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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: see clearly now who wrote (27063)	8/23/2006 5:39:12 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541299

It is possible, esp. in for people limited to a particular geographic area to have overpopulation problems. Our technology and infrastructure allows us to support a much higher population than we could without it, but yes there is some limit at any particular time, and some (truly enormous) maximum limit. (We can't even with technology of a billion years from today, use more energy to support human life than exists in the universe). But we aren't really approaching the near term realistic maximum, let alone the high end theoretical maximum. Increasing energy efficiency is normally a good thing, in some cases it might not be economically efficient, if the cost is to high for the benefits, but often it is economically efficient. OTOH real sustainability is less about reducing our resource use than finding new resources and new ways to use old ones. If you only have X years left of a particular resource, cutting your use in half only gives you 2X years. Finding new resources, and new ways to use resources can keep you from running out indefinitely if you do a good enough job of it. For the longer run by 2050 we (the whole world) will be into a population implosion. Unlikely, although its true that the population might be stable or even declining by then depending on how many children people have. It will probably take a bit longer than that but it could easily decline by 2100 or before. Note I'm haven't been criticizing any of Lovins specific ideas, I'm talking about larger issues. I'm sure some of those ideas make sense. But now that I look at it in more depth I'll make a few criticisms. If I read it in detail I'd probably have even more. "There is no waste in nature. Everything that is not used goes back in some way to regenerate for the future. " That simply isn't true. Many natural processes effectively do recycle very well but its false to say there is no waste. and It will reduce the need for resources and thus the need to compete for certain resources (Ie: the Present wasteful misadventure in the mideast Not sure if this is your idea or Lovins, but the current war in Iraq doesn't have a lot to do with competition for resources. I'm not saying that it has nothing to do with such competition. But we didn't invade to get oil. Markets make a wonderful servant, a bad master and a worse religion. If we try to substitute markets for ethics, politics and faith, we can really get in a lot of trouble. Markets are very good at what they do, but their purpose is quite far from the whole purpose of the human being. I think I can agree with that in a literal sense, but not with what I think the author is trying to imply. Markets aren't a master in the way a government can be a master. The government can use guns and force you to comply. A market shouldn't be a substitute for ethics, but that doesn't mean that ethics should normally be imposed by the government. Faith is largely separate from markets (although organized religions need money to run and they do compete for that money, and also there could be said to be a "marketplace of ideas"). As for markets being a substitute for politics? I'm not sure what you or Lovins mean. Political decisions are made by the political process, and some of the areas where they make their decisions shouldn't and possibly can't be controlled by markets. But replacing a lot of what is controlled by the market with political decision making is a bad idea, and if taken to far can easily be disastrous.