Posted: June 20, 2008, 8:48 PM by NP Editor
By Peter Foster
Claims of catastrophic man-made climate change, imminent exhaustion of
resources, disastrous loss of biodiversity and growing threats from
chemicals all point to much more stringent government control of our
lives. The contours of the new polity are necessarily vague, but clearly
imply much greater constraints on human freedom. In fact, the model for
"sustainable development" has already been quietly crowned. It is Cuba.
Cuba's unique status as the only country that "enjoys" sustainability
was first celebrated in the World Wildlife Fund's The Living Planet
Report 2006. The island Gulag is the only state whose "ecological
footprint" (EF) and level of "human development" (according to the UN's
peculiar scale of values) are both within the tiny box where humans are
to be allowed to live.
The concept of the ecological footprint was first developed in 1993 by
the University of British Columbia's William Rees and his student Mathis
Wackernagel. It claims to quantify the area of land needed to support an
individual within a particular nation using available technology. Based
on a number of assumptions (such as, only a quarter of the earth is
available to us), humans allegedly have some 1.8 hectares of planet
each. If your lifestyle requires more, you are taking "more than your
fair share" and contributing to "ecological overshoot."
Such thinking is a combination of hunter-gatherer egalitarianism,
neo-Malthusianism and Soviet planning. It gives rise to the bizarre
statistic of the Earth-equivalent ratio, or EER, which indicates "how
many earths" would be needed if everybody was to live at a particular
nation's lifestyle. Since we only have one earth, such flights are
designed to shock us at the unfairness of it all, plus establish that it
is physically impossible for poor people to achieve the lifestyles of
the rich and greedy: If everybody was to live at the per capita
standards of the U.S., we would need more than five earths!
Where Cuba scores is that if everybody lived like Cubans (not Fidel
Castro, of course, or his successor as dictator, brother Raul, but the
average benighted Jose or Maria), we would only need one earth. But
shouldn't we also note that Cubans have lived under a Communist
dictatorship for almost fifty years? Apparently, that doesn't matter, at
least not if you look at the other axis of Cuba's sustainable virtue.
Cubans are doing well according to the UN's Human Development Index, HDI
(see graphic below), which is based on weighted rankings for longevity,
literacy, years of schooling and per capita Gross Domestic Product.
Naturally, democracy doesn't get a mention, and income is underplayed,
as is the fact that Cuban schooling means pure indoctrination.
Nevertheless, if you want to live a long life without being threatened
by obesity, Blackberry addiction or thought, Castro-ite Cuba is the
place for you.
Mr. Wackernagel claims that a combination of his footprint and the HDI
enables him to give a "robust measure" for sustainable development. It
is defined as having an HDI of at least 0.8 and a maximum EER of 1. Too
low an HDI means "underdevelopment;" a greater EER means your nation is
"gobbling up too many resources." Cuba is thus the Goldilocks of
nations, the only one, according to the New Scientist magazine, which is
moving in the "right direction."
Mr. Wackernagel admits that Cuba didn't achieve ecological virtue
without a little push. According to him, Cubans were "forced into a
smaller footprint because of the oil embargo." That's right, U.S.
hegemony played its wicked part in achieving this noble end. Strangely,
however, Mr. Wackernagel doesn't mention the role of Communism in
forcing Cuba into a bicycle and ox-powered economy (which has been
lavishly praised by David Suzuki, who is — now here's a surprise — on
the Science and Policy Advisory Council of Mr. Wackernagel's Global
Footprint Network).
The Cuban regime — ever on the lookout for rationalizations of its
repression — has been quick to leap on footprintthink.
Earlier this year, Ricardo Alarcon, the unctuous liar who is the
regime's third-in-command, was challenged during an appearance at a
Havana university on why Cubans weren't free to travel (the questioner
was, of course, subsequently detained). His response: "If all the world,
some six billion people, could travel whenever they wanted, the jam in
the skies would be enormous." We'd need the airspace of another dozen
earths!
One problem for those who regard it as a model of sustainability is that
the Cuban system is now, at long last, threatening to implode. The
"pragmatic" President Raul has declared that Cubans are free to buy all
the electronic goods they want (subject to the possession of
"convertible" pesos, which the average Cuban can't afford). But we may
be sure that Cubans will not willingly swap the political jackboot that
has been on their necks for half a century for an ecological variant.
Financial Post
No comments:
Post a Comment