Don,

Good post. I agree with all your points and especially #3.

I approach this slightly differently. From my persective the world is good and getting better all the time. Humanity is doing well.

For those who haven't spent time playing with 'GapMinder" I'd urge them to have a look (here: http://www.gapminder.org/world ). Click "play" and watch how life expectancy throughout the countries and regions of the world has improved as real per capita income has increased. Then change the vertical axis to chart: Fertility, child mortality, education, health, environment, or any of the other UN Human Development Indexes listed on the pull down menu.

Next, change the horizontal axis to 'Total energy use per person', and repeat the sequence of plotting the various indexes on the vertical axis as above.

From these charts it is easy to draw the 'big picture' conclusion that the very best things we can do for the world, and especially for the poorest people is to improve global income per person and the availability of cheap energy per person. We've been doing that for 200,000 years and especially last century. We are doing well and doing better all the time. But the 'Progressives' do all they can to block the very progress that delivers the best results for human well being.

The best way to improve human well-being throughout the world is with economic policies that are rational. The best ways to spread the wealth are: free trade, globalisation, multinational corporations, etc. And the best way to deliver clean electricity to the world is with nuclear power (if we'd remove the impediments that make it about 10 times more expensive than it could and should be).

All these things that are good for human well-being are exactly what the self-claimed 'Progressives' are opposed to

Well, the only real cure for poverty is economic growth. This growth should include all citizens, who in a truly egalitarian society, would start their race to the top, from an equal starting point, with an equal education being that starting point.
Our system unfairly treats the income of the very wealthy, very differently from that paid by ordinary folks! With some of the richest corporations and their multimillionaire CEO's paying little or no tax, or at half the rate in percentage terms, when compared with ordinary workers!
There was a time, when executive salaries, were limited to thirty multiples of the lowest paid.
No man is an island, and there is no such thing as a self made man, who was born in the log cabin he built with his own two hands!
Results in business always rely on many hands and much cooperation! And therefore, all of those hands, should be awarded similar comparative percentage increases, not self congratulating corporate cowboys!
Even then, the results of cooperative endeavor, can be crueled in just months by an incompetent chief executive.
QANTAS i.e., has gone from a 40% domestic market share, to just 17%, in just a few short years.
A million so Aussie superannuates, saw their modest pensions go up in smoke, by the poor investment decision of "learner driver" Fund managers, and then sat powerless, while these self serving incompetents, were handed golden parachutes, (shareholders funds,) in order to lever their patently incompetent hands off the corporate tiller.
Sure, no two people are ever born equal, but that shouldn't allow some of us, to compound their problems/poverty, by giving patently preferential treatment, and pay scales, to those who are already, massively over-advantaged!
George Orwell's animal farm, could be applied exclusively to extreme capitalism, with the self serving and controlling greedy pigs, being captains of industry, and those servile politicians, who "covertly" put them and their own retirement options, well ahead of common folks, or the true national interest!
Perhaps some folks have a very different view, of what compromises a good society?
Rhrosty.

nice piece

Being a non-academic, I can only address these issues through the lens of a commercial enterprise. For me, the business equivalent of this article is the "mission statement", arrived at after much intellectual sweating and straining, and eventually culminating in a series of trite motherhood statements that are forgotten within weeks.

Perhaps that's not entirely fair. A closer analogue might be an organization's culture - a tacit understanding of "that's how we do it around here", meaning that, faced with the same business challenge, the entire organization from top to bottom would react in the same way. That sort of culture is rare.

Either way, articulating what a "good society" or a "good company" consists of, is a far different exercise from actually "building' such a society or company. There needs to be a basic, underlying value set as a starting-point, so that the vision has common soil in which to grow. And if this is the case, then today's world is far too heterogenous and diverse to take this for granted. Or even as an aspiration.

The fact that Mr Aitkin's six points are mostly in the wishful-thinking category should not be seen as a criticism, as idealism has its place in trying to unravel the links between people and society. But it would be unwise to use them to draw any general conclusions, or to guide political thought. Sometimes, simplicity is simply too simple to be of much use.

Thanks Don, for another thoughtful article.

Your values are a good starting point, but they leave a lot unsaid. For example, I think many people would agree that “human beings are capable of great altruism and also of great destruction. A good society employs the former and tries to avoid the latter.” The question is how a good society does that, and what compromises and trade-offs we accept. Someone on one end of the political spectrum might see this as largely a role for the state to prescribe how we act, what we can and can’t say, what we can buy, where we can live, etc. Others see maximal personal liberty as the way to go, backed up only with a few negative proscriptions (thou shalt not steal, murder, etc).

Likewise, I think I agree about everyone having a stake in society, but it raises the question of how we make this happen. There may well be social structures and practices that make people alienated and disempowered. Which are these, and what do you do about them? Again, different ideological perspectives will give diametrically opposed answers.

It’s a good starting point, though, to think about the fundamental values that drive the way we think of these issues.

I found this article very interesting

Don, there is something that you haven’t mentioned that is of fundamental importance for a good society.

This is to live sustainably. To live well within our means. To keep the scale of everything well within the ability of our resource base to provide not only all the necessities for life but the necessities for a high quality of life, with a big safety margin.

If we don’t do this, we will face all manner of problems. The rule of law will be badly eroded. The rich, powerful and ruthless will rule the roost. There will be massive real poverty. There will be enormous civil strife.

A good society needs a government that is independent of the enormous influences that drive it to continuously expand and become less sustainable, especially when vital resources such as water are already highly overutilised and stressed right out.

If this doesn’t happen, we can forget about great altruism coming to the fore, or ordinary people feeling like they are real stakeholders in the development of a positive future, or the smooth transition to a new predominantly renewable energy regime rather than a rapid and quite catastrophic change.

Is Australia a good society?

It is not too bad at the moment. But what are the chances of it actually improving?

Not at all good…. because we are completely failing to observe the fundamental principle of sustainability. And therein of getting the supply capability of all our fundamental resources, goods, infrastructure and services to comfortably meet the demand, rather than the demand being forever rapidly increasing with the supply side trailing well behind and struggling desperately to keep up.

The likelihood of it all getting steadily worse in the near future is very high.

Sustainability is as important as your six points put together.

Ludwig,

You make an important point, but I feel that you overdo it. How sure are you, and why are you so sure, that not living sustainably will lead to those apocalyptic consequences? It is the challenge that societies face as they come to the limits of a resource, like oak-trees, that causes the curious and the entrepreneurial to shift to a new resource, like coal and iron. It was feared in the 1890s that cities would disappear under horse manure; that didn't happen either. We feared that copper would be too expensive to connect everyone telephonically. That fear proved unnecessary too.

In my view, living sustainably can be an important personal ethic, but I don't think it can apply to whole societies, even when each of us does his/her bit to follow the maxim.

Ludwig,

I disagree with where you put your emphasis. To me, if we want to live sustainably we must focus on income versus expenditure. We cannot continually run deficits and run up debt to fund recurring expenditure. We need to live within our means. Governments must too. That is where the focus must be if we want sustainable, content societies.

The richer the country (and the world) is the better we are able to manage environmental issues. Consider how much better the developed countries do in managing environmental issues compared with the under developed and developing countries for evidence to support this statement. Look at the ‘GapMinder’ link I posted in my first comment.

Our focus needs to be on long term sustainable economic growth to lift the world out of poverty and to continually improve human wellbeing. That is what governments should focus on.

There are two fundamental inputs to everything we have: human ingenuity and energy. Everything else we have comes from these two inputs (there is a third, but I’ll leave this aside for now). Energy is effectively unlimited, e.g. about 30 TW of power from nuclear fission energy for a billion years according to Professor Barry Brook. That’s just fission energy, without even considering fusion. So the energy available on Earth is effectively unlimited. With effectively unlimited energy future generations will be able to do just about anything they want.

What will cause the apocalyptic consequences you envisage is poverty and unequal distribution of poverty throughout the world. Lack of access to cheap energy is a critical problem. If access to energy is constrained, that will lead to wars, just as it has always done in the past.

Thanks for the reply Don.

<< In my view, living sustainably can be an important personal ethic, but I don't think it can apply to whole societies >>

Wow. I am surprised!

Sustainability doesn’t mean a lack of dynamism or a state of complete stability in terms of resource usage. It means striving to balance resource usage and environmental impact with demand, in an ongoing manner.

It is of vital importance in Australia that we steer ourselves in the direction of sustainability, given how rampantly we are going in the opposite direction.

Surely you must agree that we should at least be striving to NOT further stress already highly stressed resources. Water being our prime concern.

We should also realise that the current state of political discontent is very largely due to the LIE that we need evermore growth and the FAILURE of this basic dictum perpetrated by our politicians of all persuasions over many years to address all the issues that this growth has been supposed to address.

Striving to live sustainably is surely THE most fundamental principle for building a better society. If we don’t do this a whole range of stresses will manifest themselves, and the ugly side of the human condition will come to the fore.

We need to be doing well at the basic level in order to be able to improve in the ways you desire us to.

If the basics of essential resource consumption, ever-rising prices for energy, more congestion, worsening health, education and all manner of other services, are going to plague us, then how can we possibly become more altruistic, more meaningful stakeholders, or eliminate poverty, etc?

As we become a less sustainable and more stressed society, we will definitely move in just the opposite direction that you (and I) desire.

[Hello Peter. I will reply to you later].

Ludwig,

Your original point and this response to me suggest that I ought to make this issue the subject of a further post, sometime next week. Thank you for getting my mind on what is an important subject.

Ludwig,

The simple, overriding fact is the wealthier the world the better for human well being.

For evidence of this see ‘GapMinder’, and graph the key UN ‘Human Development Indexes’ (HDI) against income per capita and energy consumption per capita, and run 'Play' each time to see changes through time. Notice how the countries and regions are improving on just about every key HDI as income per capita increases and energy consumption per capita increases. Can you demonstrate, persuasively, that my opening statement is incorrect?

Here is another example. Consider global disasters. Disaster costs are reducing per GDP per capita: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/disasters-cost-more-than-ever-but-not-because-of-climate-change/. Excerpts:

>“Modern disasters bring the greatest loss of life in places with the lowest property damage, and the most property damage where there’s the lowest loss of life.”

>”In the 20th century, the human toll of disasters decreased dramatically, with a 92 percent reduction in deaths from the 1930s to the 2000s worldwide. “

>”the data show an inverse relationship between lives lost and property damage: Modern disasters bring the greatest loss of life in places with the lowest property damage, and the most property damage where there’s the lowest loss of life. “

>”a nation with a $2,000 per capita average GDP — about that of Honduras – should expect more than five times the number of disaster deaths as a country like Russia, with a $14,000 per capita average GDP.”

>”As countries become richer, they are better able to deal with disasters — meaning more people are protected and fewer lose their lives. Increased property losses, it turns out, are a price worth paying.”

<< We cannot continually run deficits and run up debt to fund recurring expenditure. We need to live within our means. >>

Absolutely, Peter.

<< The richer the country (and the world) is the better we are able to manage environmental issues >>

But what about the environmental damage wrought in attained that high level of wealth?

<< Our focus needs to be on long term sustainable economic growth… >>

We need to very carefully define economic growth as only the stuff that improves our lives, and does so without leading to the depletion of essential resources as far as possible… and you do not include population growth and all the economic growth that is needed to support it which leads to the same quality of life for evermore people, and NOT to an improvement in QOL for the pre-existing population.

There is no such thing as sustainable economic growth, if we are to continue to define growth as an all-encompassing grab-bag of good and bad things, of growth in both supply and demand.

What we absolutely need to do is to slow down population growth and head for a stable population, and hence slow down and eventually stabilise the demand for all manner of resources, goods, services and infrastructure. Then with good economic growth we might actually be able to improve these things, instead of desperately trying to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for more of them.

<< Energy is effectively unlimited >>

Ah but energy at anything like the current cost is very limited. It is the rising cost of energy that will be our biggest bug-bear in the near future, as it will pervade the economy, quality of life and social fabric, on all levels from personal to national and global.

<< Lack of access to cheap energy is a critical problem. >>

YES!!

continued

<< The simple, overriding fact is the wealthier the world the better for human well being. >>

Not if we deplete our energy and other resource reserves and wreak great environmental damage in order to get that wealth.

Real wealth needs to be ongoing. It is achieved when we have a demand base that sits very comfortably within our ability to supply all the basics in an ongoing sustainable manner.

The gapminder progression through time is all very well. But what happens in the future as oil becomes much more expensive? Could it be that the richest countries, which are the most dependent on fossil fuels, will suffer greatly, while the poorest countries will be little-affected?

If population is increasing and energy consumption per-capita is also increasing, with the end of cheap fossil fuel energy looming, then we are not really gaining wealth…. or at most; gaining it only for a little while.

Ludwig,

Many assertions and statements of your beliefs. None are supported. Mostly the debunked ‘Limits of Growth’ type arguments; not correct.

Let’s start with your comment about energy, one of the two fundamental inputs to everything we have.

>“Ah but energy at anything like the current cost is very limited.”

Not correct. Humans have been increasing their per capita energy use for the past 200,000 years at the rate of:
E = 1100*T^-0. 4
Where:
E = daily per capita energy consumption (MJ/d)
T = years before present
It strains credulity to believe that humans will suddenly curtail the rate of per capita energy growth that has been going on for the past 200,000 years just when we are here. It’s dreaming.

Furthermore, the real cost of energy has been reducing throughput that time, and the trend continues, with minor short term interruptions. It has been accomplished because we’ve been moving to ever increasing energy density (wood fires, cows pulling ploughs, wood > coal > oil/gas > nuclear fission > nuclear fusion. The next big step up will come when we move from fossil fuels to nuclear energy to supply most of the worlds energy. The initial step will be as we widely adopt the current generation of thermal nuclear power plants; these are a factor of 20,000 increase in energy density compared with coal and oil. Then the next step is an increase by a factor of 2 million as we move to breeder reactors. This will happen when we stop blocking nuclear power development and deployment (the modern day equivalent of requiring a person to carry a red flag in front of a car to warn horse drawn carriages of its approach.).

Transport fuels are unlimited. Petrol, diesel, jet fuel from seawater: http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/01/16/zero-emission-synfuel-from-seawater/

Regarding population control the best way to achieve this is to raise the per capita income at the fastest sustainable rate. That is well known and obvious if you look at the GapMinder charts I suggested.

Humans will manage all other resources as we have been doing since man first began to communicate.

<< Mostly the debunked ‘Limits of Growth’ type arguments; not correct. >>

Well Peter, if that is what you believe, it puts us as complete and utter odds.

Limits to growth is so incredibly basic and fundamental, as an ecological principle to which all organisms are beholden, and equally to humanity.

Yes energy is unlimited. But what matters is how readily attainable it is, and at what cost. We need to consider energy in – energy out, the scale of production and the changes to economics and to just about everything else as it becomes much more expensive.

I can’t see how we can avoid an enormous energy crunch in the near future. And this will surely be an enormous limits-to-growth event.

<< It strains credulity to believe that humans will suddenly curtail the rate of per capita energy growth that has been going on for the past 200,000 years just when we are here. >>

Does it??

It strains credulity in the extreme to think that average per-capita energy consumption can continue to increase for much longer.

Ludwig,

Yes. We disagree fundamentally. However, I’ve provided what I believe is very strong support for my arguments. You haven’t provided any. You are simply stating your beliefs. So, all I can say is I disagree with your (unsupported) assertions.

Did you carefully look at the various charts I pointed you too on GapMinder? I suggest it would be well worth spending some considerable time and considering the points and conclusions I made. The discuss them if you want to.

Did you consider the probability that 200,000 years of increasing per capita energy consumption would suddenly be reversed just when we happen to be here?

As I pointed out, the cost of energy has been decreasing for 200,000 years. Why would that trend change now? There is effectively unlimited nuclear fuel available and the only thing preventing it from being cheap is the anti-progress anti-nukes in the developed countries. That will change – it already is in the emerging economies.

>” It strains credulity in the extreme to think that average per-capita energy consumption can continue to increase for much longer.”

Not for me. No one in the past knew what was ahead. So the trends are the best guide. Here’s another way to think:

So far, humans have been through these stages of development and now in the last on the list:
• Primitive man
• Hunting man
• Primitive Agricultural man
• Advanced Agricultural man
• Industrial man
• Technological man

What’s the future:
• Mars man
• Solar system man
• Milky Way man
• Universe man
• Black hole man
• Parallel universe man

Clearly, energy consumption per capita and economic growth will grow on for ever.

This might interest you: “What does it mean to be anti growth” http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/pielke/

Ludwig,

If you are still thinking about 'Limits of Growth' and the points I made above, you might find this presentation on "Limits to Growth" by Bjorn Lomborg interesting:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2014/03/14/3962766.htm

It was shown on ABC News 24 last night (after midnight).

The fact it was shown on ABC is interesting in itself. It demonstrates that even ABC, who have been one of the promoters of extremist beliefs in catastrophic climate change, strong advocates of renewable energy and extreme anti-nuclear zealots are being forced to show some balance, even if they did so by showing this presentation after midnight. And even if they couldn't resist stating their prejudice in the title and intro:

"Bjorn Lomborg: Limits to Growth - Still Wrong, Still Influential"
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2014/03/14/3962766.htm

Racially homogenous societies are FAR more stable than racially diverse ones.
Proof: http://www.amazon.com/Conflict...

And... not every race has the same average IQ. Therefore, not every race is capable of building/maintaining a 1st world nation.
Proof: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

And... if diversity is a strength, why does China have self-autonomous regions?

Science 101: Birds of a feather flock together. People are tribal by nature.

What can I say Peter. Lomborg is off the planet!!

His whole argument seems to be that because limits to growth hasn’t happened yet - because there have been lots of predictions that haven't eventuated – it’s never going to happen!

This is just bizarre!

He seems to have absolutely no concept of scale – no idea that the scale of resource consumption undertaken by humans is absolutely humungous and still rapidly increasing. And for goodness sake; how obvious is it that it cannot just continue to increase indefinitely.

OF COURSE there are limits to growth!

Crikey, this has got to be silliest thing I have ever debated on OLO!

I may as well be defending the notion that the world is a globe against the flat-earthers!

The concept of innovation saving the day is just as bizarre! We’ve been trying for decades to come up with energy sources that are somewhere near as cheap and utilisable at the enormous scale that oil, coal and gas are… and we are not within a million miles of achieving it!

<< Did you consider the probability that 200,000 years of increasing per capita energy consumption would suddenly be reversed just when we happen to be here? >>

Yes. There's a very big probability because there are enormous differences now to what there has been at any time in the last 200 000 years, namely; a world population that is many times bigger than it was even 100 years ago, and a rate of energy consumption, very largely from non-renewable sources, that is hundreds of times higher than it was even a hundred years ago.

And hey, energy is NOT getting cheaper any more. Even Lomborg said;

< Since 2001 prices have more than doubled >

Indeed we are seeing the steady rise in the cost of fuel and electricity.

Ludwig, I suggest it is you that is off the planet. Clearly, you haven't understood what I've been saying - apparently it's gone right over your head.

Well, I have been debating this stuff on OLO for nearly a decade, and for many years before that in various other ways. I must have heard every bizarre argument under the sun. But I don’t think I have ever previously encountered anyone who has denounced the very notion of limits to growth.

Peter, could you spell out, in point form, the basic principles of your argument. I can’t imagine that I have misunderstood you. But in the interests of clarification, it might be useful. Thanks.

Regarding this link that you posted, Peter: http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/pielke/ :

Another fellow who is off the planet!

Did you read the comments following the article?

BTW, just to clarifiy - I am not against economic growth. I’m against continuous expansionism. That is: continuous population growth and all the expansion in resource consumption and environmental alienation that goes with it.

I am fully in favour of economic growth that is directed at improving the quality of life for the existing population, just as long as it is environmentally-friendly and sustainability-oriented.

I am against the notion of economic growth that simply duplicates services and infrastructure for ever-more people, without leading to improvements for the pre-existing population.

One of the fundamental problems with the likes of Pielke, and Lomborg, is that they don’t seem to differentiate at all between good and bad growth, between economic growth that leads to real improvements and population growth and the consequent economic growth that it creates, which leads to no significant improvements for the whole society or for the established residents.

They seem to treat all growth as one single entity, and anyone who questions growth as questioning all growth, good and bad. This is extremely poor for analysts/academics of their ilk!

Pielke’s comments on different growth types completely miss this vital point!

Ludwig,

You continually make unsubstantiated assertions and state your beliefs. That's just religion. I can't make contact with you. Sorry. No point continuing.

Dear oh dear Peter. Go ahead, bomb out of the discussion if you must. But it tells me one thing very clearly – you don’t have a great conviction for your arguments. And it suggests that perhaps you are not really genuine in what you are espousing.

As a retired geologist ad engineer who has worked on a wide range of energy projects, I can sort of understand why you would want to think that energy is unlimited, innovation will save the day and there are actually no limits to growth. It would very much be the sort of thing that big companies that employ people with your sorts of skills would like to hear from their employees. They certainly wouldn’t want to hear my sorts of views!

But… your very long tenure in that sort of employment must surely have made you realise just how REAL limits to growth are!!

So…. why can’t you simply list the main principles of your argument, and allow our discussion to develop from there?

Ludwick,

Since you have now resorted to ad hominem attacks, I'll reply in a appropriately.

If you have above a double digit IQ and an inquiring mind (i.e. not a closed minded zealot), instead of asking your inane question requesting dot points, you’d go back and re-read my comments, say what you understand and what you don't understand, then ask for specific clarifications. Put another way, you’d use some basic research skills to make an attempt to understand before writing you silly comments.

However to address your question simply so hopefully it is not to much for you to understand, and to attempt to lead you on a path of discovery, see how you go with these fundamentals as a first step:

First, you need to recognise that everything humanity has comes from just two inputs (actually, three, but I’ll leave the third until later): 1) human ingenuity and 2) energy. Think about it. Do you understand this? Do you accept it. If you don’t, then do whatever is necessary until you do understand it.

Second, energy is unlimited.
“Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible”:
http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Fora%20Input/CCC2006/Nuclear%20Paper%2006_05.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20070609222700/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html
With unlimited energy humanity will be able to do and have whatever they want (over time).

I doubt you will understand this, or would be prepared to admit it if you do, but I’ve tried.

<< Since you have now resorted to ad hominem attacks… >>

What attack where Peter? There is no such thing. You have CHOSEN to see my comments in a very negative manner.

And then you have chosen to respond in a very poor manner indeed. Any fool can carry on like that.

<< …instead of asking your inane question requesting dot points.. >>

That was a perfectly reasonable request, in the interests of getting past a blockage in the debate. You CHOSE to turn into a negative thing.

Congrats on that! That is of extremely poor form.

So if you can’t conduct yourself in a reasonable manner, then this discussion ends here.

Damn pity really. It could have been a very interesting dialogue.

However, if you’d like to apologise or promise not to behave in such childish manner any more, we may be able to resume the debate.