|
| |
Index
of articles
Why conserve while expansionist policies
destroy?
by Virginia Abernethy, Ph.D.
Ecologists are strongly influenced by biology and
many emerge from this academic discipline [and they] accept the concept of
carrying capacity as essentially self-evident. The Earth is round and finite;
so, therefore, must be its resources [as seen by] fisheries that have crashed;
falling water tables in aquifers; topsoil loss; annual oil production greater
than discoveries (therefore, declining real reserves); mass extinction of
species; and compromised capacity to cope with atmospheric and water
pollution...
Ecologists apply the lesson of the "tragedy of the commons" [where]
universal access has major implications for the motivation to conserve because
conservation depends upon self-restraint, saving a resource in order to enjoy or
use it in the future. No one has the incentive to conserve a resource to which
no one can be denied access, for the reason that those making the effort, or
their descendants, are very unlikely to have much of the future benefit from
their present sacrifices. In a commons, in fact, the better individual strategy
is to use the resource as intensively and fast as one can. The maxim is,
"Use it or lose it," with a vengeance...
Moral codes are subject to the possibilities inherent in a physically-
limited Earth
Preservation of carrying capacity, which is inherently limited, is fundamental
for the present and future well-being of any nation. Over-taxing
the carrying capacity destroys, sometimes irremediably, the long-term ability of
the resource base to sustain those who depend on it.
Ecologists see a direct threat to carrying capacity from increasing population
size on the incentive system. Americans are disposed to conserve land that they
own or control, to stabilize population through self-restraint in childbearing
(the native-born fertility rate is below replacement level), to tax themselves
for environmental rehabilitation efforts, and to mitigate ongoing environmental
destruction. However, immigration makes the United States into an effective
"commons," a condition
conducive to using resources as fast as possible lest one lose out on one's
share.
If efforts to protect the carrying capacity are doomed to fail, anyway, because
of continuing population growth, why conserve, why do without today, why support
an environmental ethic? A case in point, to protest continuing
immigration, some Californians responded to water-use restrictions during the
1980s drought with the bumper sticker, "Flush Twice."
Unless reasonably assured that present and future benefit will accrue to
themselves or their posterity, few persons will forego present consumption
or childbearing for the purpose of conserving the environment. This means that
Americans' incentive to conserve the environment can probably be maintained only
by offering hope that their efforts will not be in vain. Ecologists conclude
that reducing immigration to the number compatible with stabilizing population
size, or even allowing population decline should that prove necessary, is the
only sustainable course.
Virginia Deane Abernethy, 2001. "Carrying capacity: the tradition and
policy
implications of limits" Ethics in Science and Environmental
Politics. 2001: 9-18
| |
|
