Methodological Overview - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 15

implementation, and requires other (probably hidden) energy subsi-
dies from other existing sources, which themselves are not so envi-
ronmentally benign.
• If population pressures lead to urbanization and the conversion of farmland
to urban uses, then return to the second vignette. The entire line of analy-
sis begins to resemble a recursive computer systems chart, except
there is no escape from an infinite, self-reinforcing “do-loop.”
Extracting the Meaning
Even though the list of vignettes that capture the conventional wisdom
of the time is virtually endless, adding to that list is not our purpose.
Rather, our point is that we were clearly thrust into the era of “everything
is connected to everything else.” We have always been in that era. It is
simply the case that resource-related events during the tumultuous 1970s
underscored that point and began to send what should have been unmis-
takable signals.
This glimpse into the history of events, beginning some 40 years ago,
allows a practical overlay that dovetails with material to follow in the next
chapter. Some significant general principles can be extracted:
• Energy use is inherent in all that we do—both in the creation of
problems in the first place as well as the search for and implementa-
tion of potential solutions.
• Technology, even if it appears to be strikingly successful, merely
shifts pressure from one resource system to others. We are left hop-
ing that the newly pressured systems have considerably more carry-
ing capacity than the old.
• The role of time is critical in two ways. First, the technological lead
time must be short enough to avoid a serious crisis. Second, any
symptomatic innovation may merely buy some time in any case.
How long will a technological fix to a symptom last, when a systemic
cure is required but ignored?
• Resource scarcities apply not only to quantities of physical resources,
such as petroleum, minerals, or farmland, but are inextricably
entwined with quality of environmental resources, such as clean air,
clean water, ozone, and climate.
• Specifically, water , for which there is no substitute, may ultimately
prove to be the limiting factor in the expansion of human activity.
These principles serve to complement and perhaps elaborate the laws
of thermodynamics and the biophysical principles to be discussed subse-
quently. In some ways—and that is our point—they merely restate those