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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Wendell Berry’s Collected Poems? I wouldn’t give up even one of my vintage Marvel comics for that. He ain’t no Will Rogers.
Can I just add my disgust about Gates’ sentiments about ‘quality over quantity’ of human life. This is the Sustainability agenda writ large and unapolegetic. Humans are a plague on the planet, Six out of seven of us shouldn’t be here. Since the people who can afford to feed themselves are the (mostly white) rich, guess who is in line for culling?
Advocating genocide (in practice) doesn’t seem to bother these people at all. Revolting. Yet, they claim that they are caring and the rest of us are ruthless capitalist destroyers.
Cognitive dissonance knows no bounds.
To A Physicist-
The problem of sustainability as administered by EPA and the NGOs is that it will be directed by the myth and sorcery. I have very little faith on anything sustainable being achieved by magical thinking. Lets use your soil loss concern as an example. EPA is considering a 45% reduction in nitrogen loading to the Mississippi River to save the Gulf of Mexico from Hypoxia and is further concerned by the dust and soil loss. The reality is the Nitrogen and sediment levels are unchanged or lower than they were 150 years ago.
Nitrogen levels were so high in “natural” prairie soils that the first domestic cattle regularly died from nitrogen poisoning. Wheat could not be grown until the 1920s because soil nitrogen levels were too high and one could literally tap potassium nitrate crystals out of a corn stalk in the late 19th century- a reason why farmer’s slept with one eye open as a single spark could cause thousands of acres to go up like a fuse. (A study by Mayo in 1895 found that corn stalks consisted of 18.8% potassium nitrate by dry weight.)
So lets look at what the prairies were like pre-contact. Some 100 to 150 million acres burned every year producing alkaline ash and driving massive amounts of particulates and reactive nitrogen into the atmosphere. (Those hazy days of Indian summer were smoke making the air quality better today than at any time prior to Europeans–(put that into your interstate transport rule pipe EPA and smoke it. If a 100,000 acre fire in MN caused Chicago to violate air standards 600 away what do you think the air was like when hundreds of millions of acres burned?). This alkaline ash was stomped into the earth and straw along with the dung from 50-60 million buffalo and 20 to 100 million antelope. The soil waterlogging conditions of the day were totally different causing the anoxic moist conditions fostering the explosion of nitrogen fixation which prefers an O2 deficient environment. (Tile draining of poor soil is the real agriculture problem- but that doesn’t fit the narrative) Consider 5 to 20% straw in waterlogged soils can produce 500 to 1000kgN/ha/yr. Remember that figure the next time someone talks about how much fertilizer we are adding. The repeated burning provided the needed alkalinity, destroyed the allopathic substances that typically inhibit N fixation and enhanced the bio-availability of P. Massive amounts of carbon and nitrogen as a result were captured by the soil and the reason it is often described as coal black. Some of these native prairie black clay loams have 16,000kgN/ha in the first 40in of soil. (See my earlier comment that the ecosystem operated in an entirely different stable state 150 years)
The earth was also being dug up by hundreds of millions of prairie dogs. The eastern mound ant was moving upwards of 14000kg of soil/ha/yr. And along with these terraformers was the Rocky Mountain locust whose last major swarm in the 1870s covered some 200,000 sq. mi and over 12 trillion bugs. (You can thank the farms for wiping this plague from us) Soil loss as a result was massive.Total suspended solids of the Mississippi at New Orleans were measured by the Am Geol Soc at over 800mg/l during the 1840s! And along with this soil were massive amounts of nitrogen making the waters hypertrophic. Amazingly, Barry Commoner used a Mississippi tributary (The Illinois) in 1970 to rail against the sediment and nitrogen pollution of modern man- despite the fact that both sediment and nitrogen were at record lows at the time he wrote his paper. (EPA lies to the public claiming we are losing wetlands to rising sea level related to climate change when the reality is we are losing them to a declining sediment load. How are we ever to fix problems when we misrepresent the cause?)
Environmental Science started with the myths fostered by Barry Commoner and Rachel Carlsen and we have never recovered. I no longer have any idea what world environmentalists are describing- because it seems we make it up as we go along to justify regulatory policy. EPA is directing the collapse of our energy economy and destroying untold wealth in the process – all justified by myth and misrepresentation while caring nothing about the very real problems of habitat loss and other solvable management issues. Sustainability is nothing more than the enforcement of the newest myth. The greatest threat to a better environment is the EPA and its NGO attack dogs in environmental movement.
Oh and the prairie- a totally human fire manipulated environment- now reverting back to forest because EPA makes the burning necessary for its survival nearly impossible. But lets not talk about that either because the myth is so much more appealing.
Pat, here are a couple of pre-Rachel Carson songs that you and I will hear with different minds and hearts. Folks can listen, and think for themselves, whether they would like this era to return .
philincalifornia says:
December 24, 2011 at 11:14 am
So R. Gates, you don’t want to admit you’re a trained scientist with zero peer-reviewed publications or what ?
——-
Yes, I don’t want to admit that since it is not true. I am not a trained scientist and hence, i have zero peer-reviewed literature.
Philincalifornia, the October 2011 Physics Today has a very thorough article, titled Science Controversies Past and Present, that discusses at-length many of the issues that skeptics are raising here on WUWT.
The Physics Today thesis and conclusion both are simple:
WUWT discussions relating to sustainability are in essence debates regarding “whether the planet will come out fine”, given that science has demonstrated a substantial risk that our planet will not “come out fine.”
A Physicist:
Here is some environmental math you may appreciate. The brown pelican was used as the poster animal for DDT. Here is the status report prepared by USFWS for Texas (10/13/70):
“It is estimated that pelican numbers declined by more than 80% in just 16 years, between 1919 and 1934. Even more damaging, however was the widespread use of DDT and similar insecticides beginning in the late 1940s”
So the populations declined by 80% in the 16 years before DDT however the following years “were even more damaging.” Can you say corrupted?
A Physicist- The discussions here are not about whether or not the planet will “come out fine” despite science having “demonstrated substantial risk.” The discussions are about the utter lack of science in climate science and anything else that touches the rotting corpse of environmentalism.
Its interesting you posted songs- because you do seem to be singing from the enviro hymnal.
Pat, we now have a preliminary understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which DDT and similar chemicals cause grave harm to children’s brains and to mammal, bird, and fish reproduction.
It turns out that Rachel Carson was entirely correct: these chemicals are d*mn toxic and d*mn persistent, and it was a d*mn foolish idea to spray them all over the planet indiscriminately.
A physicist,
And no comment that nitrogen and sediment losses are lower now than pre-Contact period. Or that the air is also better.
So no comment from you on the government math on DDT and pelican which found the birds declined from 5000 in 1918 to less than 200 in 1941 some 3 years before the first application of DDT- yet DDT was blamed for the birds decline?
You are talking to someone who played in the grey DDT fog trailed behind the mosquito control trucks most summer nights of his childhood.
And the paper you link is nothing more than the typical “more research needed.” How about one of my favorites:
•“Men who voluntarily ingested 35 mgs of DDT daily for nearly 2 years were carefully examined for 20 years and developed no adverse effects.” Hayes, W. 1956. JAMA 1994;162:890-897
Or these:
•” None of 35 workers heavily exposed to DDT (600 times the average U.S. exposure for 9 to19 years) developed cancer.”[Laws, ER. 1967. Arch Env Health 15:766-775]
• Primates fed 33,000 times the MDL was “inconclusive with respect to cancer” J. Cancer Res ClinOncol1999;125(3-4):219-25
“Our data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to DDT and PCBs increases the risk of breast cancer.” N EnglJ Med1997;337:1253-8
Tell the families of the children that died of malaria that they were saved from theoretical neurological disorders caused by DDT- I’m sure they will feel better.
What day is sustainability celebrated?
Pat Moffitt,
‘a physicist’ posted an obscure paper that says: These results highlight the impact of EDC on the developing nervous system and the need for more research in this area.
‘The need for more research’ = ‘Send us more grant money’. [And it should be noted that ±80% of all peer reviewed papers are eventually falsified.]
DDT is generally harmless [except to insects, particularly mosquitoes and bedbugs]. As you pointed out, DDT is extremely beneficial to African kids, who might otherwise contract malaria, with its very high mortality. And it’s interesting that DDT still has an adverse effect on mosquitoes despite their being exposed to it for close to a century. It appears that mosquitoes cannot build up an effective resistance to DDT.
There is nothing comparable to DDT regarding its harmless effect on the biosphere, outside of insect life. And as with demonizing CO2, the alarmist crowd is once again demonizing a compound that has been shown to be harmless and beneficial.
R. Gates;
Yes, I don’t want to admit that since it is not true. I am not a trained scientist and hence, i have zero peer-reviewed literature.>>>
Me too. Oddly, when we disagree on science though, you keep coming out wrong. Lack of formal training is no excuse for pontificating ad naseum on science you know nothing about and have demonstrated repeatedly that you know nothing about. Consider this thread alone, where in multiple examples you’ve been backed into corners by various commenters on your statements and have responded with either silence or an attempt to change the subject.
There was a time when I was of the belief that you were some sort of paid shill. I couldn’t think of another reason for you to come back again and again with still more nonsense and take a public drubbing for it. But having read your comment above advocating the elimination of 6 BILLION people in the grossly mistaken view that this would save the 0.01% of the population that dies of starvation per year, I now know what the real problem is.
You have a world view that would be shattered by confronting the folly of your belief system. So, rather than answer the arguments, or admit you are wrong, you simply avoid them.
I suggest you back off sir. Of all the comments you have made in this forum, the suggestion that 6 BILLION people ought to lose their lives to save 0.01% of the population from something that has NOTHING to with food supply levels is a whole new order of sick and disgusting, and a comment that will follow you from one thread to another until you admit you are wrong and apologize for making such a disgusting suggestion.
Pat, it’s telling that precisely zero of the articles you cite were looking for neurological or reproductive effects. Which makes zero sense, because after all, neither Rachel Carson nor anyone else argued that persistent pesticides caused cancer in wildlife, eh?
Your soil conservation citations are similarly cherry-picked and similarly miss-the-main point. In fact, it’s mighty hard (for me) to figure out *what* your main point is.
Most folks appreciate, upon a foundation that combines common sense with solid science, that productive soils are good and ought to be sustainably conserved, while the use of persistent toxic chemicals that spread everywhere is a bad idea and ought to be restricted.
Gates, words fail me. We grow so much more food per gallon of gas compared to a century ago it would seem almost encredulous. Wanna go back to the old ways? No can do. There is not enough energy to sustaine that kind of food production. I apologise for typing issues as I am using my phone for this. But your ignorance HAD to be addressed.
Horse drawn equipment puts tons more CO2 in the air than a fuel efficient tractor would. And the big ones make one pass to do the entire field, from the plow to the seeds in the ground. The addition of herbacides continues to save fuel as crop yeild is so much better than it used to be. If we ended that practice, we would have to use more fuel to plant more fields to make up for it. People with concrete under their feet should NOT comment on how to feed people. It just makes them look foolish.
Time and time again, the way to slow down population growth has been proven. Educate all females and provide good healthcare. Gates why are u not beating that drum?
R. Gates says:
December 25, 2011 at 3:57 am
philincalifornia says:
December 24, 2011 at 11:14 am
So R. Gates, you don’t want to admit you’re a trained scientist with zero peer-reviewed publications or what ?
——-
Yes, I don’t want to admit that since it is not true. I am not a trained scientist and hence, i have zero peer-reviewed literature.
======================================
OK, I concede. I think you phrased it as “I have had scientific training” on the thread where you said it.
A purported physicist – I have no idea what point of mine you were addressing with your appeal to the authority of someone else’s silly analogy. Comparison of the climate fraudsters with Galileo ?? Give me a break. Can you not think for yourself and see that the history of the development of each field puts the religion that is CAGW belief in the position of the Catholic Church, not vice versa.
My prediction for 2012. Kevin Trenberth to lobby all journal editors saying it’s a travesty that Conclusion sections come after Results and Discussion sections and would they please change their practices as climate science is too important blah blah blah, for the children blah blah blah.
Why don’t you show us some of that “overwhelming evidence” a physicist, instead of posting links to such drivel.
History tells us that in the end, the planet will probably come out fine. Whether science will is another matter.
Smoky,
A small but important point- some mosquitos are resistant to being killed by DDT but importantly none have overcome an aversion to DDT’s presence- its an awesome repellent. DDT is perfect for spraying onto bed nets or inside rural homes because the blood suckers are reluctant to enter or even alight. Its persistence is also an advantage to the habitants of remote areas that are not served by a Public health infrastructure that can replace the repellents ever few months
A Physicist-
If you think that an organic farm has no toxics you know very little about allelopathy. Just not worth it discussing this you- you have done no work in this field have you? I’m all for conservation what scares me is clueless people making decisions about subjects they don’t understand with the potential for consequences they cannot conceive.
Computers as bad as SUV’s?
“Most people don’t appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much CO2 as a sports utility vehicle,” said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization.
“Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable,” added St. Arnaud.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/07/10/green.internet.CO2/
When I was a little girl we had to watch out for ecoli in the well. Had to do with all that manure we spread. It got in the well water. When nonorganic fertilizer became available our well passed inspection every time.
“A physicist says:
December 25, 2011 at 5:33 am
Thesis: Reactions to the science of global warming have followed a similar course to those of other inconvenient truths from physics.”
The author missed the point. Einstein said it matter not how many scientists believe him wrong, it only took one to show Relativity was wrong. Relativity has never yet failed in any prediction it has made.
Climate Science made a prediction, that temperatures would continue to increase, and this increase would accelerate post 2000. This prediction was highly publicized by the IPCC as justification to regulate global CO2.
That prediction has been shown to be a failure. Argo has shown that there is no energy accumulating in the earth’s climate system. Thus, by the criteria accepted in all other sciences outside of Climate Science, AGW is a failed theory.
To set the record straight here on this beautiful Christmas Day– despite the contentions of some, never once have I advocated for the elimination of 6 Billion people, or 3 Billion, or even 1 person. But in terms of the topic of this thread– sustainability, and the notion that nothing is sustainable, here is the summary of my perspective:
1) Ulimately nothing is sustainable as the law of entropy will eventually reduce our presently inhabited universe to a cold place where there is no useful energy left, reaching a state of maximum entropy.
2) We must expend energy to hold off entropy in a localized way, but that use of energy always increases the net entropy in the universe. When we reduce entropy locally, we increase it somewhere else.
3) The massive rise human civilization over the past century has been made possible by one primary thing– the use of fossil fuels. To the extent these are limited, is the extent to which our current mode of expanding and caring for the present 7+ billion humans is in jeapardy, and thus, we will need to find alternative energy sources. Humans are very smart and very adaptable, so I have high hopes we will be able to do this.
4) My own personal value system is such that I don’t measure the “success” of a life, or of a species by how many there are of us, or even how long we live, but rather how we live. When you come to the end of your life, and people reflect back upon you, it won’t be how much money you had or even how long you lived, but how you lived along the journey of your life. Even more to the point, (and a point quite on the mark for this Christmas Day), you will only be remembered for the actions you took for others. Many 20 year olds who die young are remembered far more fondly then 70 year olds after they die because of the impact the 20 year old made on others in their lives. That impact had nothing to do with money or fame or riches, but simply the impact on others. So, as a species, looking at the impact we make upon this planet, my own personal belief system is such that just because there are 7 Billion of us doesn’t in itself mean something virtuous, but rather it is how, we as a species live upon this earth and what we will leave for the others to follow in our footsteps.
Merry Christmas, and remember, if you lie about what people say, Santa will put a lump of coal in your stocking next year!
ahh…the Progressive Utopia, I wonder sometimes why people just don’t get it!
“THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS”
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.”
– George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 2
Good Neighbor Policy
Following respectful and good-faith dialogue with members of the local community which has been rebuilding since the trauma of 9/11, Occupy Wall Street hereby announces the following Good Neighbor Policy:
OWS has zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol anywhere in Liberty Plaza;
Zero tolerance for violence or verbal abuse towards anyone;
Zero tolerance for abuse of personal or public property.
OWS will limit drumming on the site to 2 hours per day, between the hours of 11am and 5pm only.
OWS encourages all participants to respect health and sanitary regulations, and will direct all participants to respectfully utilize appropriate off-site sanitary facilities.
OWS will display signage and have community relations and security monitors in Liberty Plaza, in order to ensure awareness of and respect for our guidelines and Good Neighbor Policy.
OWS will at all times have a community relations representative on-site, to monitor and respond to community concerns and complaints.
October 13, 2011
Occupy Wall Street
http://www.nycga.net/resources/good-neighbor-policy/
Would it be possible to build a windmill from scratch using only the energy produced by another similar windmill?