REPLY Limits to Growth Plan B (SD7011)

[SDMAIL Stephen Wehrenberg]

Posted by  Stephen Wehrenberg <stephen.wehrenberg at verizon.net>

Jack, Jay,

I submit that there are subtle differences in the way you are referring to 
causes.  

Jay implies in his statement that population and industrial growth are the 
causes of the environmental pickle we find ourselves in.  I'd just say 
consumption, since demand from consumption fuels industrial growth, but no 
reason to quibble about that. Infinite growth in a finite world seems 
problematic.  I am inclined to agree with this proposition, as mentioned 
earlier.  I throw my lot in with Jared Diamond in that population and 
consumption are both important causes, sine qua non, and it's too late to 
merely solve one or the other.  Current populations, consuming at the rate 
that we in America do, would bankrupt the world in a decade.  

Jack, you ask what causes population and industrial growth?  And you posit 
resistance to change as the culprit.  I would say that R-C isn't the cause 
of population or consumption, but that it may indeed be the cause (reason) we 
have not solved the problem, the root cause of which is too many people using 
too much stuff.  

Thus we get to some subtle differences.  In one case cause is taken as that 
which comes before and results in A, and without which A would not occur.  
One event is the stimulus for the next.  Newtonian physics.  

In the other case it is more like the cause as the reason that a condition 
exists.  A condition can exist as the result of a cause and be sustained for 
a reason.  Perhaps that framework would help us recast the statement in a way 
that would address both Jay's and Jack's positions.  

"Population and consumption (growth) are the causes of our environmental 
calamity, and resistance to change has prevented us from solving either."

Respectfully,

Steve
Posted by  Stephen Wehrenberg <stephen.wehrenberg at verizon.net>
posting date  Thu, 08 May 2008 19:19:34 -0400