Finally I found a big-picture article on the subject of oil and other resources. I am not terribly familiar with Jeremy Grantham but I do like this article, particularly the second graph, "Exhibit 2", on page 5.
The article is flawed. It is contaminated with standard environmental gloom and doom theology: mankind has been Sinful for living it up, therefore Gaia must punish mankind. I am heartily sick of supposedly intelligent "free-thinkers" taking pride in outgrowing outdated religious traditions intellectually, but then clinging to the most puerile, Sunday-school-kindergarten notions, emotionally. They do everything but suck on their thumbs.
Today let's consider some of the ideas in Grantham's article that seem profoundly true. One of them is that mankind needs to focus on growing qualitatively, rather than quantitatively. That's a big topic for another day.
In opposition to Grantham's environmental gloom-and-doomism, you could choose the so-called optimism of the business community. This is expressed most consistently and dogmatically by Forbes magazine. Good old-fashioned can-do optimism: let's work like hell, think positive, and sell 5% more of Whatever next year.
But is that belief system any more rational than the environmental one? Malthus, the Club of Rome, and Paul Ehrlich have looked pretty wrong. There are grounds for saying that humanity has been remarkably clever about creating new resources and adapting them to our needs. On the other hand these positive developments have taken place over the last 200 years, which is a small fraction of our history.
How do we know that we're going to keep discovering the equivalents of coal and petroleum and a couple other improvements? Maybe we were just lucky a couple times, and the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.
Optimism (or Progress) is a belief system. Like Environmental Theology, it dresses itself up as Science, and tries to win people over with an aura of Inevitability. There is no fundamental law in Science or History that says that more people can enjoy more material goodies, with each succeeding generation, forever and ever, Amen. Entire books have been written on the idea of progress. It is a remarkably recent notion.
I am really interested in which of these two rival belief systems is more adult and rational.
The article is flawed. It is contaminated with standard environmental gloom and doom theology: mankind has been Sinful for living it up, therefore Gaia must punish mankind. I am heartily sick of supposedly intelligent "free-thinkers" taking pride in outgrowing outdated religious traditions intellectually, but then clinging to the most puerile, Sunday-school-kindergarten notions, emotionally. They do everything but suck on their thumbs.
Today let's consider some of the ideas in Grantham's article that seem profoundly true. One of them is that mankind needs to focus on growing qualitatively, rather than quantitatively. That's a big topic for another day.
In opposition to Grantham's environmental gloom-and-doomism, you could choose the so-called optimism of the business community. This is expressed most consistently and dogmatically by Forbes magazine. Good old-fashioned can-do optimism: let's work like hell, think positive, and sell 5% more of Whatever next year.
But is that belief system any more rational than the environmental one? Malthus, the Club of Rome, and Paul Ehrlich have looked pretty wrong. There are grounds for saying that humanity has been remarkably clever about creating new resources and adapting them to our needs. On the other hand these positive developments have taken place over the last 200 years, which is a small fraction of our history.
How do we know that we're going to keep discovering the equivalents of coal and petroleum and a couple other improvements? Maybe we were just lucky a couple times, and the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.
Optimism (or Progress) is a belief system. Like Environmental Theology, it dresses itself up as Science, and tries to win people over with an aura of Inevitability. There is no fundamental law in Science or History that says that more people can enjoy more material goodies, with each succeeding generation, forever and ever, Amen. Entire books have been written on the idea of progress. It is a remarkably recent notion.
I am really interested in which of these two rival belief systems is more adult and rational.
Comments
If you've already checked Wiki, I wonder if you noticed the nature of the foundation he and his wife established in 1997. Protection of the Environment? Hmmm.
Tom in Orlando