Easy, you don’t have to be an environmentalist to care for the environment.
Just to weigh in on the topic at hand, I would agree with some of what Sam Stone and others have said. Several things are not that problematic, such as food. However, some things are, such as oil consumption. It’s not the end of the world, but if they radically increase their demand, the quality of life in the U.S. will suffer since gas prices will increase. On the other hand, those same price increases will limit the demand, but that their will be more demand than now is certain.
Also, pollution will be a problem. A richer China will hopefully be able to greatly reduce their existing pollution. However, if the industrial sector moves from China, the pollution will merely be shifted elsewhere. Also, more consumption will lead to more garbage per capita. If cars become the norm, then there will be pollution associated with constructing, driving, and fueling the cars. This is probably a net loss for the world, potentially a great one if cars truly become widespread.
It ‘profits’ them because they are meeting a demand. You like eating? Sleeping under a roof? Having light and a computer to type nonsense on? It all comes from an evil corporation and it all impacts the environment.
I guess you assume that you won’t be one of the people who has to go without. Let’s see how binding those argreements are when people are clamoring for food.
I want someone with more than good intentions. I want someone who can give me alternatives so that I do not have to make a choice of people starve vs spotted owls go extinct.
In spite of Evil Captor’s witty rebuttle, technology is the solution to most of our resource problems. The idea of genetically modified corn ear’s the size of a dauchtsund, Sam Stone’s automated chicken factories or fish farms would have been unheard of 100 years ago (all disapproved of by the average environmentalist). It is foolish and arrogant to believe we are at the end of scientific advancement.
What it may come down to is that as natural resources become more rare and more expensive to acquire, our standard of living will begin to drop. Just like in the 70s, no one cares about driving an SUV or leaving the TV on all day until gas is $4.00 a gallon. All of a sudden, cutting back on expensive fish or buying that cheap economy electric hybrid car doesn’t look like such a bad idea.
Overfishing is an interesting case.
The trouble with wild fisheries is that the wild fish are a common resource. No one owns the fish stocks. So catching ever-dwindling stocks of fish still makes sense for the individual fisherman…because if he doesn’t take them someone else will.
The free market and the invisible hand CAN’T easily deal with overfishing for that reason.
The analogue is pollution. If there is no cost for an entity to dispose of wastes into the public atmosphere or hyrdrosphere then there is no incentive for an individual entity to reduce emissions, even if the entity would benefit from overal reduced emissions.
Market forces work, but only when the market is well designed. If I am allowed to buy goods from you, then by force take back the money I paid you then we don’t have a free market.
The focus on “resources” is something of a pet peave of mine. “Resources” is one of those slippery words than usually obscures more than it illuminates. Rather than “resource”, use concrete words. Oil. Fish. Grain. Steel. Timber. Wilderness. Clean Air. Clean Water. Animal Habitat. Coal. Uranium. Education. Manufactured Goods. Labor.
A rich China would affect the markets (supplies and demands) for these things. Fossil Fuels are of course used up. But other things are NOT used up. Are we going to run out of steel? Not likely, since iron isn’t used up–it is used. Build a car and the steel is still there, when the car is used up and totaled the steel is recovered. And recycled steel is much more ecologically friendly than new steel, since it requires less energy to process.
And it is not clear that wealthier Chinese would require more agricultural land. In the United States land under agriculture is DEcreasing as we get wealthier, yet we are producing more food than ever. We have more forests than ever, since we no longer cut down trees for firewood. We have less pollution than 30 years ago, since we recognized that pollution was a public cost and some mechanism should be found of making emitters pay that public cost.
And then we have funny sorts of wealth that don’t seem to require ANY natural resources. The rule of law. Civil rights. Education. It costs money to create software, but once it exists it requires almost nothing to actually produce it. Same with music, books, movies, art, etc. Our cultural heritage may have required investment to produce, but it is now shared capital that is available to everyone essentially free.
Improving the Chinese legal system doesn’t cost anything in terms of raw material input, yet it would dramatically improve the lives of every Chinese person (and the same thing is true in the US).
Yeah, we all learned about this in school. But I’d like someone with first hand knowledge to tell me what your average Chinese person thinks today. They’ve had a few generations of reality hitting them in the face that they are not the center of the universe and not the world power they once were. I would not be surprised if the textbook attitude under discussion here is no longer a reality.
I’d like one of the “doomster” posters to address this. Paul has made a very good point. What commodity have we ever run out of that we didn’t find a substitute for? Certainly things could be different in the future, but there have been doomsday predictions left and right for years, none of which have come true. Where’s the beef?
- China is not the only problem, India will be bigger soon (50 years or so).
- “The same standard of living” is a tough phrase to quantify and/or support.
- Male/female population disparity does not necessarily equal war or aggression.
- A better standard of living will make people less likely to risk losing it. Hence, a wealthier China (or anywhere else) is better for everyone.
Supporting blather:
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It is projected that India will have a larger population than China by the year 2045, when United Nations projections indicate a total population of India of 1.501 billion and of China of 1.496 billion (cite). I’ve seen other sources that put the date at 1950, but that’s close enough for government work. I’ve also seen numbers as high as 2 billion for the stablized population of China–assuming they keep the current birth-control policies in force for 50 years (a bad bet in my book). So, while China is being more aggressive about improving their standard of living, they aren’t the only ones increasing their consumption of resources.
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As many have said, other resources will be used and other technologies will be developed. With any luck, the Chinese and Indian governments will do their best to discourage their citizens from attempting to have a “standard of living” like those of us in the West.
Examples: Instead of fish or meat, eat textured soybean or cultured yeast products. Instead of “one man, one car” create a public transit system that is efficient and comfortable. Instead of burning fossil fuels, use wind and solar systems for generating power.
I’m not sure what one would substitute for tiger penises. Education perhaps? Viagra? It’s quite possible that there IS no substitute for ecological diversity. That’s one that, I think, must be solved with enforceable international agreements–a tough nut to crack.
If you believe that having 8 kids is an important part of your life-style, plan on moving to the asteroid belt soon–please.
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According to this site, India has 36 million more men than women. They haven’t started an all-out war yet.
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I don’t have supporting documentation for this one. The US attack on Iraq was a purported attempt to defend a standard of living, but I believe that to be an anomaly.
Well, the Chinese people I worked with did not give me the impression that they were living as political refugees. Yes there are more rules about a lot of things that we take for granted, but for the most part, other than eating more Chinese food (or “food” as they call it), they were no diferent than people from England or Germany or any other country. They would go back and forth to China quite regularly to vsit family and they hardly ever called me “round eye” or “barbarian” and rarely hit me with bamboo shoots.
Basically, I think the impression most people have of a billion identical Chinamen in matching grey uniforms raising their fists to Chairman Mao is somewhat exagerated.
Putting aside Zenster’s mildly racist and xenophobic hyperbole for a minute…
Oh, I dunno – I think, generally speaking, Christianity as a whole might qualify. Feelings of superiority over others, believing in themselves as the center of the universe, a belief that the inferior “others” will receive comeuppance… about the only difference is that the Chinese don’t come knocking door-to-door on Saturday mornings.
I’ve been to mainland China several times, both in the urban and rural areas, and have not seen anything close to the stereotype. [b}China Guy** would probably be a better source, though, since I believe he’s still in-country.
You know what? I think the last thing a nation of a billion people needs is something to make them more verile.
One thing I haven’t understood from the start–how the heck could we ever run out of iron? It’s the single most abundant element on the planet. Granted, the crust is mostly lighter silicates, but iron isn’t THAT rare–even if the Chinese decided they all needed 3 cars, steel-framed homes, and three spare sets of stainless-steel flatware for entertaining.
One thing I haven’t understood from the start–how the heck could we ever run out of iron? It’s the single most abundant element on the planet. Granted, the crust is mostly lighter silicates, but iron isn’t THAT rare–even if the Chinese decided they all needed 3 cars, steel-framed homes, and three spare sets of stainless-steel flatware for entertaining.
What exactly is your point? That it’s impossible to stop overfishing? Perhaps it is, but we should at least try. You haven’t addressed my point about the need to protect the fish supply even in the face of starvation, I’m wondering if you disagree with this.
You realize that just because someone meets a demand does not make it morally correct? But that’s just theory. We all know eating, etc is pretty fundamental. That said, there are ways corporations can do better, and we as consumers can also do better (eat less meat, etc). Going back to your overfishing argument, wouldn’t you agree that a company that is meeting the demand for an endangered fish is doing something wrong?
Sorry, that’s the breaks. Starving vs. spotted owls. It sucks to make that choice, but we have to make it. There are no alternatives. Making a commitment to the environment is difficult.
A handy term for someone who cares about the environment is “environmentalist”. From Marriam-Webster OnLine:
Main Entry: en·vi·ron·men·tal·ist
Pronunciation: -t&l-&st
Function: noun
Date: 1916
1 : an advocate of environmentalism
2 : one concerned about environmental quality especially of the human environment with respect to the control of pollution
So you see, what you wrote makes no sense.
The world can’t afford a rich USA.
How much carbon dioxide do we put in the atmosphere each year? If by rich China you mean China imitating the American lifstyle you’re right.
We need to redefine rich. A person can posess considerable wealth without much waste. Eliminate planned depreciation.
Dal Timgar
Please provide evidence that if we protect spotted owls from extinction that we will therefore have starvation.
It seems to me the other way around. Starving people will destroy the habitat of the spotted owl without a second thought. Starvation and poverty are CAUSES of environmental destruction, not preventers.
Explain to me how starvation would be good for us.
Explain exactly how cutting down on meat would mean more food for everyone.
Wait, don’t bother, let me explain why it wouldn’t. You are assuming that there is a fixed amount of food in the world. If we feed grain to animals and then eat the animals, that means there is that much less grain to feed to humans. Therefore, some people will have to do without grain in order for other people to eat meat, right? But no. There is NOT a fixed amount of grain produced every year. If there is a grain shortage, farmers can and do produce more grain. If there is a grain surplus, grain ends up rotting in silos, and farmers switch to other crops, and not neccesarily food crops either.
The United States could double or triple our grain production easily. Very easily. There are farmers all over the US going bankrupt trying to grow grain. There’s no market for all the excess grain. Why don’t we send it overseas? Because there’s no market there either. People either already have enough food, or they are so poor that they can’t buy the grain at market prices anyway. So why not give it away? Because that would destroy local agriculture…how can a local farmer stay in business if the US is dumping free grain?
Look, the fact is that the United States is in a different situation than China is agriculturally. The US has vast amounts of fertile land that isn’t being intensively cultivated. China has empty land in central asia, but it isn’t fertile. They are going to have to farm more intensively. Even if China was as wealthy as the US is now, they aren’t going to adopt US dietary patterns. Seems more likely that they would have diets more like Taiwan, no? Chinese will certainly eat more meat as the country gets richer, but why assume that they would eat the same amount we eat in the US? Why not Europe, or Japan, or Singapore? And even if they do eat more meat, meat will always be more expensive proportionally in China because they have a much denser population. Our light population density allows us to use our agricultural land much less efficiently. But if there were a large Chinese market for US agricultural products we could easily produce much more export food crops.
It was mssmith who made that claim, and I don’t think it was meant literally, but as an example of tradeoffs. The real tradeoff is spotted owl versus jobs. You could perhaps extrapolate that people without jobs might starve, but it would be a stretch.
It won’t, and we should and could avoid it. However, starvation leading to extinction of fish species through overfishing (and subsequent starvation as the fish are no longer there) is obviously worse than not allowing overfishing and just letting people starve immediately. It’s a hypothetical case, and in fact a case which illustrates the important of taking steps to avoid overfishing now, so we don’t have to make choices like this.
I believe vegetables and grains make up a more efficient food source than meat if you look at amount of effort and energy to produce. I could be wrong, however, I’m certainly not an expert on this. I base my thinking on food prices (meat is more expensive than vegetables, therefore it implies that it is less efficient to create).
But not so lucky for the Indians and Chinese, I guess. Do they count?
With any luck, the whole notion of governments ‘discouraging’ their citizens from improving their lives will wind up on the ash heap of history where it belongs.
My point is that those billions of Chinese and Indians aren’t going to go away so we should find ways of feeding them. I think it is incredibly arrogant for anyone to say “sorry, you guys have to starve cause we gots to saves the fishes” while we enjoy our relatively high standard of living.
What kind of wine goes with owl?
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Well, for starters, look at China’s claims in the South China Sea. In effect – though they are intentionally ambiguous – China claims the entire South China Sea as territorial waters.
Here is an article with a small map. It’s like . . . well, I can’t really think of what it’s like. But look at the area the Chinese claim and look how far it is from China’s own coastline. Their claim extends as far south as Malaysia and Indonesia! These are not the actions of a country that believes they are “not the world power they once were.”
Or think of China’s actions and rhetoric during the recent surveillance plane incident. Chinese political rhetoric consistently displays a grandiose expectation of respect and an instant and deep sensitivity to any thing that could be perceived as a slight.
As for the “average” Chinese, how did they react to the surveillance plane incident or to the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy during the Balkan war? Compare this to how the Canadians reacted to the U.S. accidentally bombing their troops in Afghanistan or how the Japanese reacted when the U.S. submarine accidentally sank one of their training ships.
Good post, Truth Seeker!
I’d be interested to see how you apply this same rationale to the incredible amount of reef destruction that is going on in Southeast Asia. Both dynamite fishing and especially cyanide poisoning are being used for food and specimen harvest. Gigantic tracts of coral reef, representing some of the most fertile oceanic habitat are being decimated. The glacially slow growth rates of coral make this one of the most unsustainable practices in all history.
In a magnified version of the overfishing example, reef destruction must be stopped no matter if people starve. If the reefs are allowed to be destroyed, many island atolls will become barren wastelands incapable of supporting human life without massive external support. While I fully agree that there needs to be some curtailment of Western culture’s profligate lifestyle, this alone does not represent a complete solution. There is no doubt that education is required to make clear the dire implications of reef destruction. Some mangrove tidal zone projects are showing great promise in reversing this abhorrent trend. There simply is not enough time to elevate awareness in order to stop this wanton defilement of nature’s marine food locker.
This is where the arguments returns to a valid and pivotal point. Overfishing must be stopped, even at the risk of people starving. Once the ocean’s vast shoals are fished to extinction, food chain collapse and human starvation will begin on a much larger scale. Any aversion to halting this rape of the sea is merely forestalling and enlarging a more serious disaster waiting in the wings. No one here has mentioned drag netting for shrimp. This is one of the most destructive of all fishing methods. The intake of edible product is something like one pound per forty pounds of waste. This ranks with gill nets as one of the poorest ratios of food versus “trash” fish capture. Both methods must be halted immediately. Gill nets have aptly been labeled “vacuum cleaners of the sea.” They capture diving sea birds and entangle nearly every level of submarine species short of krill and plankton. There is no use in tossing back undesirable fish caught in gill nets, they are all dead by the time they are brought to the surface.
The world is rapidly being faced with curtailment of many previously accepted methods of harvesting nature’s bounty. The changes must be put in place long before education might reverse the deficient thinking that spawns such destructive behavior. It is incumbent upon developed countries to lead by example. Unbridled consumerism and conspicuous consumption must be stigmatized and taxed out of existence. Overpackaged or disposable commodities must carry steep excise penalties for the intrinsic waste that they represent. Low mileage vehicles and their inefficient use have to be treated as the indecent luxury that they really are. We have only a few decades at most before all of these prohibitions will need to be put in place by fiat instead of choice. The sooner such wasteful behavior is bred out of society through intelligent choice, the less negative impact such restrictions will have downstream.
I’d recommend the same vintage Chardonnay that I serve along side my bald eagle soufflé topped with aspic of whooping crane tongue.
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The above post has not shown up in the forum directory for over five hours. I am bumping this thread to see if the last posting author’s name changes. Please excuse this attempt to examine why so many posts of mine are disappearing.
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