>Andrew wrote:

>First, how much of this result depends upon the fact that the
environmentally
damaging aspects of development get transferred from the more developed to
the less developed nations as time goes on?  

>Second, what is the lag time for unsustainable development to become
sustainable?  (In other words, how long does Kuznet's Curve take to turn
over?)  How much damage can be done from unsustainable development before
the development becomes sustainable, and even then, why should that imply
that the earlier damage can be undone?

Andrew

I don't want to overstate the case - or move to far into a debate about the
environment, which is probably not of interest to most of the people on this
list.  My point, as far as psci-com was concerned (poorly expressed, rather
late last night), was that most scientific endeavour is progressive and much
opposition about science is an expression of anxiety about progress.
Understanding the appeal of optimistic and pessimistic views about the
future is therefore important for science communicators.

Briefly, on Kuznet's.  My understanding of development is that most
developing countries are progressing through a demographic transition, from
high fertility and high mortality to low fertility and mortality.  This
transition is prompted by scientific advances (antibiotics, anti-microbials,
vaccines etc) and social improvements (water, sanitation etc.), which lead
to longer life expectancy.  However, the transition is completed due to
attitudinal change - people having fewer children and investing more in them
- which contradicts Malthus's view that the "passion between the sexes" is
unalterable and leads inevitably to resource shortage and inevitable "misery
and vice" (which is where Ehlrich is coming from).

This transition has many potentially beneficial effects.  The value placed
on education rises and people tend to save more for longer lives (increasing
investment in the domestic economy). Women tend to become more liberated and
educated, which has a positive effect on the education, life expectancy and
prospects of their children. Patterns of aspiration also tend to change, as
does the structure of the population, with a period where there are a large
proportion of working-age people, with potential economically beneficial
effects.

However, because mortality falls before fertility, population has increased.
More people, more cities.  More cities, more environmental damage.  And, as
a result, an increased proportion of environmental damage comes from poor
countries.  Poverty correlates with environmental damage, first, because the
poor cannot afford to bear the cost of environmental protection and, second,
because basic technologies tend to be dirtier and less efficient.  As
economies progress, more money is spent on, for example, cleaner factories.
Thus the Kuznet's Curve.

As a result, environmentalists and developmentalists increasingly share a
common agenda - with initiatives to tackle poverty heading in the same
direction as those trying to improve the environment.  This wasn't always
the case and seemed quite new three or four years ago.  People were expelled
from newly created National Parks, for example, in order to protect the
environment.  They now had no congruence of economic interest with their
former land and the result was often increased degradation of the park,
through smuggling, slash and burn, neglect etc.

So, in conclusion, environmental improvements do seem to rely on economic
development, more sophisticated technologies and human ingenuity (which is
where science comes in).  As to whether environmental damage can be
repaired, often it seems it can.  Many so-called reversible cases have
indeed been reversed - sometimes astonishingly quickly, as ecosystems prove
themselves more robust than believed.  This is most easily demonstrated on a
smaller scale.  Whether macro-environmental damage (global warming, for
example) will have irreversible effects, I really cannot say.  

But we do know that some of the predictions of the past have proved
overstated.  George Wald, Harvard biologist, for example in 1970:
"civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is
taken against problems facing mankind."  Why was Wald wrong? - perhaps
because the trends he extrapolated have not developed in a linear fashion.

We've written about these issues in "Social Capitalism and Human Progress"
published by the OECD (2000), as well as in Changing Nature Tourism (1998)
and [log in to unmask] (1997) written for UK Department for International
Development.  Copies on our website: www.riverpath.com/library/library.html

David

-------------------------------------
David Steven
River Path Associates
http://www.riverpath.com
[log in to unmask]
+44 (0)1202 849993 (work)
+44 (0)7939 038832 (mobile)
61a West Borough, Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 1LX, UK



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