tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10536145.post7360165500448819649..comments2023-10-08T09:01:17.216-07:00Comments on The Murgatroyd Blog: Alberta's Climate Change Strategy - Some SuggestionsStephen Murgatroydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14407855028282306596noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10536145.post-17840414533812359542015-09-08T00:27:58.047-07:002015-09-08T00:27:58.047-07:00Admirably clear and detailed exploration of your p...Admirably clear and detailed exploration of your perspective on complex policy issues and trade-offs that continues your sceptical critique of over-simple conclusions about cause and effect and raises doubts about the wisdom of predictive modelling and the use of the precautionary principle. Most of us use this principle in relation to our ‘old folks’, our children and grandchildren, possibly to excess, so it is not altogether surprising that we should also use it in relation to planet earth, the bottom-line of our existence. <br /><br />Sadly, human impacts on our 3.6 bn.-year evolved ecosphere (including all human-produced - "Machine World"- impacts and emissions, not only CO2) are growing exponentially as population and economic activity continue apace (e.g. 2 bn. more humans to come; 7% economic growth in China = doubling every 10 years). I see no precautionary principle being applied to the anthropocentric assumption that the earth (as Sarah Palin would have it) consists of resources provided by God to satisfy human needs (or is it ‘wants’ or ‘greed’?). The notion of ‘ecosystem services’ typifies the anthropocentrism that Palin and the hubris of our species in general represents: God-given nature at our service! And still economic thinking based on the desire for unlimited GDP growth fails to account for the costs to nature in that very measure.<br /><br />The biggest trade off of all is trading off the homeostatic, self-adjusting (‘S’- curve) balance of the natural world against the accelerating impact (‘J’-curve) of humans upon this delicate balance evolved over 3.6 bn. years. Your policy prescriptions, focused on the wicked problem of climate change, admirable though they are, have to be set within this much bigger picture arising from the ‘big history’. The re-assessing and re-framing the most fundamental anthropocentric assumptions of the invasive human species is the wickedest of all our problems. Your policy advocacy makes a lot of sense, but is but a tiny step forward and fails to incorporate the limits to growth global perspective.<br />ojoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11703910327490817426noreply@blogger.com