Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970114152358.01355210@ilhawaii.net> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 15:24:00 -1000 From: Jay Hanson <mailto:jhanson@ILHAWAII.NET> Subject: Re: A high standard of living and a healthy society To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
At 04:44 PM 1/13/97 -0500, Jon wrote:>resources that the world uses. Some other folks seem to think that the most
>important thing is reducing the use of finite raw materials and lessening the
>pressure on the environment. They want to reduce the level of world
>consumption. I think those goals were attainable only if we change world
>popular attitudes (welcoming deep austerity) or we willingly let some of the
>world's people die. I don't think the one is achievable and I think the other is
Jon, you still don't get it. The scientific consensus is that present level of world consumption is "unsustainable".
Reducing the level of world consumption IS attainable -- it WILL be attained. It doesn't make any difference whether it is moral or not, it doesn't make any difference whether we like it or not -- it is inevitable.
Jay ------------------------------------------------------------ "It was thus becoming apparent that nature must, in the not far distant future, institute bankruptcy proceedings against industrial civilization, and perhaps against the standing crop of human flesh, just as nature had done many times to other detritus-consuming species following their exuberant expansion in response to the savings deposits their ecosystems had accumulated before they got the opportunity to begin the drawdown... Having become a species of superdetritovores, mankind was destined not merely for succession, but for crash." [p. 172, 173]
OVERSHOOT by Catton, 1982, University of Illinois Press, 800-545-4703, Fax 217-244-8082
To learn out about the coming energy crash and die off: BEYOND OIL, by Gever, et al., 1991, University Press of Colorado, 303-530-5337