I honestly don’t believe that any economists or politicians out there are overly concerned with the affects of their policies on the economy 500 years from now.

When we talk about birth-rates or how fossil fuels are consumed, smart economists will generally try to plan for the future. But it seems vanishingly uncommon to consider the future far beyond their own life. Most long-term economic discussion that exists in our western culture seems to be centered around policies which are good for the next 10-50 years, roughly. I’ve never heard of world leaders arguing about the sustainability of a policy for their great great great great grandchildren, except maybe the founding fathers of the United States. And probably some other countries that I’m less knowledgeable about.

I just think it would be so cool if we could make plans that are theoretically sustainable indefinately.

Like what if you could go about your daily life without depleting the world of even more fossil fuels? I feel like the younger generations of today (millenials / gen-z) are conscious and concerned about the world that they’re leaving for their children, or just not having children altogether.

Here’s an example that I learned about recently.

Soil erosion

Agriculture right now is the most productive that it’s ever been, and it’s not even close. We use land more effectively than ever before (that report cites 170% more efficient per input from 1948-2015). But it comes at a cost. Soil erosion in the United States has been growing into a real problem, and we don’t have an easy solution. This is not being discussed with the urgency that is required, and land use is continuing along the same as it ever has.

We’ve known about this for a long time – this paper cites measures being taken in 1985 to try to reduce the problem. And measures were implemented to slow down agriculture soil erosion, but not to stop it. And without stopping it, eventually the farmland will be unfit for farming. Here’s an article about the current soil loss rate being 2x the sustainable amount

Now, overall, I’m a perpetual optimist. I am sure that technical progress will be made which allows for something to solve this problem in one way or another. Just look at the Netherlands. This country produces an absolutely ridiculous amount of food with very little land area. If other countries like the U.S. could follow their lead, they might be ok.

But it is really not great to just assume it’ll all be ok, and that technical progress will save us.

Why can’t we as a society just look at the trend lines today and see “wow, this is going to be a problem, maybe we should do something about it?”, rather than delegate it to future humans, hoping that they figure it out?

What can we do?

There are two camps here. One group who says “You should be worried and scared and feel bad about the future”, and another which says “Eh, don’t concern yourself with things that you can’t control.

There’s a chance that I just put you into the first camp with that last section, and I’m sorry. I generally agree with the latter camp, as freaking out about everything is a sad way to live. But honestly, if you do work in a field where you see chances for improvement, you should try to advocate for better more sustainable practices and policies. You don’t need to change everything yourself, but damn why not try where you can?

The biggest thing that I do is try to share the things that I believe in, with friends and family. Not like in a preachy way where they stop listening, but just by making it known that I care about certain things. If they ask why, I’ll try to give fact-based reasons that aren’t controversial.