Jed and Ed interesting string. I happen to have a degree that includes
both the economics and environmental subjects your covering.
I've learned a few interesting things over the years.
* Very few technological and environmental disasters have occurred
that were not predicted and thus preventable. I can't think of
one. Even Enron's fraud and collapse was predicted by people
(Austrian economists) that guessed early on that they were (had to
be) fraudulent. The original shuttle design had an escape pod
bridge with extra heat shielding but it added several tons. It was
dropped from the design so she could carry more tons of cargo.
* Convenience beats commonsense every time so our solutions must be
convenient. The inconvenient solution such as recycling everything
is beaten by the convenience of a single rubbish bin.
* Technological solutions don't come when the greens, the lobbyists
or even the public clamor for them or when the investor invents
them. It comes when the society is willing to invest and pay for
them. We are on that threshold with oil at $50 a barrel. This
actually means they seem to come late from the greens and the
Lobbyists point of view. Frustratingly late from the inventor's
point of view but its perfectly on time from the point of view of
the market. Governments don't seem to have had an influence even
in a time of war; even they have to pay the going rate eventually
either in favors (which cost them dearly later) or cash.
* If there's land to migrate into or conquer its economicly viable
to run an ecosystem down to desert to build up the resorces to
launch the campain. The desert makers of history are not short
sighted they often had their sights set on someone elses land.
Jed Rothwell wrote:
I wrote:
When a society feels a strong need for a tool, and the tool is
technically within its grasp (meaning it does not require any
fundamental new discovery), development becomes inevitable.
That does not mean we always invent things when we need them.
Necessity alone is insufficient. We must also "feel a strong need." We
have to agree as a society that the problem exists and it should be
solved.
I think the US desperately needs better automobiles and a replacement
for oil. But unfortunately, the Congress and most citizens do not
agree, and they do not feel any need to address these problems. Good
solutions have already been invented, such as hybrid and diesel
engines. But we are ignoring these innovations. We may go on ignoring
them until we are destroyed by pollution or terrorism financed from
oil profits.
Sometimes, societies feel a strong need to invent things that serve no
purpose, such as the ancient Egyptian pyramids or the Space Shuttle.
- Jed
