Читать книгу Muddling Toward Frugality - Warren Johnson - Страница 9

For my own part, I feel much better about the prospects for the future than I did a few years ago. At that time I held views that were much more on the dark side:

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the continuation of present patterns of economic growth will take us toward greater ecological instability and, sooner or later, into a period of chaos followed by the establishment of a balance at some lower level of population and productivity. ¹

The mistake, I now see, in this way of thinking was to assume that there was a difference, even a separation, between economics and ecology, and that the economy could go where it pleased uninhibited by ecological constraints until the whole economic order broke down. But the last few years have made it clear that the economy is heavily influenced by ecological factors, especially by the onset of scarcity. The evening news now gives close coverage to topics hardly mentioned a few years ago, such as the weather in agricultural regions, natural gas supplies, and the wholesale price index. The meetings of OPEC oil producers alone determine how many billions of dollars will flow out of the country. The economy does not function independent of ecological relationships, and we are not dependent on ecologists to tell us so; we all feel the pressures firsthand.

At times the workings of this “environmental resistance”—the resistance of the environment to additional growth—are hard to see because of our power to modify the environment and to create useful new resources. Political and economic questions also tend to get mixed up in resource issues, often dominating them. But even if the environmental mechanisms that restrain growth are not as directly expressed or as clear to us as they are in nature, they will make themselves felt.

This matter of environmental resistance deserves attention, for it is fundamental to our prospects for the future, to the confidence we will need to face the changes that will come. At all costs I wish to avoid wishful thinking on this matter. It is only by looking squarely at the forces at work in the world, both social and environmental, that anything will be gained to help us see where we are.

Ecology and economics have several characteristics in common. One of these is the necessity of dealing with the concept of general equilibrium (a concept whose meaning will become clearer as we proceed) to explain the world we live in. In a stimulating article comparing the similarities between economics and ecology, Kenneth Boulding describes general equilibrium as being like an elaborate computer program for solving a vast number of equations.² In nature, the equations govern birth and death rates of populations in an ecosystem. In the economy, the analogous equations deal with products that are bought and sold. Equilibrium occurs in either case when a solution is found to all the equations; until then, the variables must continue to change.

Once an equilibrium is reached, it may be very stable. For example, when fish are removed from a lake or trees harvested from a forest, the original equilibrium will usually reestablish itself after a period of time. Or when resources managers try to change a site from brush to grass, for instance, they often find it difficult to sustain the change without continuous effort as the original equilibrium, the brush, tends to reestablish itself. The same tendencies hold for societies. During the Great Depression, the economy seemed unresponsive to the efforts made to revive it. Traditional or peasant societies often are resistant to change; the products of long evolutions, their equilibrium sometimes frustrates planners who try to encourage development.

The difficulty of breaking out of a state of equilibrium is something that constrains most living things. But from another point of view, this difficulty is comforting because it demonstrates the resilience of all forms of life. The ability of insects to survive massive doses of deadly chemicals, or of plants to re-colonize areas devastated by everything from volcanoes to nuclear explosions, and the ability of wild animals to survive in suburbs—all should make us feel more confident about the resilience of nature. In the same way, human societies have survived natural disasters and devastating wars, often without major long-range effects, no matter how destructive they seemed at first.

Yet change does occur. Equilibriums are broken. How?

If a well-established equilibrium exists, the stimulus for change must come either from an outside source or from a mutation within the ecosystem that has developmental potential. Let us say that a new species of animal migrates into a natural environment and finds a niche that it can successfully occupy, possibly at the expense of other species. Its numbers grow rapidly as it colonizes the niche. These are the good times because the niche is open, food is available, and predators have not had time to respond. If we want to be anthropomorphic about it, we could say that this is the time when the new arrivals are fat and sassy. Perhaps they even ascribe some special qualities to their kind for their ability to do so well relative to other species in the environment. At this point the system is not in equilibrium—the “computer” has not been able to come up with a solution to the data it has been given. Change continues; it cannot stop at this point which is ideal for the new arrivals. Slowly, things close in on them as the niche begins to fill up; food becomes scarce, predators arrive on the scene, and other pressures are felt. This is environmental resistance, and nothing can be done to escape it. While previously everything worked out well for the newcomers, at this stage nothing works out well; nothing can restore the good old days. Not only are there constraints on population growth, but the population may even be reduced, especially if the niche has been overexploited. Predators now find it easier to take the weak individuals, leaving only the strongest and most fit. In a sense, the population becomes dependent on predators to maintain it in good health and at a level within the carrying capacity of the environment.

An analogy with the modern era can be drawn. Starting with the Renaissance, modern man has expanded into a vast, unutilized niche made accessible by advances in science and technology. Part of the initial expansion was based on the military power that enabled Europeans to colonize much of the world, but much more stemmed from quantum increases in the knowledge of how to manipulate the environment in order to support larger populations. Our accomplishments have been staggering—there is no question of that—and perhaps the egoism and self-satisfaction that characterize our age are justified. But such pride cannot help against the impersonal forces of environmental resistance that are now appearing. We have passed the ideal point; our niche is filling up.

If the analogy with natural phenomena were fully applicable, there would be little concern over the future. Environmental resistance would slow economic and population growth until some carrying capacity established by the environment was reached. But our situation is unique. We are not only filling our niche, but we are consuming it as well by using up fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources. Technology provides a credit to balance this loss to the degree that it can create resources out of formerly useless stuff and can thus expand the niche. But this is a process that is slowing today. One thing is certain; we will run into environmental resistance of some form or another, sooner or later. The question is: How will this resistance operate, and when will we feel its full impact?

Let us hope that the environmental resistance we run into will be the resistance of dwindling resources. The alternatives are worse—overpopulation, the buildup of poisons in the environment, the increasing scale of technology with all its totalitarian implications, social degeneration. We need the restraint provided by resource limitations. As with the dependency of many animals on their predators, we now approach the remarkable situation where the future well-being of humanity is dependent on the restraint and balance provided by the depletion of nonrenewable resources. There are no scapegoats; it is just the way things have worked out.