Farewell Before Christmas December 29, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Misc , add a commentIt’s the holidays, and life is very uncomfortable in New York right now due to the ongoing transit strike. This is very likely to be my last post till next year, so here’s me wishing a merry Christmas and a great new year to all who happen to drop by. It’s been a very eventful year — may the next be one of hapiness for all the good folk.
Once again, happy holidays!
Technorati Tags: Christmas, Holidays, New Year, 2006
.On Sustainability December 19, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Ecology , add a commentInteresting article at the recently revamped Tech Central Station on the concept of “sustainability” as it is used by ecologists:
There are two main shortcomings I see with ‘sustainability’ arguments. First, for a truly irreplaceable resource (lets say petroleum) for which there is only a finite supply, any rate of use will be unsustainable. Eventually, we will run out. Similarly, if indeed global warming turns out to be a real problem, no rate of increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases is sustainable. Second, the sustainability argument neglects the proven role of technological advances that, historically, make sustainability a moot point.
A few facts on that last point from the same article:
[Q]uite often, worries over sustainability end up being unfounded. At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States had a major pollution problem in its cities — horse manure. An estimated 175,000 horses in New York City caused such a stinking mess (especially in summer) and threat to human health that even the daily removal and disposal of hundreds of tons of manure could not fix the problem. I’m sure that, if the government had funded research into the horse manure problem back then, environmental researchers would have predicted that by the year 1930, New York City streets would be covered to a depth of six feet in manure on a daily basis. For a very real problem that citizens actually experienced on a daily basis, this must have seemed like an inescapable fate for society. Yet, the automobile came along, solving the horse manure problem.
Fifty years ago we had enough known petroleum reserves to last about another thirty years. I remember in the early 1970’s there was widespread concern, made worse by the oil embargo, that the world was running out of oil. Yet, fifty years later, we still have thirty years supply left. How can this be? The reason, of course, is that it costs money to discover new oil, and there is no economic incentive for the petroleum industry to find more than is necessary …
Technorati Tags: Sustainability, Precautionary Principle, Environmentalism, Ecology, Anti-Indsustrial Revolution