At what point did we become "unsustainable?"

[amadeus]

Given the rise of advocacy for "sustainability" in the past quarter-century, at what point did we, according to the advocates, become unsustainable? Unless the advocates believe human life has always been unsustainable, there must have been some point at history when it wasn't.

So, the poll question is quite simple: if you believe so, when did we become "unsustainable?"

 

[NickyJ]

Human life became unsustainable when I came to town!

 

[Disgustipated]

Unsustainable in what way? There are too many variables at work here. Unsustainable without fossil fuels? Unsustainable without electricity? I don't understand what kind of unsustainable we are talking about.

I don't believe we are unsustainable at all. We produce enough food to feed the entire planet (it's through other means people do actually starve and are malnourished). Sure population will grow, but so will technology. The only point we may become unsustainable is if the fossil fuels run out, but by then solar may become more viable.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Spoiler :

I expect it has become a question of "that word doesn't mean what you think it means".

 

[Tycho]

After WWII when the population exploded rapidly.

 

[Disgustipated]

After WWII when the population exploded rapidly.

But we are sustaining them, they aren't dying off at any rate faster than before WW2 (starvation due to poverty, disease, war, and political means has always been a problem). We do have enough food to feed every person in the world. It's just that food can't reach everyone due to political mechanisms mostly.

 

[BasketCase]

No way to know. The problem is that we humans are always discovering new stuff that changes the equation. Take oil, for example. Forty years ago, the world only had thirty years' worth of known oil reserves left. Yet here we are, well after thirty years later, and known reserves have actually gone up.

Disgustipated is right. People are getting killed off in large numbers right now, but for reasons completely unrelated to unsustainability.

 

[Tycho]

But we are sustaining them, they aren't dying off at any rate faster than before WW2 (starvation due to poverty, disease, war, and political means has always been a problem). We do have enough food to feed every person in the world. It's just that food can't reach everyone due to political mechanisms mostly.

I would have thought of it more as the machinations of greed and avarice, but that is also true. Most of the developed world can sustain large populations, and expand them gradually, but the population of the world is constantly expanding. Seven billion people after all.

 

[Abegweit]

Excellent question but I don't even know what "sustainable" means. As best I can tell, it seems to be about throwing vast amounts of money at incredibly inefficient means of energy production. Oh. Plus writing incredibly expensive and completely pointless regulations.

 

[KMRblue1027]

Around 1800 with the population boom and the industrial revolution.

 

[muhtesem insan]

We are sustainable, we just choose to not sustain ourselves.

 

[Disgustipated]

But we are sustaining ourselves. I feel like I'm arguing this point too much.

Only if our population was decreasing would I say we are not sustaining ourselves.

 

[Tycho]

We are not a sustainable species; any species that rises to dominate it's habitat becomes unsustainable, because of the constant demands exerted on that environment.

 

[Tee Kay]

Oops, I didn't see the first option.

We haven't become unsustainable. Yet. However, the present course can lead to unsustainability. Fortunately there's still time for change.

Someone will ask me to predict when we'll become unsustainable. I will say: "we can't know". Our course is constantly changing. However, we do know for instance that certain metals will run out (or become uneconomical to mine) in a few decades time at current rates of consumption, and certain species of fish will become extinct by the end of the century at current rates of depletion, with unpredictable consequences for the biosphere, and so on. After these and all other disasters we may be able to sustain ourselves in the most basic sense of the word, but can our civilisation really be considered "sustainable" then?

 

[uppi]

About 13 billion years ago. Since then we are heading to the inevitable heat death of the universe.

 

[Integral]

1880.

 

[Leoreth]

As best I can tell, it seems to be about throwing vast amounts of money at incredibly inefficient means of energy production.

Oh, you mean compared to those incredibly efficient means of energy production that have their true costs fudged by socialising them or shifting them to future generations that have to throw even larger amounts of money at the problems they've created?

 

[amadeus]

Unsustainable in what way?

Excellent question but I don't even know what "sustainable" means.

Good points; I didn't even have a definition in mind. But, that doesn't stop people from using it and assigning it a value.

The only point we may become unsustainable is if the fossil fuels run out, but by then solar may become more viable.

Some alternative source (note that alternative does not necessarily mean renewable, just not one currently in widespread use) will be more viable by then because of our friend the price system.

\As best I can tell, it seems to be about throwing vast amounts of money at incredibly inefficient means of energy production.

I don't think it's just that, but also trying to justify centralized city planning, controlling our diets, controlling our medicines, and controlling all other ways in which we live in a modern, consumer economy.

We are sustainable, we just choose to not sustain ourselves.

This doesn't mean anything.

 

[Arwon]

If you think an entirely free market energy system is either possible or desirable you're actually pretty much kidding yourself.

On the topic: digging holes and burning what you find in the hole is not sustainable, obviously. Fossil fuels are a one time store of millions of years of free solar and geothermal energy and if we had time horizons longer than a couple years or decades we'd have been trying to leverage that into something more long-term and self-perpetuating from much earlier in the piece. Unfortunately humans do not work that way, and the question now is if we can achieve a transition without massive drops in our standard of living along the way.

Sure "the price mechanism" will make us try to get other types of energy working when things hit crisis, but that's pretty glib magical thinking. It's cold comfort given the sort of dislocations and unravellings that are entirely possible during said crisis.

The problem is that the very resources needed for re-engineering the entire basis of our economies as pieces of it start to come apart or grind to a halt, are going to be the ones that are also needed for a variety of other existing purposes. What makes anyone think the longer term "re-engineering" purposes are likely to win out over shorter term and more urgent demands?

 

[amadeus]

If you think an entirely free market energy system is either possible or desirable you're actually pretty much kidding yourself.

Not at all, just as I would not have a central planning scheme for shoes or pineapples. We have no plans for shoes or pineapples yet there is no shoe crisis, nor is there a pineapple crisis. The crises are always in those industries that the government sticks its ignorant, brutish, troglodyte hands on.

Sure "the price mechanism" will make us try to get other types of energy working when things hit crisis, but that's pretty glib magical thinking. It's cold comfort given the sort of dislocations and unravellings that are entirely possible during said crisis. Re-engineering the entire basis of our economies as pieces of it start to come apart or grind to a halt is not exactly likely to be smooth-sailing.

Your argument falls apart though in that there will be no crisis. The number of barrels of oil remaining for access, not including changes in consumption, new discoveries or new and improved methods of acquiring or using oil, is measured in decades. The market prices scarcity rationally, and this is not based on faith, but reality as it happens all around us, now and forever.