[ExI] Unsustainable was Re: Solar power makes UK people poorer

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 10:37:16PM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Will Steinberg
> <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Your information is incorrect for your argument purposes.  For example,
> > sustainability does not mean here running out of phosphorus, it is runoff
> > causing massive algal blooms eutrophying the shit out of lakes and ruining
> > the ecosystem, a thing that you might remember is important to us...
> 
> ### This is not what sustainability is about, except in the most

It is exactly what sustainability is about. Dumping particulates
and nutrients into the oceans wreaks havoc to the food web.
People underestimate the impact because few of them care about
looking at fishery data over 150 years, and talking to marine
ecologists.

> trivial meaning. Eutrophication is a present day harm to specific

Anyone of 7 gigamonkeys is a specific person.

> persons. Sustainability pertains to being able to continue a behavior

That's the definition.

> indefinitely. By this token, eutrophication is actually sustainable -
> you could go on harming bathers and anglers with green slime forever,
> and there is no clear accumulation of harm that would force you to
> stop - until you run out of phosphate to put in waters.

Sorry Rafal, I like you, and I hate to be blunt, but you're
out of your fucking mind.
 
> I guess we are splitting hairs here. What matters to me is that
> harming innocent people is bad, and the notion of sustainability is at
> best useless, and at worst harmful since it may divert resources from
> benefitting existing humans to mitigation of theoretical problems
> affecting hypothetical descendants.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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