I'm amazed and amused that so many of those who claim some sort of expertise seem to have such primitive understandings.

I'm something of a technology buff. I like gadgets. I like science. And I like what technology does for me and the world. I also like what came about as a result of the ramped up R&D funds during the nineties. Moreover, I've never been totally enthusiastic about some of the neo-luddite language that once passed as environmentalist, so I agree with Shellenberger and Nordhaus (S&N) that we should all be encouraging, funding, supporting, and promoting technologies that help our civilization and our country advance. In fact, I also agree that environmentalists should be considerably more aspirational than desperational. . .

S&N argue persuasively that the "politics of limits" -- which is, roughly, the idea that regulation can serve as a cure-all to the world's environmental problems -- ought to be replaced with a "politics of possibility" -- which is kind of hopeful thinking about new possible worlds. Their argument runs primarily along political strategy lines and is buttressed by many studies that show that Americans don't respond well to the pessimism and "scare tactics" of environmentalism. . .

Much of their book is geared to address concerns that relate to climate change. That's fine and well, of course, because climate change is one of the major hurdles that has been motivating the environmental movement for the past ten years or so. But it is also true that environmentalists have been dealing with many more problems than climate change for quite some time now. To declare the death of environmentalism, or to suggest that the positive panacea to the chicken-little environmental frame of mind is through technological and economic fixes, and that these fixes run contrary to the politics of limits, is to undermine a critical ethical thread that runs through environmental thinking altogether. . .

Here I'm thinking of issues like deforestation, desertification, extinction, habitat encroachment, water depletion, and so on. Environmental issues span the gamut, and many of them deal with human activities in and around nature. These issues can never be handled by technological or economic fixes, precisely because they are not problems of technical or economic failure. Some issues, for instance, relate to the problem of urban sprawl or to overconsumption, which cannot possibly be solved by appeal to technological or economic fixes. The "over" in 'overconsumption' isn't determined by what other people don't have (though that, surely, is part of it); it's determined by how much a person is entitled to and how much a person can reasonably use. Even Locke recognizes prohibitions against spoilage. These are primarily ethical and philosophical notions.

This is so muddled and confused that it's hard to know where to begin. First, though, technology isn't just gadgets. Science isn't just hardware. This is exceedingly relevant to environmental issues since they frequently deal with biology, wet stuff. The relevant science and technologies of environmental preservation and remediation consist in large part of recognizing and understanding how natural systems really work, and so how we can derive more value while doing less harm.

That's relevant to the claim that consumption is "over" and that there is some use for ethical and philosophical notions. Before such considerations can be more than idle musings it is necessary to be grounded in reality, and that has not been the case so far. They are reasoning from ignorance and false premises. Worse, sometimes it is an affected ignorance, ignorantia affectata, an ignorance too useful to correct. And, it isn't only the things that they don't know, it's also the things they know that ain't so.

If urban sprawl is a problem, something that has not been persuasively established, and if humans are over consuming, a claim that is not well supported, the solutions to these problems will most certainly be technological rather than political. You can't save your way out of such threats. Regulation hurts rather than helps. If you are adrift on a life raft you won't survive by rationing your meager supplies, you must create more of them, with skill and ingenuity, because daddy will not swoop down from the sky and rescue you. The longer you wait to adjust your attitude and get started, the less your chances of survival.

Hale is right that these "are not problems of technical or economic failure". There's no failure. This is just the current problem set. Humanity has had many previous problem sets and so far has met them all. Obviously. We are here. The problem set Hale mentions - issues like deforestation, desertification, extinction, habitat encroachment, water depletion - are indeed technological issues. Managing our forests more effectively to maintain or increase their value to us, in every respect, is chiefly a matter of understanding how forests work and doing the right things, at the right times. This is technology, not philosophy except in the old sense where science itself was a type of philosophy, as was most every type of formal knowing.

The same is true for the other issue mentioned. For example, some desertification is a consequence of poor forest management. Some is also due to primitive agricultural systems. Our techniques were adequate for the most part in the past but are no longer sufficient. We already know a great deal about how to do better but have not widely adopted the best practices. Things are improving but there is resistance from - you guessed it - those mired in antiquated ethical and philosophical notions - the proudly ignorant more concerned with their political agendas than actual preservation and remediation.

Worse perhaps, is the I Got Mine argument.

A second problem is that many of the classic environmental issues, among which climate change is only one, are best characterized as conflicts of interest, not just between two actors, but also between one actor and the environment. I want a cherry dining set, you want a cherry dining set, and there ain't enough cherry growing fast enough to give us both what we want. Moreover, when I take that cherry for my cherry dining set, I deprive the world of that cherry tree. In this case, it's not just any cherry tree; it's that cherry tree; that cherry true under which Harold kissed Maude, under which Abe told his truth, under which Erma held her bowl. So too for many environmental problems: I want a ski slope, so I take that mountain. I want a fountain, so I take that reservoir. I want a McMansion development, so I take that open space. Taking specific features of nature yields particularized conflicts of interest; but even more than this, particularized clashes over what is and what is not permissible. Again, permissibility is an ethical issue, only loosely and tangentially related to the so-called "politics of limits."

This is merely an objection to the evolution of more egalitarian societies. The elites are horrified that the unwashed hordes have become so wealthy that they can now compete. They have the leisure time - thanks to technology - to invade ski resorts, build their own castles and create their own gardens. This is dressed up as an ethical issue - permissibility - but is more accurately a class issue. Why shouldn't everyone have equal opportunity? They should, of course. The trick is to invent ways to make this possible rather than hunkering down, locking up the loot, and regulating who is permitted to live well and long. This is entirely a technological issue though there are economic aspects for any given level of technological development.

If, for example, there is huge demand for cherry dining sets, we might develop the technology to synthesize cherry wood from rocks and air. The only difference would be provenance, the history of the cherry tree. Only the truly perverse with the wealth and lust for status of the insecure would seek out the particular tree "under which Harold kissed Maude". They exist, but this isn't an issue of regulating the demand for cherry dining sets.

It's important that we understand these issues since population is still growing, and power is shifting from Europe and its former colonies back to the older and more populous civilizations of the east. Failure to develop technologies, chiefly of energy at this time, to allow them to live well condemns them to perpetual misery. That is an ethical issue. The same is true to a lesser extent in more developed countries. But, ethics be damned, reality will have the last word. Attempting to bottle up the growing pressure, the desires of a growing population, will result in explosion. First the land will be stripped by the teeming hordes, then they will roam the world doing the same to the precious nature preserves of the rich. We can either face these realities and develop more efficient technologies, or ruin the world with primitive technologies while the rich, in their bunkers, engage in pointless philosophical debates devoid of real content.