Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
People have this idea that sailing is cheap, because of the low fuel costs. But blue-water sailors have a saying that goes like this:
The wind is free … but everything else costs money.
Reading the various pronouncements from the partygoers at the Durban climate-related Conference of Parties, I was struck by the many uses of the words “sustainable development” and “sustainability”. It’s pretty confusing. Apparently, paying high long-term subsidies for uneconomic energy sources is sustainable … who knew?
Anyways, I got to thinking about how I’ve never been sure what “sustainable development” means, and of how much it reminds me of the sailors saying. One of the first uses of the term was in the UN’s 1987 Brundtland Report, which said:
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
I never understood that definition. How could I use a shovel to turn over the earth for my garden, for example? Every kilo of iron ore that is mined to make my shovel is a kilo of iron ore that is forever unavailable to “future generations to meet their own needs”. It’s unavoidable. Which means that we will run out of iron, and thus any use of iron is ultimately unsustainable. My shovel use is depriving my great-grandchildren of shovels.
Oh, sure, I can recycle my shovel. But some of the metal will inevitably be lost in the process. All that does is make the inevitable iron-death move further away in time … but recycling doesn’t magically make iron extraction sustainable.
Figure 1. Example of unsustainable development.
And if me using a steel shovel to dig in my own garden is not sustainable … then what is sustainable? I mean, where are the “peak iron” zealots when we need them?
So other than sunlight, wind, and rainbows … just what is sustainable development supposed to be built of? Cell phones are one of the most revolutionary tools of development … but we are depriving future generations of nickel and cadmium in doing so. That’s not sustainable.
Here’s the ugly truth. It’s simple, blunt, and bitter. Nothing is sustainable. Oh, like the sailors say, the wind is free. As is the sunshine. But everything else we mine or extract to make everything from shovels to cell phones will run out. The only question is, will it run out sooner, or later? Because nothing is sustainable. “Sustainable Development” is just an airy-fairy moonbeam fantasy, a New Age oxymoron. In the real world, it can’t happen. I find the term “sustainable development” useful for one thing only.
When people use it, I know they have not thought too hard about the issues.
Finally, there is an underlying arrogance about the concept that I find disturbing. Forty percent of the world’s people live on less than $2 per day. In China it’s sixty percent. In India, three-quarters of the population lives on under $2 per day.
Denying those men, women, and especially children the ability to improve their lives based on some professed concern about unborn generations doesn’t sit well with me at all. The obvious response from their side is “Easy for you to say, you made it already.” Which is true. The West got wealthy by means which “sustainable development” wants to deny to the world’s poor.
Look, there could be a climate catastrophe in fifty years. And we could hit some sustainability wall in fifty years.
But when a woman’s kids are hungry, she won’t see the logic of not feeding them to avoid “compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”. She won’t understand that logic at all.
And neither do I. Certainly, I think we should live as lightly as possible on this marvelous planet. And yes, use rates and R/P ratios are an issue. But nothing is sustainable. So let’s set the phrase “sustainable development” on the shelf of meaningless curiosities, go back to concentrating on feeding the children we already have on this Earth, and leave the great-grandchildren to fend for themselves. Everyone says they’ll live to be a thousand and be a lot richer than I am and have computers that can write poetry, so I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
w.
PS—Theorists say that it’s not enough that development be sustainable in terms of the environment. They also demand sustainability in three other arenas: social, economic, and cultural sustainability.
Socially sustainable? Culturally sustainable? We don’t even know if what we currently do is culturally or socially sustainable. How can we guess if some development is culturally sustainable?
I swear, sometimes I think people have totally lost the plot. This is mental onanism of the highest order, to sit around and debate if something is “culturally sustainable”. Like I said … let’s get back to feeding the kids. Once that’s done, we can debate if the way we fed them is culturally sustainable.
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R. Gates,
Hiding I see. Do you think that not responding to my points in any way negates them? Do you think that anyone following this thread failed to notice that you have no answers and so just changed the subject?
That would sort of be like making a bet, losing it, and then pretending that you didn’t.
I suppose in your mind lots of arm waving about how wonderful it is that gazelles and lions live in some sort of harmony that humans should emulate erases the fact that lions and gazelles live short miserable lives that end in violent deaths or due to starvation and disease. We humans are lucky enough to have driven a wedge between ourselves and nature’s “harmony”.
“John West says:
December 22, 2011 at 8:19 am
… the second law pertains to closed systems AND was never intended for systems large enough for the weak force of gravity to be anything more than a negligible influence. The solar system and the universe is evidence that order can arise from chaos”
The Second Law was never intended? It is a physics foundation firmly nested in the thermodynamics that rules the Universe from right after the big bang. It knows no boundaries, so it doesn’t care about open, closed or isolated systems, entropy will always increase sooner or later. A closed system is just a human made up constraint to be able to understand the processes involved and measure/calculate entropy (and that is closed for matter not for energy)
Entropy is nothing like chaos or disorder, it’s not simply about matter either, it’s about energy tending to spread over as many micro states (W) as possible, S = k*ln*W. The widely spread use of the words ‘chaos’ and ‘disorder’ for entropy in popular science texts leads to totally false assumptions about the Second Law.
Under gravitation matter clumps together but eventually heat will be released into space (stars) and entropy rises, and the highest entropy is found in black holes which are very cold (remember a supernova blasts of its energy into space leaving the black hole).
Entropy always wins in the end, but can be stalled or slowed for a while like in the case of chemical reactions that have to overcome an activation energy.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
– “The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
– “So far as physics is concerned, time’s arrow is a property of entropy alone.”
– “There is only one law of Nature—the second law of thermodynamics—which recognises a distinction between past and future. It stands aloof from all the rest. … It opens up a new province of knowledge, namely, the study of organisation.
Clausius
– “The fundamental laws of the universe which correspond to the two fundamental theorems of the mechanical theory of heat.
1. The energy of the universe is constant.
2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.”
Max Planck
– “Nature never undertakes any change unless her interests are served by an increase in entropy.”
JPeden says:
December 23, 2011 at 8:41 am
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 8:01 am
hydroponics proves you don’t actually need the ” ground” at all.
I think the Oceans, Lakes, and Rivers might have already proven that, Gates. But does this mean that you no longer live in mortal fear of CO2′s allegedly Catastrophic effects, resulting from its alleged role in Sea Level Rise? Or do we all still have to seek higher ground immediately, or else accompany you right back to the Stone age, asap, “before it’s too late!” ….You know, because of the Precautionary Principle, and all. And if the latter, could you please start me off in the right direction by telling me whether I should get out of bed or not in the morning, or at any other time?
——-
I have never lived in mortal fear of CO2’s effects. And in regard to the oceans, rivers, etc. They are carriers of dissolved nutrients, minerals, etc., and this, combined with water’s functionality in some photosynthesis processes, makes it integral for supporting life. To the best of our knowledge, water is essential for life.
A physicist says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:04 am
Wendell Berry writes excellently upon the link between sustainability and adult responsibility.
And, after all, Mr. Berry is an “agrarian” and an advocate for “agrarianism”, because….wait for it….he’s an agrarian writer! But having read his linked treatise, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he also had something to do with developing Climate Science’s Global Circulation Models! After all, “THE WAY OF INDUSTRIALISM” is going to destroy the world!
Really, now, A physicist, what a pitiful display of the usual retreat to elitist verbiage actually in search of avoiding reality and responsibility, while also alleging to know it, and desiring to personally control it at large for the rest of us.
Say, I’ve got an idea that even beats Berry’s own advocacy of a primal retreat to “agrarianism”: in order to promote “sustainability”, why don’t you mind the very personal business of your own mind first? That is, before you try to inflict your ethereal “ideas” upon the rest of us?
R. Gates wrote on December 23, 2011 at 7:35 am:
The notion of man versus nature, and the idea of a rugged individualist run strong in our culture, and certainly have their place, but in terms of “sustainability”, it is the recognition that there is an interconnected web of life on this planet in which balance and harmony of the parts is the key. Excesses in any area can disrupt that web and break the sustainability. A “rugged individualist” cell in your body is also known by another name which is cancer, and if enough of these exist in your body, your body becomes unsustainable.
(My bold)
Disguised by nice words like harmony and balance, here is the iron fist hidden under the velvet glove: humans are a cancer on this planet, because in their drive to make their lives better they arraign themselves against ‘Nature’ and disturb or even destroy Her Harmony and Balance and what-have -you.
One wonders if it ever occurs to those blood-and-soil romantics that nature can and does inflict much greater damage on humans, than vice versa. Earthquakes and tsunamis, which have dominated the news this passing year, come to mind.
I sincerely hope R.Gates doesn’t think these natural manifestations are a sign of ‘Nature’ getting rid of us cancerous humans.
One does wonder, however, if the solution preferred by the R.Gateses of this world is for all of us to put our hands into our laps and submit to these natural events, not even trying to predict them or trying to work to minimise the damage, in case it is disturbing ‘The Balance’ and becomes unsustainable.
Mr. Berry intends that his essays will stimulate some readers to reflect upon the links between sustainability, citizenship, and responsibility, yet he appreciates that not every reader cares to do so.
Are these salaries sustainable?
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 8:37 am
Aynsley Kellow wrote:
“We must reject nature as providing norms which guide how we must live and accept instead that we are part of a living, changing system; we can chose to accept, use, or control elements to make for a habitable existence, both singly and individually.”
——
Very insightful. The term “norms” is a bit anthropomorphic though for what nature can provide, for certainly in terms of sustainability we can learn much from how natural ecosystems are sustained through balance and harmony of the parts, and nothing goes to ” waste” but is reused and recycled over various timeframes. In no way does this contradict the dynamic character of natural systems in that they are constantly in flux such that the ways in which balance is achieved and the very system itself changes greatly over time in response to internal and external forcings.
——————————————————-
R. Gates, you are all over the place here (like all advocates of ‘sustainability’) because you haven’t got the faintest idea what precisely it is you are discussing – unlike Dr Kellow – BTW thanks, AK, for that link to a clear-headed discussion of the issues.
Eco-systems are not ‘sustained’ through balance and harmony. Firstly, they are not ‘sustained’ at all – they are constantly changing, although often over very long time frames. How anyone with a scrap of knowledge about the history of the planet can waffle on about ecosystems as though they are static is one of the incomprehensible mysteries of the magical thinking that underpins so much ‘green’ ideology. And, there is a lot of ‘waste’ in natural systems, unless you imagine that, as Monty Python so eloquently put it, “Every Sperm is Sacred”. Actually, a farmer using IV techniques with a prize bull is much more in line with your no-waste beliefs. I doubt that those techniques would have been developed if we had all decided to be ‘sustainable’ in your terms 1000 years ago.
You then go on to admit that ecosystems do change over time, negating your first point, such as it was.
There is nothing mystical about a primary producer managing soil, or forests, or waterways on their land to conserve resources. It is just sound business practice. Letting your soil blow or wash away if you are a farmer is dumb, not evil. But it doesn’t disappear – it just goes somewhere else.
As Dr Kellow points out, ‘sustainability’ is a means, not a thing. It is a way of mediating conflict and a catch-all cover for what the proponents really want to do. In most cases, what they want to do is reallocate resources according to their political convictions.
Thanks for the compliment, Johanna.
Problem is, many of these concepts are developed or supported by natural scientists who are blissfully unaware of the extent to which their values obtrude into their ‘scientific’ beliefs. There is a wonderful paper in Science by Matt Chew (with Laublichler, from memory) that points out just how shot through with (rather dark) human values is ecological science — and has been since day one when Haeckel (a rather dark character) coined the term. If you think ‘alien species’, ‘invasive species’, etc sound a bit xenophobic, you’d be right — but they square with Haeckel’s political views.
LOL, johanna, it would surprise me to learn that you and/or Aynsley had ever farmed. `Cuz topsoil in the fields sure is more valuable than topsoil in the creek!
Not every corporation feels this way, though. Sometimes the strategy that maximizes the bottom line to “mine the earth” to exhaustion in 20 years; the resulting near-term profits more than compensate for the ultimate ruin of the land. And corporate accountants will be happy to prove to you that that ruin was for the best.
Your post made me reflect too that China’s river dolphins went extinct this year … the end of a twenty million year saga … or did these creatures “just go somewhere else”. Valhalla maybe? Oh well, more dolphins will evolve eventually, if we just wait a few million years. Or maybe, we’ll synthesize new dolphins in the laboratory?
Or maybe its best not to care? After all, those dolphins had indeterminate monetary value, and no one had legal title to them.
A physicist;
LOL, johanna, it would surprise me to learn that you and/or Aynsley had ever farmed. `Cuz topsoil in the fields sure is more valuable than topsoil in the creek!>>>
Yes. That’s why she said it would be dumb to let it blow away. That’s right there in the words you quoted from her comment.
A physicist;
Not every corporation feels this way, though. Sometimes the strategy that maximizes the bottom line to “mine the earth” to exhaustion in 20 years; the resulting near-term profits more than compensate for the ultimate ruin of the land.>>>
What does strip mining a mountain top have to do with farming practices? A mining company clips the top off a mountain and that proves what about farming practices?
A physicist;
Your post made me reflect too that China’s river dolphins went extinct this year>>>
Yes, obviously dolphins going extinct in China is a clear indication of poor farming practices in North America. Got it.
A physicist;
or did these creatures “just go somewhere else”.>>>
Nope, they died. Which has what to do with soil blowing off fields in the wind?
Honestly, do you just introduce completely unrelated snippets of information totaly at random? Or are you actually convinced that anything you said makes any sense at all?
davidmhoffer asks ‘a physicist’:
“Honestly, do you just introduce completely unrelated snippets of information totaly at random?”
He does that all the time. He’s nonsense on stilts.
A physicist says:
December 23, 2011 at 11:23 am
JPeden says: “Why don’t you mind the very personal business of your own mind first? That is, before you try to inflict your ethereal “ideas” upon the rest of us?”
Mr. Berry intends that his essays will stimulate some readers to reflect upon the links between sustainability, citizenship, and responsibility, yet he appreciates that not every reader cares to do so.
Yes, I do prefer to live in the real world of real “caring”, real “responsibility” and real “science”, instead of choosing to retreat to the imaginary, “academic”, one – complete with Warming Models and enough verbiage to choke any respectable paper shredder. The former one is the only one that matters. The latter one is simply not sustainable!
They’re spoon feeding Casanova
To make him feel more assured
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
[Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row”]
R. Gates – Viv Evans says:December 23, 2011 at 10:52 am and Johanna says:December 23, 2011 at 12:49 pm – have pretty much answered, so no need for me to redo it.
davidmhoffer says:
December 23, 2011 at 3:50 pm
What does strip mining a mountain top have to do with farming practices? A mining company clips the top off a mountain and that proves what about farming practices?
=============================================================================
It proves that farming practices often come to a grinding halt.
Two examples.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ok_Tedi_Mine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasberg_Mine
Cheers.
David, that’s exactly the kind of sober question that Wendell Berry’s writings and speeches on sustainability encourage folks to ask:
I defy anyone to listen to Wendell without respect for this farmer who speaks from the heart.
On Wendell’s behalf, please allow me to say David, thank you very much for asking that question!
[SNIP: We are just not going there. -REP]
Viv Evans says:
December 23, 2011 at 10:52 am
R. Gates wrote on December 23, 2011 at 7:35 am:
The notion of man versus nature, and the idea of a rugged individualist run strong in our culture, and certainly have their place, but in terms of “sustainability”, it is the recognition that there is an interconnected web of life on this planet in which balance and harmony of the parts is the key. Excesses in any area can disrupt that web and break the sustainability. A “rugged individualist” cell in your body is also known by another name which is cancer, and if enough of these exist in your body, your body becomes unsustainable.
(My bold)
Disguised by nice words like harmony and balance, here is the iron fist hidden under the velvet glove: humans are a cancer on this planet, because in their drive to make their lives better they arraign themselves against ‘Nature’ and disturb or even destroy Her Harmony and Balance and what-have -you.
One wonders if it ever occurs to those blood-and-soil romantics that nature can and does inflict much greater damage on humans, than vice versa. Earthquakes and tsunamis, which have dominated the news this passing year, come to mind.
I sincerely hope R.Gates doesn’t think these natural manifestations are a sign of ‘Nature’ getting rid of us cancerous humans.
One does wonder, however, if the solution preferred by the R.Gateses of this world is for all of us to put our hands into our laps and submit to these natural events, not even trying to predict them or trying to work to minimise the damage, in case it is disturbing ‘The Balance’ and becomes unsustainable.
——-
The topic was sustainability, and the point I was making is the recognition that humans are part of a larger web of life is one aspect of creating a sustainable culture. As far as the damage that nature can inflict on humans and other forms of life, earthquakes and tsunamis are unintentional consequences of living in a chaotic world, but the intentional cruelty and suffering inflicted by humans on each other is far greater than anything nature might inflict.
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:35 am
A “rugged individualist” cell in your body is also known by another name which is cancer, and if enough of these exist in your body, your body becomes unsustainable.
No, Gates, as proven over and over in America, a rugged individualist does not kill off everything in sight, including itself, like a cancerous cell often does by cloning enough of its own identicals in toto so as to starve its host, or to invade the wrong places, thereby destroying their providers with them. The cancerous cell is often just enough like the provider itself, such that the provider can’t distinguish it from itself so as to defeat it via its rather automatic immune system.
No, instead that’s what you Big Green Parasites do when the rugged individualists make enough of an ecological niche for you to exist and act like cancerous cells yourselves, Instead of you thanking the stars for rugged individualists!
If you’d only settle down and accept your good luck to even exist and live off the products created by America’s rugged individualists under their system of Constitutional Capitalism and Independence, maybe your own hominid sub-species would even be sustainable.
But a warning to all of you congenital dependents: we rugged individualists are neither one-celled automatons nor billiard balls. And we do recognize you.
SPM;
What does strip mining a mountain top have to do with farming practices? A mining company clips the top off a mountain and that proves what about farming practices?
=============================================================================
It proves that farming practices often come to a grinding halt.
Two examples>>>
First, “A fake physicist” complains about farming practices and posts a link about strip mining as a reference, and when asked what that has to do with farming practices, SPM chimes in with links about the effect of mines on nearby farms.
Hands up all you folks who thought they made sense.
OK thanks.
Now hands up all you folks that believe in CAGW.
OK thanks.
Now hands up all you folks that believe we should return to a primitive society and live in harmony with nature?
OK thanks.
Now hands up all you folks that think Phol Pot had a great idea and more people should have listened to him?
Let’s see….same set of hands for the first three questions, but not for the last one. Odd that.
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 6:49 pm
, but the intentional cruelty and suffering inflicted by humans on each other is far greater than anything nature might inflict.
============
Yet, the CAGW theory places more control into the hands of humans.
A fake physicist;
David, that’s exactly the kind of sober question that Wendell Berry’s writings and speeches on sustainability encourage folks to ask>>>
I didn’t direct the question to Wendell Berry. I directed the question to you.
Are you capable of answering the question?
Or only capable of letting someone else’s words speak for you?
If the former, then answer the question. If the latter, then you are just one of those people who let’s others do their thinking for them. If you cannot articulate the answer to my question in your own words, then it is unlikely that you actually understand what Wendell Berry said in the first place.
Johanna said:
“There is nothing mystical about a primary producer managing soil, or forests, or waterways on their land to conserve resources. It is just sound business practice. Letting your soil blow or wash away if you are a farmer is dumb, not evil. But it doesn’t disappear – it just goes somewhere else.”
—–
Of all the rather weak points you made this one seems the weakest. Your use of the terms “mystical” and “evil” are most revealing as to your general perspective on sustainability. There is nothing mystical about sustainability, and the term “evil” is a purely human construct without meaning in the natural world. And in regards to topsoil and erosion– top soil is a finite resource that can be sustained through specific practices, and for all practical purposes, it does disappear when it is washed away as it changes to a form that is unusable, whether because it is spread out thinly over a wide area by wind or washed to the bottom of the ocean. This is all in keeping with the increase in entropy in the universe, and from this perspective, sustainability is entropy management– rust will eventually eat your nice shovel away, but if you manage the entropy, by drying it off when it gets wet and keeping it clean and free from rust when the first few spot appear, it can be sustained at least as long as you will.
R. Gates;
The topic was sustainability, and the point I was making is the recognition that humans are part of a larger web of life is one aspect of creating a sustainable culture.>>>>
So… did your hand go up when I asked who thought Phol Pot had good ideas? Seems like your ideals and his are pretty much a match. Well, he wanted to impose his ideas through armed conflict while you only want to make them the law.
Of course when people start dieing of plague and starvation because of the law, they might have a tendency to break it. What then? Compliance by force of arms? Gee… we’re back to Phol Pot again.
u.k.(us) says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:04 pm
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 6:49 pm
, but the intentional cruelty and suffering inflicted by humans on each other is far greater than anything nature might inflict.
============
Yet, the CAGW theory places more control into the hands of humans.
——-
You are mistaking “cause” with “control”. You could back out of your driveway and run over you neighbors child and be the cause of their injury, but it would’t mean you had control. But as I am not a believer in C AGW, then I guess I really don’t care.