tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post2416672362564642640..comments2023-09-28T08:13:11.489-07:00Comments on Only In It For The Gold: The Tautology and Its WeaknessesMichael Tobishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-79581188198321485692011-06-10T05:45:40.990-07:002011-06-10T05:45:40.990-07:00Franklin Roosevelt stumbled into a good part of th...Franklin Roosevelt stumbled into a good part of the equation, likely without any economist ever hitting on any equation. The Civilian Conservation Corps put cash in the hands of thousands of men who sent it to their families and which immediately bought food, clothing and housing -- while the men themselves built some really magnificent structures. Our great National Parks today carry the stamp of this construction, in roads, bridges and buildings made of stone and wood, structures that have stood for decades and may stand for centuries, and structures which themselves are worth the trip to the parks. That's just the most obvious work.<br /><br />Then there were the PWA and WPA, and other "make-work" projects whose fruits we still enjoy.<br /><br />What's wrong with another, massive stimulus, aimed at fixing the thousands of bridges in the nation that need fixing? What's wrong with fixing the roads, building and improving the parks in cities (cities don't have the budget for it)? <br /><br />There are complaints that the Forest Service did not thin the dead fall on the forest floor in the huge ponderosa forest that is now the Wallow fire. USFS starves for money to carry out necessary land management actions, and has for 30 years. So do BLM and NPS. <br /><br />Republicans seem bent on dragging us back to a pre-Teddy Roosevelt Gilded Age, where the rich are fine, but everybody else suffers. It was not a great time for the economy then, either -- but those who vacation in third world nations may want to see some of the same sort of "charm" here. <br /><br />If a foreign nation had done to us what the Tea Party has done in the past year, we would consider it an act of war. Some of the old Soviet Communists said they really wouldn't need to do anything to the U.S., that we would collapse of our own errors. Who'd ever have thought the party of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon would do the work of the old KGB?<br /><br />The Soviets lacked a good system of land preservation and parks for recreation, history, research and preservation. We shouldn't follow their path.Ed Darrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10056539160596825210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-56092514891559014642009-04-30T17:37:00.000-07:002009-04-30T17:37:00.000-07:00Wikipedia is your friend:
"Human Impact (I) on th...Wikipedia is your friend:<br /><br />"Human Impact (I) on the environment equals the product of population (P), affluence (A: consumption per capita) and technology (T: environmental impact per unit of consumption)."Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-50027521637956656822009-04-30T17:20:00.000-07:002009-04-30T17:20:00.000-07:00Er, remind me what
I = PAT
is supposed to mean, ...Er, remind me what<br /><br />I = PAT<br /><br />is supposed to mean, please. I've not managed to memorize it yet.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-91385105504043838922009-04-30T14:03:00.000-07:002009-04-30T14:03:00.000-07:00Michael - thanks for the I=PAT reference, I hadn't...Michael - thanks for the I=PAT reference, I hadn't looked into that before, though I've seen expressions like it (specific to energy and CO2, for instance) elsewhere.<br /><br />Assuming we truly end up with some enforced control on impacts (I) - say through a "cap" on pollution of various kinds - and also manage to keep population relatively stable (it's the least variable of the quantities at the moment), the expression essentially resolves to:<br /><br />A = (constant) / T<br /><br />The rate of growth of affluence will be constrained by the rate of improvement of technologies that cut the impact of that affluence on the environment. In a sense that's always been true, if you replace the "environmental impact" meaning of I with "resource use", under conditions of at least one constrained resource. Whether it was food, water, land, trees, or whatever the most constraining resource on humanity at a given point in time, development of tools, civilized patterns of behavior, and technology has always allowed affluence (and population) to outgrow those constraints.<br /><br />Long-run there are real physical constraints - the total energy available from the Sun, for example - that will really, finally, limit us. But up to that point, there's little reason to suspect our capabilities won't be able to circumvent any constraint in the pursuit of growth (now, hopefully, of affluence more than population).Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06249922708053689717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-4719814069496467202009-04-30T12:42:00.000-07:002009-04-30T12:42:00.000-07:00Michael,
Your blog (as well as other blogs from th...Michael,<br />Your blog (as well as other blogs from the climate scientist network) persuades me that what I've been doing as an individual (improving my knowledge of climate science, honing my climate counter-insurgency skills, buying hybrids; saving up for solar panels, etc) is too little and too slow. While I try to embody more wealth with less impact, real "growth" continues. Buildings and housing tracks get approved and their developers are just waiting for the economic green light. <br /><br />At various levels, there are people addressing the climate problem: potential climate legislation at the federal level; new energy and building standards at the state level; low-impact development prototypes at the county level; and I'm guessing that many city and schools have a token green team. And then there are the environmental groups.<br /><br />It's the abstract nature of this conversation that makes me impatient. What would be a measurable and testable case study? What does action look like? Is it something that can take place at the local level or is it best to start from the top?<br /><br />Thanks<br />John Gjghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00588440067862480858noreply@blogger.com