Just because it can be shown scientifically (or not depending upon how you define science) that capitalism cannot be sustainable or even nearly sustainable, I am unwilling to say that sustainability is political. The question of whether or not sustainability is political or BS or something else is a waste of time and best left to experienced timewasters like Phil.
I, for my part, have been trying to include in the definition the case where the inevitable deficits in the steady-state storehouses of vital materials are made up from the repositories of such materials found on Earth in such a way that the occurrence analogous to Peak Oil does not occur for 1000 years. I am ready to change my tune and call that circumstance "near-sustainability" while admitting the impossibility of perfect sustainability even though I don't believe the scatter of small amounts of vital materials over the Earth and beyond will ever become a major problem.
It now becomes necessary to outline the method I will use to determine ERoEI* from the outside in, thus avoiding the enumeration and evaluation of indirect energy investments. I do not expect this work to be interrupted, but I am unwilling to leave that to chance. [snip]
No comments :
Post a Comment