An Ecomodernist Manifesto

One relatively new thought in the manifesto is the explicit disagreement with the old assertion that the finite resources of our planet cannot sustain continued economic growth.<p>The fundamental reason why economic growth can continue at a fixed or even shrinking environmental footprint is that economic growth and environmental footprint measure different things. The former measures the creation of economic value while the latter measures the use of land and raw materials necessary to create that value.<p>More and more economic value of what we consume derives not from land and raw materials but from human inputs like design, creativity, engineering and services. This means that a smaller amount of raw materials is necessary to produce one dollar of GDP than it used to.<p>At the same time, more and more of the raw materials are reused via down-, re- or even up-cycling. In theory, a very sophisticated economy of a demographically stable society could thrive and grow entirely on a closed cycle of raw materials and fixed amount of land. Even if we don&#x27;t get there we could still reduce our impact below environment&#x27;s capacity for self-renewal.<p>I think we must urgently stop the increase and soon begin shrinking our environmental footprint. The realization that there is no fundamental contradiction between continued economic growth (and all its perks including poverty reduction, scientific progress and continued human development) and the protection of our planet should highlight that this ambition is achievable.

Bruno Latour&#x27;s response to this text can be found here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;entitleblog.org&#x2F;2015&#x2F;06&#x2F;27&#x2F;fifty-shades-of-green-bruno-latour-on-the-ecomodernist-manifesto&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;entitleblog.org&#x2F;2015&#x2F;06&#x2F;27&#x2F;fifty-shades-of-green-brun...</a>

At least the writers confess they are moved by &quot;deep love and emotional connection to the natural world&quot;. And from there I guess it&#x27;s not too difficult to build up a dream that morally allows you to keep your current over-consuming habits which are trashing the planet, while claiming that you LOVE nature and at the same time not pissing off anyone by avoiding all politics to get in the mix.<p>The ecological problem is a bit more complex that blind trust in technology and efficiency progress. Blind faiths, simplifications and master plans have added little (from ecomodernism to primitivism). The problems of democracy, discrimination and redistribution of wealth have a lot to say, but that&#x27;s too tough for a cute little manifesto.<p>They speak of technology &quot;applied with wisdom&quot;, &quot;with proper management&quot;. So I take that, until now, we have just mismanaged technology and applied it in dullest ways. Or I guess they have a secret plan on how to manage technology correctly from now on. Or perhaps they will come to realize that technology has and will always have a good and bad side, and that most of its consequences (good and bad) are often unforeseeable, and as such, hard to steer. Let&#x27;s not even think of WHO actually controls technology.<p>What&#x27;s more, the &quot;decoupling&quot; of human well-being from human impact is a myth. The impact has just been transferred to third world countries where sure none of these ecomodernists live or probably ever visited. Lol when they take &quot;New England&quot; and &quot;France&quot; forests as examples. Any plans to bring up the 80% of undeveloped countries to the pace of the 20% with nice growing forests? None.<p>This is the typical manifesto which is absolutely nothing new, sounds super nice, but changes nothing, provides nothing, and feels about right in the hands of the rich and ruling elites because it absolutely avoids to question any status-quo whatsoever.

I&#x27;m sympathetic to this cause, but that introduction contains a lot of waffle. If the author is reading this, you can summarise the key driving forces for change as...<p>1. Cannot rely on infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources.<p>2. A better balance between human life and the rest of life on the planet relies on allowing nature to regrow without competing with human development.<p>You don&#x27;t need to have all the answers up front, the solution is going to evolve naturally once we agree on what why it&#x27;s desirable to change and get the discussions going.

See: Systems Theory<p>Sometimes the greatest harm is born out of the most sincere intentions. Anything founded on false, internally inconsistent premises will fail. Often, the longer it takes to fail, the more harm is done. Like it or not, humans cannot completely extricate themselves from &quot;nature&quot;, unless we are talking packing up and migrating every last human off Earth to Mars. That&#x27;s not happening; this won&#x27;t work. Come to grips with that sooner, not later.

Given the understanding that the environment is unavoidably inked to humanity it seems a little doubtful that we can just decouple so absolutely. This is a common attitude in rural and urban planning where the world is neatly divided up into zones of urban, agriculture, industry, etc. Making room for nature in that kind of world is very difficult as it will always lead to a loss from another interests that are already in conflict with one another. It is particularly problematic in places like Sub-Saharan agriculture where people, nature, and agriculture are in such close proximity and these conflicts are a more of a social issue.<p>I think it is better to have more fuzzy edges and make ecology an intrinsic part of development that people will want to defends. For example a new development should surrounded by a buffer of woodland&#x2F;wetlands&#x2F;grassland that will be valued by residents.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;runvnc.github.io&#x2F;tinyvillage" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;runvnc.github.io&#x2F;tinyvillage</a>