How to incorporate future generations into decision making

[Niggel]

I am new to this forum, but have already learned a lot. Thanks for that!

What I was always wondering is how should we use finite/unlasting ressources like coal, gold or oil. Nowadays we are using these resources and some of them won't be available for a long time until we used all of them. With a perspective to future generations how can we preserve these resources? I understand that we have to take a sustainable route with forests, the atmosphere and biodiversity. This is doable even though it might become hard. But how should we handle finite resources? Are we allowed to use them and if yes how much? How can we respect future generations? Should we focus more on the will of the youth because they are the future generation?

I was wondering if this was addressed before? It would be great if you could give me a link/readings/other resources! If this has not been brought up before (which I highly doubt ;)) then please discuss! Thanks a lot!

[Kotze]

That young people have to endure the consequences of decisions for the longest time has been used as an argument for lowering the voting age or even giving young people more votes than old people. In recent years, some German politicians have campaigned for an idea called Familienwahlrecht ("family's voting right"), that means giving parents extra votes equal to the amount of how many kids below voting age they have. (IIRC campaigning for that idea has been usually dominated not by green topics, but by macro-economically illiterate or rather dishonest crap about the "need to better address the debt burden of future generations" through further dismantling the pension system and other neoliberal reforms).

Here's an idea I just came up with, the green baby tax: Your pollution is tracked by the government, and the more you pollute, the less babies you are allowed to have. Hmm, I'm not sure that's a good one.

Here's yet another idea: I think it is problematic how much young people have to play by rules set up by the older ones. It would be interesting if there were separate parliaments filled by people of different age brackets. I believe two brackets would be just depressing, but three brackets would be a hoot, one day it's the youngest against the rest, on another day young and old form a tag team against the middle. Aside from making rules together that would apply to the entire population, an age bracket's parliament could also make laws that would apply to cases where both claimant and defendant are in the same age bracket.

[Niggel]

Your post is quite interesting, Kotze!

I was actually about something a little different. In my opinion we should examine how many finite resources are available and set a maximum for every generation to use. Let's say we define a time range of 100 years and limit the use of resources for that special period. We could say that at the beginning of the 100 year period we calculate how many resources we have left and say we just use 10% of the existing resources during that time. Example(with totally made up numbers): We examine right now that we have 10,000 barrels of oil left on our planet. From 2010 to 2110 the world would be allowed to use "just" 1000 barrels and leave the rest for future generations.

This doesn't mean that in 1000 years all the resources would be used up! During the time period from 2111 to 2211 we could just use 900 barrels of oil and so on (The world would just have 9,000 barrels left and 10% of that is 900). We would reduce our use of finite resources over time and still leave enough for future generations.

I understand that this isn't a discussion about how society comes to decisions, but what kind of policies are needed to make sure future generations don't have to struggle because many resources are used up.

What do you think about this idea?

[Kotze]

I'd like to see a long-term resource plan made reality, but just because it would make sense for humanity as a whole doesn't mean it's going to happen. Few politicians seem to plan in spans as long as a century. There is a group that tries to raise awareness about long-term-thinking, the Long Now Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation). Politicians and industry leaders usually don't plan for the good of society, either.

Without global coordination, there would have to be at least coordination among the oil-exporting countries with the goal of reducing oil exports, but there would be a fat profit for leaving the pact. Besides, there is also the threat of the USA and Europe using their military to "liberate" these countries and take the oil.

So, if no revolution happens in the USA and Europe, I think we are fucked.

If a fundamental change does happen in the USA and Europe, a plan about reducing resource use can be made reality. Journalists like George Monbiot and Oliver Tickell have done extensive research about how to reduce resource use and emissions (Monbiot on Tickell's book "Kyoto2" (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/07/01/green-lifeline/)).