New at Reason

February 12, 2008

Should you give up your iPhone? Your cat toys? That extra car in the driveway? Would that really save the planet? reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey challenges the idea that some things are more unnecessary than others.

Comments

|2.12.08 @ 12:35PM|#

Never present facts to people that want to change how others live.Many of the people who say these things are racist at heart.M. Sanger,the founder of planed parenthood,wanted to keep down the numbers of the 'brown people'.Many envio's have stated that plague and starvation is needed to thin down mankind.I have this insane belief that with the rule of law,property rights and man's ingenuity things will be fine.

Brandybuck|2.12.08 @ 12:38PM|#

This guy down the street has more stuff than I do, including this big giant neon yellow Hummer. THIS CAN'T GO ON FOREVER!

fyodor|2.12.08 @ 12:39PM|#

Overconsumption is when other people consume more than I do!

fyodor|2.12.08 @ 12:40PM|#

Over enthusiasm for blog commenting is when someone beats me to making a point on a blog comment thread!

KipEsquire|2.12.08 @ 12:41PM|#

Charles Handy's "unnecessary junk" commentary (mentioned in the Times piece Bailey links to), which was meant to introduce himself to the Drucker School of Business community, is in fact completely antithetical to Drucker's theories.

|2.12.08 @ 12:48PM|#

I'd be happy with 1.5 billion fewer bastards driving slow in the fast lane when I am trying to get somewhere

Chuck|2.12.08 @ 12:50PM|#

pistoffnick-

It will take more than that. There are at least 2.5 billion of them here in south florida alone.

|2.12.08 @ 12:59PM|#

Achieving a sustainable and equitable global solution is clearly incompatible with a worldwide replication of U.S. lifestyles or even the somewhat less damaging ecological impacts of the lifestyles of other industrialized countries.

Translation, I can't figure it out so it must be impossible.

|2.12.08 @ 1:05PM|#

Unnecessary Things

What a retarded concept. You know what's unnecessary? Half-wit enviro douche bags, trying to impoverish the entire human race with their uber ignorant theories.

fyodor|2.12.08 @ 1:11PM|#

J sub D

The part I like about that quote is the word, "replication." As if he's imagining a world in which nothing changes except the Chinese drive SUV's. Nevermind that the US will have moved on to not being like the US is now during the time this takes to happen, among other things....

|2.12.08 @ 1:13PM|#

This reminds me of the people that love their beer and NASCAR Busch series but rag on those who smoke pot or take HGH.I'm ok,you suck.

Kolohe|2.12.08 @ 1:14PM|#

This comment is an unnecesary thing.

|2.12.08 @ 1:22PM|#

Another one of those things that only the government can do, like policing and firefighting. Here comes the Necessary Czar and Department of Homeland Necessity.

Another Phil|2.12.08 @ 1:25PM|#

Come for my cat toys and I swear I'll hide under the bed for an hour.

|2.12.08 @ 1:39PM|#

Kolohe | February 12, 2008, 1:14pm | #

This comment is an unnecesary thing.

No, it's not. If it was completely unnecessary, the tag would have read Click 'n' Learn.

JLE|2.12.08 @ 1:47PM|#

Keep it light enough to travel.

|2.12.08 @ 1:48PM|#

Lovely post. As if E O Wilson had never lived and the term "sustainable" had never been defined. No.. seriously Ronald, what about the ecology now that we have once again stressed that the economy has been growing?

Has the ecological footprint really remained the same or even declined? Or are you merely proud that you have found some out of context examples that imply it did?

Of course market measures are best to protect our life-enabling environment - but that does not give any indication about the State of the Union dear chap.

Albeit agricultural productivity has been increasing since the 60s thanks to the "chemical" revolution - it has not done so for the last decade. What has been increasing is soil erosion. What has been literally exploding is species extinction.

We are 6.7 billion now, almost 7, and you argue that we will be only 8 and not at least 9 by 2050?

I love your optimism when it comes to the power of market measures versus statist approaches. But I fear that your ecological understanding barely exceeds that of say Mr Lomborg. At least you know better economics.

D.A. Ridgely|2.12.08 @ 2:01PM|#

I, for one, am willing to pay to see Mr. Bailey in one of those linked 1970s leisure suits (although, strictly speaking, that would be a case of recycling) and a pair of those Pink Juicy Couture sunglasses!

Zeb|2.12.08 @ 2:03PM|#

Unfortunately, just because some environmentalist, leftist types want to change the way we live, doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong about ecology and sustainability. There is certainly a legitimate debate to be had here, but you cannot just dismiss the everything other side says because they want to interfere with people's free choice.
I happen to think both that many people do over consume and pursue unnecessary stuff to a fault, but I also think that the government shouldn't force a solution on us. But that doesn't mean I can't loathe the sight of someone driving a Hummer.

|2.12.08 @ 2:07PM|#

I happen to think both that many people do over consume and pursue unnecessary stuff to a fault,...

Beans and rice for dinner tonight?

Matt|2.12.08 @ 2:09PM|#

Im looking forward to the property rights arguments here at reason when this garbage island coalesces into a livable mass. In the meantime: Keep on buying and building your future continent one plastic bag at a time!

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html

|2.12.08 @ 2:13PM|#

I think the easiest way to solve this and other crises is to have a "Logan's Run" solution for 65 year olds.

I think 20 years should clean up most of these problems, then we can end the program.

|2.12.08 @ 2:21PM|#

As I get older I am trying to reduce the amount of "stuff" I have. In the future I would like to be able to move out of my domicile with just one truck (pickup truck) load or less.

|2.12.08 @ 2:48PM|#

44 year old | February 12, 2008, 2:13pm |

I think the problem will be cleared up in 21 years, then we can stop.

|2.12.08 @ 2:51PM|#

If something is "not sustainable" it will end on its own, without a bunch of luddite dogooders hastening its end. Environmentalists always assume that they have perfect information on what is and what is not "sustainable". If you talked to them 20 years ago, most of them would have told you that it is not sustainable for China to have a GNP in the trillions of dollars and for millions in the developing world to own cars. Yet here we are today and that has happened and it looks pretty damned sustainable. Paul Erlich claimed that millions of Americans would be starving by the 1980s because our lifestyle was of course "un-sustainable". In one of those great historical ironies, the same number of Americans whom Erlich had predicted would be starving in 1985, were overweight and actively dieting in 1985.

I would have one thing to say to Zeb and Pottish above when they wax philosophical about the sustainability of their neighbors Hummer; you and your ilk have been dead wrong about everything for the last 40 years, so you might want to learn a little humility and stop bitching so much.

T|2.12.08 @ 3:07PM|#

I'll point the ugly side of determining what is and is not necessary for your neighbors to have. It's but a short step to deciding the neighbors themselves aren't necessary. I mean, really, who needs all these trailer trash rednecks? All they do is clutter up the court and welfare systems. They certainly don't lead a sustainable, environmentally conscious lifestyle. Why not just use 'em for fertilizer?

In addition, I love how the western enviro hippies think they're gonna tell everybody "no nice stuff for you!" and make it stick. Good luck with that.

fyodor|2.12.08 @ 3:08PM|#

But that doesn't mean I can't loathe the sight of someone driving a Hummer.

Loathe whatever you like. I think Hummers are kinda dumb and obnoxious myself. But if you're gonna call them "unnecessary," then answer me this: unnecessary for what? To live?? Most of what we do and have is unnecessary for that.

Bottom line: make your value judgments of others' lives, just know they're no more than your own personal value judgements.

|2.12.08 @ 3:08PM|#

but you cannot just dismiss the everything other side says because they want to interfere with people's free choice.

Sure I can. And will.

fyodor|2.12.08 @ 3:15PM|#

Hugo,

It's sad that species are becoming extinct, but it's not likely a problem beyond that, i.e., that some of us find it sad. If and when it seriously impacts food production, it can probably be dealth with then. Meantime, if you're concerned about species decline, best to try to fight that with incentives rather than to interfere with people's lives because they don't share your (and perhaps my own) concerns.

|2.12.08 @ 3:52PM|#

John,

I agree with you that if something is unsustainable - it usually ends on its own. That is the whole point of the discussion. We do not want to end?

If a family household borrows too much and risks bankruptcy - we do not use this logic?

In this case we are not talking about this or that species that has reached an evolutionary dead end. We do not talk about a bad TV show and speculate over the possibility of a second season. Species go extinct every hour.

We are talking about "the bottleneck" that stems from the fact that earth and resources are finite - yet we have grown from millions into billions over night and that we use up many more resources per capita than only decades ago - let alone centuries.

While it is true that many things are becoming more efficient than earlier technologies - cars, refrigerators and computers consume a lot less energy than have previous models - this is not an argument in itself.

Quoting some worst case scenario which has not materialized of one person in the the 80s - is also no argument.

Unfortunately - most predictions of the 80s regarding population and consumption growth, soil erosion, species loss and total number of people who hunger have materialized. The percentage of people in poverty is lower than ever but at the same time - there are more poor people who go hungry than ever in nominal terms. Unless you are communist utilitarian - the individual does matter.

So the real question when you are badly in dept is not - can you make money or more money - but rather - can you make enough money fast enough to not go bankrupt.

Yes - cars, computers and household electronics are getting more efficient and so is energy usage in general. But does this really offset the other negative trends?

What is the State of the Union? Yes - Ronald is right to point out that better policies could reverse the trend of depleting the seas - especially market policies. But how bad is it today and how much time do we have to implement these policies?

When it comes to species extinction - we cannot recover lost species that might be needed by the ecosystem to function. We can recover quantity but not quality (not in any meaningful way to the human point of view).

There is absolutely not point in applying your logic and also Ronald's without mentioning the other 2/3 of the cake. Right now - the way we consume in the West is not sustainable if practiced by more. We all agree that if only markets would invent a harmless clean energy source - this would help a lot. But this too is not the full picture.

Yes - we could all drive efficient cars, even hummers, and use computer in theory but not in practice. Today's cars are not yet efficient enough. There is reason to hope because at least the theory works out.

Other consumption goods like animal products are not so straight forward. Animals, as living individuals, consume land, food, water, air and produce manure and emissions etc. If one day 100% of energy demand was covered by clean fusion and despite progress in stem-cell engineering etc - we do not even know in theory how to feed the world by Western standards with animal products - let alone in practice.

Why would I risk my children's survival on something that might be potentially maybe be invented in the future - when there is a simple low-tech solution present today... hmm.. this is actually a strange debate to have. Humility? Bitching? I take it you are single John, think you will either live for ever or not get 30 and do not have many loved ones? A bit of a nihilist as well? Good for you - you successfully beat your own genes - got to admire that somehow!

Markets work - but only if transparency exists. It does not exist. That is not the fault of environmentalists who point out that the ecosystem is in dire shape - it is the fault of policy makers and especially of those who write about policy makers.

When somebody is in debt - people who point out the need for additional income and savings are not necessarily out to tell people how to live. They are informing and advocating. Your state and politicians tell you how to live when they claim that marriage is a state function, when they tell you this or that.

There are right-market approaches to national securtiy, health care and the environment as there are also left-statist approaches - but that does not mean that we have not borrowed from the future and that the environment is not in bad shape.

Currently - there are mostly bad or no policies in place to protect the environment. Almost none that show ecological understanding and only some that at least apply economic reasoning. Cato and Reason usually do not write articles like:

The goverment has just increased subsidies, duties and taxes and increased spending but it does not matter because in theory - if they had not done that - everything would be fine. Jolly good days ahead...

Jennifer|2.12.08 @ 4:08PM|#

I, for one, am willing to pay to see Mr. Bailey in one of those linked 1970s leisure suits (although, strictly speaking, that would be a case of recycling) and a pair of those Pink Juicy Couture sunglasses!

What a coincidence--I was just thinking I'd pay to not have such a sight scorch my delicate eyeballs.

|2.12.08 @ 4:12PM|#

"Why would I risk my children's survival on something that might be potentially maybe be invented in the future - when there is a simple low-tech solution present today... hmm.. this is actually a strange debate to have. Humility? Bitching? I take it you are single John, think you will either live for ever or not get 30 and do not have many loved ones? A bit of a nihilist as well? Good for you - you successfully beat your own genes - got to admire that somehow!"

You are a moron who has no concept of cost. You act like the "solutions" to makes things sustainable come with no cost. Yes I am married and anything but nihilistic. I am not going to trade away future generations' prosperity and freedom on the shuck jive show of environmental alarmists who have been wrong about everything for over 40 years. Further, the only reason people are hungry today is because of their horrible governments. Monsters like Mugabe and Chavez who destroy the ability of their people to feed themselves have nothing to do with sustainability. That is the source of hunger and poverty not western prosperity.

You completely missed my point. The fact is you assume that everything is unsustainable but offer no evidence of its truth beyond blind faith. The fact is that environmentalism is nothing but a way for you and those like you to indulge your busybody and sanctimonious urges. You and people like you are a direct threat to the freedom and prosperity of mankind. Environmentalism has already killed millions in the name of banning pesticides and if not stopped will kill millions more as they campaign against further advances in the green revolution and genetically modified foods. I don't see how you and people like you don't choke to death from all of the blood splashing on your hands.

|2.12.08 @ 5:04PM|#

Mr. Bailey has a habit painting rosy pictures to make point, but the reality is different.
Every year, 14 million children under the age of 5 die of preventable diseases. Every day, almost 40,000 children die of malnutrition.
One out of three children on this planet are malnourished.

I'm not blaming the affluent West for these conditions, but it's not quite as rosy as Mr. Bailey describes.

LarryA|2.12.08 @ 5:27PM|#

Perhaps we buy "unnecessary things" with which to entertain and enlighten ourselves.

Yeah! More Better Toys!

Achieving a sustainable and equitable global solution is clearly incompatible with a worldwide replication of U.S. lifestyles or even the somewhat less damaging ecological impacts of the lifestyles of other industrialized countries.

I.e. Americans consume too much. What he discounts is that the U.S. also produces more. In fact, last time I checked, we produced a greater percentage of the GDP than we consumed.

But that doesn't mean I can't loathe the sight of someone driving a Hummer.

And I like Hummers better than the Prious, with all its exotic metals and landfill-clogging batteries.

Every day, almost 40,000 children die of malnutrition. One out of three children on this planet are malnourished.

Where? In the U.S.? Or are the vast majority of starving people living and dying in countries with governments that have the power to regulate what their people "need?"

I actually had a self-labeled socialist tell me, with a straight face, that if all the great capitalist grain-producing countries of the world would convert to socialism they would share their bounty with the starving people in socialist countries and end world hunger.

I spent half an hour trying to point out that if socialism worked the socialist countries wouldn't be starving and eyeing the capitalist surpluses. Then I gave up. He had a bad case of ear-lock.

Kdog|2.12.08 @ 5:52PM|#

I don't think that anyone has seriously proposed that the current lifestyles of people worldwide won't change at all over time. The parts of them that are "unsustainable" will become practiced less over time. Other aspects of our lifestyles will be practiced even more.

How will the "unsustainable" parts be practiced less over time? Well, even without government intervention, if a scarce resource becomes scarcer, it also becomes more expensive, thus prompting people to use less of it. We will see this over time in the oil market, although at the moment we are doing fine.

Simultaneously, of course, consumption of products that require little or at least less of the resources become scarce will become more common.

The beauty of it is, no person or organization needs to manage this transition. It will happen pretty spontaneously. Interfering with the transition (say, but subsidizing resources as they become more scarce) will ultimately be quite counterproductive.

I fully expect the coming generations to experience a life as much better than mine as mine was to my ancestors.

Kdog|2.12.08 @ 5:55PM|#

Oh, a quick comment on malnutrition. Almost everyone in the world could potentially have a better diet than they do today. The cutoff point between being "malnourished" and "not malnourished" is actually surprising arbitrary.

|2.12.08 @ 6:07PM|#

Ha! A vintage polyester 1970's disco suit such as those you referenced here: http://www.dressthatman.com/cat-SUIT-disco.htm isn't being churned out for the masses, it's a piece of history. A throw back to decadent times, and a damn good time to some who never lived in the period. In fact, wearing vintage clothing is more environmentally conscious than all of the needless fashion I find at the mall. No doubt you were wearing your polyester 70's pants a bit too tight when you wrote the article.

Andy Revkin|2.12.08 @ 7:47PM|#

Some artful cherrypicking, Ron.

Here's just one example of how you cite an expert when he suits your thesis, but ignore him when he doesn't. In the same paper by Jesse Ausubel that you cite for agriculture and forestry data, he goes on to predict a world with 10 billion people.

So you trust him on ag and forests, but don't trust him on population?

Ausubel: "Because humans already number more than 6 billion and we are heading for 10 billion in the new century, we already have a Faustian bargain with technology. Having come this far with technology, we have no road back."

Frankly, I trust Jesse on just about everything, although he would be the first to admit that as long as there's no disincentive to cutting down tropical forests, there'll be no reason for people to start planting hi-tech bioengineered supertrees any time soon.

Those forests remain a lot more like the global fisheries (bluefin tuna) you would love to see tradable quotas for. Those quotas work for a defined fishery like halibut in Alaska.

But I'll happily do a Dot Earth post to alert the world when you come up with a way to get the EU, US, Japan, etc, to agree to an ironclad quota system for Atlantic bluefin.

And a question for your audience: How many hours did you work last week? (The last time I met someone working a true 40-hour workweek was when I was bagging groceries as a teenager at the local Star Market.)

|2.12.08 @ 8:25PM|#

"And a question for your audience: How many hours did you work last week?"

25, asshole. And then another 40 for my pleasure and to piss you off.

Who cares what you perceive to be the "true" workweek?

|2.12.08 @ 8:31PM|#

I'm just amazed that lefties and eco-freaks aren't just a bit more bemused by sharing Malthus' bed. Especially considering he was such a randy old cout.

Mark Plus|2.12.08 @ 9:10PM|#

For some reason it escapes libertarians' notice that Americans consume so much because the welfare state has artificially raised our time preference for money. If we ever got to the conjectured "ownership society" where everyone regardless of income had to assume complete financial responsibility for him- or herself without any prospect of receiving income redistribution from the state, then personal consumption would decline down to minimum needed to sustain human life with the rest going into savings.

Mark Bahner|2.12.08 @ 10:31PM|#

"Here's just one example of how you cite an expert when he suits your thesis, but ignore him when he doesn't. In the same paper by Jesse Ausubel that you cite for agriculture and forestry data, he goes on to predict a world with 10 billion people."

You mean there are people who are right on everything? Who are they?

And what difference does it make whether the population peaks at 8 billion, or goes to 10 billion?

"Those forests remain a lot more like the global fisheries (bluefin tuna) you would love to see tradable quotas for. Those quotas work for a defined fishery like halibut in Alaska.

But I'll happily do a Dot Earth post to alert the world when you come up with a way to get the EU, US, Japan, etc, to agree to an ironclad quota system for Atlantic bluefin."

The solution to getting more Atlantic bluefin is the same solution as getting more corn. Plant bluefin. There's no insurmountable reason why the "planters" of bluefin can't be identified and compensated for their efforts.

As the saying goes, both humans and foxes eat chickens. But more foxes mean less chickens, while more humans mean more chickens.

There's no insurmountable reason the same can't be true for bluefin tuna.

Mark Bahner|2.12.08 @ 10:41PM|#

"The percentage of people in poverty is lower than ever but at the same time - there are more poor people who go hungry than ever in nominal terms."

And your source for this is whom? Someone who is not aware of the great famine in China in the 1958-1961 period, apparently:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7225/1619

|2.12.08 @ 11:17PM|#

Hi Andy: Thanks very much for joining the discussion, but "cherrypicking?" That seems a bit unfair. First, I linked to Ausubel's article on the Great Reversal to show his data on water usage and of course, any reader could also read his evaluation of population trends in an article he wrote 6 years ago. With regard to future population growth, citing data and trends that disagree with Holdren (9 billion you say though I couldn't find that figure in his AAAS address) and, yes, even Ausubel, is not cherrypicking, it's offering other data and analyses for consideration. Surely, you didn't "cherrypick" when you failed to cite demographers who disagree with Holdren et al.?

As far as disincentives to cutting down tropical forests, the chief one would be to give property rights to the people who live in them, not to corrupt government officials who (1) sell them to loggers who bribe them, and/or (2) look the other way when ranchers and farmers attack the locals and clear them. Even the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment starkly highlights the fact in that nearly all of the ecosystem services identified as deteriorating are common-pool resources, e.g., freshwater, fisheries, tropical forests, the atmosphere. Regulations and quotas have their place in protecting resources, but institutionally we know that private property works really well at providing incentives for people to protect and improve resources.

As for establishing a quota on bluefin tuna, as you know, the problem again is an institutional one--as a pelagic species assigning property rights to tuna--which has worked so well in coastal fisheries in Iceland, New Zealand, and Alaska--is hard to do. A quota may be the only way to do that, but then who will pay the costs of monitoring it.

So frankly I believe that the only way to save wild bluefin is if bluefin "farming" eventually drives the price down so far that it makes it too expensive for fishers to chase wild ones around the ocean.

Finally, how about a longbet on future population growth? We'd need to work out the details, but something like world population in 2050 will be only 8 billion? I'd say yes, and you'd say, no. $1,000? Let's talk if you're interested.

|2.12.08 @ 11:53PM|#

Someone mentioned something about fitting their apartments' stuff into one truck load. Tried that with my condo, but then my relatives tried to divest themselves of all their crap onto me. GAH!

anyway, I found this at Treehugger.com:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/casulo_an_entir.php
It's all-your-basic-crap-in-a-box. Just need clowns in there too....Ninja Clowns

Kolohe|2.13.08 @ 12:23AM|#

I.e. Americans consume too much. What he discounts is that the U.S. also produces more. In fact, last time I checked, we produced a greater percentage of the GDP than we consumed.

um, I'm on the same side as you in the overall argument here, but this is simply not true.

|2.13.08 @ 12:28AM|#

Funny story:
Out for a walk on lunch break. I pass a vehicle stylized with faux snake skin paint job labeled 'Green machine'. It's biodiesel burning HUMVEE (a real one, not a Hummer). It's idling. half an hour later I walk past it again, still idling. GAH!

|2.13.08 @ 12:34AM|#

WRT Article, I amgoiong to take beef with one small aspect. the water paragraph:
"And what about water? Americans are using less water per capita too. Water withdrawals peaked in 1980 and have been flat since. All kinds of innovative techniques for stretching freshwater supplies are being developed. An example of that is the low-cost drip irrigation systems designed by International Development Enterprises that can reduce the cost of irrigation in poor countries from about $6,000 per acre to about $37. In addition, strides are being made in developing seawater agriculture."

You, Ron B., are making this statement without the qualification of evident changes in precipitation and snow pack melt rates, nor the extensive water subsidies taking place. Will water saving innovations be implemented fast enough to save Lake Mead and other aquifers/resevoirs?

|2.13.08 @ 1:59AM|#

hmm.. appologies to Ron, that was a little too strong. I should have wrote, 'Ron B. seems to be making this statement...'.

|2.13.08 @ 7:02AM|#

Ron

Did you just suggest Tuna farming as an ecological solution? You are aware that aqua farming is slightly worse than factory farms and that the UN has held one conference after another regarding this ecological and ECONOMICAL challenge. Of course factory farms produce cheaper meat than organic free-range - BUT THAT IS THE POINT of the WHOLE environmental discussion.

Markets CANNOT work because there is no transparency regarding the ecological costs. And you are suggesting tuna farming.

You are aware that Tuna are carnivores? You are aware that based on simply math and physics - you cannot be very efficient when you eat high on the food chain?

You are aware that species extinction is not about the tuna itself. Catching and farming it causes thousands of OTHER species to go extinct. To quote E O Wilson - the tuna itself might not be a pillar species for the eco-system - but some other organism might. Frogs maybe be essential for example.

Generally speaking we should treat the ecology like the economy - as free from intervention as possible. Claiming to be a free market economists while suggesting tuna farming is a strange animal. Like somebody claiming to be conservative but living and liking big government?

Ron - please please please read some basic biology, ecology and evolution. It is very different than math, physics, accounting etc. It is much much closer to economics - only a bit more complicated as economics is only a tiny subset of biology.

You writings and career will benefit tremendously when you vaguely learn what it is you are actually writing about.

The first step would be to explain to your readers and to yourself - why you use one logic for the economy and utterly opposite reasoning for the ecology. Your latest article reads like the homework of young GWB or Dick Cheney. As if Adam Smith invisible hand had not existed long before humans. As if markets had not existed long long before humans etc. Are you maybe a bit a Christian supremacists who really thinks that the world and the natural laws were created with and for men? Do you maybe believe that the world was indeed created in Mesopotamia about 6000 years ago at 9am in the morning? When it comes to nature - you write as if this was your intellectual background and I know that you can do better.

|2.13.08 @ 10:34AM|#

The fundamental issue with this concept of "unnecessary things" is who is going to decide what is "necessary", and what basis are they going to use for that determination?Giving this power to a government is basically handing them your life. In contrast to the western philosophy of encouraging people to live full lives, by providing more goods and services, even in socialist societies, the environmentalists want to limit goods and services, to return people by force, if necessary, to a subsistence existence.

D.A. Ridgely|2.13.08 @ 11:10AM|#

You writings and career will benefit tremendously when you vaguely learn what it is you are actually writing about.

Learning English can be helpful, too.

|2.13.08 @ 12:16PM|#

One of the most exiting new trends that will cut back on a whole mess of raw resources and waste is media downloads. Within a few years, all those DVD's and CD's will be almost completely unnecessary thanks to iTunes and other download sources. Hooray for technology!

Mark Bahner|2.13.08 @ 12:49PM|#

Hi Ron:

You write, "Finally, how about a longbet on future population growth? We'd need to work out the details, but something like world population in 2050 will be only 8 billion? I'd say yes, and you'd say, no. $1,000? Let's talk if you're interested."

I think there's a better bet (or bets). Instead of betting on number of people, why not bet on the *conditions* of those people's lives, e.g., world per-capita GDP, world life expectancy at birth, or world emissions of air pollutants? (By "pollutants," I mean such real pollutants as SO2, NOx, particulates, mercury, and so on.) Y'all could also bet on *concentrations* of air pollutants...e.g., of cities with over 1 million in population in 2050, will the 10 most-polluted in 2050 be less or more polluted than the 10 most-polluted in 2007, based on ambient air pollution concentration measurements?

My guess is that Andy Revkin won't be interested on betting against human beings being better off in 2050. I think he knows they will be.

Mark Bahner|2.13.08 @ 12:51PM|#

"You are aware that species extinction is not about the tuna itself. Catching and farming it causes thousands of OTHER species to go extinct."

How is that? Please name 10 or more species you think will go extinct if tuna are caught and farmed.

|2.13.08 @ 1:16PM|#

We have many choices as far as the unnecessary things go. Far too many perhaps. But, freedom of choice and having the funds to allow such things is a personal freedom that I personally wouldn't want to give up. Oh, and thanks for the link to DressThatMan.com! Now, I know where to get the grooviest clothes for that "unnecessary" 70's party I'll be attending.

|2.13.08 @ 4:28PM|#

Hugo: This thread is likely dead, but where do you think the ecologists got all of the metaphors that guide their thinking?

But let's take the case of tuna--they are carnivores--they eat other fish. Currently, wild fish are caught to feed farmed tuna which depletes those fisheries. So far so good. But have you thought about farming the fish that you feed to tuna? Say by feeding them soy grown on land? The ecological problem of declining fisheries exists because of malfunctioning human institutions--lack of property rights in this case which makes people bear the costs and reap the benefits of their actions. Common pool resources get overexploited because the costs are not borne by the same people who reap the benefits. Again regulations and quotas may work (although the experience of trying to use quotas to in the American East coast and Gulf coast fisheries has not worked), but changing incentives is more likely to.

|2.13.08 @ 4:49PM|#

Mark

How is that? Please name 10 or more species you think will go extinct if tuna are ... farmed.

Peter, Ingrid and Jessica for example? Also follow the link called frog above please - it is not frogs that we farming and yet magically...

You know why the rain forest is disappearing and with many species - many of which have not even been named yet?

It is not for expensive furniture and it is not for healthy soy milk... no no no.. you don't love me aaany more....now..

it is because we clear the woods and the species for... pasture and mono-agriculture for....? Where does the long shadow come from? What is implied by this beautiful metaphor?

Now imagine the same not on land and with mammals and birds but with fish. 70% of the earth is water - in many cases we have already depleted it more than the land.

In the case of land animals - most come from factory farms which are not sustainable ecologically as John Hopkins University has claimed for long. When it comes to fish - only half of all come from farms. Demanding more fish farms because wild catch has disappeared is like switching from morphium to heroin.

Apes are usually perfectly capable of living healthy lives without eating (sea) creatures. We might have evolved over millions of years to eat whales but that does not mean...

We are better off watching movies, partying, dancing to music, reading books and magazines, playing, doing sports, flirting, having sex etc than trying to catch the last fish on earth?

What we perceive as useless and needless is often not so useless. What we perceive we need (eg animal products) is often not essential for survival but has taken the role of a substituted drug or hobby? I am curious if future and past generations would call gluttony a hobby or a useful activity? I rather get the new Mac Air pronto and download some movies, music and blog around. Apple has made some great progress when it comes to recycling and so can you.

Mark Bahner|2.13.08 @ 5:15PM|#

"One of the most exiting new trends that will cut back on a whole mess of raw resources and waste is media downloads. Within a few years, all those DVD's and CD's will be almost completely unnecessary thanks to iTunes and other download sources. Hooray for technology!"

One really remarkable thing I saw in the latest issue of Popular Science was a cell-phone-size device that has lasers and a micromirror. It can project light onto a surface. Right now it works with an 8x10 inch surface in daylight, and something like 100x100 in total darkness. But they're working to make it even brighter.

It seemed to me that such a device could end up being like a home movie projector. Just pull down a screen from your ceiling, and watch home movies from a device that is the size of a cell phone. That would be pretty amazing. You wouldn't even need a TV using plasma, LED, or OLED. None of those three(except perhaps the OLED) is very portable. But in this way, a person could have a TV set in each room, just by having a pull-down screen in the ceiling, or a carry-around screen.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/20/hands-on-with-texas-instruments-cellphone-projector/

|2.13.08 @ 5:20PM|#

Ron

I didn't see your post in time and have spend my time answering to Mark's call.

Regarding your example - feeding soy to fish. What if we ate the soy ourselves? I am speaking economically here as I have made the ecological case above.

What if we did not give baby cows soy replacement milk in order to take their baby cow milk ourselves? From an economical point of view - would that not be better than pouring $280 billion of incentives for to private farmers?

After all - land feed for fish causes the strangest things - a desperate and recent UN summit reports?

Hillary and not even Marx or Stalin would have mingled with a free market that has evolved over millions of years like that? Why do we have to intervene with nature needlessly at every step - why does every step need to be towards more micor-management and towards more "regulations" and not less.

Fish eating soy could not have been thought of by Stalin's Nature Transformation Plan with all the Lamarckian logic in the world?

Last but not least I would like to quote Bill Evans, Vice President of Mariculture Systems, Inc., a salmon-farming company:

"We don't take what Mother Nature throws at us. This is a factory for fish."

The market is not a factory. The market is not a machine. The market is made of free agents. Free evolution. Stable inequililbira.

I agree that lack of property rights have often represented bad externalities. But that is, as argued not the whole picture.

Certain consumption is not sustainable on ecological grounds - even if it were regulated by a cultural market. A cultural market is not the same as a biological market - the cultural market must follow the laws of nature and not the other way around.

I am with you when you, as I do, fight against subsidizing pollutants rather than taxing them. I am with you when it comes to allowing the market to price water, land and food and not governments and lobby groups. But I am not with you when it comes to the ecology because there I would apply the same logic as we both do for the economy.

I would be a non-interventionist which does not mean isolationist.

PS to Mark: E O Wilson on why we cannot name the species that go extinct and some afterthoughts on Lomborg's biggest educational deficit.

Mark Bahner|2.13.08 @ 10:42PM|#

Hugo,

After you claimed that, "You are aware that species extinction is not about the tuna itself. Catching and farming it causes thousands of OTHER species to go extinct."

I asked, "How is that? Please name 10 or more species you think will go extinct if tuna are caught and farmed."

You responded, "Peter, Ingrid and Jessica for example?"

And, "PS to Mark: E O Wilson on why we cannot name the species that go extinct..."

Sooooo...you claim that "thousands of species will go extinct," but you can't name a single one?

Hugo, let me tell you what science is all about. It's about accurately predicting the future, e.g., "If I release this ball, it will fall to the ground with an acceleration of 9.81 meters per second per second."

If you claim that farming bluefin tuna would "thousands of OTHER species to go extinct," but you can't name a ***single one,*** you don't know squat.

Mark

|2.14.08 @ 2:06PM|#

The root of the problem is in mass production!! as it makes it easy to buy more then we need.

|2.15.08 @ 12:17AM|#

hmm not extinction,but it is stress:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080212085841.htm
"ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2008) - Comparing the survival of wild salmonid populations in areas near salmon farms with unexposed populations reveals a large reduction in survival in the populations reared near salmon farms. Since the late 1970s, salmon aquaculture has grown into a global industry, producing over 1 million tons of salmon per year. However, this solution to globally declining fish stocks has come under increasing fire. In a new study Jennifer Ford and Ransom Myers provide the first evidence on a global scale illustrating systematic declines in wild salmon populations that come into contact with farmed salmon."

|2.15.08 @ 8:40PM|#

However, humanity will either have to figure out how to control the pollution produced by fossil fuels or shift away from them because of their deleterious effects on the environment, including their contribution to man-made global warming.

Unless slightly warmer temperatures make the Earth more hospitable, more productive, and more conducive to supporting a higher population, as slightly warmer temperatures always have in the past.

|2.15.08 @ 10:30PM|#

Craig. That notion only applies to 'slightly warmer', 1-2 degrees celsius gain. And again it only applies to developed countries which can handle the changes. Poor countries are screwed. Heat things up more and we are all living in BarterTown.

anyway, Here:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/efficiencity/index.html
Is Greenpeace's vision of a green future. Can somone here please point out the CaveHippies, because I can't find them.

|2.15.08 @ 10:38PM|#

IPCC WGIII section which discusses as much and Rabbet Run Commentary here: http://tinyurl.com/257can

|2.15.08 @ 10:44PM|#

p.s. Craig, because there is a time lag of about 10-20 years between a rise in CO2 and the felt temperatures from the CO2 forcing, in order to ensure that the planet does not go above 1-2 degrees C, we would have to stop emitting all fossil sources of CO2 by the end of the decade.

|2.16.08 @ 1:28AM|#

I am not so sure that Adam Smith said anything like the implied quotation from Charles Handy:

'An investment is by all right-minded people to be commended, because it brings comforts and necessities to the citizenry. But, if continued indefinitely, it will lead to the endless pursuit of unnecessary things.'

The language is not quite right. Smith didn't talk about 'investment' in the way modern economists do. He used the term 'savings' and spoke of what people spent it upon, whether it be on productive labour which reproduced itself and from growth called into productive work currently unemployed labourers, thus adding to the 'annual production of the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of life', which he called wealth.

|2.16.08 @ 1:31AM|#

SMITH NEVER SAID THAT QUOTE

]RE: (I confess my usual sources of Smith arcana could not turn up this quotation anywhere online, but no matter, let's assume Smith wrote it.) Revkin uses the quotation as a launch point for a discussion of sustainable development.

|2.17.08 @ 11:04PM|#

> Hugo Pottisch said: Certain consumption is
> not sustainable on ecological grounds -
> even if it were regulated by a cultural
> market. A cultural market is not the same as
> a biological market - the cultural market
> must follow the laws of nature and not the
> other way around.

One reason that I could never be a leftist is that I often have no idea what they are talking about.

|2.18.08 @ 12:57AM|#

So has anyone got a citation for the claimed Adam Smith quotation?

It has the air of the quote falsely attributed to Jefferson that, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." (That quote actually traces back to a WWII era anti-war protester that was basically a NAZI stooge.)

|2.18.08 @ 1:12AM|#

By way of update, I just did a textual search of Adam Smith's collected works, and nowhere in it did I find a similar phrase. As some have pointed out, the use of the term 'investment' is quite unusual for Adam Smith and would be a clear departure from his usual phrasing.

|2.18.08 @ 11:56AM|#

It's amazing how communists just won't give up. Now they've latched onto the faux religion of environmentalism. The one person above got it right: let people take care of themselves, and rid prosperous countries of welfare (more gov't) and you'd be surprised how many things become unnecessary.

But my real hope is for a literal libertarian evolution when we can line these people against the wall and put them out of all the misery they feel for everyone else.

|2.18.08 @ 12:51PM|#

"But my real hope is for a literal libertarian evolution when we can line these people against the wall and put them out of all the misery they feel for everyone else."

that's a very non-libertarian sentiment.

General Specific|2.19.08 @ 9:28PM|#

Oil hits new high: $100 today. That Coal article is (a) incorrect and (b) dated.

Yet another libertarian anti-malthusian article that can do no better than drudge up that stupid bet over 30 years ago. Whenever that's the best someone can do, you know they're hitting bottom.

I bet big on oil five years ago (and commodities) based on real analysis, not this fluff. Which gives me lots of free time to mock articles such as this one.