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

Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy





On 11 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:

> 
> >On 10 Dec 1996 06:04:21 GMT, sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
> >
> >>Comparing our current situation to the past may show us some areas of
> >>improvement, but it also shows us that at no time have we had the
> >>destructive potential that we do now. And that we're not putting that
> >>potential to much better use than we ever have.
>  
> This just isn't true.  This may seem like a small point: our
> destructive potential was far greater ten years ago than it is today.
> 
>  
> In that decade the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world has
> declined by perhaps as much as 40%. All the major powers, including
> France and China, have ratified and come under the aegis of the
> nuclear test ban treaty.  The Union of South Africa has given up its
> nuclear weapons, and the nuclear weapons programs of Iraq, Egypt and
> North Korea have been halted.
> 
> Major weapons systems have been slowed, e.g. the B-2 and Sea Wolf,
> while others, such as the racetrack missile and the bugso Star Wars
> proposition have been halted.  
>  
> At the same time the United Nations has substantially increased its
> still small and weak military force. The Russian Army is now back in
> Russia, except for a few units serving the UN.  
>  
> Not bad.  We haven't gone far, but we're going in the right direction.
> Going slowly in the right direction is far better than going wrong at
> great speed.

Because we have not chosen to shift the economy towards an understanding 
of a Greater Economy (Wendel Berry) or Ultimate ends (Herman Daly), it 
must continue to create a system in which we become more potentially 
lethal than previous generations. Simply saying that nuclear weapons are 
being dismantled does not discount the fact that these weapons are still 
terrible biophysically hazardous.  In addition, economic choices made 
today which have poor environmental ramifications will have much more 
devastating effects in the near future (e.g. China, a country of over a 
billion, fueling all of its industrial needs with coal).



Follow-Ups: References: