The pursuit of 'sustainability' is a mad fantasy based around the unsupportable notion that we know what the climate, what the weather, what the geological forces below the Earth's surface, what the sun and other astronomical bodies will be doing in ten, fifty, a hundred or a thousand years time. It rests on the denial of human progress, and the assumption, refuted at every stage of human history, that somehow today's problems are the ones that can never be solved by science and development. It relies on the natural human tendency to regard current issues as more intractable than those that have been successfully resolved in the past, and involves a sleight of hand to conceal the fact that we know as little about what to expect in 2070 as our parents and grandparents in 1960 knew about the world of 2012.

Let's build cities and towns for people to live happily and comfortably in NOW: that's a big enough job for anyone. The people of the future can worry about whether they are 'sustainable' or not.

< Many city administrations approach sustainability as an opportunity to save money, or to jumpstart the growth machine on the urban fringe, or, in the case of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, to accommodate predicted population growth. >

In other words, many administrations are being disingenuous about sustainability. If they are practicing greener technologies and efficiencies in energy and resource usage, it might sound like a move in the right direction. But if it is all aimed at better accommodating ever-more people, then it ain’t. Not at all!

It is in fact just the opposite – a facilitation of the continuous momentum AWAY from sustainability!

What a selfish attitude by Jon J. Let's not plan for the future? Let future generations cope with the results of our excesses? On the one hand he talks of "progress" and on the other denies that science can make useful predictions about the future. Denialism incarnate!

Good article by Andrew Ross. Obviously, the only sustainable path for our cities is to end population growth.

Yes, 'sustainability' is a mad ostensibly altruistic fantasy aimed at future generations. And yes, the total good would be better served if we worried about ourselves rather than obsess about posterity. The problem is, how does one prove those simple assertions?

I have long thought it is obvious. There are two components, the amount of finite resources (and they are all finite) we use now and the resulting amount of residue we leave behind.

Waste is inevitable. Leaving aside greenhouse emissions, managing waste is a matter of care, technology and a bit of common sense (unlike that other mad fantasy, common in Australia, of trying to leave behind pristine soil where once a service station stood).

Resource consumption is the tougher one. It’s where the affluent ecotopians, or whatever the current buzzwords are, have got it totally wrong. Buildings and cars, for example, can hardly ever be ecologically friendly if their lifetime costs are greater than that the supposedly less friendly but cheaper alternatives. For example the massively expensive so-called eco-houses featured on programs like ‘Grand Designs’ are nice, but laughable examples of sustainability.

The principle is simple. Money = resources, whether energy or mineral. So there’s nothing necessarily green about expensive gizmos. OK, some of them might indeed be ‘green’ but much careful analysis is needed before the claim can be sustained. And that can be hard, especially as the resource consumption will often be remote from the point of final use. The assessment is so complex that only by looking at data for the whole globe can one reliably track in full the resources involved.

Monetary value should be the default starting point. As the world becomes more affluent, energy use, for example, rises pretty much in proportion. The global picture is the key. That green fantasy created in some remote affluent corner inevitably uses a disproportionate amount of resources, perhaps hidden in the local ledger but not in the global account.

It's all tied in, of course.

Big oil and industry produce the fertilizers and pesticides that are washed away into the aquifers and into the oceans. The soil is rendered devoid of life and the farmers toss a bit more chemical into the mix to supplement that which has been washed away - a never-ending circle of despoilment.

What a stupid, stupid species to assume that it can continue to pollute its environment and kill its soils, and expect to do so without "serious" repercussions.

Now I'm really starting to get worried.

From Andrews article it would appear he actually believes in the global warming fraud.

I have not been too worried while it was obvious that the whole thing was just a funding rouse. Our elites are going to find some way to assure their comfortable easy life style. This was a nice way to justify good solid grants, lucrative consultancies & jobs.

However I from this article it appears that Andrew has fallen for the propaganda, & actually believes the whole fraud is true.

With no profile on him, I don't know how much math Andrew has, & math is the answer of course.

It is easy to prove that any time the humidity is above 10%, no amount of CO2 will have any effect on the behaviour of the atmosphere in response to radiation. Anyone who believes otherwise either can't do the math, or has a personal reason not to.

It is a worry if too many apparently educated people really start to believe the con job.

So Haz, do you believe in any form of anthropogenic climate change?

What about the massive changes that our foolish species has wrought on the planet, in the form of land-clearing, deforestation, massively changed transpiration, infiltration and runoff rates, reflectivity, heat nodes over the big cities, methane from grazing animals, and so on?

Do you think that there is absolutely no such thing as AGW. Or ACC, even on a small and localised scale?

But HasBeen, you're not playing the game.

It's an article of faith for Ludwig and Michael that seas will rise, we'll run out of food, the seas will fill with nutrients, there will be locust plagues, our cities will explode, Channel Ten will produce a top rating drama, there will be an Asian invasion of Muslims or a Muslim invasion of Asians and all because of global warming and fornication in a finite world. Did I mention the finite world bit? I'll mention it again - finite world.

There must be an easier way for these guys to get their anti-people party registered if the world really is finite rather than spoiling this blog with their madness.

Luddy, I'm a product of my times. A paddock full of woody weeds where once was good pasture, is vandalism to me.

During my years in the tropics, where everywhere is jungle or tree plantation an incredible need to look out over an open paddock developed. I went for a drive out to the riverina when I got back to Sydney.

Mostly man only improves, unless he's a greenie. When I heard a farmer refused a permit to clear regrowth, [actually woody weed invasion], from what was our treeless plain, when white man arrived in Oz, I knew that Greens were totally disgusting.

Do you ever watch Time Team old mate? When you see them unearth an old Roman fort from a grassy paddock you know that what we do is so minor as to be totally irrelevant.

When you walk through a major WW11 base in the islands, & have trouble finding the airstrip or the machine shed bases, just 25 years later, greenies have trouble to convince you that nature is "fragile".

From my studies of the subject mate, CO2 can not add more than 0.5 C to the temperature, no matter how much you put up there. As I said elsewhere, above 10% humidity, CO2 has no effect. I could be wrong, after all I was once, but I doubt it. I took quite a while looking for the truth. I know if I lived in northern Europe, I would be disappointed it would not do more.

Sure Urban heat island is a huge effect. There is no way custard apples & mangoes would have produced in much of Brisbane before settlement. A good thing perhaps, but on a planetary scale, nothing.

Perhaps we could start with some form of definition for 'sustainability'?
Another of those loose, 'feel good' terms invented by the UN power brokers now that the ole 'climate change' fiasco is running off the rails, thanks to the persistent good sense and sound scientific principles espoused by the likes of Hasbeen and others here.

Good point re the recovery of WWII airstrips, I too have seen the insistence of mother nature reclaiming her own.

I once lived in the Tasmanian HYDRO town of Bronte Park.
Returning there some 20 years later, I was unable to locate either the house or street where I lived. The terrestrial biosphere, like the coral reefs are literally 'as tough as old boots'.

Now Cheryl, i had to smile at yor post, but not too hard on the 'anti-people' folk, where else can we get such a laugh.

Andrew, your article, whilst well written from a literary point of view, is essentially flawed by your strange notion of climate change determining our future. It will change, as it always has, but I think you will find that my grand children, a smart lot, will adapt, as I have. I would almost think that Jon J has met them, he has as much faith in them as I do.

Perhaps Michael Crighton described sustainability best: "I've got mine, stuff you Jack".
The old chestnut "what about my childrens children" is starting to sound a bit like the boy who cried wolf.
If AGW believers truely believed, they would walk the walk and decentralise.
Lifes too short to be wasting it in front of a computer, I-phone.
Rural lifes grand.
When the day dawns on those well meaning but hopelesly ill informed "greens", that they are just puppets for big business, it will be a hollow feeling indeed.

<< Sure Urban heat island is a huge effect. >>

Ahh so you DO believe in some form of anthropogenic climate change, Hazza.

<< From my studies of the subject mate, CO2 can not add more than 0.5 C to the temperature, no matter how much you put up there. As I said elsewhere, above 10% humidity, CO2 has no effect. I could be wrong, after all I was once, but I doubt it. >>

Yes you could be wrong. It is possible! And it is good that you can see this possibility.

So, you can see some human impact on climate, and you do not have total confidence that you are right about CO2.

Well then, you surely cannot outrightly condemn AGW as bunkum, as you are so wont to do!

You should be a sceptic, not a denialist !! !!

So then, as I have put to you quite a few times; you should be agreeing that we should act on the side of caution, which means taking action as though AGW is real, and serious!

Or more to the point, we should be taking action on sustainability and peak oil / changing energy economics, which would largely mean addressing AGW inadvertently.

You’re with me about population growth. So you’ve therefore surely got to be with me about sustainability, more or less, I presume?

So come on over to the right side of this debate – stop denouncing AGW. Step past it and into the wonderful world of sustainability lobbying!! Tis a lot of fun…. and infinitely more meaningful! ( :>)

Perhaps in 2 hundreds years we may need to concern ourselves about peak oil/hydrocarbon energy issues.

In the meantime I would assume new technologies will render hydrocarbon energy use as relevant as typewriters in the age of word processors. Who knows, given a further 200 years of research and development even solar and wind generation could be close to viability.

Some people need to 'get up to speed' in relation to the the peak oil issue. Horizontal drilling is the technological game changer as microprocessors were to electric vaccume valves.

Attempting to regulate/legislate for 'sustainability' is as intellectually lazy as regulating for 'happiness'. All in the eye of the beholder.

I would love to bask in the self righteous glow of living 'sustainably' and rootin for the precautionary principle, irrespective of financial consequences.

But I find it difficult to ignore "CO2 can not add more than 0.5 C to the temperature". A variation that I, my grandchildren and all homosapiens can tolerate quite comfortably.

Real world observation and replicatable evidence that it does so might help.

Ludwig, let me repeat my question: in what universe is imposing crippling taxes on productive industries for no demonstrable reason 'erring on the side of caution'?

Do you really not see that there are huge, astronomical costs involved in 'acting as if AGW is real', and those costs will take money away from other important causes which are far easier to justify acting upon?

Why don't we 'act as if epidemic malaria is real' instead? Because it IS, and unlike AGW, we can show it.

Useful informative factual article, that demonstrates, the abject total lack of logical green thinking, who would pack humans like sardines, in ever higher towers/denser housing?
Forgetting, that city dwellers produce 2.5 times the carbon emission, of their country cousins!?
And green favoured alternative options, wind and solar voltaic panels?
The most expensive of all the available alternatives?
Rhrosty's green city, would see every high rise residential tower collect and then digest all its own biological waste, gravity fed into basement located systems.
A number of overseas trials, have all but confirmed, that this Aussie innovation, produces enough storable methane to power the whole building, or village, or cooperating suburb.
Adding in food scraps/wastage, produces a saleable surplus, or recharge power for residents' personal electric transport/vehicles.
Replacing the stationary engines and the alternators they turn, with super silent, 20% more efficient, ceramic fuel cells, would reduce maintainence costs, create even more power, and add in super silence, as a very desirable, inner city feature.
[Both these very local methane powered systems, provide endless free hot water!]
However, the ceramic cell(s) has no moving part(s) to wear out and instead of Co2, produces mostly water vapour, as it converts methane into electrical energy. [85%+ carbon reduction!]
A ceramic cell large enough to provide the power needs for a household/family of 4-6, currently costs around 5,000 AUD.
Widespread uptake and economies of scale, would see that number come way down.
Moreover, a taxpayer supported payment plan could be arranged, by a "LEADING" Govt, that could cost less per month, per household, than current power charges?
The digester's end waste products; include, completely sanitised carbon rich, phosphate and nitrate loaded, soil improving, very low cost fertilizer.
And, reusable water, with enough nutrient load to support nearby very low water using, closed cycle algae farming, which would support a very low cost, endlessly sustainable, considerable bio-diesel production facilities.
As the author effectively argues!
We need to provide alternatives, that even the poorest amongst us, the marginalised 80%; and or, the third world, can actually afford!
Rhrosty.

<< Ludwig, let me repeat my question: in what universe is imposing crippling taxes on productive industries for no demonstrable reason 'erring on the side of caution'? >>

Jon, what makes you think that I’m in favour of the current carbon tax?

As I keep saying, we should be looking at the bigger picture and not just concentrating on AGW.

It is hypocritical in the extreme for our government to implement this tax while continuing to preside over massive expansionism in the overall demand for energy and the consequent ever-increasing production of greenhouse gasses in this country.

They are essentially trying to dupe us into thinking they are doing something environmentally sound and even sustainability-oriented while in effect just continuing with business as usual.

OK, within a meaningful sustainability regime, I would support a carbon tax. And I would even support one under the current regime if I could see other developments heading in the same direction and see it progressively becoming more of an incentive to develop renewable energy sources.

It is supposed to do this, but I’ll believe it when I see it!

Now, the current carbon tax is piffling! A “crippling” tax it certainly ain’t!

There are many variables in the business world that affect profit margins and the survival of companies. The carbon is but one small additional factor.

Like all of these other factors, it has differing effects on different enterprises, but overall it is pretty damn small.

And if you compare the negative effect of the carbon tax on businesses and on peoples’ cost of living to the likely effect of not being as prepared as we could be when rising fuels prices or shortages hit us, we can reasonably assume that the carbon tax will have a very much smaller impact than that.

Ah but the carbon tax is only about climate change isn’t it, not peak oil or changing energy economies. Well, it damn well should be, first and foremost.

Ludwig: So your idea of 'erring on the side of caution' would be even more disruptive and wasteful than the Carbon Tax? Despite the fact that the alleged feedback loop on which the whole AGW movement is predicated has never actually been observed to occur in real life? Despite the obvious lies and exaggerations put forward by Al Gore and James Hansen, and the preparedness of people like Peter Gleick to lie and steal and probably forge 'for the cause'; despite the documented attempts by 'the Team' to get unsympathetic journal editors sacked and to block critical papers; despite the exposure of 'mistake' after 'mistake' after 'mistake', all somehow biased in the direction of global warming, you seriously still believe that these jokers are interested in anything more than how long they can go on feeding themselves and their cronies at the public trough?

Your ship is sinking, Ludwig, and your heroes won't wait around to pull you out of the water after it goes down. Grab a lifeboat before they're all gone.

Jon, you still seem to be completely ignoring the bigger picture; that of sustainability vs continuous-growth-until-we-crash-in-a-heap because the demand for everything becomes overwhelming… or the demand for just one vital resource becomes unsuppliable.

You apparently can only see the cost of the carbon tax or of striving to do something about sustainability and can’t even conceptualise a comparison between this and the cost of doing nothing.

Am I on the right track here?

But Ludwig, nobody is 'doing nothing' as such. You're upset because we are 'doing nothing' specifically about your pet paranoia, but many of us don't believe your pet paranoia exists, and most of us realise that we simply have no idea at the moment how to establish whether it does exist, how to establish whether it is dangerous, and how to deal with it if it is.

You are in the position of someone who has just witnessed the first commercial car built in Germany around 1902, rushing about and warning everyone that eventually we will all be asphyxiated tomorrow by the fumes they release. You fail or refuse to understand that there is a great deal of time and a great deal of human ingenuity available to deal with problems when they can be shown to be problems.

To return to the point I started from, projections of 'unsustainability' are based on the assumption that human scientific and technical progress will suddenly stop, right now: but what possible justification do you have for that claim? Has it ever happened in the past? Do we see any slowing-down in scientific progress now? On the contrary, it's not only getting faster, but doing so at an accelerating rate.

I'm certainly not 'doing nothing': I'm earning money, accumulating capital, educating my children, paying off and improving my house, participating in discussions, writing blog posts and generally working to make the world smarter and richer and better-prepared for ANY disaster that comes along, especially those parts of it that I know about and have some control over. If you think that's not enough, then you need to provide some genuine scientific proof as to why YOUR global crisis is any more real than the dozens of 'global crises' the media have flung at us all in the past: SARS, AIDS, Y2K, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, bird flu, nuclear winter, etc, etc. Oh, and global cooling, of course....

...Be honest. If you'd been around in 1974, would you would have been smart enough to see through the global cooling hysteria? Did you remain calm and collected in the face of the Y2K 'catastrophes' that never happened? Or is this AGW catastrophism just the latest in a long series of knee-jerk reactions to the media's love for a good apocalypse?

<< But Ludwig, nobody is 'doing nothing' as such. You're upset because we are 'doing nothing' specifically about your pet paranoia… >>

Which pet paranoia are you referring to? I’ve got lots of them!

Er…um… I mean; very real and valid concerns! ( :>)

<< …and most of us realise that we simply have no idea at the moment how to establish whether it does exist, how to establish whether it is dangerous, and how to deal with it if it is. >>

With reference to climate change, or peak oil or sustainability, I reckon we’ve got a pretty reasonable notion of what might happen and what we can do about it.

And as I keep saying, if we don’t really know, we should be erring on the side of caution.

It is just crackers to argue, as many do on OLO, that we shouldn’t do anything until we have proof of these things!

Hey, even if none of this is real – if you think that there are no signs of us reaching some pretty profound limits to the way we live and the scale at which we are doing it, it is still surely a damn good idea to strive to err on the side of caution so that we can be assured that the supply capability of all our essential resources doesn’t fall way behind the demand and we can retain a half-decent environment. This is surely just eminent basic common sense.

<< …projections of 'unsustainability' are based on the assumption that human scientific and technical progress will suddenly stop… >>

Really??

This’s the first time I’ve heard this argument!

continued

<< Do we see any slowing-down in scientific progress now? On the contrary, it's not only getting faster, but doing so at an accelerating rate. >>

No we don’t see any slowing. But I’m not sure it is accelerating. Big problem: a great deal of our scientific / technological energies are going directly into assisting us in becoming MORE out of whack with sustainability!

For example, more advanced fishing techniques are working directly towards depleting already badly overexploited fisheries.

And more advanced methods of extracting oil (eg: Athabasca Tar Sands) are doing nothing to help bring supply and demand into balance. They are just promulgating ever-greater demand, in the face of obviously stressed energy resources…. and the environment is getting less and less consideration as we become more desperate.

Now, if we were to suddenly see the light and redirect the vast majority of our scientific and technological skills into reaching this essential balance, we’d have it made.

So Jon, not only is science or human ingenuity not our saviour, but it is greatly assisting us to move in the WRONG direction.

Which means that we can’t really call it ingenuity and we can’t really think of ourselves as being all that smart, can we?

What is unsustainable, is basically bankrupt cities investing in anything, let alone sustainably!
Many of America's cities are basically bankrupt, with no prospects in sight of rescue? Just the almost inevitable Depression and further wind down, that will be theirs? If they follow their investments in the Emperor's new clothes or thin air, with the election of tea party types, or the reborn recalcitrant republicans, who will give tax breaks to the best off, increase the farm bill, all while further imposing even greater economy contracting austerity!?
Just when the trillions already spent, seem to be slowly revving up parts of the American economy?
If we and or they could just invest in energy systems that effectively reduce costs, allow more of fixed incomes to return to discretionary spending, we/they could continue to restore the economy, create jobs, investment opportunities, increased tax revenue and so on!
Then many of the problems we currently confront, would all but solve themselves?
Or put another way, we simply cannot put the cart before the horse and try to introduce sustainable outcomes, without first addressing/resuscitating the very economic outcomes we need to to affordablly introduce change, unless sustainability is part and parcel of that recovery!
As would be the case, if we simply redirected some of our current stimulation spending, at installing waste to energy facilities in selected high rise or govt buildings?
Like hospitals, schools, prisons, army camps etc, where sanitary biological waste disposal/food wastage and energy bills must now be almost crippling/unreliable, and or, endlessly extending the waiting time for ultra critical surgical outcomes; or, affordable/unmet personal/hardware/equipment requirements etc!
Rhrosty.