The Plundered Planet

Writing on NetGreen News, Paul Mackie, formerly of the World Resources Institute, provides a book review of Paul Collier‘s latest book, The Plundered Planet: Why We Must–and How We Can–Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. In general, he agrees with Oxford Economics Professor Collier’s assertion:

“The romantics (environmentalists) are right that we are seriously mismanaging nature and that our practices are indefensible. The ostriches (economists) are right that much of what is said about nature is ridiculously pious, casting the rich world as the villains and the rest of the world as their victims. But they are also each half wrong. Both will take us to oblivion, albeit by different routes.”


Professor Collier says they are “half wrong” because, (economists) believe nature is an asset “to be exploited for the benefit of mankind,” and well environmentalists (apparently) are rigidly pious.

According to the description on Professor Collier’s page:

“(We must confront) global mismanagement of nature. Proper stewardship of natural assets and liabilities is a matter of planetary urgency: natural resources have the potential either to transform the poorest countries or to tear them apart…(Collier) [o]ffers concrete suggestions for how to fix the problems–including global warming, food shortages, and violent conflict–that result from improper exploitation of natural resources…”


I will put Professor Collier’s book on my “to be read” list and give it a look. Not too long ago I would wholly have agreed with him.

Now, I think, in spite of our natures, we are taking far better care of the earth than ever before. I’m skeptical that the effects of food shortages and violent conflict are the result of “improper exploitation of natural resources.” People respond to incentives, if there is a demand for a good or service, producers react by trying to market that. Recall, the food shortages of 2008 were, in part, the result of the Kyoto Protocols causing nations to move toward biofuels which pulled farmland out of food production for biofuel (and caused deforestation for palm oil plantations). Technology, rather than being a force destroying the earth, has a benevolent effect as well.




One more thing about fixing the food shortages. Tim Worstall has this to say in a rebuke of Johann Hari’s speculation of the shortage’s cause:

The wise, omniscient and altruistic politicians and bureaucrats could send a fax to all farmers telling them to plant more. Signs could appear in every breadshop telling us all to eat our crusts.

Except, of course, those wise, omniscient and altruistic politicians and bureaucrats are precisely the fuckers that got us into the mess in the first place by insisting that we should put wheat into cars rather than people.

1.4 earths: sustainability and overshoot, or 6 earths and the moon for dessert

I like to think of myself as a good person of the Boy Scout variety–trustworthy, brave, kind, helpful, etc.–except without the homophobia. You probably like to think the same (of yourself, not me). Well, according to the Global Footprint Network’s “Footprint Calculator” it would take six earths if all 6.7 billion of us lived a wicked, self-absorbed, and self-indulgent lifestyle such as mine, or yours for that matter. Turns out my footprint falls within the average for an American. And, according to the Footprint Network, because of selfish people such as you and I, it takes 1.4 earths to support our sorry butts. In other words, they say you and I are taking more than our fair share through overharvesting of pretty much everything, and depleting the earth’s future cupboard as a result: we’re overdrawing the earth’s bank account and living on credit; we can do it for a short time but over the long-run it bankrupts the earth.

Shoot, maybe I’m not a good person. Already, I can hear the Footprint police shaking their organically carbon-neutral fingers at me, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Why can’t you be like the North Korean peasants? They live on just five per cent as much as you by eating only dried yak dung. Now turn around, put that bag of chips back and turn off the air conditioner, television, computer, washing machine, answering machine, lights, refrigerator, freezer, hair dryer, water heater, radio, MP3 player, everything that requires energy. And, while you’re at it…don’t breathe so much!” Sigh…oops, I put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, I guess I’d better go buy some carbon offsets; but if I buy offsets that means turning on something and that means using energy. Sigh…

Like the Global Footprint Network, Bill McKibben pessimistically sees limitations, “(W)e’re going to have to figure out how to stop focusing on our economies of growth, and start thinking about survival. That means embracing local, smaller-scale ways of living, like it or not.”

Others optimistically see limitless opportunities for humans and our globe. Optimism is a tough sell. Molly Ivins said, “It’s hard to argue against cynics–they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side,” but she never met Matt Ridley, the Rational Optimist. He has evidence that says we need to keep going the way we’ve been going if we want to not simply survive but thrive. While McKibben tells us to slam on the brakes to keep the world from careening off the cliff; Ridley, with an Indiana Jones grins, says “Trust me. Floor the accelerator.”

In the foreword of his book, “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves,” Ridley writes, “I find that my disagreement is mostly with reactionaries of all political colours: blue ones who dislike cultural change, red ones who dislike economic change and green ones who dislike technological change…(H)uman progress has, on balance, been a good thing…(The world) is richer, healthier, and kinder too, as much because of commerce as despite it.”

You see, the more we trade goods and services, the more we trade ideas as well. Those ideas he says, “have sex.” Like DNA recombining to make unique individuals, bits of ideas cross-fertilize with others to make better ways of doing things. “In a nutshell,” Ridley says, “the most sustainable thing we can do, and the best for the planet, is to accelerate technological change and economic growth.”

While cynics and pessimists may sound smarter, in the past they have been wrong about the future. Despite their warning Jeremiads of deprivation and doom, we live longer and better, and on far less land than ever before.

I’m feeling better about myself already.

Comment on a HuffPo column

Here’s a comment I posted on an opinion piece written by Richard Stuebi, The Petroleum Industry: Past the Tipping Point?

Interestingly, where it’s the minerals and non-renewable resources that should run out: oil, gold, aluminum, etc.; it’s been the renewable stuff that’s proven to be exhaustible: mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, cedars of Lebanon, gorillas. The paradox is that by using non-renewables, we are able to conserve the renewables. Perhaps we need to use more oil and natural gas? For instance, two-thirds of the wood used in the world goes toward cooking and heating in the developing world. Butane could replace that wood and drastically cut CO2 emissions and cut health problems caused by wood stoves.