturity as a desirable
stage in its existence, realizing that our time of immaturity must be at an
end, finally. We have this window of opportunity only because there is no
other system capable of challenging the hegemony of Western Democracy. If
there were it would be necessary to try to continue in the powerful
immature growth mode. Opposition today comes only from marginalized
peoples capable of disrupting everything, but not of building an opposed
system. And we must note that they have been marginalized BY the global
capitalist (growth) mode of economy. So, theoreticaly, there is a "third
way", and the challenge would be to construct a mature system that could be
sustainable (note that 'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron). So, at least
theoretically, all is not lost.
STAN
Offline
From: Steve Kurtz
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Thanks to Stan, I've been on this list for a few days. I've met a couple of you (ISSS) and have interacted with Tom Mandel over the years.
I chatted on the phone with Phil Henshaw about the profit spending idea. I've the same problem with that as I do with demurrage (negative interest rates) to encourage spending. Barring population shrinkage, spending (consumption of goods & services) will increase without help from either tactic. Resource extraction, matter/energy consumption, and waste production will increase ceteris paribus. In a largely closed finite system, this growth trends toward collapse.
If population continues growing as expected, I bet we'll self-cull or be culled before centurys end. I'm a pessimist.
See http://www.longbets.org/97
But to continue as if I had hope:
Savings, if invested in technologies abetting a steady state economy such as renewable water, food, and energy, are superior to stimulating consumption. If the savings are hoarded in mattresses, no economic damage occurs: it is temporarily sterilized. If savings were invested to plant trees, profit can accrue with possible positive habitat effects.
I say, tax energy use, pollution, and consumption. At least it slows throughput and 'buys time' if that's what you seek. Some fatalists say let's crash ASAP as there would be less suffering by fewer humans and more of all other life fornms and 'feedstock' for them left than if we extend the time.
Enough from this amateur. See Bill Rees email below.
Steve Kurtz
Ottawa
====================================================
Here's my rant to Meyer. You will have to read the material he sent around
(included below) for this to make much sense.
Best,
William E. Rees, PhD
Professor
University of British Columbia
School of Community and Regional Planning
Vancouver, BC, CANADA
V6T 1Z2
Tel: 604 822-2737 or 604 822-3276
SCARP Web-Site: www.scarp.ubc.ca/
-----Original Message-----
From: William E. Rees
Sent: February 4, 2006 8:56 PM
Subject: RE: The War on Error . . .
Dear Aubrey Meyer -
I have been following your 'contraction and convergence campaign' with
interest as one of the few sensible interim responses to global change
currently being discussed. Were I a Brit, I would certainly support the
Hampton letter.
At the same time, I am inspired to write in concerned response to the debate
over Robert Newman's article on capitalism and growth in The Guardian. One
cannot agree with everything in so complex an argument, and some of Newman's
projections are over the top. However, much of what Newman says makes sense.
Certainly he is absolutely correct in his claim that most of the policy
responses to global degradation are woefully inadequate and that western
techno-industrial society is in deep denial about both the scale of the
problem and the scope of socio-cultural change that will be necessary to
achieve 'sustainability.' It is also difficult to argue with his assertion
that: "Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on
infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a
finite planet."
Indeed, biophysical law provides solid ground for respecting Newman's
argument that it is time to recognize the hazards associated with continued
economic growth, especially growth in the developed world. (Consumption in
the first world is the material cause of the most serious ecological
problems from fisheries collapses to climate change.) True, economists argue
that because of resource productivity gains, modern economies are
'dematerializing' or 'decoupling' from nature but this is largely an
artefact of faulty accounting using money (as opposed to real physical
flows) as the metric. Some economists also argue that continued economic
growth (income growth per capita) does not necessarily equate to continued
material growth because at higher income levels, marginal consumption shifts
to services. Again, however, there is little evidence to suggest that this
shift is having much effect.
What the data do show is that, even in world's the most highly efficient and
most service-based economies, per capita energy and material use, and
therefore absolute throughput, is still increasing with income growth.
Moreover, most future growth is anticipated to occur in the developing world
where it will necessarily go to satisfying material-intense needs and
wants--three-fourths of the world population have yet join the consumer
society--and where the most efficient technologies won't be available. In
short, continued economic growth using the most likely available
technologies (including fossil fuels) will necessarily lead to significantly
greater gross energy/material consumption and waste dissipation (pollution)
on a planet already stressed beyond sustainable limits. My point: if there
is to be a "war on error" let's make sure we are shooting at the right
targets, including the unsubstantiated assumptions of technological
optimists and other growth advocates.
The biophysical problem is that the ecosphere is finite, materially closed
and non-growing (actually, it is effectively shrinking due to human
over-exploitation). The human enterprise, meanwhile, is a fully contained,
open, growing dependent sub-system of the ecosphere. Because of this
unchangeable physical relationship, the growth of the human enterprise
necessarily and inevitably occurs at the expense of the integrity of the
ecosphere. Like a parasite, a humanity insistent on continued economic
growth will literally consume its habitat from within.
In this light let us consider the assertion by Peter Ainsworth, MP, that:
"It is possible, indeed essential, to have both economic growth and a decent
environment."
This is political wishful thinking, the kind argument that says we can have
our economic cake and eat the environment too. It is what eco-economist
Herman Daly has called an "impossibility theorem." Physical law,
particularly the second law of thermodyanics (in its far-from-equilibrium
interpretation) says that there is a fundamental conflict between
maintaining the integrity of a finite ecosphere and continuous material
economic growth. This is already a planet in overshoot-humanity
(particularly the wealthy fifth) is already consuming life-support goods and
services faster than nature produces them and discharging wastes faster than
nature neutralizes or assimilates them.
To put all this in the context of energy, Robert Newman quite correctly
argues that discovery of abundant new sources of fossil energy would be
disastrous for the planet. Of course, Newman is mostly concerned with the
implications for green-house gas emissions and climate change, but there is
a still more fundamental problem. The undeniable fact is that abundant 'free
energy' has provided the principal means by which humans have over-exploited
all the other renewable and non-renewable forms of natural capital
('resources') necessary to fuel the growth of the human enterprise,
particularly our explosive industrial metabolism. It is the resultant
disruption of natural processes and the dissipation of material wastes (of
which carbon dioxide is only one example) that threaten permanently to
undermine essential life support services provided by nature. Thus, if
Newman errs it is in not recognizing that the discovery any abundant new
source(s) of cheap energy would be disastrous unless there is a coincident
change in our cultural values. In particular, we would have to abandon our
addiction to perpetual economic growth.
On the bright side, Hon. Peter Ainsworth is also wrong when he asserts that
"A future based on either/or [either growth or the environment] would be
bleak indeed." Available data do not support this assertion. On the
contrary, in developed countries there is no longer a positive relationship
between average per capita income growth and objective measures of
individual well-being or population health. Perhaps more surprisingly, there
is much evidence that income growth no longer contributes to felt
(subjective) well-being either. (In some countries there is actually a
negative correlation between rising per capita GDP and the proportion of
people reporting themselves as "happy" or "very happy.")
These observations make clear that beyond a certain identifiable income
level, there are no further welfare gains from continued income growth. In
these circumstances, growth actually destroys more value than it creates, in
which case (as Herman Daly has argued) we are in a state of "uneconomic
growth" or growth that impoverishes. The question for all of us is: "What
intelligent species would purposefully continue to advocate for an economic
system that destroy more value than it produces?"
If the above arguments are valid, it would actually be economically rational
for us in the developed countries to give up on economic growth (getting
bigger) and concentrate on true development (getting better both
technologically and culturally). In short, we in the North should focus on
learning to develop individually, socially and culturally in a
low-throughput steady-state economy. There is another advantage. Reducing
the ecological footprints of the wealthy nations would help create the
ecological space on a crowded planet for material growth where it is
actually needed, in the poorest parts of the developing world. This is not
the 'bleak' scenario that Ainsworth fears but rather an opportunity to focus
on what are the truly important things in life, in both the North and the
South.
I realize that at present levels of public understanding, these arguments
have little currency--what is ecologically necessary is politically
unfeasible. However, the present state of the world shows that the
politically possible is ecologically inadequate. In this light, facing
biophysical reality and taking available scientific data seriously,
particularly when it flies in the face of our conventional growth-blinded
cultural myths, is the real challenge of sustainable development.
I elaborate on all these ideas in the attached paper.
Respectfully yours,
William E. Rees, PhD
Professor
University of British Columbia
School of Community and Regional Planning
Vancouver, BC, CANADA
V6T 1Z2
SCARP Web-Site: www.scarp.ubc.ca/
-----Original Message-----
From: Aubrey Meyer
Sent: February 4, 2006 4:46 AM
To: GCN@igc.topica.com
Subject: The War on Error . . .
On Thursday Feb 2 06, Robert Newman, put a piece in The Guardian titled:
-
"It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both."
He argued that: - "Our economic system is unsustainable by its very
nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social
change."
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1700409,00.html
False dichotomies lead to false choices and compound error.
Today, Saturday Feb 4, Guardian Letters carried two responses.
The first makes war on this error.
The second doesn't and so inevitably leads back to the world of error
and the war on terror.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Robert Newman says we have to start planning for a system of personal
carbon rationing or domestic tradable quotas.
Agreed, but he also says we are caught between climate change and peak
oil. Stated like this there is no escape: oil depletion and a certain
degree of climate change are inevitable.
Assuming there is any choice left, we are caught between growth and
climate damage. Here - just possibly - we might yet steer between them.
To do this, we link personal carbon rationing and the widely supported
international scheme of carbon rationing known as contraction and
convergence.
C&C and DTQs are now the subject of private member's bills to
parliament."
Colin Challen MP
Lab, Morley and Bothwell
Aubrey Meyer
Global Commons Institute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Robert Newman is right to assert that climate change is a serious
challenge, but he is wrong to assume that business is by definition bad
for the environment. As Jonathon Porritt has pointed out: "Capitalism is
now the only game in town." Trying to wish capitalism away will not work
and not help either.
We simply will not succeed in cutting UK carbon emissions unless the
business community, which has indeed been part of the problem - but so
have we all - is part of the solution.
It is possible, indeed essential, to have both economic growth and a
decent environment. A future based on either/or would be bleak indeed.
Peter Ainsworth MP
Shadow secretary of state for the environment, food & rural affairs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Offline
From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 5, 2006 5:00:56 PM EST
Subject: RE: Bill Rees re growth & well-being
If I may, Bill's right on. If there's to be a "war on error" one would
want to get it right.
A kind of funny problem is that one limit of productivity growth, doing
more with less, is trying to do too much with too little. Tentatively,
I think we're at a point where increasing complexity is slowing learning
and accelerating change. Look a the effort of Republicans to restore
simpler times by crippling government. That's helpful! Sudden moves
may not be the right thing to do but may be happening anyway... I
don't know for sure, but if it's there, finding a way to bleed the
global financial bubble might be good.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Offline
From: “Tommy Mandel”
Date: February 5, 2006 5:14:11 PM EST
In a message dated 2/5/2006 3:23:23 P.M. Central Standard Time, ssalthe writes:
>"Robert Newman is right to assert that climate change is a serious
>challenge, but he is wrong to assume that business is by definition bad
>for the environment. As Jonathon Porritt has pointed out: "Capitalism is
>now the only game in town." Trying to wish capitalism away will not work
>and not help either.
>We simply will not succeed in cutting UK carbon emissions unless the
>business community, which has indeed been part of the problem - but so
>have we all - is part of the solution.
>It is possible, indeed essential, to have both economic growth and a
>decent environment. A future based on either/or would be bleak indeed.
>Peter Ainsworth MP
>
(1)Interesting what has not been brought into the equations. Corruption.
It is not capitalism per se that is causing the problems, it is corrupt capitalism
none of which is being taken into consideration. Factor in this percentage and notice how the profit evaporates. Corruption includes not only individual corruption but corporate corruption where resources are literally stolen.
(2)Somehow someone has managed to turn "of the people, for the people and by the people" into "of the business, for the business and by the business".
(3) Money should be looked at as a kind of "blood" which carries nutrition to the various parts of the body. Obviously it would be suicidal to the body if one or two organs were to soak up all the blood.
(4) The beginning of this slow death would be noticed first by a pain in the extremities.
Tommy Mandel
Offline
From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 5, 2006 6:58:56 PM EST
Subject: RE: Bill Rees re growth & well-being & blood money
I wish Outlook would do the ordinary thing with email replies, but mine refuses, so I can't interleaf replies, sorry.
Stan's point that any change needs to be supported by business doesn't imply that business would prefer to operate in a failed system. The key point is that business requires good returns, not necessarily good compounding returns. Some might observe this is almost the same thing, since most any businessman will compound good returns, but it's the compounding that stops when living systems and individual businesses approach a healthy climax. There are many practical problems in proposing a contrarian business practice, but if they could see that driving the system to collapse isn't in their business model.... well maybe....
Tom, your points are well taken, corruption is real, like the underground economy is real, and I expect those abuses would break out when the above ground system looses control due to overshooting its resources, buffers and balances, or something like that. I'm just saying I think it's there, but something else is opening the door to it.
I think that government is for sale to business is also a result, not the cause, though it sure has results. A large part is that is the neo-con revolution after all, the stated purposes of which seem to include eliminating government and letting business run the world.
That money is like blood flow is no lie, and every part needs some. Did you look at my tear sheet "http://synapse9.com/issues/left_behind.pdf" showing clearly that comparable wage growth actually stopped in 1970 (!). Some plants under stress just shed their leaves don't they? That would be a very republican solution too, wouldn't it?
To throw some the other way though, if you're a plant under stress you don't want to keep feeding a lot of dead leaves either. I don't know who knows how to decide lots of things, except that compounding growth will soon be as much a failure for business as for everyone else.
Cheers,
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Offline
From: Michael Gochfeld
Date: February 5, 2006 7:36:22 PM EST
Subject: There is capitalism and capitalism
Whenever I hear the word "sustainable" I know that we are talking about something that is not sustainable PERIOD.
Capitalism obviously means different things to different people in this multi-logue.
There clearly isn't free-enterprise capitalism?
If by capitalism is meant a system that can be identified as non-socialist or non-communist, then that's not much help.
When I was in college and socialism was trying to become fashionable, the joke was that if you had five socialists in a room they would soon form six parties and a faction?
The upshot of this is that I doubt that we can really define the economic system(s) that hold sway in the world today in terms of simple economics.
And I don't think it's all that useful.
I believe that in principle a capitalist could do things that are favorable for the environment.
But the incentives are all in the opposite direction----as Garrett Hardin explained in his commons paper.
And we know that socialists can do things that harm the environment.
And I agree that corrupt capitalism is a serious contributor to the decline of the environment and therefore to mounting poverty etc etc. It's just that capitalism lends itself to corruption and seems remarkably uninterested in that problem.
BUT
As for ecologist (me) the over-arching issue is too many people chasing limited resources.
And I am mindful of Ambrose Bierce's aphorism "no man is so low as to not think himself above the masses". The calculations of how many people the earth could support at a subsistence level would make sense if you could find just one person willing to live at the subsistence level. Everyone would like the opportunity to overconsume.
At an international conference in India in 2005, the we Americans were lambasted for over consumption of resources----just get your fellow Americans to stop using so much energy. This from a country with an ineffectual population policy----that will soon have more people than China. Don't think they aren't hoping to overconsume as soon as possible.
As long as people persist in the belief that we have to have economic growth (as a given), we will continue to misuse and overuse resources.
Whatever happened to the Club of Rome Report (1972)?
But the issue for me, is where would I want to put my personal emphasis in the next (last) 20 years of my professional life?
fighting corrupt capitalism?
trying to restore democracy in the US?
fighting the climate change battle?
working on pollution prevention?
fighting spam?
going bird watching while there are still birds to watch?
banging my head against the renewable energy wall?
trying to keep developers out of New Jersey's dwindling green space?
harping on the overpopulation issue? or trying to do something about it?
All of the above? None of the above?
All suggestions welcome. MIKE GOCHFELD
Michael Gochfeld, MD PhD
Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Piscataway, NJ 08854
============================================================
Offline
From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 5, 2006 11:11:53 PM EST
Subject: RE: There is capitalism and capitalism
You make good points, maybe the need is to understand the system that is, the one that designed itself around us, instead of the one that's supposed to be. What we have has two kinds of money exchange, simple transfer (usually for goods of some kind) without a promise of added money in return and second, transfer with such a promise. The first wouldn't grow much without the second. The second will grow till the first one collapses. That's really screwed up. Call it capitalism or whatever it's a bone headed life support system that works that way. How the hell did we get here anyway!!!! The big strong guy always said he was the smartest, didn't he? Hired all his experts to tell us the same thing too! What could have possibly gone wrong???
I have no idea how to teach people who are failing to take care of themselves how to stop over-populating, but I'm as sure as I think you are that it would help if the leading world culture started taking what we're building here seriously. right?
hope you all don't mind my blasting off this way... but it feels good to think somebody might be listening.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Offline
From: Leon Mysch
Date: February 5, 2006 11:23:30 PM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Huh?? And here I always thought that capitalism was the name applied to the nature, specifically of man, but the idea of self-interest can be applied to all living things, no? Any change must by definition advantage one party while disadvantage another and when imposed by diktat (social change), limits freedom. So, I'll take my chances and err on the side of capitalism and freedom. I believe in and respect mankind's ability to keep on keepin' on -- it's our nature.
For the past 18 years I have been assigning Dr. Leonard Read's essay "I, pencil" to my students. If you haven't seen it it's well worth a looksee (see link):
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
Leon.
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From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 5, 2006 11:28:24 PM EST
To: "'Leon Mysch'"
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Leon, I agree the problem isn't freedom, but there's clearly something
that's broke and out of balance. Maybe you could call it
hyper-capitalism, the part that is adicted to ever more rapidly
accelerating increase in the size, rate, acceleration and jerk of
change, all with no appreciable increase in human root intelligence or
the discovery of anything like an intelligent machine. Don't you feel
that there something a little much going on around here? Isn't the
basic limit of doing more with less trying too much with too little?
Where do we take it if it's not to an end in really tragic mistakes?
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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From: Michael Gochfeld
Date: February 6, 2006 8:12:07 AM EST
To: Phil Henshaw
Subject: Gochfeld's exponential rule of capital
Yes, it's nice to know someone's listening and interested. And maybe someone will explain why "population" became a dirtyword.
Is it because the existing GLOBALIZED system thrives on overpopulation to obtain cheap, malleable labor----or is that too cynical?
But I should elaborate my capital-exponential observation.
Most of us think that the value of money is somehow linear.
If we can buy X amount of goods for Y dollars, then 2Y dollars should obtain 2X goods. And so it goes, up to a certain point.
When looking for a house some years ago, I realized that this is nonsense.
If I could have afforded say $500,000 instead of $100,000 I could have gotten 20X or more, more valuable property----big mansions in hoity-toity neighborhoods on spacious grounds with pools, tennis courts, guest houses, etc. Moreover, those properties have increased an order of magnitude in price in 20 years, much more than the affordable properties, which have maybe tripled in price (if not value).
The value (and therefore the power) of a dollar increases exponentially (at least above some threshold), allowing people who have a lot of money to wield a disproportionate amount of control (political as well as economic). The threshold might be just as much as it costs a person to live, above which there is an inflectio point and the "disposable income" suddenly allows profitable investment or political control or cornering of markets etc.
I suspect that there are multiple inflection points, but I don't expect to ever reach them so that I can test this theory personally.
Maybe economists already know this exponential law, but I stopped being an economics major as a sophmore, realizing that even then Samuelson's ECONOMICS didn't explain for me what was going on in the world.
Mike Gochfeld
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From: "Stanley N. Salthe"
Date: February 6, 2006 6:57:59 PM EST
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Mike said -
But the issue for me, is where would I want to put my personal emphasis
in the next (last) 20 years of my professional life?
fighting corrupt capitalism?
trying to restore democracy in the US?
fighting the climate change battle?
working on pollution prevention?
fighting spam?
going bird watching while there are still birds to watch?
banging my head against the renewable energy wall?
trying to keep developers out of New Jersey's dwindling green space?
harping on the overpopulation issue? or trying to do something about it?
All of the above? None of the above?
All suggestions welcome.
I believe that intellectuals -- like us -- can fight ALL these fights at
once by advancing ideas that impact them head- on or obliquely. I again
paste in my last posting:
Providing a more general framework for Phil's posting, note that all
dissipative structures appear to go through a >developmental sequence of
stages: immature -> mature -> senescent, with a mature stage found only in
the most >stable systems, mostly those with living systems involved.
Capitalists often cite an ideological chant: "grow or >die!" But this
only applies strictly to abiotic dissipative structures, like tornadoes.
It seems to me that our >culture ought to recognize maturity as a
desirable stage in its existence, realizing that our time of immaturity
must be at an end, finally. We have this window of opportunity only
because there is no other system capable of >challenging the hegemony of
Western Democracy. If there were it would be necessary to try to continue
in the >powerful immature growth mode. Opposition today comes only from
marginalized peoples capable of disrupting >everything, but not of
building an opposed system. And we must note that they have been
marginalized BY the >global capitalist (growth) mode of economy. So,
theoreticaly, there is a "third way", and the challenge would be to
construct a mature system that could be sustainable (note that
'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron). So, at least >theoretically, all is
not lost.
The idea of the middle ground, the Mature Stage (great rhetorical move,
don't you think!) moves on all fronts against the frantic 'youthfulness' of
Capitalism (which however you cut it IS a growth ideology -- I agree with
Phil on that). A colleague and I have just had published a paper in this
spirit (The Cosmic Bellows: The Big Bang and the Second Law) in Cosmos &
History 1(2) 295-318. http://www.cosmosandhistory.org . In this we note
that the Second Law of thermodynamics and the principle of natural
selection make up our scientifically constructed model of the world, our
Nature. This paper is an example of intellectual warfare!
On the corruption angle, I think that this involves a corruption of Phil's
good idea that in order to move toward a more mature business model,
profits should be SPENT instead of turned back into makng the enterprise
grow. This spending would be on making a better product, and, on salaries.
The corruption that we have today is that the salaries increased are only
those few at the top, making in effect a cheaper, not a better product (the
Wal*Mart model).
STAN
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From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 6, 2006 8:53:54 PM EST
To: "'Steve Kurtz'"
Subject: RE: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
The fact that there may be more than one danger ahead, over population, loss of diversity, say, and the growing confusion caused by having these and many other complex problems exploding on the scene at once, doesn't mean they aren't all real dangers separately too. In focusing on the latter I'm just trying to bring it together for people. Growth is still worshiped without question, you know. It's a perfect method of producing widely distributed retched excess in all things, and they just don't see it at all. We need to get real with people. We've been failing to communicate.
I mention diverting the returns on investment (by spending or maybe anything else) because that is the central valve, the specific flow that must be adjusted to regulate growth non-disruptively. It would also work for deflating some kinds of economic bubbles non-disruptively and might be sold that way too. You may feel it's a little like saying 'stop sex' as a solution to population growth. Does it need a little fleshing out? Yea, sure.
I wish I had a better idea how to influence population growth.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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From: Leon Mysch
Date: February 6, 2006 11:05:22 PM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Check this article on population growth in Europe:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/colu … i-news-col
War actually solves both problems. It soaks up capital and puts the brakes on population growth. Not advocating, just observing.
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From: "Gavin Ritz"
Date: February 7, 2006 12:44:35 AM EST
To: "'Michael Gochfeld'"
Subject: RE: Gochfeld's exponential rule of capital
>Maybe economists already know this exponential law, but I stopped being an economics major as a sophmore, realizing >that even then Samuelson's ECONOMICS didn't explain for me what was going on in the world.
Because it’s plain wrong. They forgot that there’s people (and their minds) involved. Money is a quality-quantity converter (there’s only one other converter in our society that I know) and from Ashby’s law of Requisite Variety it could mean that any quality (as a variety generator) could be converted to money so it could mean increasing returns or decreasing returns or none at all.
As this side of the world stands today there is billions of dollars to be invested (no shortage of money) with few good business (or property-shortages) to invest in. Of course it wasn’t always like this, 100 years ago it was the other way around.
The whole system is Power based. (And I don’t only mean that only in the negative). There are fundamentally basically only 5 interdependent factors that drive the economy, people, capital, supply, demand and know-how. It’s what’s in these factors that are the issue it’s obviously not linear. This entire model like anything in the economy revolves around, scarcities, shortages, dependencies, losses on the one hand and attractions, gains, hopes and desires on the other hand. In other words the tensions of Power and lot of this is played out in our minds.
If we interface the power model with say the environment excesses supply or demand or know-how can affect the natural balance of the earth in unforeseen ones. That’s because it’s disconnected from the model, if we add a 6th variable say the natural environment into the mix we have an exponential interacting model.
Gavin
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From: "Igor Matutinovic"
Date: February 7, 2006 5:25:29 AM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Dear All
I agree with the comment that "Our economic system is unsustainable by its
very nature. The only
response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change". The economic
and social nature of capitalism cannot be rescinded from material growth and
dissipation of a rich energy source, like oil. Marx and Schumpeter beleived
that capitalism was socially unsustainable, but most probabaly it is (only)
environmentaly unsustainable.
It is hard to believe that the very system (with its worldview, institutions
and modes of production and consumption) that created the extant (global)
environmental problems can be stretched enough to resolve them as well.
We have no grounds to believe that capitalism is the final socioeconomic
form that is available to humanity, and therefore, to cling intellectually,
if not ideologically to it.
It is certainly the most dynamic and most dissipative socioeconomic system
in the history so far. Taking Stan's perspective on the developmental
stages, we may say that in the history of Western societies the capitalism
belongs to the peak of the immature stage. For me it is quite logical to
expect that the mature stage will be reached by a different socioeconomic
formation (not necessarily by the capitalism's historic alternatives like
communism and socialism - which, by the way, did not materialize anywhere in
their original meaning). John Gowdy expressed this nicely by saying:
"Because of biophysical constraints the economy sooner or later will stop
growing. Therefore, at some point we will move to a different socioeconomic
system whose characteristics are at present unknown and unknowable"
(Gowdy, J. M. (1994). The social context of natural capital: the social
limits to sustainable development. International Journal of Social
Economics, 8, 43-55.).
So, the capitalism have been a good vehicle to get us close to the maturity
stage, and probably it will continue for some time in the future, thanks to
social inertia and ideological friction, but we have to be open for change.
Igor
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From: Michael Gochfeld
Date: February 7, 2006 8:15:41 AM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Some very nice social and historical syntheses here. But, all of the transitions among and competitions between economics systems have to be considered in the context of the population/resource match extant at the time. It was a lot easier for communalized societies to thrive with simple economic (often capitalistic sometimes communistic) systems when there weren't so many peoples and when they could be relatively isolated.
Likewise a system of land tenure in which the farm was divided among all children or all sons, might work where there was an abundance of land (forests to be tamed, etc.) But once a population has run out of land, the continued division produces irreducibly smaller plots of land, eventually too small to sustain the family. Financial ruin, lower standard of living and urbanization are consequences. The remarkable aerial geometry of some southeast Asian countrysides speaks eloquently of a community system that thrived for centuries, before confronting a spatial barrier (very briefly relieved, but eventually accelerated) by green revolutions.
Economy cannot ultimately be separated from ecology----both have the same oikos root (which I didn't get right on my honors oral so many years ago)
Mike Gochfeld
Michael Gochfeld, MD, PhD
Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Piscataway, NJ 08854
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From: "Igor Matutinovic"
Date: February 7, 2006 11:09:20 AM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Mike,
I certainly agree that "Economy cannot ultimately be separated from ecology". Because of the sheer population size in the West, lower levels of socioeconomic complexity may not be accessible without great human losess - technically we cannot revert back to primitive agriculture and sustain the same population size. There is a legal problem as well because most of the arable land is owned by a very small proportion of population (the percent of active workforce in agriculture is everywhere under 10%). As Joseph Tainter remarked ("The collapse of complex societies"), in the case of major socioeconomic crisis in preindustrial times people would disperse from towns to the countryside - this option is closed today almost everywhere. Holling, Gallopin and others (The Global Scenario Group) developed six different scenarios which in fact reflect three major altrenative visions of the future (implying also different worldviews) and which take into account ecological constraints, but I am not sure if they address specifically the issue of the Asian population (primariliy India and China) in the context of these scenarios.
In fact, whatever we discuss as a potential solution of the extant global environmental / climate problems does it really have any meaning for India and China? And why would they care if the US can choose turn its back to Kyoto Protocol, for example?
Igor
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From: "Stanley N. Salthe"
Date: February 7, 2006 6:09:25 PM EST
Subject: Re: FORWARD Guardian (UK)- Capitalism or a habitable planet
Mike wrote:
But, all of the transitions among and competitions between economics
systems have to be considered in the context of the population/resource
match extant at the time.
-snip-
Likewise a system of land tenure in which the farm was divided among all
children or all sons, might work where there was an abundance of land
(forests to be tamed, etc.) But once a population has run out of land,
the continued division produces irreducibly smaller plots of land,
eventually too small to sustain the family. Financial ruin, lower
standard of living and urbanization are consequences.
-snip-
Economy cannot ultimately be separated from ecology
And Phil wrote:
You may feel it's a little like saying 'stop sex' as a solution to
population growth. Does it need a little fleshing out?
Of course population IS the very basic problem. YES, we ought to say --
not 'stop sex' -- but 'stop productive sex'. We need more homosexuality,
more sex for one (onanism, autoeroticism), more 'protected sex' -- indeed,
even more STDs to drive folks by way of fear into their own hands!
STAN
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From: "Phil Henshaw"
Date: February 8, 2006 12:03:14 AM EST
Subject: RE: Bill Rees paper attached
Bill's identification of the root problem "human capacity-indeed, necessity-for elaborate myth-making" is similar in some ways to mine. I think that 'perception' (the improvement of observations by wrapping them in rich meaning) overwhelms our senses. My image of the human mind is of an observer with a big window on the world, where the window is built like the video information overlays for the weather man and the war room, an animated visual enhancement 'scrim' embellishing everything we see with elaborate and compelling meanings, too compelling it seems. It's why we all, and many to great extreme, seem to live in completely different worlds, yet maintain functional relations. It's not infinitely elastic nor infinitely inventive, just very highly so.
Phil Henshaw
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From: Michael Gochfeld
Date: February 8, 2006 6:19:49 AM EST
Subject: Practical issues in overpopulation: it's not out of reach
Stan has given some behavioral and social approaches, while I emphasized the ecological. Others find population too daunting. And others asked that it be fleshed out. So here is some fleshing for starters.
There are of course real things that can be done to slow population growth. It doesn't need to be out of control. Many countries want to limit population explosion----even if it isn't their first funding priority.
It's not about sex. Here are some thoughts NOT in any priority or efficacy order.
1. Fix US policy. The very first thing that Bush did entering the White House was issue an executive order on US population aid which essentially nullified financial aid to the many countries that have population policies that include, allow, or mention abortion. That's almost all countries.. This reversed the Clinton executive order which reversed an earlier Reagan executive order.
The U.S. plays political ping-pong with world population.
Is it solely because of the fundamentalist views on abortion? or is it a policy to encourage population growth as a source of cheap labor which is an integral part of globalization (just look at the labels on the clothes you put on this morning).
2. Environmental organizations refuse to even mention population as an issue, thus creating an illusion that it isn't an issue. Population has become a dirty word. One critic urged readers to review the membership and support of National Audubon and Sierra Club, claiming they have been subverted by generous corporate sponsors.
If overpopulation isn't discussed it won't be addressed. Several countries have population growth of about 4% per annum superimposed on poverty and widespread malnutriont. . There aren't too many choices for excess population in countries facing famine: more starvation, genocide, invasion, emigration. Relying on genocide as a solution to ecologic problems somehow doesn't seem very humane. But it works---at least in the short term.
It's no accident that genocide in Rwanda occurred in the most densely overpopulated country in Africa-----tribal lines made it easier. I saw this first hand on a visit to Rwanda in 1994, just before the genocide started. All our contacts, member of both tribes, subsequently "disappeared".
3. A global population policy is needed. The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, an independent international organization sponsored by the National Academies of 40 countries, for a long time refused to consider population for fear of discouraging funding). However, at the 2005 triennial meeting, I did get SCOPE to acknowledge that a project on an ecologic study of population is desirable. Unfortunately, that means I have to start it.
4. Population is the ultimate environmental problem, but it needs to be an integral part of discussions of energy, water, global food production, climate, poverty, biodiversity, and health. How can we talk meaningfully about SUSTAINABILITY while ignoring the fundamental issues which make virtually EVERYTHING NON-SUSTAINABLE.
5. Enhancing the social and educational status of women has been widely advocated as an effective brake on population growth. From the population dynamics curve, even delaying the first child for four years can have a dampening effect on population growth. Remarkably, malnutrition of mothers, has only a small negative impact on fecundity, but a big impact on child development including cognitive development (chilling data from World War II famines in Europe).
There are, of course, social ramifications to reducing the number of children a woman bears. We hear that they will be less attractive and that fathering a child is crucial to men. Men who won't stay with a woman who doesn't bear. (often they don't stay anyway). But social evolution is occurring on many fronts so countries have to deal with that in their policies. Men could be educated too.
6. New technologies exist for assisting countries in implementing population policies. Safe sex, of course, addresses other important issues (particularly in countries such as South Africa, which officially deny a connection between HIV and AIDS). Separating population control from sex can be done with both physical (IUD) and chemical means. When I was a provincial health officer in Viet Nam, an agency introduced do-it-yourself IUDS. Women were taught how to make nice little IUD's out of loops of monofilament. The mid-wives then inserted the loops after the women had had as many children as they wanted(which in some cases was only one----not surprising in wartime). There was no followup, and the USAID coordinator had a fit when I proudly told him about it, , but since it wasn't funded or implemented by U.S. agencies, there was nothing they could do about it.
7. . At an international health conference ca1990, many countries affirmed their concern with population growth and their desire to curtail it. But they also affirmed their need of technological and financial help. And I was surprised at the number of countries that have a policy PROMOTING population growth.
8. A few loud voices calling population policy "GENOCIDE" can be very disruptive. It's not about genocide, it's about survival.
9. Evolution traditionally has been about how many offspring, carrying how many genes you leave behind (actually leave ahead)----but the evolutionary imperative requires that those offspring mature, flourish, reproduce. and support their own offspring. Thus there needs to be a social/economic corollary to the "number of genes" in the evolutionary imperative.
10. . A number of developed countries are at or close to zero population growth, and some are in negative popoulation growth. So it can be achieved. After all, emulating the developed (rich) nations is a major desire for the non-developed (poor) nations.
Mike Gochfeld
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From: "Alexander Laszlo, Ph.D.”
Date: February 9, 2006 3:46:18 PM EST
Subject: Re: Suggestion to move discussion to web forum: Re: Gochfeld's exponential rule of capital
Dear Stan and Yaneer,
I have been following these discussions with great interest (and would like to continue to do so via the web forum - please let me know how to do so).
I thought to share with you (so that you may share with the others, should you find it relevant and of possible interest) a little link to a podcast of a recent talk given by Lester Brown at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco on 6 April 2006. Specifically, I wish to share a very powerful quotation Brown made (in his book and talk) from Oystein Dahle, former Vice President, Exxon, Norway: "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow prices to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow prices to tell the ecological truth." Brown followed this with a good analysis on how markets give bad information to stakeholders and how the rise of non-renewable energy prices will affect the price of agricultural commodities and eventually will bring political instability.
The podcast of the event is available for anyone to listen to at the following URL:
http://wacsf.vportal.net/detail.cfm?fileid=4283
Best Regards,
~ Alex&er
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