From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Affluence and Land Use (from I = PAT)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:26:41 GMT


>>Thirdly, why are you so certain that affluence is so tightly tied to 
>>land demands? I suspect that many of the most damaging uses are of small
>>economic value, the burning of the Amazon being an obvious example.

>I guess I'm more cynical about what is of "economic value". I 
>think our best guide is not what we would wish, but what is 
>actually happening. The indications don't support the idea that 
>the most damaging uses are of little economic value -- the 
>extraordinary lengths to which poor people will go to carve out 
>a chunk of rainforest, or to gather a bit of firewood or some 
>water miles away from home, suggest to me that these are vital, 
>not little, economic needs. Reduction of the A factor of I=PAT is 
>the most problematic of all. It is clearly way too large in the 
>most affluent parts of the world, but for very many humans A is 
>too small. What we need to do is to rethink the whole set of 
>concepts underlying A, and find what is really the right value or 
>range of values of A for a human. I realize that this statement 
>is absolute heresy. But I think that there *is* a "right range of 
>values" -- it's the one which is coevolutionarily supportable, by 
>which I mean that humans can live with it, and the biosphere can 
>live with it (without even slow degredation) for as long as there 
>are humans -- maybe millions of years, if we can do that. 

>*This* is the discussion I would really like to start, at some 
>point.

Although I think that affluence need not be tied to land use, it
generally is now.  I think the connection between the two is
consumption or physical throughput.  Since I doubt that physical
consumption can be delinked from extensive land use and extraction,
it seems that there is a central question:

	Can affluence be redefined in a way so that people do not see
	less consumption as a lower standard of living?

As Alan describes above, A is too low for many parts of the world and
needs to be brought up in those areas for degradation to diminish and
eventually stop.  Does this require their A to roughly match that for
the developed world?  Can a stable world system be based on permanent
disparaties?  A related question is to what degree the high affluence
in the developed world necessitates a lower one in the undeveloped
countries.  Some of these questions drift into areas outside of
environmental discussion but the interconnectedness of these issues
cannot be avoided (IMHO) in seeking solutions.

Whether or not such equalization is required, 
there seems to be a requirement that A, as currently defined, 
must decrease in the developed world.  While I am
sure there are those who would argue this, for the moment I am
addressing some issues of bringing this change about.
I think that convincing people to "be poorer" is a recipe for failure.
Sacrifice may make sense for temporary crises, such as during WWII,
but we are talking about a more permanent shift in cunsumption
patterns.  My statement above about redefining affluence is not
suggesting that semantics or trickery be used to convince people to
accept a less consumptive lifestyle.  It suggests that quality of
life may now be overly based on consumption.  To some degree, I can
point to the advertising industry.  What was once designed to
convince the consumer to purchase what they need from producer B
instead of producer A now expends much effort convincing the
consumer to buy that which he doesn't need (or didn't think he
needed :) or to replace something that still functions.  I think that
all societies, including those considered sustainable, have elements
of fashion and status in their culture, but must these be tied
to consumption?

Alan has mentioned a number of times how human behavior did not get
that way by chance but has evolved to what it is by some form of
natural selection.  To what degree have we evolved as consumers
(since over-consumption and its effects were not an issue) or is
it a more short-termed cultural artifact?  It would seem that the
cultural model offers more optimism for a significant change within
a few generations but the _motivation_ for such a change requires
a future focus, which we seem to have evolved without.  While some
might say that returning to a less consumptive lifestyle is more
like returning to our roots, a less consumptive lifestyle _with the
(at least short-term) possibility for high consumption_ does not
compare with our past.  The future focus that much environmentalism
calls for has no precedent in past human history that I am aware of.

Then again - precedents were made to be broken.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)