Michael,
Your thoughts have been bandied about in the world of ecological
economics for decades, as you know. I generally agree with what you
say, except that the so-called "capitalistic" system is just a form of
institutionalized greed. You may recall the famous line from the
movie Wall Street: "Greed is Good." I think that other approaches to
economics, such as Socialism or it's extreme, Marxism, were originally
attempts to solve some of the excesses of unbridled Capitalism. As I
recall, Karl Marx drew his concepts from the excesses seen in the
world of the first major industrial power, England. That these
concepts took root in feudal societies such as Russia and China has
always been a source of confusion regarding the reasoning behind
Marxism.
The environmental concerns, of which climate change is only one, have
been the results of that basic notion that mankind has some basic
right to use the Earth for what ever purpose deemed worthy. That we
have increased our knowledge of science and applied it's findings
toward ever greater use of the Earth's various resources is not
something limited to capitalism. As history has shown us, the
incentive of greed is a powerful motivator toward ever greater use of
those resources. Our economic genius' have provided a rational for
this process, one which they think of as a science, yet, their efforts
ignore many of the other results of scientific analysis. Growth, both
in population and consumption per capita, is seen as the most
desirable goal of economics, while the environmental sciences show us
that this is ultimately a losing proposition.
Our exploitation of fossil fuels have made it seem to most people
(especially in the U.S.) that growth will continue inspite of the
obvious limits. Our economic system has so much built in inertia that
changing it in the short term will be next to impossible. Perhaps the
worst result of the climate change debate would be the development of
large quantities of worry free energy, thus allowing the other areas
of economic activity to continue as before. You speak of "wealth" and
one form might be the ownership of second (or third) homes in
different areas by individuals. That would likely require a continued
increase in transportation fuels, road building, housing development,
etc. I just learned on this morning's news that Google is planning a
new data center in a nearby location. The Sate and local governments
are providing tax breaks on the order of $200 million to entice the
company to build out here in the country. Many similar stories have
appeared of companies building new plants in rural areas, taking the
most productive flat productive agricultural land as a result.
Ultimately, society is solar powered and agriculture is the source of
that solar energy required to produce the food we eat and the fiber we
use. Have you noticed that the price of food has taken a big jump as
the corn crop is being diverted to produce ethanol? That's only the
beginning, as more ethanol production is set to go online.
To the economist, growth is the solution, while to the
environmentalist, growth is the problem. What I'd like to know is
this: Where (and how) does it stop?
E. S.
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