landowner was, literally, in competition to exploit the ‘free’ hot-water energy
resource – the exercise of Exploitation Dynamics arousing a tendency to act com-
petitively and self-interestedly to maximize each individual landholder’s geothermal
energy consumption. Furthermore, as the heat-intensity of the competitively
abstracted water reduced, an increased volume was raised to the surface, exacer-
bating the run-off disposal problem from individual landholdings onto neigh-
bouring private and public property – the Discard Dynamic thus arousing a
tendency to act evasively and self-interestedly to avoid individual responsibility for waste
water disposal. This example illustrates the way in which exploitation and discard
dynamics interconnect for, as Norgaard puts the matter (1994: 93 – emphasis
added): ‘clearly we are part of the system we are trying to understand, hence what
we do affects the systemwe are trying to understand.’
Exploitation dynamics has an association in the New World with
the colonizing land grab. These actions, and the mind-set they
engendered, laid foundations for the contemporary pattern of
exploitation and discard dynamics. Indeed modern resource-
winning operators (mining, fishing, logging) go to considerable
lengths to burnish their frontier ‘managainst the elements’ image.
This ‘for myself’ exploitation of ‘free’ resources is probably neither
as serious (being amenable to control) nor as widespread (being
localized activities) as are the waste discard dynamics, implicating
a much more populous urban band of society, and affecting the extensive land-
water and atmospheric ‘footprint’.^17 The policy pillars of a charter for conserva-
tionwithdevelopment come down to an inclusion of principles for reducing
‘exploitation’and‘discard’ rates: in effect bending to the rules of ecological
entropy and linking this into bottom-up empowerment.^18
Issues of misunderstanding about responsibilities in relation to the exploitation
of resourcesand the discard of wastesimpact seriously as local matters. As already
shown, the exploitation and discard activity arises because most individuals put
personal gain before public interest, because most communities put local advan-
tage before national interest, and because most nations put their sovereign rights
before the global interest – unlesschecked and balanced by higher authority.
The global problem has been elegantly expressed by Herman
Daly (1993) as one in which:The regenerative and assimilative capacities of the biosphere
cannot support even the current levels of resource consumption,
much less the manifold increase required to generalise the higher
standards worldwide. In fact, free trade becomes a recipe for has-
tening the speed with which competition lowers standards for effi-
ciency, distributive equity and ecological sustainability.Economic growth, particularly under GATT, NAFTA, APEC,
WTO and CER agreements, benefits some nations over the
short term, but harbours the adverse potential to environmentally
endanger, economicallyimperil, and sociallydisempower future
individuals, communities and nations.88 Practice
It is an ecological
‘disadvantage’ that New
World populations are
so highly urbanized (75
to 85 per cent) and are
thus a fixed gross
consumer of resources,
and gross discharger of
pollutants.The principal monetized
‘internal burden’ for the
poorer ‘southern’
nations is the imbalance
of within-nation income
distribution, often with
the top 10 per cent of
income earners
commanding up to two-
thirds of the national
wealth and income. The
main monetized
‘external burden’ is the
dominance of trade and
prices by richer nations.