Sustainability

[mhhigdon]

Solow’s paper says that sustainability is a vague concept, and I agree with that. My definition of sustainability would be the human race’s ability to preserve and maintain the world’s natural resources. We wouldn’t over-harvest our resources such as crops, animals, and the land that we live on today. I think that today, as a society and the world needs to start thinking more rationally when harvesting and using these natural resources. The decisions humans are making are made for what we want now, the immediate future. When we really should be doing is setting up the younger generations and their future. Because if we do something that might not affect us immediately, it could cause long term effects that could potentially change the world, and not for the better. We can not take these natural resources for granted and think we can fix them later. Like in Solow’s line, “…when we use up something that is irreplaceable, whether it is minerals or a fish species, or an environmental amenity, then we should be thinking about providing a substitute of equal value”(Solow 184), this is basically saying that when people are killing off a species of any kind, the solution is just to make a substitute to replace it.

[kmingo2]

Do you agree with the idea of an “equal substitute”? Could we substitute for example our natural stocks of salmon with farmed salmon or perhaps protein substitutes? Or does this not fit into our ideas of sustainability? I feel like thee two concepts of preserving natural resources and “equal substitutes” are very conflicting.

[khteets]

I’d like to agree with your view point of how people are today and that we can’t take advantage of our resources like we do. You quoted Solow but never identified whether you agree with him or not. So do you agree with what he said? Do you agree about his opinion on equal value or what’s you opinion on the subject?

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