From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Sacrifice (was Re: Save the Planet ...)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 23:18:13 GMT

In article <725427091snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>In article <1992Dec24.211950.7768@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@PacBell.COM writes:
>
> > Of course. But one can STILL avoid car ownership, if one tries, just like
> > we sacrifice to maintain good relations with people. We feel that such 
> > sacrifices are worth it.
>
>This idea of sacrifice is a real bun in the oven. 
                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I love these little idioms.  No flame intended here, Gil.  I guess that
non-US citizens must put up with endless idioms from us (without us
realizing it) so maybe this is a hidden reminder.  In any case, maybe
you could enlighten me on this one?

>The criteria for
>effective management of the environment must necessarily be based on a
>high quality cost/benefit analysis for all cases. Already many of us
>have "sacrificed" far more than enough, by putting aside far more
>lucrative careers to study in depth the various problems we face in
>common, and to seek globally an interdisciplinary discourse on those
>problems that we can work through them and finally achieve something.
>
Striclty speaking, I don't disagree with this but a high quality
cost/benefit analysis is highly problematic when short-term benefits
are being compared with long-term costs, which is a fairly common
case in environmental issues.  And it seems that a sacrifice is
really just that.  In many cases, the costs of the
these short-term benefits may not be heavy for another generation. 
It is problematic in two ways.  First, it is hard to compute
long-term costs for a variety of reasons, and second, it is
difficult to convince people that they should not leave such
costs to others, even if they be high, even if the costs can be
proven.  Its always easier to let someone else pay.  I don't think
that suggesting sacrifice necessarily contradicts a desire for a
good cost/benefit analysis.  Of course, the costs are not always
long-term, and Gil's focus as an ethnologist may be on large
costs being suffered in many areas today.  If the ability of
humans to cause major changes in the biosphere were either smaller
or less predictable, it would not be an issue.  Since our
technological and scientific capabilities seem to be increasing 
the former faster than the latter, the issue of sacrifice to 
avoid ill-defined costs may become more of a moral one than a 
scientific one.  And how humans deal with it will decide
whether scientists spend more time solving manmade problems or
preventing them.
>
>--
>Gil Hardwick                          Internet:  gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au
>Consulting Ethnologist                              Fidonet:  3:690/660.6
>PERTH, Western Australia                         Voice:  (+61 9) 399 2401
>   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *


-- 
==============================================================================
A thought for the holidays:
   "Wine is living proof that God loves us and likes to see us happy"
	- Benjamin Franklin			dean@vexcel.com
Newsgroups: sci.environment