K.Feete" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brin Listserve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 11:47 PM
Subject: Re: Authority of the marketplace?
> Dan Minette wrote:
>
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Kristin A. Ruhle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> >>
> >> As for living standards, frankly I think at some point the world is
going
> >> to have to bite the bullet and accept that we can't keep consuming ever
> >> more forever and ever without destroying the entire planet.
> >
> >This is one of those off the cuff remarks that have started to get to me.
> >Its not you Kat, it is just one of those statements that has been
repeated
> >so many times it sounds self evident.
>
> It wasn't me to start with. It was the other K.
>
Right, and it wasn't her to start with. I've just heard it repeated but
never substantiated.
> >In other words, the forests are coming back...and have been for 80 years.
>
> Er, as pine trees. A consumption of biodiversity is still a consumption.
>
Well, to a small extent that is going on. There is cutting of old growth
forests. I cannot get exact numbers, but this has to be a small minority
since Home Depot announced 2 years ago that it would unilaterally stop
selling old growth timber.
http://forests.org/archive/america/hdvowsno.htm
They couldn't do that if it was a major component of their sales.
Further, all forests that are regrowing are not one species plantations in
neat rows. One only needs to look at the forests of Connecticut, Minnesota,
or Wisconsin (to quote places I've been) to see that.
>
> The problem is more the funny green squishy bits one has to peel away to
> get at the spam of geology. Those *will* be lost to future generations,
> and there's always the chance they might need them, as well as little
> things like, you know, air and water....
>
> >The real thing to remember, IMHO, is that there really isn't a shortage
of
> >any element. There is only a sliding scale of ease of extraction. And,
as
> >long as the future generations continue to gradually improve extraction
> >technology (even at a slower pace than we have) there should be no
> >shortages.
>
> I think the problem here may be the word "consumption." Try "destruction"
> instead.
You aren't old enough to remember how things were 50 years ago. On an
absolute scale, the rivers and air in the US are better now than 40 years
ago. We are doing better than our parents, and we are rich enough to still
improve on things.
Yes, species are still becoming extinct, mostly from loss of habitat.
Coping with the increase in the population of the world while minimizing its
effects on other species is very difficult. Per capita, especially in the
US, we are doing better than we had before.
By saying that, I am not arguing that we should forget about environmental
problems. But hyperbola about using things up so that future generations
will have nothing doesn't help anything. It simply further discredits the
environmental message.
>I'm sure we are replacing most of the things we actively
> "consume" but in the process we are *destroying* all those little things
> we can't really live without, like the ozone layer.
Mining, drilling, etc. are much more environmentally friendly operations
than they have been...well since they've started. The mass destruction you
can see in east Tennessee no longer goes on. Steel plants no longer simply
dump their wastes in the river.
As far as the ozone layer, most countries began phasing out chemicals that
attack the ozone layer before there was a significant increase in UV rays
over populated areas. I've just surfed the web and have seen that we should
start seeing a decrease in depleting chemicals fairly quickly and start
measuring increased ozone over the South Pole after that. Why shouldn't the
world's reaction to the depletion of ozone over the south pole be treated as
a success story of the world responding to correct a problem before it
really became dangerous?
>We need to reduce our consumption not only because we might run out of
stuff but because we,
> like children, haven't quite figured out how to get all the cookies
without breaking the cookie jar. >And since we can't bake any more either,
it behooves us to eat 'em sparingly.
>
What cookies are we running out of?
I asked for facts, and you gave me metaphors. Are there facts to back up
your claim? I cannot imagine the environmental diversity of the ecosystems
in US to ever fall to that of Europe. (No hard feelings, Europeans but
there isn't nearly the wilderness there as in the continental US. I am not
faulting y'all about this, population density is the main reason for this.)
