Comments (21)

• Danny Shahar

  Interesting article! Please see my response: When It Comes to the Environment, Why Discount?: A Reply to Carden

  Published: December 22, 2008 8:37 AM

• redshirt

  Whhaaaat? We'll be lucky to make it another 10,000 years. And is that fiat money cost or sound money? Heh...

  The question is at what point does everything collapse as a result of mismanagement of resources? (Like running out of petroleum before we have a viable replacement. You want your replacement technologies in place while there is still oil in the ground-- keep it there for real emergencies, like global cooling following an asteroid strike. Or snap mini ice "ages". Or emergent production of fresh water from salt water as our fresh water supplies run out... i.e. happening right now.)

  You want to maintain, as a resource, as much viable land area as you can in as close to pristine state as possible in order to help carry over populations in time of serious stress. This also includes maintaining natural mineral resources as well.

  Kinda like financial bubbles driven by fiat currency and low interest rates. It would seem the REAL cost of over-utilization of natural resources is always higher than playing it safe.

  -r

  Published: December 22, 2008 9:20 AM

• Richard

  Excellent article. A real thinker.

  I could see this being made into a sci-fi book. Environmentalists feuding with those wanting to leave Earth for space travel. Of course, it would have to take place many years from now.

  Good job.

  Published: December 22, 2008 9:55 AM

• Inquisitor

  Haha I like Block's reductio.

  Published: December 22, 2008 10:05 AM

• Aaron

  First, I think you're failing to recognize that the environment of the Earth really equals a set of life support mechanisms for humanity, and all living things here, and as such are really priceless. If we continue with no thought of up keeping the natural "machinery" that keeps us alive, we'll be in big trouble long before the sun burns out.

  I think the problem of the sun burning out, while real in some sense, is a bit of a straw man in the sense that it will only happen in the extreme distant future.

  You state that we must increase the rate at which we populate and extract resources, yet the time frame we have to work with is so huge it dwarfs the time man has existed on the planet. I don't think there is a time imperative involved.

  There is really no reason to think humanity will be around long enough to see this happen, billions of years in the future, if you consider the history of life on Earth. I think that the possibility of us slitting our own throats by destroying the Earths capability to sustain us is a much more probable scenario.

  By the way, I wouldn't consider myself an environmentalist. I believe we should use the resources of the Earth to make our lives better as best we can. I cannot agree, however, with the idea that the sun will burn out billions of years in the future, therefore we should ratfuck our environmental life support system now.

  Published: December 22, 2008 10:08 AM

• Inquisitor

  Reductiones are not strawmen...

  Published: December 22, 2008 10:09 AM

• Aaron

  Fair enough.

  Published: December 22, 2008 10:25 AM

• Eric

  Great article. Fascinating subject!

  I agree with the point about needing MORE people (more brainpower for the division of labor) if we are going to keep advancing fast enough to solve some of our problems.

  For example, Freeman Dyson, feels that with advancing technology we will be able to genetically engineer trees (or other plants) to use say, 4 times the amount of CO2, if that ever really proves to be a problem. He sees this in merely a few decades. But to continue with technology advances, we'll need many smart people working on the problem.

  However, the biggest problems we face are not scientific, but social, since our social systems haven't improved all that much. The Internet has helped, but we're still the same warmongering species we were 10,000 years ago. The biggest threats are not the sun burning out, but that our wars will destroy the planet before we can relocate. I think the current Al Gore climate scare mongering is not a serious problem, except how it is likely to start wars.

  When I first read Eugene O'neils book on habitats in space, and the idea of a space habitat leaving our solar system seemed like a good protection from a destroyed earth. Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama is about just such a space habitat travelling through the galaxy. However, that has one serious problem.

  If a habitat leaves the earth behind, it will be stuck with TODAY's technology forever! Unless you have a division of labor on the order of billions, you can't have enough specialization to keep the high tech going. Everything is interrelated today. You can't build faster computers if you don't have a city-sized workforce (Silicon Valley) specialized in just making faster CPU chips. Moreover, you might need that just to replace existing hardware.

  Perhaps you can send new information by the speed of light, if the senders don't get tired of sending and getting nothing new in return, but you can't trade goods at that speed. So, for the foreseeable future, any habitats would need to be close by, at least still in the solar system. Still, FED EX to Pluto or beyond, is going to make shopping by internet a bit expensive out there.

  Consider that the space shuttle is still (AFAIK) using 20 year old computer programs that run in old computers with tiny amounts of memory, probably no more powerful than a commodore 64. This is what you get when you're stuck in a technology freeze. Ok, this is also a government problem, but w/o a huge division of labor, you can't go too far from the present. But if you leave the earth behind, what happens when your chips burn out.

  
  

  Published: December 22, 2008 1:25 PM

• lpcowboy

  With respect to the end of Earth, it seems like the easiest and most likley solution is to find a way to extend the sun's life. Of course, eventually the heat death of the universe will end life everywhere.

  I'd say the biggest economic-environmental problem is distortion of pricing within the movement, for example trying to reduce auto emmissions instead of dumping iron in the ocean or preferring solar power over nuclear.

  Eric, I don't see the need for that many people. Most of humanity works outside of science/engineering and the core industries needed to sustain it (agriculture and mining). We could probably advance technology at the current pace with a few hundred thousand people.
  

  Published: December 22, 2008 3:10 PM

• I Hate Government

  I find it strange and laughable that mere mortals, with a lifespan no greater than 75 years average, are worried about saving the planet 6 Billions years from now.

  In 6 Billion years, I will be long dead.

  In 500 years I will be long dead. So when a co worker lectured me about throwing my plastic bottle in the garbage can, saying it takes 500 years to decompose, well I don't take that much to decompose.

  In 500 years it will NOT be my problem so I DON'T CARE !

  What's in it for me to live like a miser because of 500 years from now ?

  No, I refuse to live like a miser and I'm ready to fight against anyone who would force me to live like a miser.

  I live within my means and that's it.

  But I'm doing my part for the environment, I don't breed. I stay single with NO KIDS !

  That way, I don't have to worry about future generations.

  Why should there be any future generations anyways ?

  Why should I make that my problem ?

  Published: December 22, 2008 3:47 PM

• happylee

  Timely piece. I spent the weekend watching Wall-e a couple of times and trying to explain this very concept to my beloved first born child. The Axiom is cool!

  Published: December 22, 2008 7:05 PM

• Eric

  lpcowboy:

  "I don't see the need for that many people. Most of humanity works outside of science/engineering and the core industries needed to sustain it (agriculture and mining). We could probably advance technology at the current pace with a few hundred thousand people."

  Well, maybe a few hundred thousand genus's might do, but in order to get that, you'd likely need to have billions of humans, unless you are going to be cloning lots of Einsteins.

  Remember the 90-10 rule, 10% do 90% of all the work. In the area of high tech, physics, etc. you'd likely find that to be the 99.999-.001 rule. With technology so complex today, you need even more specialization.

  Today, we have some areas, such as string theory, where there might be only a handful of people in the world that can do the math. And this is with, what, about 6.6 billion humans alive today?

  Published: December 22, 2008 9:33 PM

• Walt D.

  I Hate Government said
  
  "In 6 Billion years, I will be long dead."
  
  You just set off The Keynes detector !

  Published: December 23, 2008 12:34 AM

• Gil

  Maybe IHG calls a spade a spade - if the present generation owes nothing to their descendants then it's best to live a cheap (perhaps even low-tech) hedonistic lifestyle. Why did our ancestors bother then? The Ancient Romans had nowhere near the technology we have and they had hedonistic violence, sex, drugs and rock&roll.

  On a similar vein, I agree with lpcowboy - how does more = better? Isn't around half the world's population living more or less the same as their ancestors were 1,000 years ago? How will more = better in the not-too-distant-future when high-tech people have negative birth rates and rely on immigration and low-tech have high birth rates? After all, Japan is the verge of going belly up in terms of an ageing society.

  P.S. The better solution would be to make a new and better Sun.

  P.P.S. I'd hazard a guess that the key to stopping Universe-death is figure how to blow up a black hole and free up the elementary energies and particles.

  Published: December 23, 2008 6:14 AM

• Mike Wagner

  The end of life on earth could come much sooner than the death of the sun. There are lots and lots of big rocks floating around out in space in eccentric orbits. If just one of those rocks gets in the way of "the third rock from the sun," that's it, lights out for life on earth.
  Geologists tell us there have been at least 6 "extinction events" since life on earth began. The dinosaurs is only the most famous. The next one could come next week, next year, a thousand years from now or a million years from now.
  If the human species is to survive, we have to develop all the technology we can as soon as we can to begin transplanting earthly life, including human life, anywhere and everywhere we can.
  Suppose that life on earth is the ONLY life in the universe. (Unlikely, but possible.) Doesn't it then follow that we have the responsibility to disperse life as far as we can before it gets extinguished here?

  Published: December 23, 2008 8:00 AM

• flicmod

  I'm sorry to say this, but I see little point for this article. Especially on a site like mises.org. It's incoherent and lacks any educational value whatsoever. I'm severely disappointed.

  Additionally, this has to be the LEAST Austrian-minded article I've ever read on the site. At first read, it comes off with a flavor of Keynesian. By the end of it, I have no clue where the author stands on this issue. Does he favor strictly short-sightedness (Keynes) or strictly far-sightedness (Classical) or does he favor an emphasis on both (Austrian)?!? I see little evidence of him supporting the last of the three.

  The under-emphasis of property rights and the almost lack of support for a balanced look at short-term and long-term consequences is the problem. As Ron Paul has said numerous times, if private property rights was enforced, there would be no need for environmentalism as we know it today. So this whole "should we recycle or should we fulfill our dorky sci-fi fantasies" is a moot point.

  Stress the real issue here: the lack of Liberty in this country.

  Published: December 23, 2008 9:49 AM

• coda

  WHY is this on mises.org? It's a ridiculous article and only turns off those who may sympathize with the Austrian Economics movement.

  Which is the more pressing threat- pollution which kills in the next 100,000 years or the Sun burning out in the next few billion. It's not yet time to start working on your galactic Ark.

  Besides, this entire article seems contrary to the principles of Austrian Economics. Austrian Economics specifically advocates looking at both short and long term effects of policy. He obviously does not.

  The only way he can possibly be construed as following the Austrian path is that his methodology of obtaining wealth is the free market. However, his argument seems to be "for the greater good." Austrian Economics is not about "the greater good," it's about the individual AND the greater good

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:07 AM

• Federalist

  I think it's a fine article for the site: After all, not everybody subscribes to the principles of individual property and freedom. For those (e.g., environmentalists) who believe there is some collective interest that trumps individual interests, they need to consider the big picture. As I argue, "Whatever it is that environmentalists value is in potentially imminent, and certainly eventual, peril on this planet. Thus, if you value and wish to preserve anything tangible — future generations of human life, earthly ecosystems, indeed, anything other than your own life and present enjoyment — then your paramount concern should be the dissemination of those things beyond this planet and this solar system."

  Published: December 23, 2008 11:29 AM

• Walt D.

  I would recommend George Riesman's - Penn and Teller Send Recycling to the Dump
  
  http://blog.mises.org/archives/005935.asp

  Published: December 23, 2008 1:32 PM

• gene

  Economy and Ecology, same word. What you do to one, you do to the other. Like "fiat" economics, the effect can be forestalled but eventually we reap what we sow.

  Published: December 23, 2008 5:31 PM

• Bruce Miller

  Let me see --- Nostradamus predicted the end of the world in December of 2012. The Mayans Predicted the end of the world in 2012. Kennedy started us in space exploration, But the government would rather use the technology to kill people. The Bush administration has tried to blow up the world in the last eight years. Even if we could go to the stars, all the money required to build a vehicle has been wasted on bombs to kill people in foreign nations. I think it is too little too late.
  This human race is too violent to be allowed into space.
  

  Published: December 28, 2008 5:15 PM