Substitutes
It’s not only commodities we need to find substitutes for if we are to survive. Some of our most passionately held beliefs need overhauling, too.
We can all agree, can’t we, that we need to find substitutes for many of the things we have taken for granted over the past half century and more. In some cases it is not so much finding substitutes as ending the use of commodities that are themselves substitutes for earlier materials.
Plastic is probably the most ubiquitous of these. In its many different forms it can replace metals, natural fibers, leather and glass. Unlike the materials it replaces it is not easy to recycle or reuse; it does not degrade biologically, returning to its “natural” state. That is why it has become one of the most serious causes of damage to the environment and a threat to sea born and air born life.
Fossil fuels constitute another commodity that we have come to take for granted over the last century. From global warming to the increasing difficulty of accessing what remains now that we have taken the most easily gathered coal and oil, we need to increase our use of alternatives — or learn to do without.
Meat and dairy make up the third example of these problematic products. Vegetarians and vegans insist that using only plant products for human food consumption dramatically increases the productivity of land used in that pursuit.
Which takes me to the underlying issue, often referred to as “the elephant in the room”, which I have previously written about — population growth.
Land use
But first let’s examine the possible implications of the ways in which we might replace each of the three groups of commodities listed above.
Some plastics can be manufactured from natural materials, others, those that are replacements for materials like wool, cotton, silk and leather, can be eliminated by increasing our use of those natural products. This will require the diversion of land from food production to the growing of plants for their fiber.
In the case of some such products, wool and leather for example, food is a natural by-product. In other cases fibers are a natural by-product of food production, being usually the inedible portion of the plant which can be separated from the…