<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for <em>Wired</em> magazine bursts a blood vessel doing its contrarian thing]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by Delay And Deny http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 02:33:59 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/1 At Last We Agree On Something!


I loathe that Nineties-child-Marshall-McLuhan-on-Pentiums magazine that I once loved (and wrote an essay for, Issue 1.3, look it up).

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))


]]> At Last We Agree On Something!


I loathe that Nineties-child-Marshall-McLuhan-on-Pentiums magazine that I once loved (and wrote an essay for, Issue 1.3, look it up).

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))


]]> Comment #2 by Jon Rynn http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 02:39:57 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/2 Never read the mag...

...even though I'm supposed to be its prime constituency.  But this was good, as DR pointed out:The fact is, urban living is kinder to the planet, and Manhattan is perhaps the greenest place in the US. A Manhattanite's carbon footprint is 30 percent smaller than the average American's. The rate of car ownership is among the lowest in the country; 65 percent of the population walks, bikes, or rides mass transit to work. Large apartment buildings are the most efficient dwellings to heat and cool.

]]> Never read the mag...

...even though I'm supposed to be its prime constituency.  But this was good, as DR pointed out:The fact is, urban living is kinder to the planet, and Manhattan is perhaps the greenest place in the US. A Manhattanite's carbon footprint is 30 percent smaller than the average American's. The rate of car ownership is among the lowest in the country; 65 percent of the population walks, bikes, or rides mass transit to work. Large apartment buildings are the most efficient dwellings to heat and cool.

]]> Comment #3 by David Roberts http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 03:06:20 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/3 Bailo,

You didn't make much sense back then either!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/1.3_invisible.html

grist.org

]]> Bailo,

You didn't make much sense back then either!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/1.3_invisible.html

grist.org

]]> Comment #4 by KenG http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 03:38:02 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/4 Did Bailo Make Sense

While I'm not sure the insights were completely original, it seems to me John was pretty spot on in 1993. The short article seems to match up pretty well with the text messaging paradigm and the internet enabled applications we now use to automate a lot of processes.

]]> Did Bailo Make Sense

While I'm not sure the insights were completely original, it seems to me John was pretty spot on in 1993. The short article seems to match up pretty well with the text messaging paradigm and the internet enabled applications we now use to automate a lot of processes.

]]> Comment #5 by Jerome Woody http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 04:22:01 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/5 Who cares?

Every now and then, the kitchen cabinet at Wired sits down and decides that they really have to tell the world what they think. Although their techno-enhanced absolutionary tone goes beyond cocky, honesty I don't care. If I want to know about the coolest consumer product or some cultural meme that I haven't heard yet, I look to wired. But if I want a real assessment of other issues outside Anime and flat screen displays, I look towards other more dedicated publications. My concern is that every hipster geek throughout the land will not do this, and take every word in this issue as biblical cannon.

Technological determinism is a myth. Problems like climate change gets solved by people using science, pragmatism, and common sense, not by Moore's Law.

grist.org

]]> Who cares?

Every now and then, the kitchen cabinet at Wired sits down and decides that they really have to tell the world what they think. Although their techno-enhanced absolutionary tone goes beyond cocky, honesty I don't care. If I want to know about the coolest consumer product or some cultural meme that I haven't heard yet, I look to wired. But if I want a real assessment of other issues outside Anime and flat screen displays, I look towards other more dedicated publications. My concern is that every hipster geek throughout the land will not do this, and take every word in this issue as biblical cannon.

Technological determinism is a myth. Problems like climate change gets solved by people using science, pragmatism, and common sense, not by Moore's Law.

grist.org

]]> Comment #6 by greentiger http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 05:18:37 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/6 re: Who Cares?

I'm definitely with Jerome in that you shouldn't be expecting to find the greenest cutting edge in Wired... It's not a green magazine--at this point it's probably 'general interest'--and to disparage it because it goes for a concise, mass-targeted approach strikes me as ecoelitist.  Wired should be credited for writing a feature that is both interesting and not overwhelming in detail and length--many people not heavily interested in green issues (i.e. people not reading grist, for one) wouldn't read it otherwise.

That said, I understand criticisms of the particulars (e.g. the blithe nuclear endorsement that could use more nitty gritty (or IMO, at least a plug for pebble beds..)).  But on the whole, I believe the article is admirable in debunking widespread simplistic conceptions of 'carbon emissions'.  Two responses in the green laity (those not reading this post...) may come from this article: a 'contrarian' viewpoint that refuses to trust any conventional wisdom, or a more pragmatic approach that relies less on detailed analysis and a systems-based analytical approach to climate change.  I consider the latter response highly desirable... While the IPCC has only demonstrated increasing confidence in anthropogenic CC, I feel that recent years have shown that its causes are much more nuanced than we thought.

]]> re: Who Cares?

I'm definitely with Jerome in that you shouldn't be expecting to find the greenest cutting edge in Wired... It's not a green magazine--at this point it's probably 'general interest'--and to disparage it because it goes for a concise, mass-targeted approach strikes me as ecoelitist.  Wired should be credited for writing a feature that is both interesting and not overwhelming in detail and length--many people not heavily interested in green issues (i.e. people not reading grist, for one) wouldn't read it otherwise.

That said, I understand criticisms of the particulars (e.g. the blithe nuclear endorsement that could use more nitty gritty (or IMO, at least a plug for pebble beds..)).  But on the whole, I believe the article is admirable in debunking widespread simplistic conceptions of 'carbon emissions'.  Two responses in the green laity (those not reading this post...) may come from this article: a 'contrarian' viewpoint that refuses to trust any conventional wisdom, or a more pragmatic approach that relies less on detailed analysis and a systems-based analytical approach to climate change.  I consider the latter response highly desirable... While the IPCC has only demonstrated increasing confidence in anthropogenic CC, I feel that recent years have shown that its causes are much more nuanced than we thought.

]]> Comment #7 by Michael Shellenberger http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 05:53:31 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/7 Wired Points to New Climate Fault Lines

Dave,

We can always tell when something excites you because you go on and on about how boring something is.

The Wired special issue is the opposite of boring. It's totally provocative and interesting. While I don't agree with all of it (I'd like our few remaining old-growth forests to remain standing!) Wired nails a bunch of hugely important issues that greens still haven't grappled with.

I've written a longer post at Breakthrough Blog, but here's my take.

Invest in mass, clean energy manufacturing in China. How do we create a win-win economic relationship with China that drives down the price of clean energy as quickly as possible? Wired points out that China has the potential to radically drive down the price of manufacturing clean technologies like wind and solar. The problem, as we argue in a forthcoming issue of Democracy Journal, neither Kyoto nor any other cap-centered plan will do this. A better U.S.-China accord would be centered on technology and infrastructure investments, not pollution limits.

Get over your agrarian nostalgia. Enviros need to get over their agrarian nostalgia. Dave insists they already have. I'd say that many post-boomer greens have. But not all. This nostalgic quote below is typical of the discussion at the youth climate web site, It's Getting Hot In Here:

Why is electricity necessary to lift people out of poverty? Have you considered that people can live rich, fulfilling lives without electricity or with subsistence, agrarian lifestyles?

Over the last three years I've visited a couple of dozen colleges and universities, and spoken to hundreds of students. I'd say that the climate and student movement is about evenly split between those focused on limits and possibility. What sometimes gets expressed as an anti-capitalism is often more a farrago of anti-modern views than the Grundrisse. It goes something like this: indigenous people were closer to Nature. Our distance from the land makes us incapable of dealing with ecological problems. We all need to do with less. If only we lived on farms.

Which leads to other item Wired says greens need to get over:

Biotech. We need to invent things that will burn clean or eat carbon.

Organics. Conventional ag often emits less carbon (though I must say it's not clear to me how thoroughly Wired sourced this one).

Four Fault Lines on Climate

I believe climate change will creating new fault lines in the society and in politics, ones that no longer fall along the "environmentalist/anti-environmentalist" dichotomy.

Wired -- whose whole special issue is motivated by the threat of climate change the failure of greens to deal with it -- arrives at a similar place.

I would define these fault lines as:

1.    Limits to Growth vs. Green Growth. If you think economic growth is only a problem and not also a solution, you are a limits-person. If you think we can limit our way to 50 percent emissions reductions worldwide by 2050 -- a time we are expected to have doubled our energy consumption -- you are a limits-person. If you think China will slow its growth because of climate change, you are a limits-person.

But, if you think that the only way out of the crisis is to grow our way out of the crisis -- both with markets and government investment, regulation, and adaptation -- then you are a green growth person.

2.    Investment-centered or regulation-centered. If you think we can price and regulate our way to a clean energy economy, you're regulation-centered. Regulation-types like Romm and Roberts believe in some modest public investment in technology and infrastructure. Both believe investment should be a small part of the equation, and a low political priority. Both see emissions caps as the main policy play.

Breakthrough Institute holds a different perspective. For us, investment in tech and infrastructure is the main play. Regulation can help, but ultimately what's required are massive public investments, on the order of $30 to $80 billion per year from the U.S., and somewhere closer to $150 billion from all developed countries, every year. And it's far better politics to invest to make clean energy cheap rather than regulate to make dirty energy expensive.

3.    Technology. Some of us -- like Breakthrough and Romm -- are open to coal or natural gas with carbon capture and storage, nuclear, and GMOs. Others -- at least half if not more of the environmental movement is against these things.

4.    Adaptation as Important as Mitigation. Most greens don't, like Romm, sees adaptation as little more than a delaying tactic. But few environmentalists see it as just as important as mitigation. Happily, this is changing. It  turns out that Lieberman Warner would give a whopping $20 billion a year to it, showing that the national environmental groups who wrote Lieberman-Warner have embraced adaptation but still haven't embraced investment (which gets a measly $10 billion per year).

]]> Wired Points to New Climate Fault Lines

Dave,

We can always tell when something excites you because you go on and on about how boring something is.

The Wired special issue is the opposite of boring. It's totally provocative and interesting. While I don't agree with all of it (I'd like our few remaining old-growth forests to remain standing!) Wired nails a bunch of hugely important issues that greens still haven't grappled with.

I've written a longer post at Breakthrough Blog, but here's my take.

Invest in mass, clean energy manufacturing in China. How do we create a win-win economic relationship with China that drives down the price of clean energy as quickly as possible? Wired points out that China has the potential to radically drive down the price of manufacturing clean technologies like wind and solar. The problem, as we argue in a forthcoming issue of Democracy Journal, neither Kyoto nor any other cap-centered plan will do this. A better U.S.-China accord would be centered on technology and infrastructure investments, not pollution limits.

Get over your agrarian nostalgia. Enviros need to get over their agrarian nostalgia. Dave insists they already have. I'd say that many post-boomer greens have. But not all. This nostalgic quote below is typical of the discussion at the youth climate web site, It's Getting Hot In Here:

Why is electricity necessary to lift people out of poverty? Have you considered that people can live rich, fulfilling lives without electricity or with subsistence, agrarian lifestyles?

Over the last three years I've visited a couple of dozen colleges and universities, and spoken to hundreds of students. I'd say that the climate and student movement is about evenly split between those focused on limits and possibility. What sometimes gets expressed as an anti-capitalism is often more a farrago of anti-modern views than the Grundrisse. It goes something like this: indigenous people were closer to Nature. Our distance from the land makes us incapable of dealing with ecological problems. We all need to do with less. If only we lived on farms.

Which leads to other item Wired says greens need to get over:

Biotech. We need to invent things that will burn clean or eat carbon.

Organics. Conventional ag often emits less carbon (though I must say it's not clear to me how thoroughly Wired sourced this one).

Four Fault Lines on Climate

I believe climate change will creating new fault lines in the society and in politics, ones that no longer fall along the "environmentalist/anti-environmentalist" dichotomy.

Wired -- whose whole special issue is motivated by the threat of climate change the failure of greens to deal with it -- arrives at a similar place.

I would define these fault lines as:

1.    Limits to Growth vs. Green Growth. If you think economic growth is only a problem and not also a solution, you are a limits-person. If you think we can limit our way to 50 percent emissions reductions worldwide by 2050 -- a time we are expected to have doubled our energy consumption -- you are a limits-person. If you think China will slow its growth because of climate change, you are a limits-person.

But, if you think that the only way out of the crisis is to grow our way out of the crisis -- both with markets and government investment, regulation, and adaptation -- then you are a green growth person.

2.    Investment-centered or regulation-centered. If you think we can price and regulate our way to a clean energy economy, you're regulation-centered. Regulation-types like Romm and Roberts believe in some modest public investment in technology and infrastructure. Both believe investment should be a small part of the equation, and a low political priority. Both see emissions caps as the main policy play.

Breakthrough Institute holds a different perspective. For us, investment in tech and infrastructure is the main play. Regulation can help, but ultimately what's required are massive public investments, on the order of $30 to $80 billion per year from the U.S., and somewhere closer to $150 billion from all developed countries, every year. And it's far better politics to invest to make clean energy cheap rather than regulate to make dirty energy expensive.

3.    Technology. Some of us -- like Breakthrough and Romm -- are open to coal or natural gas with carbon capture and storage, nuclear, and GMOs. Others -- at least half if not more of the environmental movement is against these things.

4.    Adaptation as Important as Mitigation. Most greens don't, like Romm, sees adaptation as little more than a delaying tactic. But few environmentalists see it as just as important as mitigation. Happily, this is changing. It  turns out that Lieberman Warner would give a whopping $20 billion a year to it, showing that the national environmental groups who wrote Lieberman-Warner have embraced adaptation but still haven't embraced investment (which gets a measly $10 billion per year).

]]> Comment #8 by Jon Rynn http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 06:22:56 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/8 Michael, what's investment-centered?

Does it include a national system of high-speed rail, paid for by the government (at all levels?)  Does it include setting up CCA's, that is, some form of municipal electrical generation?  Does it include co-developing walkable communities with developers? whaddaya think?

]]> Michael, what's investment-centered?

Does it include a national system of high-speed rail, paid for by the government (at all levels?)  Does it include setting up CCA's, that is, some form of municipal electrical generation?  Does it include co-developing walkable communities with developers? whaddaya think?

]]> Comment #9 by Michael Shellenberger http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 08:23:47 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/9 I like all that stuff

Again, the big picture is what matters most? Mitigation and adaptation, equally, I'd say. Within mitigation, I think the most important thing is public investment. Once there's money on the table, it will be easier to win new regulations.

]]> I like all that stuff

Again, the big picture is what matters most? Mitigation and adaptation, equally, I'd say. Within mitigation, I think the most important thing is public investment. Once there's money on the table, it will be easier to win new regulations.

]]> Comment #10 by GreyFlcn http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 08:50:46 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/10 A matter of timing

Early on, mitigation is far more important.  

Adaptation will become important in time, however right now it isn't.

And when Adaptation does become important, Mitigation will be near worthless.

_

The other issue about timing is that it takes a gigantic ammount of effort to convince people to act long term, to deal with mitigations.

Adaptation, when a crisis is immediate, it doesn't really take much effort for politicians/money to take action.

_

More or less we NEED Mitigation right now.

For Adaptation, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

]]> A matter of timing

Early on, mitigation is far more important.  

Adaptation will become important in time, however right now it isn't.

And when Adaptation does become important, Mitigation will be near worthless.

_

The other issue about timing is that it takes a gigantic ammount of effort to convince people to act long term, to deal with mitigations.

Adaptation, when a crisis is immediate, it doesn't really take much effort for politicians/money to take action.

_

More or less we NEED Mitigation right now.

For Adaptation, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

]]> Comment #11 by anotherID http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 09:22:24 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/11 mitigation/adaptation

The mitigation/adaptation discussion is missing the third leg.

Suffering.

less mitigation, more adaptation & suffering
more mitigation, maybe less adaptation & suffering

Hmm, what should us fancy pants wearing apes do?

What will we do?

]]> mitigation/adaptation

The mitigation/adaptation discussion is missing the third leg.

Suffering.

less mitigation, more adaptation & suffering
more mitigation, maybe less adaptation & suffering

Hmm, what should us fancy pants wearing apes do?

What will we do?

]]> Comment #12 by GreyFlcn http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 09:28:06 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/12 That explains a lot.

Pretty much what it seems to come down to is mega-projects versus micro-projects.

Big lump sums of money favor mega-projects like a massive expansion of nuclear power, and coal sequestration.  Maybe even Fusion.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5785236/Nuclear-p ...

Micro-projects, operate incrementally at the margin.  And favor quick ROI's, quick building speed, and low risk.  This favors renewables, cogeneration, efficiency, and demand destruction.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php

_

Put that together with the adaptation focus, and the nixing on regulating bad activity, and it seems like the idea is to simply focus on "magical technology" solutions like blocking out the sun from space, or mechanically vacuuming carbon out of the sky.

Then again, I know another organization which freaks out any time you mention regulations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGrWGQCxpWA



]]> That explains a lot.

Pretty much what it seems to come down to is mega-projects versus micro-projects.

Big lump sums of money favor mega-projects like a massive expansion of nuclear power, and coal sequestration.  Maybe even Fusion.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5785236/Nuclear-p ...

Micro-projects, operate incrementally at the margin.  And favor quick ROI's, quick building speed, and low risk.  This favors renewables, cogeneration, efficiency, and demand destruction.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php

_

Put that together with the adaptation focus, and the nixing on regulating bad activity, and it seems like the idea is to simply focus on "magical technology" solutions like blocking out the sun from space, or mechanically vacuuming carbon out of the sky.

Then again, I know another organization which freaks out any time you mention regulations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGrWGQCxpWA



]]> Comment #13 by Colin Wright http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 10:01:10 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/13 Bridging the turf wars?

I'd agree with DR that the Alex Steffen article is well-written:
To have any hope of staving off collapse, we need to move forward with measures that address many interrelated problems at once. We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits -- not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.

Notice he does this without setting up false dichotomies between growth vs. limits, or technology-all-the-time vs. agrarian-technology. It's a complicated equation with no ideological short-cuts.


]]> Bridging the turf wars?

I'd agree with DR that the Alex Steffen article is well-written:
To have any hope of staving off collapse, we need to move forward with measures that address many interrelated problems at once. We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits -- not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.

Notice he does this without setting up false dichotomies between growth vs. limits, or technology-all-the-time vs. agrarian-technology. It's a complicated equation with no ideological short-cuts.


]]> Comment #14 by Jon Rynn http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 11:04:59 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/14 Grey,

didn't he just say he was into high-speed rail, etc.?  Just building everything, nationally (or even globally?) Now?

]]> Grey,

didn't he just say he was into high-speed rail, etc.?  Just building everything, nationally (or even globally?) Now?

]]> Comment #15 by maverick http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 11:45:57 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/15 Stupid end of the Shovel

Wouldn't it be grand if we all showed up with our opinions where it matters? Our local government. And educated in a fashion that shares goals instead of your shade of green? This is all starting to feel like organized religions all to predominant habit of faith comparison.( I'm a better Mormon , Catholic , Buddhist etc than you.)  
It is all things faith, science, business, politics, the state of our planet. Above all more wok than opinion.

Someone please , get on the stupid end of the shovel.

]]> Stupid end of the Shovel

Wouldn't it be grand if we all showed up with our opinions where it matters? Our local government. And educated in a fashion that shares goals instead of your shade of green? This is all starting to feel like organized religions all to predominant habit of faith comparison.( I'm a better Mormon , Catholic , Buddhist etc than you.)  
It is all things faith, science, business, politics, the state of our planet. Above all more wok than opinion.

Someone please , get on the stupid end of the shovel.

]]> Comment #16 by hapa http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Wed, 21 May 2008 12:49:39 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/16 still floors me

it still floors me that people separate adaptation and mitigation. look around: the big work will be done within the next 20 years. OF COURSE we will install better water fixtures as we go through the houses. OF COURSE infrastructure changes will incorporate climate variables. and OF COURSE we won't really know what we're adapting until the fix-it work starts taking shape. except for water. we know we have a lot of planting and restoration to do.

all the timelines have fallen in on us -- nothing like 40+ years is really available. so it will be one big project.

nuclear and CCS won't scale up affordably. GMO plants are more expensive and less reliable than MAS. wow, look, i'm a luddite.

investment vs regulation. only in america would this false dichotomy be made and debated seriously. thank the stars the europeans and japanese are placing tough standards on their equipment so we'll have affordable refrigeration a few years from now. if it were left up to us we'd be calling spiced meat high tech. never surrender!

limits to growth vs green growth: like we're in a period of stability now, walking into a period of greater stability, and GNP will be a useful measure. go ahead, forecast the next 50 years. or the next 25. i know someone whose house isn't up for auction! his name is michael.

]]> still floors me

it still floors me that people separate adaptation and mitigation. look around: the big work will be done within the next 20 years. OF COURSE we will install better water fixtures as we go through the houses. OF COURSE infrastructure changes will incorporate climate variables. and OF COURSE we won't really know what we're adapting until the fix-it work starts taking shape. except for water. we know we have a lot of planting and restoration to do.

all the timelines have fallen in on us -- nothing like 40+ years is really available. so it will be one big project.

nuclear and CCS won't scale up affordably. GMO plants are more expensive and less reliable than MAS. wow, look, i'm a luddite.

investment vs regulation. only in america would this false dichotomy be made and debated seriously. thank the stars the europeans and japanese are placing tough standards on their equipment so we'll have affordable refrigeration a few years from now. if it were left up to us we'd be calling spiced meat high tech. never surrender!

limits to growth vs green growth: like we're in a period of stability now, walking into a period of greater stability, and GNP will be a useful measure. go ahead, forecast the next 50 years. or the next 25. i know someone whose house isn't up for auction! his name is michael.

]]> Comment #17 by Sharon Astyk http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Thu, 22 May 2008 01:28:53 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/17 The Techno- Freudian Wish Fullfillment Fantasy

When I hear arguments like Shellenberger's, I'm reminded of Jared Diamond's analysis of  technological mitigation in Collapse.  He argues,

"This is an expression of faith about the future, and therefore based upon a supposed track record of technology having solved more problems than it created in the recent past.  Underlying this expression of faith is the implicit assumption that, from tomorrow on-wards, technology will function primarily to solve existing problems and will cease to create new problems.  Those with such faith also assume that the new technologies now under discussion will succeed, and that they will do so quickly enough to make a big difference soon....But actual experience is the opposite of this assumed track record.  Some dreamed-of new technologies succeed, while others don't. Those that do succeed typically take a few decades to develop and phase in widely: think of gas heating, electric lighting, cars and airplanes, television, computers and so on.  New technologies, whether or not they succeed in solving the problem that they were designed to solve, regularly create unanticipated new problems.  Technological solutions to environmental problems are routinely far more expensive than preventative measures to avoid creating the problem in the first place: for example ,the billions of dollars of damages...Most of all advances in technology just increase our ability to do things, which may be either for the better or for the worse.  All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology.  The rapid advances in technology during the 20th century have been creating difficult new problems faster than they have been solving old problems: that's why we're in the situation in which we now find ourselves. What makes you think that, as of January 1 2006, for the first time in human history, technology will miraculously stop causing unanticipated problems while it just solves the problems that it previously produced?"

Call me a luddite if you will - I prefer that to the magical thinking involved in believing that we are now outside of the history of our technologies, and because we wish the negative consequences away, they will go.

Sharon

Sharon, with dirt under her fingernails.

]]> The Techno- Freudian Wish Fullfillment Fantasy

When I hear arguments like Shellenberger's, I'm reminded of Jared Diamond's analysis of  technological mitigation in Collapse.  He argues,

"This is an expression of faith about the future, and therefore based upon a supposed track record of technology having solved more problems than it created in the recent past.  Underlying this expression of faith is the implicit assumption that, from tomorrow on-wards, technology will function primarily to solve existing problems and will cease to create new problems.  Those with such faith also assume that the new technologies now under discussion will succeed, and that they will do so quickly enough to make a big difference soon....But actual experience is the opposite of this assumed track record.  Some dreamed-of new technologies succeed, while others don't. Those that do succeed typically take a few decades to develop and phase in widely: think of gas heating, electric lighting, cars and airplanes, television, computers and so on.  New technologies, whether or not they succeed in solving the problem that they were designed to solve, regularly create unanticipated new problems.  Technological solutions to environmental problems are routinely far more expensive than preventative measures to avoid creating the problem in the first place: for example ,the billions of dollars of damages...Most of all advances in technology just increase our ability to do things, which may be either for the better or for the worse.  All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology.  The rapid advances in technology during the 20th century have been creating difficult new problems faster than they have been solving old problems: that's why we're in the situation in which we now find ourselves. What makes you think that, as of January 1 2006, for the first time in human history, technology will miraculously stop causing unanticipated problems while it just solves the problems that it previously produced?"

Call me a luddite if you will - I prefer that to the magical thinking involved in believing that we are now outside of the history of our technologies, and because we wish the negative consequences away, they will go.

Sharon

Sharon, with dirt under her fingernails.

]]> Comment #18 by lorna salzman http://www.grist.org/article/tired/ Thu, 22 May 2008 03:05:04 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/tired/18 response to Shellenberger

Like all the other techno-fanatics, Shellenberger and his latest piece of fiction, Break Through, are clear symptoms of Denial underlain by the Business as Usual syndrome. His book says that the answer to everything is Prosperity (literally; check it out). Prosperity is gained how ? By getting more money and then by SPENDING more. More consumerism and affluenza..which are precisely the roots of our environmental and social problems. "Green growth" is no less cancerous than any other kind if it is imposed on top of the same system, with the same objectives of bringing more "good things to life" just like GE said they were doing. As for the techno-solution to global warming, the job and prosperity they offer are like the post-game celebration; the problem is that you have to WIN the game first before you celebrate. Winning the war against global warming means cutting back growth and consumption, not adding more players and innings. These guys (Nordhaus/Shellenberger) and Wired and the rest of the clueless techno-optimists are reading from a page out of the Bush book. They love WTO and globalization. They think Americans should be richer. They don't see anything fundmentally wrong with our system even as it wrecks the earth's ecosystems and lines the pockets of the rich even more. I don't see any difference between this and the propaganda from the American Enterprise Institute or from Wall St.  Who will save us from these false prophets?

]]> response to Shellenberger

Like all the other techno-fanatics, Shellenberger and his latest piece of fiction, Break Through, are clear symptoms of Denial underlain by the Business as Usual syndrome. His book says that the answer to everything is Prosperity (literally; check it out). Prosperity is gained how ? By getting more money and then by SPENDING more. More consumerism and affluenza..which are precisely the roots of our environmental and social problems. "Green growth" is no less cancerous than any other kind if it is imposed on top of the same system, with the same objectives of bringing more "good things to life" just like GE said they were doing. As for the techno-solution to global warming, the job and prosperity they offer are like the post-game celebration; the problem is that you have to WIN the game first before you celebrate. Winning the war against global warming means cutting back growth and consumption, not adding more players and innings. These guys (Nordhaus/Shellenberger) and Wired and the rest of the clueless techno-optimists are reading from a page out of the Bush book. They love WTO and globalization. They think Americans should be richer. They don't see anything fundmentally wrong with our system even as it wrecks the earth's ecosystems and lines the pockets of the rich even more. I don't see any difference between this and the propaganda from the American Enterprise Institute or from Wall St.  Who will save us from these false prophets?

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