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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
R. Gates;
top soil is a finite resource that can be sustained through specific practices>>>
Of all the incredibly wrong things I’ve ever seen you spout, that one is possibly in a race for the crown of all time stupidity with saying the globes in Al Gore’s on air experiment were superflous. You clearly know squat about physics and if you think that top soil is a “finite resource” then you know squat about farming too.
How is it that someone who knows SFA about the physics of global warming, and SFA about the basics of food production, has the unmittigated GALL to tell the rest of us how to raise food and what to do or not do about global warming?
JPeden says:
“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!”
—–
So, is it right or not to have laws that prohibit what chemicals that Company X can dump into a river? Mind you of course that this company was founded by and still operated by rugged individualists.
Davidmhoffer,
What on earth are you carrying on about now? Of course top soil is a finite resource, and apparently I know a great deal more about farming than you.
For those aren’t sure which of us is correct see:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/n6284w443761t216/
http://elements.geoscienceworld.org/content/6/6/363.abstract
http://www.ehow.com/about_6456321_topsoil-considered-non_renewable-resource_.html
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:38 pm
——————————————-
Ah ha ha, straw man squared.
I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while Gatesy: Do you have any peer-reviewed publications ?? If so, how many ?? Any in respectable journals ??
I’m expecting:
…. but go on, surprise me.
[snip -rewrite that without insulting everyone – Anthony]
R. Gates;
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Davidmhoffer,
What on earth are you carrying on about now? Of course top soil is a finite resource, and apparently I know a great deal more about farming than you.
For those aren’t sure which of us is correct see:>>>>
My goodness, but you’ve descended from the absurd to the absolutely idiotic. You don’t even understand the very links you’ve posted to. They attempt to define top soil as being “finite” on the premise that it is eroding faster than it is regenerating. Putting aside for a moment that the data presented is in dispute, the very links that you point to actually SAY that top soil can be generated. How is it possible to generate new top soil if it is “finite”? You’re relying on a sloppy misrepresented definition to support a blatantly idiotic statement. For those who want to judge, here’s how to build top soil:
1. Start with a field of clay.
2. Plant potatoes for one to two years. The roots go surprisingly deep, and when the potatoes grow, they expand, busting up the clay.
3. Grow hay crops for one to two years. Hay will grow even in clay. Bail the hay and feed it to your cattle. Pile the manure up from the cattle in a heap. Plow the stubble under.
4. Begin growing cereal crops, starting with crops like wheat and then rotating with crops like oats and barley. Intersperse with summer fallow crops like clover. Continue plowing the stuble under.
5. After a few years of this your dung heap from the cattle will be large enough and rotted enough to spread on the field. Plow that under too.
6. Begin moving to nitrogen fixers like peas. You’ll have enough top soil by now to support them, and the additional nitrogen will produce better crops the following years.
7. Start moving from plowing stubble under to zero till.
8. Continue rotating crops and spreading manure.
Presto. Top soil.
Never argue farming with a farm boy, especially by throwing up what are nothing more than alarmist links that manage to define things for alarmist purposes. Not only is the notion idiotic, arguing it with a farm boy makes you look stupid.
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:29 pm
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.
=========
But, I do care, that’s why I’m here.
Trying to halt the rabid rush our politicians have embarked upon, to protect ourselves from ourselves, and collect a tax for the privilege.
It is not personal, but it is serious.
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:38 pm
So, is it right or not to have laws that prohibit what chemicals that Company X can dump into a river? Mind you of course that this company was founded by and still operated by rugged individualists.
Gates, if you could just give it up, and turn to and see the light of free thought, freedom, and the system here in America which was founded by truly rugged individualists and thus protects and fosters the aforementioned capacities and values, you would. But you obviously can’t. No, you just have to keep pecking away at successful people and systems, like a mutant termite.
America’s Constitutional Capitalism has laws in regard to this specific area – Constitutionally formed – as I’ve already implied in response to your smear job on “rugged individualists” – who you apparently wrongly picture as identical to yourself as to their intellectual and psychological make-ups . Gates, it is most likely from your own self and its needs that you are projecting this picture upon others. In other words, you fear yourself.
Otherwise, please tell me what “Company” or “Big Corporation” you talking about. Or has the production of its steel or Windmill magnetos been effectively “exported” to China, where there are no such laws? And in response to your own effectively inherent nature as a Big needy greedy Green Parasite, bent upon engineering and controlling the destruction of the very system, energy, and people that support you – simply because you don’t want to look at and know yourself first; and perhaps in response to the fact that you actually fear your own existence and self-knowledge – and the fact that we rugged individualists don’t – even more than you fear your own death?
Btw, Gates, I walk the walk when it comes to personally protecting and sustaining myself, the Earth’s resources, and the and my environment in a reasonable and responsible fashion. What do you do?
Is anybody listening
Oh oh ooo
There’s no response at all
[Phil Collins]
R. Gates says:
December 23, 2011 at 7:22 pm
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, you were the one rabbitting on about the harmony of nature, stable ecosystems, how nature never wastes anything etc. This is mysticism, not science, and it posits human activity as malevolent and hostile to Gaia. No good backing away now. It’s what you said.
I am glad that you acknowledge that looking after the soil is good farming practice, without which a farmer would sooner or later go broke. Farming does, however, involve messing up some of those pristine ecosystems you are so fond of, and replacing them with man-made ones. To be consistent with your views about ‘sustainability’, a heck of a lot of people would be starving now. Imagine if every piece of farmland on the planet reverted to its natural state and there had to be an environmental impact statement before a sod could be turned or a cow released to graze. Do you think that people with your views would allow even a fraction of the land currently used for agriculture to have its ‘natural harmony’ destroyed so that we could eat?
Topsoil blowing away on a ploughed field has nothing to do with entropy, unless you are saying that the manmade crop field the soil came from is part of the natural universe, which it patently isn’t. And to then elide that into saying that because the soil has become unusable for the farmer, it has disappeared, is just pea and thimble stuff. You don’t get away with that here, as you should have learned by now.
On a more positive note, thank you Aynsley Kellow for the reference to the Matthew Chew paper. That, and other stuff he has written on the ideology and assumptions underlying the ecological ‘sciences’ came up on a quick Google. Others who are interested in this field might like to check his work out.
@A physicists, says:
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.,,,,
….On Wendell’s behalf, please allow me to say David, thank you very much for asking that question!
I’m beginning to get the idea that you are now Wendell Berry’s Butler?
JPeden,
You never answered the question, but chose rather to beat your chest and lecture whilst all puffed up on your own rugged-individualist self importance. You seem to want to paint the world in shades of black and white, much like the shallow minded pundits of the radio and television programs which simplify the important issues the day to the point that they no longer represent reailty– all so they can keep their listeners hyped up on an us vs. them mentality, when the truth is they only serve to bring division and mistrust to this Republic of ours.
It was a simple question JPeden: do we need environmental laws that protect our air, water, and food supply from toxic materials that companies might otherwise chose to deposit there? Or do you think that rugged individualists who mind begin and grow such companies are just naturally going to take care so as not to pollute?
And it’s nice to know that you “walk the walk” when it comes to personally protecting and sustaining yourself, (though you probably meant “walk the talk”), though of course you know you’d be nothing without the millions of other people who indirectly or directly support your existence on the earth in this hugely interconnected collective civilization we have now. And even beyond that, if you were a wild man living in the jungles, surviving by instinct and cunning, you’d at least be wise enough to know that very jungle is a web of interconnected life and any separation from that web is only an illusion of the ego.
Johanna said:
R. Gates, you were the one rabbitting on about the harmony of nature, stable ecosystems, how nature never wastes anything etc. This is mysticism, not science, and it posits human activity as malevolent and hostile to Gaia. No good backing away now. It’s what you said.
—-
Never once did I state that human activity was malevolent and hostile to “Gaia”, and never did I use the term “Gaia”. In fact, I hate the term Gaia when talking about the complexities of interrelated systems that maintain life on this planet. Did your parents not teach you it was wrong to lie about things, and especially wrong to lie about others actions?
R. Gates;
One more point to add to the lessons on farming from Johanna, JPeden and me. While you wail away about the web of life, and top soil being finite, we’re busy transforming land that will barely grow grass into rich soil that can produce grain and vegetables in abundance. What might have supported a handfull of goats can 10 or 15 years later provide food for thousands.
And here’s the most important part of that R. Gates. Without oil, it couldn’t be done. The horsepower it takes to drag even an 8 foot cultivator through clay based soil is immense. Without fossil fuels, it would take thousands of workers to accomplish what a single farmer with a small tractor can do. It would be cost prohibitive to build the soil in that fashion, and hence, it would never be done.
So take your harmony with nature bullsh*t and shove it. It is human effort and ingenuity that transforms barren land into productive land that feeds billions of people. Without human interferance into what nature provides, billions would starve.
The notion that we are somehow destroying nature to our detriment just doesn’t stand up. Oh we’re destroying nature all right. The reason we have billions of people on this planet, the vast bulk of which are well fed and live longer and healthier than any generation that came before them, is that we do not bow to nature.
We’re not animals unless we choose to be.
Choose what you will for yourself. Do not presume to choose for the rest of us.
Johanna said:
“Topsoil blowing away on a ploughed field has nothing to do with entropy, unless you are saying that the manmade crop field the soil came from is part of the natural universe, which it patently isn’t”
—-
Human activity is not part of the natural universe? If a manmade crop field is not part of the natural universe, which universe is it part of? You see, the distinction between “manmade” and ” natural” is a construct of the human mind, when in fact there is no division between you and the natural universe. Human activity, including plowing and planting fields obeys the law of increasing entropy in the universe for we are as much a part of the whole as everything else.
Davidmhoffer,
Nice description of the creation of fertile topsoil. Of course you know you’ve proven by this very description that it is a finite resource, as it certainly isn’t infinite ( at least not here on earth). When practicing organic based agriculture, the management of topsoil is a key concern, but of course, large scale non- organic farming relies more on petrochemical based fertilizers whereby the quality of topsoil becomes secondary. Perhaps this is the kind of farming you did.
As I understand it, one may be able to “talk the talk”, but unless they can “walk the walk”, meaning follow through, they they’re just blowing smoke. “Walk the talk” makes no sense.
R. Gates;
Perhaps this is the kind of farming you did.>>>
Stop. Now you are just being ignorant.
R. Gates;
large scale non- organic farming relies more on petrochemical based fertilizers whereby the quality of topsoil becomes secondary.>>>
Wrong. Any farming practice that treats topsoil as secondary results in exactly the erosion you were whining about earlier.
Davidmhoffer said:
“The notion that we are somehow destroying nature to our detriment just doesn’t stand up. Oh we’re destroying nature all right. The reason we have billions of people on this planet, the vast bulk of which are well fed and live longer and healthier than any generation that came before them, is that we do not bow to nature.”
———
What an odd rubric to use as a measurement of human success. “Billions” of people, living “longer” etc. It reminds me of those who judge their own success by quantity rather than quality. It is not how long someone lives, or how much money they have accumulated, or how big their portfolio is, or how big their house is, etc., but simply how we live our lives. So too, the success of species should not be judged by how many of us are living on this planet, but how we are living on this planet.
R. Gates;
Nice description of the creation of fertile topsoil. Of course you know you’ve proven by this very description that it is a finite resource, as it certainly isn’t infinite>>>>
For practical purposes it is infinite as it is possible to create more than we can use. If you want to define things based on the end of the universe when entropy runs out a few trillion years from now, well we all may as well lay down and die right now.
R. Gates;
You see, the distinction between “manmade” and ” natural” is a construct of the human mind>>>
In that case we can do whatever we want as any effect we have on your prescious web of life is just part of the natural universe. This hasn’t been a good day for you R. Gates, you’ve taken talking out of both sides of your mouth to whole new heights.
Jeff Alberts says:
December 23, 2011 at 10:58 pm
=========
Thanks for the clarification, and your contribution to society.
The post was about “sustainability”, care to comment ?
R. Gates;
Did your parents not teach you it was wrong to lie about things, and especially wrong to lie about others actions?>>>
What did your parents teach you? Did they teach you that when you make a bet and flat out lose, to welch? Did they teach you to take zero responsibility for your own actions? Did they teach you to pretend that when confronted with the cold hard facts of your own folly to wave your arms and try and redefine the bet?
Is that what they taught you? Or did you come up with these things all on your own?
I followed the discourse between you and Johanna. Frankly, you have stooped to new lows today.
Jeff Alberts says:
December 23, 2011 at 10:58 pm
And it’s nice to know that you “walk the walk” when it comes to personally protecting and sustaining yourself, (though you probably meant “walk the talk”),
As I understand it, one may be able to “talk the talk”, but unless they can “walk the walk”, meaning follow through, they they’re just blowing smoke. “Walk the talk” makes no sense.
——–
You need to get out more or really listen more carefully. Suggest you Google all three expressions: “walk the talk”, “walk the walk”, and ” talk the talk”. Walk the talk means your actions match your words, but walk the walk would mean your actions match your actions, which becomes a meaningless tautology– but perhaps that is what JPeden meant.
R. Gates;
What an odd rubric to use as a measurement of human success. “Billions” of people, living “longer” etc.>>>
Longer, healthier, bigger, stronger, faster, better educated… that’s an odd rubric? So you favour short, unhealthy lives filled with disease, famine, bigotry and violence?
Stop R. Gates, just stop.