From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Oct6184904@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<1992Oct7.165526.11473@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
	<1992Oct7.171803.12454@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 92 22:56:19

In article <1992Oct7.171803.12454@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:

   Here is a first pass at some criteria for sustainable living, given a
   population of about 1 billion humans worldwide. I have no idea how to
   reach that number, nor now effective any of this would be without such
   a reduction. For that matter, I don't know how fully it would work
   even with such a reduction. I think about this a lot as I try to live
   a life that at least in some respects attempts to be sustainable.
   Insight and criticism is welcome, even from those who don't take the
   idea of sustainability seriously.

   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.  So far as I can tell, this doesn't
require any laws, just someone to make a market.  A rough calculation
suggests that moving it is bearably expensive.

In the long run we'll either have to chew up rock to make more or
do without.

	   2) doesn't have more than a <XXX>% effect on atmospheric
		   composition

   RATIONALE: there is evidence that atmospheric composition represents
		   a dynamic equilibrium amongst producers and consumers
		   of its contents. I don't know what <XXX> should be.

I don't understand what "dynamic equilibrium" means.  It is now 20 percent
oxygen.  Below 10 percent would be very hard on us, and 35 percent
would cause disastrous forest fires.  Fortunately, the oxygen content
isn't going anywhere.  It would be very hard to to anything much to
the water vapor content except as a byproduct of substantial changes
in temperature.  Maybe there is a CO2 greenhouse effect.  If so, there
are several ways to fix it - all expensive.

	   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.

	   4) doesn't use heavy metals

   RATIONALE: we do not yet have ecosystems capable of dealing with
		   most heavy metals in significant quantities.

The ecosystems are surviving our present uses of heavy metals, and
we can use the deep sea as a dump for most of them without appreciably
increasing the concentration of them.  We could also put them back
in the mines whence they came.  Actually I suppose most of them
are recycled.  Should we put the gold back in the streams of
California.

	   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.

	   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.

	   7) recycles biomass through a given ecosystem, rather
		   than dispersing it

   RATIONALE: model natural ecosystems

This seems like religion to me.  The most primitive tribes don't
model natural ecosystems.

	   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.

	   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.

   -- 
   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 Raskin

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.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

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