{"id":12731,"date":"2011-12-23T10:56:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T15:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=12731"},"modified":"2011-12-23T10:56:59","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T15:56:59","slug":"sustainable-development-is-just-an-airy-fairy-moonbeam-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/12\/23\/sustainable-development-is-just-an-airy-fairy-moonbeam-fantasy\/","title":{"rendered":"“‘Sustainable Development’ is just an airy-fairy moonbeam fantasy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Willis Eschenbach<\/a> guest-posts on Watts Up With That?<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

So other than sunlight, wind, and rainbows … just what is sustainable development supposed to be built of? Cell phones are one of the most revolutionary tools of development … but we are depriving future generations of nickel and cadmium in doing so. That\u2019s not sustainable.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the ugly truth. It\u2019s simple, blunt, and bitter. Nothing is sustainable. Oh, like the sailors say, the wind is free. As is the sunshine. But everything else we mine or extract to make everything from shovels to cell phones will run out. The only question is, will it run out sooner, or later? Because nothing is sustainable. \u201cSustainable Development\u201d is just an airy-fairy moonbeam fantasy, a New Age oxymoron. In the real world, it can\u2019t happen. I find the term \u201csustainable development\u201d useful for one thing only.<\/p>\n

When people use it, I know they have not thought too hard about the issues.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is an underlying arrogance about the concept that I find disturbing. Forty percent of the world\u2019s people live on less than $2 per day. In China it\u2019s sixty percent. In India, three-quarters of the population lives on under $2 per day.<\/p>\n

Denying those men, women, and especially children the ability to improve their lives based on some professed concern about unborn generations doesn\u2019t sit well with me at all. The obvious response from their side is \u201cEasy for you to say, you made it already.\u201d Which is true. The West got wealthy by means which \u201csustainable development\u201d wants to deny to the world\u2019s poor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Willis Eschenbach guest-posts on Watts Up With That? So other than sunlight, wind, and rainbows … just what is sustainable development supposed to be built of? Cell phones are one of the most revolutionary tools of development … but we are depriving future generations of nickel and cadmium in doing so. That\u2019s not sustainable. Here\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,16,15],"tags":[640,91],"class_list":["post-12731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-science","category-technology","tag-alternativeenergy","tag-poverty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3jl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12732,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731\/revisions\/12732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}