Counsel for Getting There - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 158

As it is with any renewable natural resource, the nonsustainable exploita-
tion has a built-in ratchet effect that works in this way. During periods of
relative economic stability, the rate of harvest of a given renewable resource
(e.g., wild turtles) tends to stabilize at a level that economic theory predicts
can be sustained through some scale of time. Such levels, however, are almost
always excessive because economists take existing unknown and unpredict-
able ecological variables and assume them to be known and predictable eco-
nomic constant values in order to calculate the expected return on a given
investment from a sustained harvest.
During good years in the market or in the availability of the resource, or
both, additional capital outlay is encouraged in harvesting and processing,
because this is the imperative of competitive economic growth and the root
of capitalism. But when conditions return to normal or even below normal,
the individual or industry, having overinvested, typically appeals to the gov-
ernment for help because substantial economic capital is at stake—includ-
ing potential earnings. If the government responds positively, it encourages
this cycle of continual overexploitation—the ratchet effect . 5 The ratchet effect
is thus caused by unrestrained economic investment to increase short-term
yields in good times and strong opposition to losing those yields in bad times.
Then, because there is no mechanism in our linear economic models of
ever-increasing yields that allows for the uncertainties of ecological cycles
and variability or for the inevitable decreases in yields during bad times, the
long-term outcome is a heavily subsidized industry. Such an industry con-
tinually overharvests the resource on an artificially created, sustained-yield
basis that is not biologically sustainable. When the notion of sustainability
arises, the overexploiting parties marshal all scientific data favorable to their
respective sides as “good” science and discount all unfavorable data as “bad”
science, thereby politicizing the science and largely obfuscating its service to
society. The result is that one generation steals from all future generations
rather than face the loss of some idealized, potential income.
By generalizing from these examples, we extract six important lessons
to be learned about the all-important issue of historical overexploitation of
natural resources: (1) emphasize quality rather than quantity, (2) recognize
that loss of sustainability occurs over time, (3) recognize that resource issues
are complex and process driven, (4) accept the uncertainty of change, (5) stop
perceiving loss as a threat to survival, and (6) favor biophysical effectiveness
over economic efficiency.
In many ways, these are not new issues to this topic. However, as points of
summary, they deserve emphasis in that they offer a rock-solid foundation for
any person to engage in their community and seek to promote effective change.
Lesson 1: Emphasize Quality Rather Than Quantity
Maximizing the quality of whatever we do with the Earth's finite resources
will always conserve them, thereby spreading nature's wealth among more