[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy



On 15 Nov 1996 18:04:47 GMT, "Mike Asher" <masher@tusc.net> wrote:

>The FAO figures you quote indicate "malnourished" people.  FAO classifies
>people with sufficient caloric intake, but with a diet 'insufficiently
>varied' as malnourished as well.   Still a problem, of course, but please
>define it properly.

800 million facing famine at this moment, twice as many as 20 years
ago. 40,000 of whom will die tomorrow, and 40,000 the next day, and...

>In Medieval times, 
-snip-

Your description of how horrible life was half a millenium ago is
quite enlightening, but proves nothing except how far back you have to
look to find a time at which things were worse, and even then were
only worse in a localized area.

The problems to which you refer resulted from the advent of
market-based economies, (actually marking the end of medieval times),
which - like most businesses still - formed with little understanding
of the impact they would have. 

For 800 years after the fall of the Roman empire up to this point,
people lived in a non-market, subsistance based economy; the land did
not belong to the people, the people belonged to the land. Very few
had reason to be hungry.

Since the primary industry of these developing markets was textiles,
the question became whether to use the land for food or sheep. No hard
choice for the aristocrats who had no fear of going hungry - so they
began to maximize the use of land for sheep to support these emerging
markets.

What happened as a result has to be one of the greatest turning points
in history.

A series of enclosure acts passed by the English parliament divided
the land and reduced it to commercial property that could be
negotiated as real estate. Hundreds of thousands of people were
displaced from the land first in England then on the continent.

The resulting famines were caused by a lack of understanding that what
minimal land could feed the people one year, might not the next year,
or ten years later. That, and the fact that the upper classes liked
their sheep too much.

This situation was probably the first hard-learned environmental
lesson which modern humankind faced, and thank you Mr. Asher for the
example. 

For the first time people realised that even large-scale resources are
finite, and balance must be achieved. As our understanding grew over
time, we've simply tried to achieve this balance between 'sheep and
food' and inhabited more land.

Only now there isn't more land. The earth and the biosphere which is
our environment is finite.  The resources which we consume are finite.


Since there is no more land, the only alternative is to work on the
balance between 'sheep and food', so to speak. The problem is, as it
was 500 years ago, that those who have both don't see the problem. Or
they don't think it's their problem.

>This is the true world of 'organic' farming, biomass power, and
>deindustrialization many environmentalists would have us return to.  I'd
>prefer to work out our problems and stay here.

No environmentalist I know would consider deindustrialization to be a
viable solution. If we could go back in time, however... 

Capitalist's solution: Consume more!


Jason McGinnis


Follow-Ups: References: