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Very good diary, Jake!

I think we should add what the "empty world" model led to in terms of waste (mis)management and pollution: in this model, we could throw away all the stuff we wanted to get rid of without bothering about the consequences, and we did.

Now, in a "full world", we have to take these "externalities" into account because of their impact on our lives and  on the renewable resources (fish stock, for example). So waste and pollution are also limiting factors in this economy.

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

by Melanchthon on Sun Aug 16th, 2009 at 01:02:01 PM EST
Pollution is not treated separately here, because it is simply raw materials with the opposite sign convention: Pollution is the consumption of the raw materials known as "clean air," "available land," "clean water," etc. And those raw materials usually fall into one of the categories above.

Although it may be necessary to break each of the preceding distinctions further down: "Clean air," for example, can mean air without sulfuric acid (which is renewable - sulfuric acid washes out) or air without greenhouse gas pollutants (which is largely consumable).

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Aug 16th, 2009 at 03:29:11 PM EST
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