Can we keep this up?

I want to know what people think. Is our way of life sustainable? By our I mean the current global political structure and all sub structures it may contain.

[Edited on Sep 16, 2003 by jeykool]

The only way the USA's lifestyle is sustainable is a systematic crushing of the rest of the world, on a Roman-esque scale. Since we are unwilling to do that, the rest of the world will inevitably progress in its standard of living -- and can anyone in good conscience deny them that? When a good majority of the world achieves the standard of living of the U.S., it will cease to be even remotely sustainable.

Unless we find a larger scale of resource consumption. But I don't agree that the rest of the world will catch up. I wonder if one were to do a study on the ratio of royalty to serfs (or equivelant across feudal cultures) would it be the same or similar to the current first to third world ratios. I realize that this is overly simplistic. But the aesthetic is intriguing.

I think not.

It's way past the whole sustainable energy thing and the monetary structure going virtual with the likes of non-profit / high shares earners like lastminute.com. What worries me most is the global village / boy next continent society the internet has made amonster of.

Anyone can find a community they belong to in this world and what that does is allow people from extract socialogical tangents to thrive. In many cases that is a good thing (here is a good example) yet it allows dark cultures such a paedophile rings to recruit new members who no longer feel that they are a minority.

Another thing that is starting to happen is that a global "way of life" is being established meaning that there is less cultiral variety. I'm really not sure if that's a good thing.

In short, no.

Smail wrote a great article on this in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology titled, "Remembering Malthus: a preliminary argument for a significant reduction in global human numbers." He wrote two other follow-up articles that I haven't read yet. Basically he outlines the available resources on the earth, population trends, and estimates a carrying capacity. We're over a couple of billion.

Really, I cannot recommend enough that you check out this article if you can. My uni's library has access to the journal on the web, I'm guessing that many others will as well.

I should start by saying I don't trust these carrying capacity exercises, in that various "scientific" claims have been made from the time of Malthus on, that "the end of the world is nigh". The Club of Rome were talking in the 1970s about "overshoot and collapse" by now. They had to revise the date, just like a doomsayer with "The end of the world will happen on July 14, 2001" written on a sign, when it didn't come to pass. (As in "We were right, just not about the actual date!") Stanford scientist Paul Ehrlich was another who forecast disaster and was famously wrong about it.

That said, I've recently been reading (in a professional capacity) the following paper which is on this very issue. It's joint work between a number of famous people, including a Nobel Laureate economist and the aforementioned Paul Ehrlich.

Are We Consuming Too Much? (in PDF format)

I think in the short term the political sustainability issue (that code raises) is of greater concern than the ecological sustainability issue that the paper I'm linking to discusses.

The paper I cited actually discusses that in terms of an appropriate living standard for everyone, I was just too lazy to outline it very closely. I downloaded your pdf though, and I'll read it later today, hopefully.

I'm still stuck at what we should do about it all though. Half of my really wants to save what we can, reduce our numbers, teach everyone to be a vegetarian....and the other half of me wants full on cyberpunk paved world, because that's what people deserve. Bastards. And it might be cool.

I think the question is faulity cause it ignores the root of human nature: mutability. Yes, if we froze any type of change i think we could not sustain our society. But as all things are, it's a game of balance and i think humanity will push one way and pull the other when needed. My hope for change is a push towards environmental balance and a push at the stars. i don't think culture and sub-culture will play a role in our sustainability. i have hope yet.

What a broad question. The only course of personal action you have in determining the answer is consuming less and being politically active. You'll be a monk, but one with a good fight to fight.

No, I figured that was the premiss of the paper you cited. As for what we can do, there are some "clear and present danger" aspects to try and get right. Broader lifestyle shifts are harder to make happen, and there's limits to how much we want to trade off freedom and self deternination for mandated lifestyle restrictions. I guess that's the debate we'll all have to have over the next 50 years!