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+ - meadows-rovat (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER OR WORSE, DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU COUNT

Every month I get a kind of Readers Digest for people interested in the
future. 
It's called Future Survey, issued by the World Future Society.  Each
month it
contains about 50 extended summaries of recent publications about the
paths --
economic, environmental, social -- we seem to be following.

The November 2000 issue, for example, starts with a review of a Cato Institute
book called "It's Getting Better All the Time."  American average life
span rose
from 47 years in 1900 to 77 in 1998.  Median household wealth has
doubled since
1965.  The fraction of the population living in poverty is falling, as
are teen
drinking, drug use, and pregnancies.  Relax and rejoice.  Life is
getting ever
better.

Immediately following is a speech by Graham Molitor, vice president of
the World
Future Society, about a future of leisure.  Robots will do more of our work;
increased life expectancy and fewer child-bearing years will open half our
lifetimes to pure fun.  Cruise ships, luxury hotels, theme parks, and gambling
are already booming.

But the next article by sociologist Stanley Eitzen documents the fragmentation
of American social life.  Personal bankruptcies are at a record high,
hunger and
homelessness are rising, 44 million people have no health insurance, American
rates of poverty, murder, and imprisonment are the highest in the industrial
world.

That may be why, going on to the next review, we are "Bowling Alone."  The
update of this book by Robert Putnam contains "data-drenched chapters" about
declining political, civic, and religious participation, less altruism and
volunteering, more disputes, lawsuits, commuting and TV.

And so on, article after article, all written by informed, articulate, sincere
experts.  Breathless accounts of the digital revolution and the
information age
and the thrilling world of venture capital alternate with gloomy reports of
global climate change, horrible deformities in frogs, impending water scarcity,
rising depression and suicide and divorce, plummeting work satisfaction, growin
g
distrust and loneliness.

If you read any one of these books or articles, you'd be convinced
either that
we're making progress or going down the tubes.  If you read them all,
back to
back, you see how different observers select particular data to shade the
picture dark or bright.  Many of us seem to have some sort of glandular
urge to
notice exclusively either the bad news or the good.  The real world is
full of
both.  We're not good at reporting on the whole fairly or completely.

The World Bank, among other organizations, is trying to fix that reporting
problem, by expanding its capital accounts.  Capital, in a financial
sense, is
an accumulation of dollars in a bank or stock or bond account.  It goes down
when we spend more than we save and up when we save more than we spend. 
As a
society we are great at keeping money capital accounts.

But other kinds of capital are more important.  For example there is physical
productive capital -- the factories, roads, buildings, machines,
vehicles that
make up our real economic wealth.  (Money capital is just a stand-in for
physical capital; it has no value of its own.)  We can build up money capital
accounts by letting bridges decay and cars age and factories get
obsolete.  But
that, as the Soviet Union found out, is an exercise in self-deception.

Then there's human capital, the health and skills embodied in the
population. 
Like other forms of capital, as this one goes up, so does the productive
potential of the society.  Like other capitals, human capital rises with
investment (in education, proper diet, clean air and water, health care) and
falls with age and poor maintenance.  The World Bank and IMF are
beginning to
admit that their standard technique for enhancing the financial capital of
nations systematically cuts investment in human capital -- draining one source
of wealth to built up another.  Lousy accounting.

Social capital is the complex of agreements, habits, laws, and
institutions that
hold people together in functional societies.  The ability to enter and enforce
contracts.  Efficient and trustworthy government.  Strong families.  Law and
order.  The volunteerism and generosity that Robert Putnam says is
declining in
America.

Finally -- or rather first -- comes natural capital, the wealth of the
earth. 
Fertile soils, unsullied waters, abundant forests and fish.  The
cleansing and
nourishing cycles of the planet, without which there would be no other
kinds of
capital.  There is no doubt what direction natural capital is going.  According
to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund, "the natural wealth of the world's
forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts fell by 33 percent betwee
n
1970 and 1999."

What Future Survey reveals, article after article, month after month, is
a world
fixated on building up money capital, and in most places physical
capital, and
for a minority of the population human capital, at the expense
everywhere of
social and natural capital.  Those who count money and the welfare of the
privileged see good news.  Those who count nature and societal health
and the
welfare of the entire population see bad news.

If there is to be any future for us, we have got to learn to admit all
the news
and do full accounting.

(You can contact Future Survey at 
www.wfs.org/fsurv.htm 
or by calling
301-951-0394.)

(Donella Meadows is an adjunct professor at Dartmouth College and
director of
the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont.)
+ - RE: Koztudat (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> Dear deere!

Kedves Iván!
(Nem sértés, ha magyarul írom?)
 ...
> Gyula levelebol egy toredek:
> >egy uzemanyagot (ami koztudottan kornyezetszennyezo)
> Nos, ez az, amit nem szeretek. (Az egyik) Mi az, hogy
> koztudottan? Ki az a koz, aki tudja?
> Egyebkent az igaz (es koztudott), hogy a
> legszennyezes egyik
> legfobb oka a kozlekedes. Az uzemanyag a
> kornyezetszennyezo?

A környezetvédelem egy nagyon összetett dolog, sok elemét
könyvbol nem lehet megtanulni, még az egyetemen sem. Ilyen
dolog a köztudat (szorosan kapcsolódik a
környezetvédelemhez), ami idonként tévedés, vagy nem
megalapozott tudás miatt hibás következtetésre jut.

Pl. nem árt a fiataloknak, ha egy egyetemi eloadást, (amely
majd órákig tudományosan bizonygatja, hogy a
környezetkárosítás jelentos része az üzemanyagok  motorokban
történo felhasználásából adódik) azzal kezdünk :

Az üzemanyagok köztudottan környezetszennyezok, mert
kitermelésük, feldolgozásuk, felhasználásuk módja, _mai_
tudásunk és alkalmazott technológiáink miatt a környezetet
károsítja. Nézzünk egy példát :

Az üzemanyag (ami alatt a "köztudat" ma benzint és gázolajat
ért) _köztudottan_ környezetszennyezo.
Aki nem a köz tudását bírja, az végezhet egy tudományos
kísérletet. Tavasszal, ha a kert virágba borul, el  kell
harmadolni a zöldello területet és egyrészt lepermetezni
benzinnel, egy részt gázolajjal, egy részt csapvízzel
(amirol szintén köztudott, hogy tisztasága sok tekintetben
hagy kívánni valót). A muveletet hetente meg kell ismételni
és két hónap múlva össze kell hasonlítani a termésátlagot.

Egy szorgalmasan jegyzetelot kiszúrva, figyelmeztetni : Maga
mit ír? Az Istenért ember! Ki ne próbálja!

> Vagyis: köztudottsagra hivatkozva csipobol
> tuzelni, nem egy jo
> reflex. (En csak a nekem nem tetszo velemenyekre tuzelek
> csipobol. Lehet, hogy ez is rossz reflex?)
>
> Üdvözlettel
> Gács Iván
>

Üdvözlettel : Szu

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