September 4, 2012

• Sustainable modernity

  Another post from the Worldcon commute.

  JDN 2456169 EDT 13:48.

   

  In the conflict about environmental sustainability, there are two major sides, and they are both right in some ways and wrong in others. One side is what I would call the “natural” camp, which is trying to make the world more like (what they perceive to be) its natural state, with such things as local food, handmade clothing, and self-sufficiency. A classic example of the natural camp is the Burning Man community. The other side, diametrically opposed, is what I would call the “modern” camp, which is trying to advance the world technologically and economically, and will use whatever means necessary to do that, coal, oil, steel, and so on. The Republican Party in the US is, among other things, part of the modern camp—“Drill, baby, drill!”

  The natural camp is wrong, above all, about what they think the world is naturally like. They think that nature is harmonious and cooperative, when in fact it is mostly brutal and competitive. Life for most animals that have ever lived on Earth was nasty, brutish, and short. We do not want to go back to a world where the majority of infants die of disease, where childbirth is a leading cause of death among women, where life expectancy is 35. That is what nature is like. Moreover, natural ecology is not particularly stable; ancient humans made large animals extinct almost as fast as modern humans do today, and at any moment a volcanic eruption or asteroid impact could wipe out 99% of life without us having to lift a finger.

  But the modern camp is also wrong, if they think that modernity can be achieved by any means necessary, without regard for what happens to our natural environment. We can’t just keep on burning coal and oil, watching the Earth heat up degree by degree. On this road lies death and destruction as the ecology we depend on collapses around us.

  Instead I propose a kind of compromise, which takes the best of both camps. Yes, we will change our environment, reshape it to our needs—but we must be careful doing so. Yes, we will be cautious about ecological changes—but we will make changes, because human lives are at stake. Sustainable modernity means neither handmade bicycles nor diesel SUVs, but instead solar-powered maglev trains. It means finding a balance between advancing human well-being today and preserving ecological stability tomorrow.

  And yes, sometimes there are hard choices to be made. We need tantalum and germanium for our digital technology, but the mining of these rare metals causes environmental damage over wide areas. We hope to move to solar, wind, and fusion power eventually, but for now we may have to burn some coal just to keep our homes heated in winter and cooled in summer—especially as our summers get hotter ever year. Mosquitoes may be vital to wetland ecosystems, but they also spread malaria, and as such we must find ways to repel or kill them in malaria-heavy areas.
  We will have to make sacrifices in both directions, sometimes giving up a little economic development for some ecological security, sometimes accepting a little environmental damage for some economic advancement. But always on our minds will be the balance, the cost-benefit analysis.

  Indeed, in the long run this is what will maximize economic growth. In that sense, we are not really giving up any economic development, only saving it awhile so it can have maximum return. Many economists complain about America’s dismally small savings rate in bank accounts, but this is actually quite trivial. (It doesn’t even necessarily affect investment, given the complexities of our monetary system.) What really matters is the “savings rate” of forests planted versus burned, water extracted versus replenished, materials recycled versus landfilled. We could have billions in our bank accounts, but if the air isn’t breathable it won’t do us any good. Conversely if the air is clean and the water is fresh and the food is plentiful, it won’t matter all that much if our bank accounts are empty. Ecology is the real economy.

  Sustainable modernity is neither a world of native tribes nor a world of soot and smokestacks, but a world of solar-powered arcologies and self-sufficient fusion-engine starships. It is a world where ecology and technology are not opposed but mutually supporting.

  Fortunately, this idea is already beginning to take hold. “Green technology” is a notion that would have been anathema to the hippies of the 1970s, yet it is the official position of the Obama Administration. Even the burner community isn’t quite as extreme about their naturism as they once were—they support the use of aluminum cans, for example.

  The bigger problem today is from the other side, the modernists, who insist that we can continue to drill for oil and mine for coal on into the indefinite future, without any harmful consequences. We hear oxymorons like “safe offshore oil” and “clean coal”, even as oil spills fill the Gulf of Mexico and the EPA releases a report that air pollution will kill 30,000 Americans over the next 10 years.

  These people believe that they are the engine of progress, that those of us who call for caution are simply holding back economic growth. They can point to the naturists as evidence of this—for the naturists really are holding back economic growth, or would be if they were taken seriously in policy. Our response, therefore, must be sustainable modernity—long-run economic growth that is consistent with environmental sustainability. We must be farsighted in our planning and prudent in our decisions—and in the long run, we will not be sacrificing anything, but instead gaining everything.

  • 9:49 pm
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