"Or do we take the Garrett Hardin way, and advocate > for his infamous lifeboat ethic...lets save ourselves and let the > rest of the world drown? "
We in the first world have access to lifeboats ( except inner cities and hillbillies). Most of the third world won't. When water shortage results from frequent droughts, flow modifications, deforested watersheds, pollution, withdrawals, whaterer, the urban folk will get their bottled water from elsewhere, no worries for at least a decade or two. The rural poor will parch, dehydrate and return to the soil. The same applies to other resources. Mad Max was kinda ahead in this vision...the collapse of civilization followed by energy wars. And then where or for how long can our lifeboats sustain us ? Questions we'd better not face. Lets party while the going is good ! cheers amartya Quoting Ashwani Vasishth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I just heard Bill McKibben talk about his new book, Deep Economy. So > I'm thinking about growth and growth-related issues. Just wanted to > say, apropos the earlier exchanges, that I know very well that > growth--or, rather, a certain kind of growth--is likely the key > source of a complex of problems we face. > > But then I came home and reread a news story I'd flagged for one of > my news groups, about how the number of people with cancer on the > planet will, inevitably, double over the next 25 years. Simply > because the population will have grown to 8 billion plus. > > Its like watching the Titanic in the long period of time after they > spot the iceberg, realize they're going to hit it, and then are > helpless to do anything about changing course--for all the ringing of > the bells and the spinning of wheels. There's an inertia in the > system. The moment of that inertia makes some portion of the future > effectively inevitable. Nothing that we can do, nothing short of > massacre and mayhem, is going to change the population increase over > the next couple of decades. Now what is to be done? What price zero > growth then? > > We've got one more doubling coming up. No maybes about it. The only > question is, can we lighten our tread enough to accommodate that > coming increase? Or do we take the Garrett Hardin way, and advocate > for his infamous lifeboat ethic...lets save ourselves and let the > rest of the world drown? Again, remember the Titanic. There's a > horror on that path too. > > Regards, > - > Ashwani > Vasishth [EMAIL PROTECTED] (818) 677-6137 > http://www.csun.edu/~vasishth/ > http://www.myspace.com/ashwanivasishth >
