Hi Readers!
Thank you for your replies. You are absolutely right in all you write even though you do it off the cuff.
The old issues of letting things be governed by the price mechanism produce my skepticism about recycling, which is that it will worsen the environment because of economic forces. I just use the examples to start thoughts without firing any real argumental guns.
The difficulty is not from the intent of policy makers which is to protect the environment, but rather that we are designed by the logic of efficiency and competition to bring the technology bull into the china world we occupy. Technology drives economics through economies that produce the effect of profit. Because people will choose inappropriate technologies for the environment being profit oriented, there is no hope for the environment. The point is that the technologies we have innovated are diametrically in opposition to protecting the environment. This means that as we use the business approach to social exchange, we will surely kill the golden goose just as certainly as if we were to release a bull into a china shop and it would break the china. Politics must rule the economic choices, but politics is not smooth and can lead to it's own destructive goals.
Recycling is a silly construct to make people feel good!
The fact is that we are on an economic technology path to kill all that is beautiful in the world because we worship economies of scale as these provide the greatest profit. All social arrangements of exchange based on the profit motive are designed technologically to destroy the environment. Bigger is destructive of family and healthy social arrangements, and yet it is what gives us a rising standard of living and makes our destructive system work in the short term. It leads however to higher and higher environment costs that are not priced by present market mechanisms.
My assessment is very Hawking that the generating functions of our physics and the biology of our nature and tools produces a bad series of physical events. We need to find a better series that will create the world habitat structure which is optimal. Our economies of scale dilemma lurks in the background to destroy all our efforts. The BPs of this world are driving it to destruction.
The banking orientation of the IMF is driving the world to destruction. There is so much destructive power in the money and debt out there that we will be lucky to avoid a major third war.
Can you see a way out?
Sent from my iPad