Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
salary for an American man working full time in 2007 was $45,113. It
was $35,102 for a woman. The median household income was $50,233.
Apparently money does deliver happiness for people who are trying
to cover life's basic necessities. At higher incomes, the correlation
vanishes: additional money has little or no relationship to happiness.
When a person has enough money to cover basic necessities, happiness
probably depends on interpersonal relationships.
If happiness is what people want, why not create economies that are
geared to deliver it? Apparently growth economies do not do this. Is it
possible to change the emphasis? Can the emphasis of industry and
governments at all levels be changed from an emphasis on meaningless
and environmentally destructive excessive consumption to an emphasis
on well-being and consequent happiness?
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Why Do We Work?
I believe that a neglected but important aspect of the problem of growth
versus the environment is that technological advances have made it
unnecessary for everyone to work, but no one knows how to organize
a society in which working is optional. So production is continually
expanded to keep people employed, meaning that more useless “stuff”
is always produced, much of it with built-in planned obsolescence
(models of cars, clothing, other products).
There will always be those who work because they enjoy it—the
people who do creative things such as painting, composing, researching,
writing, teaching, or doing science to discover how things work. But
those who do repetitive tasks that can lose their sparkle, such as helping
factory machines put fenders on new cars that will replace existing but
still functional older cars, manufacturing expensive clothing, checking
olives on assembly lines to see that imperfect ones are rejected, or pro-
ducing another brand of clothes-washing powder, would be happy to
cease their daily work if there were an alternative way to supply their
essential needs and a few of their wants. I am not aware of any futurists
who consider this question.
The Law of Unintended Consequences
With amazing arrogance we presume omniscience and an understanding of
the complexities of Nature, and with amazing impertinence, we fi rmly believe
that we can better it. We have forgotten that we, ourselves, are just a part of
