From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Summary: you knew it was coming, didn't you
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 16:10:55 GMT

In article <JMC.92Oct7225619@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Oct7.171803.12454@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>   A sustainable lifestyle might have the following attributes:
>
>	   1) doesn't reduce topsoil depth
>
>   RATIONALE: all life on this planet relies on a rather thin layer of soil.
>	      Its dispersal and denudation are reversible only in the
>	      long term, and perhaps not even then.
>
>The short term solution to the top soil is to make it into property.
>That way a farmer with deep topsoil would protect it, because he could
>sell it to some other farmer.  

I believe that someone owned most of the land that became the dustbowl
of the 1930s. Likewise for the Nile Delta today, and the Fertile
Crescent of ancient history. Clearly, ownership by itself is
insufficient to protect the soil, especially when its users don't
actually understand how it works.

Perhaps the addition of a market plus a thousand or so more years of
soil science since the Fertile Crescent's demise might make the
difference. I wouldn't bet on it, but I'm not a betting man.
				
>In the long run we'll either have to chew up rock to make more or
>do without.

If chewing up rock was all that we needed to do to replace topsoil, I
imagine we'd have been doing it some time ago. Alas, decent topsoil is
more involved than that.

>I don't understand what "dynamic equilibrium" means.  

A system in which influx and efflux are balanced, but which also has
the capability to respond independently to changes in either one so as
to regain equilibrium. Such systems are generally not capable of
responding to arbitrary changes in influx/efflux ratios.

You might just call it "feedback".

>	   3) doesn't redirect or restrict more than 1% of water flow
>		   in a given watershed 
>
>   RATIONALE: ecosystems are generally close to dynamic equilibrium and/or
>		   carrying capacity. 
>
>In any watershed with a dam 100% of the flow is restricted.  The
>ecosystems change but survive.  They change anyway.

Precisely. As I've tried to point out before, I don't believe for one
minute that the central issue presented by "environmentalism" is the
survival of life on this planet, let alone the survival of the planet.
This "Save the Planet" rubbish that kids in school get nowadays is
probably doing more harm than good.

However, that still leaves the question of what kind of life, what
kind of ecosystems will persist in the face of our activities. I'm
don't like the answer to that question, in asmuch as I have seen it
answered. 

>	   5) leaves contiguous stretches of any given ecosystem
>		   connected to original (pre-human) neighbors
>
>   RATIONALE: the strength of ecosystems relies heavily on diversity,
>		   which in part relies on corridors connecting
>		   inter-dependent components.
>
>Pre-human takes us a very long time back.  Does anyone know what the
>pre-human situation was.  No matter what the environmentalists get,
>they demand more.

Here in the PNW, John, its unlikely that the local Native American
population had a dramatic effect on the areas ecosystems, certainly
not in terms of landscape alterations and drainage redirection. In
that sense, we only have to go back 100-150 years.

Even across most of the USA, the impact of Native Americans on
landscape has generally been small compared to subsequent impacts by
later settlers. So I'd happily settle for "pre-Columbus" instead of
"pre-human" if you insist that its so difficult to determine the
latter.

This is not to deny the impact of Native Americans, merely to assert
the different scale of that impact.

>	   6) avoids petrochemicals, in general
>
>   RATIONALE: we don't yet have ways of dealing with plastic waste; most
>		   current uses of plastic are for reasons of cost,
>		   not irreplaceability.
>
>The semi-voluntary poverty being advocated by ignoring cost wouldn't
>last long.  When a decent live begins to require oppressing other
>people, systems of oppression will develop.

This is bullshit. The principal savings from using plastic come from
labor reductions (things can be stamp-pressed or poured into molds,
instead of being carved or assembled). None of these savings over
previous production methods went into "decent lives" for the people
that used to do this work - it went into better lives for the people
who wanted to reduce their payroll. And yes, I have read Henry Hazlitt.

There are three categories of plastic items: things that used to be
made out of other materials, things that couldn't be made before, and
things that nobody would bothered to have made.

I support the use of plastic for category 2, dislike it for category
1, and suggest deep, individual analysis of whether or not the items
that make up category 3 justify the production costs, keeping in mind
the complete absence of resource depreciation/depletion in those costs.

>	   8) uses biomass to form products that last and are used for as
>		   long as the biomass takes to be regrown
>
>   RATIONALE: the obvious criterion for sustainable manufacture and consumerism.
>
>I take it this means - no mining.

No. I said "use biomass to ...". If you choose to use something else,
different criteria apply. I don't what they are.

>	   9) does not use products whose production uses
>		   more energy than they save, either in terms of
>		   food or existing non-human energy supply.
>
>   RATIONALE: encourage comfort and leisure through efficiency, not
>		   through expanded use of energy sources.
>
>Here's the energy god again.  There is plenty of energy to be had.
>Human labor is what needs to be conserved, unless we want to live in
>poverty.

Why ?

>Today there is hardly anything in the world that some man can't attach
>a gimmick to or make in some exotic place or make without chemicals or
>make out of "natural materials" and get a higher price for.  Snobs,
>including eco-snobs, are this man's lawful prey.

Ignoring the gimmicks, and bearing in mind that the absence of
chemicals and the use of natural materials generally increases labor
and/or material costs, I'm happy paying more for such things. If that
makes me an eco-snob, let alone a snob, more of it. At least *I* try
to pay for what I believe in - John McCarthy apparently believes in
deferring the costs of his foibles to his children and beyond.

-- paul


-- 
There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a
little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider
price only are this man's lawful prey.
						John Ruskin
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