Monday, October 26, 2009
Population and Resources
Kasun argues that there are no imminent absolute limits to Earth’s resources, and that increases in the population pose no threat to these resources—I do not believe so does so successfully. She claims that the market will manage resource scarcities by raising prices, forcing individuals to cut back and spend less, while also encouraging producers to make alternatives available. This claim, however, does not take into account that those who use the most resources are also those with the most money, and that higher prices might not dissuade these individuals from continuing to be consistent consumers of the given product. In addition, raising the price of a resource will only affect its availability for so long; it might slow the depletion of the resource, but it could not possibly stop it. As for alternatives, while they must be developed, there are only so many possibilities, and it is not possible to predict that alternatives will be developed before the damage has been done. Kasun also believes that individual families can be trusted to regulate the number of their children; however, human beings are selfish creatures, and there are many incentives, social, emotional, and financial, to having more children. The tragedy of the commons teaches us that humans, in general, cannot be trusted to place the welfare of their society above their own individual interests, and I believe that encouragement by the society or the government, at the very least, is required if families are to have fewer children. Kasun also states that it is an assumption that the Earth’s limits are fixed and known; she denies that any knowledge of such limits exists, and that all that is known is that the types and quantities of resources are changing. Her claim appears counterintuitive, and it does not seem to make sense to say that resources are unlimited—the only thing that could expand our potential resources would be technology or science, and there is no guarantee that advances in these fields would come soon enough to be of any use to us. Furthermore, if it is unknown whether or not there are limits to the Earth’s resources, it seems more intelligent to me to err on the side of caution, particularly given the fact that the population is exploding. Kasun also states that knowledge has enabled us to live in comfort in areas where in the past, others barely survived. It could be, however, that the methods being used to pull so much out of the Earth so quickly will ruin it in the long run, and that future stores are being sacrificed for bounty at the present time. Kasun also fails to mention other changes that humans are bringing about by the population increase. The polar ice caps are a limited natural resource, as is the ozone layer, and I do not foresee human ingenuity solving the problem of their injuries—the economic notion of scarcity hardly resolves these issues. I do not believe that economic concepts have a place, or at least the sort of place that Kasun promotes, in population ethics. Simply because absolute capacity is alien to economics does not mean that it is alien to the issue of the population and the Earth’s resources. Economists determine how scarce a material is by how its price changes over time—I do not believe that this is a reliable method in these circumstances, as any number of factors could affect its price. I would also like to know which authorities use human life expectancy as the best overall index of the Earth’s environmental quality; it seems to me that individual humans could live longer for a time by destroying and taking advantage of the environment.
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