Round-up for August 16-21

Hey again everyone.


I'd say we're off to a slow start if it weren't for the prolific writings already posted by, you guessed it, Mr. Don Maier. Don began with a post reflecting on the institute and his upcoming travels down under, and then engages with a New York Times piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg, agreeing with Verlyn's sentiment that,

"Humans are competent to do many things. But I do not think we are competent to run a global ecosystem."

Don then jumps in to the heavy issues with Brian Norton and Anne Steinemann's work on sustainability and the precautionary principle, noting that,

"Much needs to be said about what "sustainability" is. More needs to be said about whether or not "sustainable development" is an oxymoron. Those topics provide fertile material for future posts. This one restricts its attention to the Precautionary Principle."

Don notes that the principle stands up against "growth-promoting economic reasoning" but sees that it ultimately "fails to provide any guidance for human behavior that directly interacts with the enveloping environment -- even when the environment is considered merely as a set of "resources" for development... [and it also fails] to take into account our relationships with our surroundings as an extraordinarily important context for living our lives."

My question: is the precautionary principle a good start, but not enough? Or does it take us off track from the get-go? Check out Don's post, it's an excellent discussion starter.

Don's most recent post is a duzzy, an intriguing thought-experiment asking us to try a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) of the Bill of Rights.... or at least our biophysical environment, concluding that this is, after all, what modern resource management is all about. I think Don's point is that it is ridiculous to reduce everything to BCA, be it our constitution, a human life, or the natural world. (so why do we still do it?)

~

Rebecca joined in too last week with an introduction to her colorful blog, The Three R's (standing for Restoration, Renovation, and Rebecca). Concerning one of those R's, she writes,

"I'd like to renovate the way that we think and argue about restoration."

To do this she first explores Andrew Light's distinction between benevolent and malicious restoration (see her post for the details), and second, she questions "whether the natural recovery processes involved in restoration have some sort of intrinsic value that should be preserved." In the end Rebecca argues that "It seems like the more we mess with restoration projects, the more fake and unnatural they become... and more self-serving."

Sounds like a return to the (perhaps very important) intrinsic values debate. But could we not agree with Rebecca's conclusion with different grounds for our arguments (future generations, deep ecology, etc)?

~

Allen has his blog up and running too, and so do I. With just placeholder posts for now, they're ready to go. Actually I'd say we're off to a very good start.

~