Karen,
I wish to disagree with you. (Nicely, of course!)
You wrote to Arthur:
<<<<
It's just that in more cities and even small towns, people are beginning
to question what became a runaway avalanche. There is no reason in my
mind why we can't strike a balance.
>>>>
I don't think we have any chance of striking a balance. The runaway
avalanche will rumble on for some time yet. May I compress something like
100,000 years of Sapiens' existence into one paragraph?
We were in settled times once. When we were hunter-gatherers, our
survival (economic) mechanisms and our behaviours had been co-evolving
with nature for millions of years. We were, by and large, in balance.
There were 'safety' features and constraints all around us which
prevented runaway situations. Unfortunately, we then resorted to
agriculture. (There is still controversy of why we did so, but the
results are what matters.) This produced a runaway population avalanche,
and we have been suffering in many different ways ever since. And then we
discovered incredibly cheap fossil fuels which powered an industrial
system and another runaway avalanche began. In both cases, some aspects
of our original behaviour (greed, male need for power and status, etc),
which had been originally constrained by natural circumstances have
become hyper-behaviours.
Now back to now. I don't see how the runaway avalanche can be stopped
until fossil fuels become a great deal more expensive (as they will in
due course). In those days it will not be cheap for workers to commute
long distances to work every day, and it will not be cheap to transport
lorry-loads of bottled water for hundreds of miles in order to be sold
for a fraction of a penny less than a competitive brand in your
superstore. In those days it will be possible to rein back a great deal
which, so far, has become so exaggerated that our political, social,
welfare, military and economic systems have become fragile and
dangerous.
We might have an opportunity to start again with a new energy technology
when the present one gives out. This will be beyond the lifetimes of even
the youngest FWer but, nevertheless, there's a chance. I believe the new
energy technology will be of solar-powered genetic systems producing
hydrogen -- and similar systems will also be used to make
organically-based materials and goods to replace the present ones. I may
be wrong, but if I'm right we will have a situation, unlike now, when the
relative energy costs of large-scale transportation (of people and goods)
will be a great deal more expensive than using energy on the spot. We
will then have a chance of a quite new economic system which, as in
hunter-gatherer times, will be locally based. (We will also have a chance
of recreating rich new local cultures which the present industrial regime
has been destroying and will continue to destroy for some time
yet.)
This is not an idiosyncratic view. There are many others who believe that
a Genetic Revolution will replace the Industrial one. If this view is
correct, then there is one clear overwhelming policy objective. As soon
as possible, we need to develop a far superior education system to the
one we have now. Above all, we need to have many more creative scientists
than now and to neutralise the present prejudice against science. As
someone who was an industrial chemist for 20 years and has started
businesses in music and architectural design (6 years and 15 years
respectively) I like to think I have a foot in both camps and appreicate
the merits of both. All I can say is that, in my opinion, science is
quite as interesting, fulfilling and creative as the arts. They are close
cousins within the extra complexity of mind (that is, brain) that makes
us human.
There is no way we can strike a balance in today's regime, I'm afraid.
The present trends will continue remorselessly until the costs of energy
(or international wars fought over fossil fuels) finally put a stop to
them. We need to think our way out of the looming dilemma and, hopefully,
give our grandchildren some sort of lead as to where their future, and
their grandchildrens' future, might begin.
I rest my case!
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
