The myth that we're running out of resources seems deeply ingrained in some people. That doesn't make it any more true.
"Cite your sources!" a scientist yelled, stamping his feet and declaring that he would stop reading The Daily Maverick because he took issue with something, somewhere in a column of mine.
What exactly it was that so offended this guy was unclear. I offered to provide suitable citations for whatever point of fact irked him, if he would only tell me what it was. I suggested that the reader comment facility might be a good place to raise such objections. This did not satisfy him, and he refused to specify what he thought was wrong with my argument. He felt comfortable shouting insults – disingenuous! bad science! bullshit! – regardless.
One should ignore idiots like that, I know. However, there is a risk that a few among his 46 Twitter followers might fall for the implied authority of a self-proclaimed scientist, and dismiss not just my own work, but also that of my colleagues and editors at The Daily Maverick. Therefore, I will offer a response.
For a start, this fellow clearly labours under the misconception that everyone who makes an argument in a public forum has the time and resources of a tenured academic at a state-funded university. It grieves me to point out that a columnist can neither afford the time, nor the expensive journal subscriptions that academics get at taxpayers' expense, to produce something as rigorous as a refereed journal article. Besides, academic papers do not make for good reading in the mainstream media. If they did, fewer people might share this guy's misconceptions.
I am prepared to support any factual claim I make with which a reader wishes to take issue, but doing so in advance for every line in a column would be a ludicrous undertaking. A typical economics argument is high-level. Many premises are highly general. If I had to provide detailed support for every point on which I base a conclusion, I'd spend months writing a column, instead of days, and it would run to dozens, if not hundreds, of pages. If I did that, I'd have to get a day-job as a shelf-packer, ditch-digger or burger-flipper.
This column is intended in part to illustrate these points.
What are we running out of?
After a week of bickering by this aggressive, high-minded nut, I finally began to suspect that his biggest concern was my view that in general, we're not running out of resources. This being a sufficiently limited subject to cover in, say, twice the length of a regular column, this is what I propose to support below, complete with citations.
To counter my general argument, and in spite of the detailed points I made about resources that do become scarce, he cited one example: fish.
It is true that many fish stocks are under severe pressure. This is also an exceptional case. Fisheries are among the rare resources that are not adequately protected by property rights, but are subject to communal, bureaucratic planning. As a result, fishing has become a classic empirical example of the hypothetical "tragedy of the commons". Because they cannot ensure future property rights, fish stocks are not managed responsibly by owners who wish to maximise both their present and future productivity.
There are partial solutions, although it remains a hard problem to solve. Individually transferable quotas for particular species have shown some success in protecting certain stocks. New Zealand offers an extensive case study[1]. Another success story is the recovery of Pacific halibut stocks[2]. Still, even in the limited environments in which they have been introduced, such systems suffer from problems, including the difficulty in establishing original ownership rights to quotas, inadequate enforcement, bureaucratically establishing a "maximum sustainable yield" and "total allowable catch", unintentional bycatch, and quota busting.
However, citing one apparent counter-example does not prove the general case.
In fact, it does not even contradict the economic argument I made: If a particular species becomes too scarce, or it becomes too costly to harvest it, its market price will rise, which will prompt a combination of investment into more efficient production, lower consumption, and a search for alternatives. Economics is not a zero-sum game. Scarcity is not a crisis, but a problem to which the price mechanism is the solution.
A similar example is wood. Many classic species with highly desirable qualities, such as teak, walnut, oak and mahogany, have become rare and expensive because of high demand and dwindling supply. As a result, many consumers of wood have switched to less costly, more abundant species, or have developed entirely new substitute materials, such as plastics.
This is how the price mechanism ensures that resource depletion does not become an economic disaster.
The scarcity bet
In the absence of detailed knowledge of undiscovered or unexploited resources, price is a good proxy for anticipated scarcity. Even the high priest of resource scarcity and author of The Population Bomb (1968), Paul Ehrlich, conceded as much when he accepted Julian Simon's bet to select five resources that he believed would, over the subsequent decade, increase in scarcity, and hence in their real, inflation-adjusted price.
At the time, he and his cohorts, Berkeley physicists John Harte and John Holdren, sneered that they should "accept Simon's astonishing offer before other greedy people jump in" as the "lure of easy money can be irresistible"[3].
Despite the astonishing advantage of being able to nominate any resources they liked, Ehrlich and friends lost the bet on all five counts and spent the next few years devising excuses as to why.
Wrote Simon: "More people, and increased income, cause resources to become more scarce in the short run. Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to search for solutions. Many fail in the search, at cost to themselves. But in a free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. That is, prices eventually become lower than before the increased scarcity occurred."[4]
Of course, as we have seen with fish and wood, prices do not always decline. The resources boom that followed the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager is likewise testament to that. Is it true, however, that many resources are under such pressure as ocean-bound fish-stocks or tropical hardwoods?
As it turns out, it is not. Though in principle finite, few resources are really particularly scarce.
Ecomentalists with a shallow understanding of economics might grasp at the term "finite" and make wild conclusions about the need to conserve resources, recycle them, or place them under the coercive management of politicians and taxpayer-funded green groups. However, finite does not mean scarce. The earth may be finite, but it is extremely large.
The mass of the total human population[5] is 440 million tons[6]. The mass[7] of annual oil production[8] is 11.6 million tons. Total annual global coal production amounts to 6.2 billion tons[9]. The earth's crust weighs about 136.5 billion billion tons[10].
Now I'm not proposing that we mine all of the earth's crust, but a sense of scale is useful. Our mineral resource extraction efforts amount to perhaps one billionth of the earth's crust. We're not about to dig a hole to Australia, which would indeed be unfortunate.
Measuring mineral mining
To get an idea of how much we have left of the most common resources before we run out, let's go down the list, ranking them according to how much they contribute to global GDP. The presentation in my source[11] is convenient, but since the data is from 1997 I took the precaution of cross-checking against a current report[12] in case a surprising reversal happened in the intervening years. In all cases, "reserves" means the known amount that is economically extractable.
First up, cement, at 0.376% of global GDP. We have extracted 1.5 billion tons to date. We have no idea how much is left, but it's enough.
Next, aluminium, about one third as important to our economy in terms of value as cement. We've produced 21.2 million tons. There's 23 billion tons of bauxite in the ground that we know of. At 1997 consumption rates, we've got enough for several centuries. If that ever runs out, there are vast non-bauxite sources of the stuff, albeit at higher cost.
We've dug up a billion tons of iron ore, but there are 240 billion tons left in the ground, enough for at least two centuries.
Copper once seemed to be under more pressure. In 1997, it appeared that we had enough for half a century, having produced 11.3 million tons, with reserves of 320 million tons. Copper reserves indicated in the most recent data amount to 540 million tons, however, with much more estimated to be merely undiscovered. If reserves are growing despite growing consumption, a panic over running out would seem to be premature.
Gold is pretty rare, and reserves have been slowly declining. This makes it a good currency, and many economists would argue that the global economy melted down because we stopped using it, rather than because we over-used it.
Nitrogen is the next most important raw material. All we know about reserves is that we have "sufficient" left.
Zinc production has amounted to 7.8 million tons, with reserves of 190 million tons, sufficient for over half a century. Zinc was the subject of a scarcity scare in the late 1990s[13], but current reserves remain at 200 million tons, with an estimated 1.9 billion tons still in the ground.
I could continue, but this is boring me to tears. These six minerals account for 80% of global resource production, so they constitute a sufficient sample to establish that, in general, we're not running out of resources.
What's more, in drawing conclusions from these numbers, the assumption that all things will remain equal is wrong. The copper and zinc examples demonstrate this. In response to scarcity, more exploration occurs, better extraction techniques are developed, or industry turns to alternatives, and, hey presto, reserves increase.
As with resources that are genuinely under pressure (which most are not), the price mechanism mediates between supply and demand, incentivising producers to step it up and consumers to cool it down whenever supply is too low or demand is too high, and vice versa.
The demand-driven boom of the 1990s and 2000s did raise the price of commodities, but in the specific cases cited above, as well as in the overall commodities market, prices took a tumble when demand dropped again in response to the recent economic downturn[14]. They remain high enough to offer a rich incentive to producers to explore further and become more efficient, and for consumers to economise or substitute cheaper alternatives where possible.
This is why even in the few cases where particular resources are under pressure, there is no need to "do something" – such as apologising for having children, raising taxes, making recycling laws, or enforcing rations – until price makes us adjust anyway.
Why are we still arguing this?
This debate should have been settled decades ago. In a 1997 Wired Magazine article entitled The Doomslayer, Ed Regis wrote:
"A more perfect resolution of the Ehrlich-Simon debate could not be imagined. All of the former's grim predictions had been decisively overturned by events. Ehrlich was wrong about higher natural resource prices, about 'famines of unbelievable proportions' occurring by 1975, about 'hundreds of millions of people starving to death' in the 1970s and '80s, about the world 'entering a genuine age of scarcity.'
"In 1990, for his having promoted 'greater public understanding of environmental problems,' Ehrlich received a MacArthur Foundation 'genius' award. ...
"[Simon] always found it somewhat peculiar that neither the Science piece nor his public wager with Ehrlich nor anything else that he did, said, or wrote seemed to make much of a dent on the world at large. For some reason he could never comprehend, people were inclined to believe the very worst about anything and everything; they were immune to contrary evidence just as if they'd been medically vaccinated against the force of fact. Furthermore, there seemed to be a bizarre reverse-Cassandra effect operating in the universe: whereas the mythical Cassandra spoke the awful truth and was not believed, these days "experts" spoke awful falsehoods, and they were believed. Repeatedly being wrong actually seemed to be an advantage, conferring some sort of puzzling magic glow upon the speaker."[15]
It is probably futile to argue with a "scientist" who is capable of unburdening himself of such glib nonsense as that the world's population cannot live at first-world consumption levels, as if this makes a point about overpopulation. Population growth is dangerously low in first-world countries, and is declining in the developing world too, resulting in an ever-decreasing rate of population growth[16]. The declining growth rate has prompted famed bond fund manager and investment author Bill Gross to call it "deep demographic doo-doo"[17].
Whatever the case, it is patently clear that not everyone lives at first-world consumption levels. Pointing out that the world's population cannot live at poor-world production levels is an equally trivial truism. The confused fellow must have been so indignant that he missed the part where I said people can only consume as much as they produce, or is produced on their behalf by others.
This does not mean that those who produce enough for high living standards must reduce their standard of living, but that those who have low living standards can raise them by producing more.
That resource depletion is not an imminent danger should ease the minds of those neurotic people who condemn consumption whenever they get a break from teaching their children which type of shopping bag makes them the least evil little parasites. It should silence those confused eco-nuts who implicitly deplore the development of the poor world, because higher living standards mean higher levels of consumption.
Instead of banging on with their never-ending fantasies of global catastrophe, perhaps these misanthropes could learn not to despise humanity, but to celebrate the productivity, resourcefulness and ingenuity of which free people are capable.
To the disgruntled scientist, I say this: I trust you will find this column adequately supported by citations.
I do not expect that you will believe me when I say resource scarcity is not a crisis, either on empirical grounds, or as an economic basis for humanity's future prosperity.
You would, however, be wrong. Besides its prodigious length, that may explain why you don't want to read this.
Citations and further reading:
[1] Lock, Kelly and Leslie, Stefan. New Zealand's Quota Management System: A History of the First 20 Years (April 2007). Motu Working Paper No. 07-02.
[2] Chu, Cindy. Trent University. The Issue: the Race for Pacific Halibut (undated blog post). Her detailed research paper can be purchased here.
[3] Simon, Julian. The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996). Princeton University Press. pp35-36.
[4] Simon, Julian. The State of Humanity (1996). Wiley-Blackwell. p24.
[5] Source for population: World Bank, World Development Indicators.
[6] Source for average human body mass: Elert, Glenn (Ed.). The Physics Factbook.
[8] International Energy Agency. Oil Market Report (2009). (PDF)
[9] US Energy Information Administration, World Total Primary Coal Production, 1980-2006. (XLS)
[10] Morancy, Tye. The Mad Sci Network.
[11] Lomborg, Bjorn. The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001). Cambridge University Press. p139, referencing the US Geological Survey database of 93 minerals in 1998.
[12] US Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summaries (2010). (PDF)
[13] Association Zinc Fonderie France report. (PDF)
[14] Index Mundi Commodity Price Index history
[15] Regis, Ed. The Doomslayer. Wired Magazine, February 1997.
[16] United Nations Bureau of Economic and Social Affairs. World Population Prospects, The 2008 Revision (highlights). (PDF)
[17] Gross, Bill. Investment Outlook (August 2010).
As for the fish. I happen to know a little about fish and permits and would simply LOVE to hear how you propose to privatise, say, pilchards or deep water hake for example. It’s not as straight forward as zinc. Have a good think about it.
I think I was quite clear that privatising fish stocks is a hard problem to solve, and there are only partial solutions, such as ITQs, out there. My claim is that our inability to enforce private property is the cause of the depletion problem, not that I have a solution. My further claim is that if we do not devise a good way of doing so, prices, rising in response to scarcity, will force us to switch to costly farming for all our fish production, which for many people will mean adopting alternatives to fish as a source of food.
I'm much more concerned about the world becoming less diverse and losing much of its beauty. It is easy to prove that price adjustments don't prevent species from declining or going extinct and it doesn't prevent pristine environments from being polluted and covered in concrete. I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you get the idea. Don't get me wrong - I'm no treehugger. I'd just rather have somewhere uncrowded and with a view left over to go vacation in should I tire of the monotony of it all.
(I know. Who am I to tell undeveloped/developing economies that they shouldn't develop like the rest of the world did? But that's obviously not the point.)
Here is a graphical representation of our resource stock take:
http://conservationreport.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/amount-of-natural-resources-left.jpg
I agree that collapse is not imminent and my greatest concern is for the dwindling of earths natural beauty and once healthy biosphere.
The global consumption rate is too high, we need to temper it, and dismissing long term concern about dwindling resources is shortsighted.
Sure, but never in the context of zinc or gold running out. If they mention metal al all it's in the context of the energy consumption required to process the raw material, not the metal itself.
As for ITQs you might be pleased to know South Africa has had this system in place for key fisheries since 2000.
If recycling was just about energy use, it would make even less sense than it does already. I wrote a column about that a few years ago, called "Wasted Efforts". I no longer have an electronic copy, and it's probably worth updating some time soon anyway. Consider it noted.
We're not running out of energy either, on the same grounds that I argued above.
A pristine biosphere is of little use for its own sake. Expecting us not to have any impact at all on the planet on which we live is tantamount to the misanthropy I've been disputing.
By contrast, a clean, productive, albeit changing biosphere is in everyone's interest. While there certainly are many problems with our environment, it is far from a disaster because of population. Our impact is relatively small, and nature is fairly resilient, in any case. As an example, I pointed out in my previous column the acreage of land under cultivation, which has not increased much since the 1950s, despite a large jump in the world's population. Extrapolations that simply took existing farm acreage and multiplied to get projected future numbers would have been as misleading then as those I argue against here.
The same goes for urbanisation. The notion that we're paving more than a tiny fraction of the planet, or that this poses a grave threat to the biosphere is, quite simply, false.
Moreover, the more prosperous people get, the more they can afford to invest in luxuries like scenic views. So let's permit people to procreate, develop and become prosperous. Let us celebrate it, lest we undermine the very foundations of our society's successes.
Ask the poor? Speaking of great ideas! I assume you mean the ones of which there are fewer every year, no matter which source you rely on? The ones whose per capita income, in real terms, tripled between 1950 and 2000? Whose daily calorie intake has been rising steadily? Ask them whether they'd prefer 1950 to today.
Recycling metal makes perfect economic sense - Exhibit A: the scrap industry. But again I point out, you have to look far and wide to find anyone who worries about us running out of metals. Why keep bringing it up?
As for the population problem there are many arguments to promote family planning which is effective, cheap, humane and voluntary. But what are the benefits of a rapidly expanding population? What are the benefits to society if you have 35 kids per classroom instead of 25? What are the benefits of having to provide sewerage processing for 1000 houses instead of 800? Why, there are no benefits at all.
I think I was pretty clear that when resources become scarce, prices will rise. The point is that this does not necessarily mean we're "running out". It means supply does not adequately meet demand.
There is no alternative to oil that costs the same or less. If I knew of one, you're quite right, I'd make a fortune, because the market would respond to that price signal and make me stinking rich. Which you'll think constitutes greed, injustice and exploitation.
However, as oil prices rise, for whatever reason (and actual scarcity of underground resources is only one of many causes), more expensive sources of oil become viable, alternative sources of energy become worth paying for, and consumption will become lower. We will adapt, thanks to price signals.
A good example is tar sands, which for years were not economically viable, and now are being exploited. We didn't "run out". We made a plan.
On metals, I don't "keep bringing it up". You do. I cited multiple resources. Fish, wood, agriculture (in last week's column), oil (in several previous columns) and the minerals that represent 80% of our mining resources. I would have cited all of them, but after 2500 words, I got tired. In all cases I noted that either scarcity is not a problem, or price will encourage us to economise, find alternatives, or become more efficient at their production. That's what price is for: dealing with scarcity. The point is that it does not constitute a crisis that demands massive lifestyle changes or social engineering projects.
As for your last paragraph, by your logic a baker who sells 80 loaves of bread is worse off than the guy next door who sells 100. This is only true if the bakers are coerced by the state to sell their bread at a loss, in which case the bread economy will collapse, both will stop baking, and we can all have ourselves a fine revolution. Economics is not the strong suit of your average communist, I know.
I won't argue with your baker analogy. I just hope the editor leaves it there so people can read it make an accurate assessment of your sanity.
scarcity = prosperity. Orwell would understand where you're coming from I'm sure.
P.S Do us all a favour and start lots of fires next time you're taking a walk in Knysna forests Ivo. Then report back to collect your reward for crating all that "prosperity" LOL
"O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!
O battling in black floods without an ark!
O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!"
The 'proof' provided by you that your strange theory is correct are nothing more than a bunch of badly researched statistics. I was disappointed. Your comment regarding cement: 'We have no idea how much is left, but it's enough'is particularly insightful.
The other replies below mention a few flaws in your logic. Here is another major one:
Your theories about supply and demand and using price as a measure for scarcity assume a perfect world. And yet we all know that the extraction industries are far from perfect - they are riddled with fraud, corruption and illegal activities. Take your example of wood. South Africa has lost most of its yellowwood trees. The wood is now extremely scarce and most state indigenous forests have ceased to permit extraction (there are a few exceptions). And yet the trees are still disappearing. They are being cut down by illegal loggers and trafficked at prices that have nothing to do with supply and demand - the price is determined by the need to stay below the legal radar. If you have the cash and a sufficiently low moral makeup you can buy fresh cut yellowwood at very low prices. And so this tree is being driven to extinction, as are the creatures that depend on it, like Africa's rarest parrot the Cape Parrot (heard of it? - another diminshing resource that is essential for the health of our forest eco-systems). Fish are another example of where price does not indicate rarity - again because of poaching and uncaring consumers. There are many examples like this where your theories of market forces have no meaning.
It appears that your motto is 'don't let practice get in the way of theory or a good story'.
Disappointed
Pointing to incidents of fraud or theft is usually the last resort of someone who cannot argue with the fact that an economy based on private property rights is the best way to ensure prosperity for all.
The solution to the problem of theft is to enforce property rights, not to abolish them in favour of centrally-planned rationing.
Reality, of course, is that 100,000 people dead of malnutrition the day Ivo "researched" and compiled his article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition#Mortality). More than 1 death per second while this article was typed - which is, of course, the natural and only way by which the scales in a closed bio-system can be balanced, i.e. the consumption of one comes at the expense of others. Of course, a small portion of those deaths could be ascribed to environmental or political factors in a particular country. But in a truly abundant society the excesses would have found it's way even into those situations, free to the consumer purely on the back of the charity of other consumers (as apposed to say the counter-productive exercise of dumping the excess resources back into the ground).
And if the rate of resource innovation and usage efficiency (even if improving daily) truly kept pace with consumption the last century, then no one would die and everyone would have access to enough natural resources to do what they need done. The facts, however, shows that the rate is not keeping up. The price of human consumption today is 100,000 people and no matter the developed world intellectual aerobics performed here, will the only question be if it will be 99,999 or 100,001 tomorrow.
Here's the reality: If two people enter into a voluntary transaction, both benefit, in terms of their subjective valuation of what they each receive in the trade. If this were not true, at least one of the parties would not agree to enter into the transaction. Therefore, the consumption of one does not come at the expense of another, but comes at a profit for both parties.
As for assuming a perfect world, that's exactly the opposite of what I do. I assume an imperfect world, in which price operates to allocate scarce resources and reduce inefficiencies in the market. Absent scarcity and inefficiency, our world would indeed be perfect, but it is not.
Yes, there are still people dying of malnutrition, but in countries where people are free to trade and profit from their labour, the numbers of poor are declining, and the quality of life is rising for all segments of the population, including the poor. I cannot comprehend the view that such progress is not a reason to celebrate, because it falls short of creating instant, permanent and free abundance for all.
If you actually bothered to read the link I supplied you would have seen that the majority of the malnourished do reside in free, open, capitalist and democratic countries - all pre-conditions to your argument's "where people are free to trade and profit from their labour"-pillar. Significantly, and as but one example, India tops the lists of the country with the most malnourished people, the biggest democracy and one of the highest population densities in the world. Isn't that exactly what you argue for? Unlimited procreation with limited resources in a capitalist democracy? Yes, works out splendidly if you can stomach the 217 million hungry & 5 million dead children a year.
Yes, statistically the malnourished has fallen from 37% to 17% in 40 years, but there were only 2 billion people a 100 years back. Such a decline is easy to accomplish when the total population is still below the carrying capacity limit of ~5 billion people. The reality is that the actual number of malnourished has more than doubled in the same period and has increased 10 fold since 1900's.
Now that we've more than reached the limit of our resource's maximum carrying capacity it is more significant to note that recently the malnourished has in fact risen from 16% to 17% in the span of 2 years. But you've made up your mind and, as said before, no amount of mental aerobics and comparing statistics will change the fact that people will die today for lack of resources. Something which voids this article and makes it a moot point debating the point any further.
Generally speaking human engenuity has managed to more than keep up with human population growth, which is why the real price of food has declined steadily over the centuries and millenia - it takes about 20% of the income of a poor family to feed itself in modern day South Africa, 200 years ago it took close to 100% of their income and the food they get now is much better too.
As for style, your blanket accusations about my "faulty theme" and "a bunch of badly researched statistics" do not merit an answer, in the context of my argument or otherwise. What do you want me to do? Send you a time sheet? Make up statistics that would prove I'm wrong?
it really comes down to what we, as a species see ourselves as being responsible for.
if we run out of a particular mineral, we are accountable to future generations for denying them the opportunity of its use.
however, if we negatively effect resources which we share with other species, then it's a different story. rainforests can be replaced by plantations, but what about the species which died through habitat loss? same goes for fish species being removed from the food chain. the market will regulate itself when it comes to mankind's self interest, but it doesn't take into account the needs of other species... until it's too late.
As for other species, we don't have any particular responsibility towards them either. Having said that, it is abundantly clear to me that most people are quite prepared not to be unnecessarily cruel in their exploitation of natural resources, and that people who can afford it will voluntarily pay for environmental protection, whether that is for productive purposes or to satisfy a higher aesthetic sense. I certainly am. I do not, however, believe that this is a reason to despise others, to feel guilt about having children, or to ration what others consume when they wouldn't have done so in response to a price that signals potential future scarcity.
The ethical obligation to respect humanity and defend their freedom implies not treating people like an unwanted disease, or coercing them like animals.
You seem to believe that we can function without needing to consider nature. But, we can't just recreate or farm everything in future. Living today with that kind of assumption in mind is pretty selfish in my opinion. Nature is fragile. We depend on it, not the other way round.
I do agree with you that people have the right to procreate as they wish. Or do anything else, so long as it doesn't impact the wellbeing of others. Generally higher populations lead to better economies of scale, efficiency and overall economic growth. And that's all fine as long as there are resources to support them, and they manage the resources in an unselfish way.
Most likely, mankind will persist to survive for centuries to come... if we accidentally waste the planet, nature will regulate itself and our numbers will drop accordingly. Life will continue. But we have the choice to influence just what kind of a life that is.
I can't wait for fish stocks to be further depleted, more species of wild animals to be found only in captivity and our scarce water resources to become expensive, poor quality and hard to come by. Screw the future. Let's live for today - once we're gone, who cares? Whatever happens is for the next generation to sort out.
Secondly, nature is not some helpless cute puppy. Nature could wipe us out in a second, that Icelanding Volcano, rising methane levels in the Gulf of Mexico - those are the latest of any number of potential naturally occuring extinction level events on the planet. Let's stop being sentimental and impractical about nature.
Nature is not some sort of cute bunny rabbit
Your first comment merely reinforces the fact that we now live with the consequences of our forefather's poor decisions. And that the next generation can fix things if we stuff it up... but why should they have to if it was avoidable?
Killing off the whales wasn't an effective strategy, as it negatively impacted that generation as well.
Being poor does not automatically give you carte blanche to not care. Tribal societies existed for aeons in harmony with nature, I see no logical precedent in your statement. That said, the first world (vis. America) is responsible for the greatest consumption and waste of natural resources. Not the third world. So I'm not really getting your point.
Please point to the time where nature wiped out mankind. In history. Hasn't happened. In fact, mankind's population explosion has been because of our power over nature - our ability to fight disease, escape predation and overcome environmental factors in order to survive. With the advent of the hydrogen bomb, mankind realised that they are the arbiter of their own destiny and we can pretty much destroy life on earth as we know it if we so desire. It would seem that the greatest threat to our own survival is not nature, but, in fact, ourselves.
Your example of the gulf of Mexico methane is a moot one. Are you telling me that this has nothing to do with the oil spill?
Nature isn't a cute bunny rabbit. How we treat it will ultimately be how it rewards or punishes us.
Second, the point is that people in California and Germany are now rich enough to (1) care about whether their environment is degraded or not (2) to afford to be able to do something about it. Which is why dirty industries tend to be progressively priced out of rich societies - for rich people the marginal utility of a beautiful river outweighs the marginal revenue from siting an ugly polluting factory next to it. However, for poor people in Brazil or China, starving next to a truly world class beautiful river is outweighted by the benefits of getting a job in that same factory even if it destroys - for now - that river. Larry Summers once got into trouble for writting a memo to that effect when he was at the world bank - one of the reasons Tim Geithner rather than he became Obama's Treasury Secretary.
There have been at least two extinction level events in the history of the world the reason they did not kill people was because they happened many millions of years ago - pre-humanity as it were. We have no reason to believe that one will not happen at some stage during human existence.
And as you say, we thrive because we (largely) have dominion over nature, why then would you believe that our ability to beat previous challenges has now been exhausted and that we will not be able to beat the challenges of the future - including "global warming" and/or running out of oil.
"As for other species, we don't have any particular responsibility towards them either."
"The ethical obligation to respect humanity and defend their freedom implies not treating people like an unwanted disease, or coercing them like animals."
All three quotes from a single posting by Ivo. Says it all, I just don't see how "ethics" and "humanity" could possibly serve his argumentation, except as moral figleaf maybe.
It's as if I advocate willful destruction of the environment. I do not. I'm saying that our responsibility to human welfare comes first. I'm saying that appealing to some external responsibility to nature, future generations or whatever, cannot justify restricting human welfare in the present, or imposing coercive measures to attain some speculative future good. Individuals are continually faced with decisions that trade off present utility with future good. Every economic act, such as buying a loaf of bread, selling a car, or accepting a job, constitutes such a decision. They are themselves best placed to make those choices, depending on their own circumstances. Nobody has the right to make those choices for them.
I'm further saying that it is facile to presume this will lead to general doom and destruction. Prosperity and self-interest, through the price mechanism, work together to avert the doom that prophets have been predicting since the dawn of time. Does that mean everything is hunky-dory? No. By contrast, does this mean we're going to hell in a handbasket? By no means.
This isn't a binary choice between future doom and present paradise. It's about whether things are getting better or worse for humanity, and secondarily, for nature. In both cases, I believe things are getting better. Moreover, they are more likely to get better when people are free to make their own choices, and when society accepts their production and consumption choices, rather than making them fear for the future and wallow in guilt over their own (or their children's) lives.