Is technology and environmentalism compatible? Is technology neutral?

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Ok, let me ask you one thing: What is your definition of sustainability? My definition is that something can be done indefinitely. You can use exactly as much wood as will grow back or eat as much food as the land can provide or take as many mineral resources as are formed.

To me, it's making them last as long as humanity will. This means saving what there is and recycling what has already been produced.

But if you look at the latter, you will run into a problem, as mineral resources form over millions of years. Even if you drop resource consumption to 1/10th of the current level (by recycling for example), they will last only for some more decades. And that is at present development - it is commonly accepted however that the desire is to give all 7 billion people the same living standards, which is when it just ceases to work out.

Exactly why the Earth is hugely overpopulated. As it is, there are only a few resources that are measured in decades (oil and possibly gas) which is why dependence on those needs to be removed - others are nowhere near as limited.

If you're interested, here's my result form the test, I've done these a few times and they vary a little but are always around this area: Political Compass Printable Graph

I have several problems with that. For once, it would mean that we achieve the level of a spacefaring, asteroid mining species within the next maybe 3 decades and I dont see that.

Why an arbitrary limit?
The technology is all in place, as is the knowledge, the only obstructions are political, primarily lack of funding due to unnecessary focus on things which are, for the most part, harmful to the world.

Just to fly to Mars, which is not as far as the asteroid belt, is a huge challenge.

Not a challenge, it's been known HOW for decades. Nobody just wants to put themselves in the position to do it unilaterally.

Then even if humans do so (with unforseeable consequences), this may allow them to expand further, to spread out into the tens of billions of people living in some life-support-dependent chambers. But then what? Within a century or two the next limit will be reached and expansion has to go further. Maybe interstellar travel is possible and huamns can spread on and on?

Why such a large population? It is already too large, it would make more sense to stabilise it at a lower population with better quality of life.

But the whole thing is exponential growth. I am sure you heard about the famous story on the chinese emperor. A person who has done agreat service for the emperor asks for only one small thing. Take a checkerboard and put one grain of rice on the first square, then twice as much on the next and the numbers of rice grains on the board are what he wants as payment. The emperor laughed and agreed, only to find out that the amount of rice was of orders of magnitude larger than all the rice in the world.

Yes, I've heard that story before, but since population does not ALWAYS increase in orders of magnitude (indeed, birth rates are dropping), it isn't relevant.

The first square was maybe the invention of agriculture in the fertile crescent (before it was made infertile by agriculture), the second maybe horsepulled plows in Europe, then crop rotation, then industrialized farming with machines, then the "green revolution" with fertilizers and pesticides, the next may be GMOs.

Not with all the current wastes of resources like biofuels and the increasing standard of living in many developing countries which greatly increases demand. There won't be room for new growth, but it will allow support of what has already happened.

Each time the population exploded as a result. If the next steps are colonization of the Moon or Mars or the Solar System, you can see, that in exponential growth even these vast resources are soon becoming limiting.

Or spreading out a too-dense population with stable numbers.

[Fosus]

Originally Posted by Human No More

To me, it's making them last as long as humanity will. This means saving what there is and recycling what has already been produced.

To me this means using resources just like Aurora described. I mean, if resources were used like aurora described, humanity would last forever as long as Earth does.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Sustainability: To me, it's making them last as long as humanity will. This means saving what there is and recycling what has already been produced.

Well, if you can continue with what is already there, then ok. You would need 100% recycling rate and zero growth for that though.

Exactly why the Earth is hugely overpopulated. As it is, there are only a few resources that are measured in decades (oil and possibly gas) which is why dependence on those needs to be removed - others are nowhere near as limited.

Well - many mineral resources are also measured in decades really. Nitrogen fertilizer is actually just natural gas, but phosphorous fertilizer is dug up from the earth and is said to peak in production not much after oil does. For other mineral resources like copper, REEs and other vital resources the time is also running out. Especially with the rising demand that is expected for these in the next decade. It is true, that to some extent, this can be stretched by investing more energy (which poses a problem in itself), but the environmental implications are horrendous. The high percentage ores are all gone, low grade ores are now beeing mined and processed and in the future, even lower grade ores might become viable as prices rise and more energy is invested. This also means larger mines. You can dig up half of England and process it with enough energy into a number of mineral resources, but this would literally eat away the landscape.

asteroid mining...Why an arbitrary limit?
The technology is all in place, as is the knowledge, the only obstructions are political, primarily lack of funding due to unnecessary focus on things which are, for the most part, harmful to the world. ... Not a challenge, it's been known HOW for decades. Nobody just wants to put themselves in the position to do it unilaterally.

I do not really believe that. I doubt that it is only lack of interest for these that hinders it. It is also a technologcial challenge and requires a lot of money, resources and work. Asteroid mining - we are not even close to that. The asteroids are even father away than Mars, to mine them would mean big machinery to be shot up there and then you have to get it all back here. Maybe it could be possible in a century or two, but that 30 years (2040) is a common number that is sort of the latest limit for upcoming peak-everything. At that point in time, new resources have to be found in massive quantities to prevent scarcity.

Why such a large population? It is already too large, it would make more sense to stabilise it at a lower population with better quality of life.

On that I definitely agree!

Yes, I've heard that story before, but since population does not ALWAYS increase in orders of magnitude (indeed, birth rates are dropping), it isn't relevant.

Well - it is only partial about population increase. The reason why population increase is bad is that it equals an increase in consumption, usually food. With industrialization, increased resource consumption does not need to be correlated with population. You can have a constant population but still increase resource consumption exponentially. One example is biofuels. By them literally food is converted to lifestyle. By using this to fuel cars, people increase food consumption without population growth.
If we freeze todays population and just let them develop technologically, the resources of this planet would not be enough.
That is my problem with the idea that recycling will solve the problem. If the people who already are here all want cars and cellphones, it is not enough to recycle what is already there (which is never possible to 100% anyways) but also new resources have to be mined for that development.

There won't be room for new growth, but it will allow support of what has already happened.

So we need a zero growth in population and resource accumulation. That is not equal to a zero growth in resource consumption, but rather means, we cannot use much more resources anymore, but have to do with what is already there. If that can be done, then fine. Although - this would mean that many people would not be able to have the same lifestyle as others.
There is another problem though and that is that just maintaining the status also has an impact. It still requires an influx of resources, it still puts a strain on the environment and it still harms the natural world. If you have a river that has dams in it to provide hydropower and water for irrigation, you can maintain this with little additional resources, but it still means that salmon will not reach their breeding grounds and ecosystems depending on the river will turn dry as the water is used up upstream. Even by just maintaining this, ecology is harmed or restricted.

So of course I think there is a nice utopia we could dream up. A world in which population growth is zero, in which the population actually is reduced to an optimal level, a technology that recycles all mineral resources and metals, a technology that uses mostly natural materials without overusing the renewable resources, A society that despite these challenges turns egalitarian. if all this would work, I would be in favour. But i do not see this happening. It is about as likely as an angel coming down from heaven and showing people the path to paradise. The momentum of civilization as it is now is going into a wrong direction and it is hard to change that. It has to stop now (zero growth) and then people would have to look for alternatives. Maybe there is a way to make a civilization that is sustainable, but for that to emerge, the current status quo has to hit the brakes.

Gradual changes wont do it - that's what I am saying. i am saying, we should change priorities. The priority should be to maintain this planet as a living beeing, to allow nonhumans to live on this planet and to just have a healthy planet. Next comes human wellbeeing, freedom, egalitarian lifestyle and community - human happiness. And only then comes the development of new tools and knowledge. Though it is a bit circular, as knowledge is what may make the other things possible.

I love knowledge. But to love knowledge means also to act on it. Knowledge has not only shown us things about how the universe works, how start shine and how atoms work, but also how humans work, what they need, how ancient societies lived and what social structures are beneficial to humans. Knowledge also tell us that growth as it is promoted now does not work, that we are destroying the planet and causing a mass extinction. What good is knowledge if we do not act on it if it shows us that something is going wrong?

I'd rather have trees and fish and elk and beavers than drive a car. If the price for maintaining the lifestyle we have now is 150 species going extinct every day(!), I dont want it.