Desdemona at 2: The Environmentalist’s Paradox

[Barrett808]

Of the many important results published during Desdemona’s second year of blogging, one stood out: a BioScience paper titled “Untangling the Environmentalist’s Paradox: Why Is Human Well-being Increasing as Ecosystem Services Degrade?” This question is central to the Desdemona Thesis.

Essentially, the authors of this paper (Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne, et al.) challenge us to reconcile the following two graphs. The first shows the the Human Development Index (HDI), which is an aggregate measure of human well-being globally, for the 40-year period from 1970 to 2010. The second shows the Living Planet Index (LPI) for the same period. Despite a nearly 30 percent decline in the LPI, the HDI has risen for almost all nations. ...

It’s an article of faith among doomers that as humans wreck the biosphere, the consequences for civilization will be severe. These graphs provide pretty solid empirical evidence that this hasn’t been the case over the 40-year time period studied here. The BioScience paper provides a framework for considering this paradox.

Desdemona at 2: The Environmentalist’s Paradox

[mike_c]

1. this is a fascinating article....

Bookmarked and rec'd for later consideration!

[damntexdem]

2. Get cause and effect straight -- and that's usually hard to do.

Issue: the development pushing higher living standards can be wrecking the environment, which will then lower living standards.

[prairierose]

3. Indeed..thank you for that succinct clarification......n/t

[xchrom]

5. +2

[pscot]

6. This also begs the question:

could we have the high living standards without wrecking the environment? I think it's possible, but our current form of economic organization precludes it.

[Ghost Dog]

4. That's easy: There's a certain timelag before the shit hits the fan,

on the one (environmental) hand; and on the other, post-enlightenment relatively 'rational', occasionally 'democratic' educational, technological and economic development has indeed been able to provide significant human quality-of-life benefits for some, perhaps indeed many, even a majority of the people currently alive on the planet today. The environmentalist would assert that this cannot long last.

[NickB79]

7. The more 2x4's I tear out of my house to burn, the warmer I get

But when I've taken out too many, the house collapses. I can stay warm a bit longer by burning the rubble, but ultimately I freeze to death without shelter.

[GliderGuider]

8. Here's another analogy.

Think of the web of life as being analogous to human society. In human society, wealth and power is “pumped uphill” out of general society and is consolidated in ruling elite. As time goes on, and absent effective regulatory restraint on the behaviour of the elite, the wealth and power imbalance increases. The rich become richer while the poor become poorer. This process can persist for a long time, until finally the poor are so impoverished and immiserated that they can no longer support the demands of the rich. The social fabric tears and they stop supporting the rich. At that point (a little too late) the rich realize that they are not apart from society, that they have always depended on the resources of the rest of society, and the whole enterprise falls apart.

In the ecological analogy the web of life is like society, only this time humans are the ruling class and the ecosystem plays the role of the general population. Natural wealth is progressively “pumped uphill”, removed from the ecosystem and consolidated in human civilization. In the process the ecosystem is gradually impoverished while humanity is materially enriched. As in the case of human society, if there are no restraints on the behaviour of the rich the supporting ecosystem becomes progressively depleted until it cracks under the strain. At that point (a little too late) humans realize that they are not apart from the ecosystem, that they have always depended on the resources of the ecosystem, and the whole enterprise falls apart.

Desdemona has it right. Food supply may be the most sensitive indicator, but Hypothesis 4 is correct.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Privatize the profits, and socialize the costs

Those damn greedy corporations. We bitch about them constantly, but we sure do act like them. We even hate limits and regulations. For example, humans can't fly, but we'll find the loophole. Humans can't travel at 60mph, but we'll find the loophole.

[GliderGuider]

10. This behaviour predates corporations by a fair bit

Think of the feudal system. Think of the old Chinese empire. Corporations are a good example, but they are just the modern manifestation of it. The tendency towards hierarchic exploitation seems to be inherent to the human animal.