Today (August 9, 2024), MMTed releases Episode 3 in the Second Season of our Manga…
We are 1.7 times over regenerative capacity and the world’s population control must be reduced
It’s Wednesday and so a few topics that have interested me over the last week plus some promotion etc. I have been going back in time lately re-reading some of the classic books that spawned the environmental movements in the 1970s. At that time, researchers were predicting doom because they foresaw that the population growth was becoming excessive and outstripping the capacity of the world to regenerate itself. Many of the leading offerings of the day were heavily criticised not only because they were inherently (as a matter of logic) opposed to capitalism. Ironically, the Left also refused to take up population control type advocacy because they considered it coercive and biased against the poor. They preferred to argue about redistribution rather than degrowth. The Left’s credibility now in that regard is rather in tatters and unless the progressive elements in the environmental movement return to a focus on reducing population growth the game will be up. I am researching those issues at present.
The Population problem
When I was still at high school, the book – The Population Bomb – came out (1968).
It was written by the American academic researchers – Paul R. Erlich – and – Anne H. Erlich.
It was a controversial book and predicted among other things:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate …
Sure enough its main thesis was highly contested by the growth lobby and the fact that several of its more strident predictions did not come to fruition in the time frame proposed was used to discredit its veracity.
I read it in the early 1970s and understood it to be a wake-up call rather than an exact depiction of the likely traverse over the coming decade or so.
And the book did focus mainly on the capacity of the world population to adequately feed itself rather than taking broader perspectives on how the growing population would deplete the available resources and damage the natural carrying capacity of the environment.
Those latter concerns are more prominent these days.
The Erlichs proposed rather radical population control policies which ran up against the religious lobby, particulary, but also the ‘freedom’ types, who selectively define liberty to suit themselves.
Even the standard Marxists claimed that the book ignored distribution of resources and could be used to justify genocide and eugenics.
For example, one of my favourite authors – Ronald L. Meek – wrote in his 1971 book of edited readings – Marx and Engels on the population bomb – that the Population Bomb was really a claim that there were “too many people for the world’s resources” and was thus in the same lineage as the work of Thomas Malthus, who was heavily criticised by Marx and Engels.
The context for the book was an on-going debate beginning as far as I was aware with the release of the book – Road to Survival – by William Vogt in 1948.
This book foreshadowed a deterioration in the ecological health of the planet as the population growth would create resource demands that would exceed the capacity of the natural environment.
Vogt was opposed to Capitalism because he understood that its inherent logic meant that the human resource demands would overshoot capacity.
The combination of being anti-capitalism and pro-birth control meant Vogt attracted widespread and powerful enemies which meant its agenda didn’t really influence policy making.
But his work did inspire other writers and researchers, including the Erlichs, who took up the anti-population growth message.
Even Marriner Eccles, the former Federal Reserve Bank head, who is often quoted (usually incorrectly) by Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) enthusiasts as supporting MMT propositions, understood the basis of the environmental problem was excessive population growth.
In a five-paragraph column in the New York Times (May 15, 1961) with the title ‘The Population Explosion’, Marriner Eccles said that population growth was the “most vitally important problem facing the world today”.
In May 1970, the Ramparts magazine published an article by American writer Steve Weissman entitled – Why the Population Bomb is a Rockefeller Baby.
It was a response to the influence the top-end-of-town was having in the newly created organisations such as the – US Population Council – which advocated stringent birth control methods be deloyed.
It didn’t escape the radicals that the likes of the oil baron John D. Rockefeller III was the inaugural president of the Council and it was heavily backed in financial terms by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.
Groups like this advocated poorer cohorts be pressured into reducing their birth rates and the Left construed this as being a way to resolve the poverty and unemployment – kill them off.
The Population Bomb got caught up in all that.
Weissman wrote:
This sudden interest of the world’s rich in the world’s poor, whatever the humanitarian impulse, made good dollars and cents. World War II had exhausted the older colonial empires, and everywhere the cry of nationalism sounded: from Communists in China and Southeast Asia, from neutralists in Indonesia and India, from independence movements in Africa and from use of their own oil and iron ore and, most menacing, the right to protect themselves against integration in an international marketplace which systematically favored the already-industrialized …
Faced with this distortion between fertility and development, developed country elites could see no natural way of stopping population growth. All they could see was people, people, people, each one threatening the hard-won stability which guaranteed access to the world’s ores and oil, each one an additional competitor for the use of limited resources.
So of course the Left opposed population control because (probably correctly) they saw that it would become an attack on the poor and further entrench the hegemony of the rich capital owners who wanted the resource access for themselves.
But in joining that opposition, the baby was thrown out with the bath water and we are now in an unsustainable mess.
I was recalling all that debate from my youth and early university days as I was reading about – Earth Overshoot Day – which:
… marks the date when we have used all the biological resources that the Earth can renew during the entire year.
Back when the Population Bomb was released that date occurred in late December.
This year it was August 1, 2024.
In Australia it was pronounced for this year to be April 5.
At present, on a global scale, it means we are using the natural resource base 1.7 times more than it can regenerate.
And the date we overshoot is getting closer to the beginning of the year, which raises the exhaustion.
Obviously, this is unsustainable.
Which is why degrowth is essential.
All sorts of plans are proposed by environmentalists to reduce consumption (which will reduce production).
Unfortunately, the overall problem is, as the Erlich’s and those who came before them, understood – there are too many people for the regenerative capacity of the natural resource basis.
And until that problem is adequately addressed we are just flapping about the edges.
Yes, the distribution of resource use is all wrong and the rich consume far beyond their reasonable share.
I agree with the standard Left argument there.
But advocating population control does not have to be targetted at the poor exclusively.
The issue is also tied up with the so-called ‘intergenerational battles’ – what we are leaving our grand children.
The mainstream economists all claim that with ageing populations and declining birth rates, governments will run out of money to provide the requisite medical and pension services because there will be less tax revenue forthcoming.
So they have become obsessed with increasing birth rates to continue economic growth.
Of course, these arguments are spurious and the rest of us are too ignorant of macroeconomics to see through them.
There is always enough government money to bail out banksters and provide weapons to the likes of the IDF to massacre innocent civilians in Gaza but when it comes to improving the well-being of the poor – sorry not enough.
The challenge for the Left and the Degrowth proponents (which I count myself among) is to craft an anti-growth agenda that includes population control but is not coercive and biased against the poor.
The reality is that unless we can come up with that sort of strategy, the deteriorating climate and the overshoot will reduce the population through famine etc, just as the Erlich’s originally conceived.
But if we leave it to the whim of nature then the outcome will be ugly indeed.
Episode 4 of our Manga, the Smith Family and their Adventures with Money comes out this Friday
The scene is the economics class at the local high school and Ms Allday has invited Chris Edwards to address her students.
He is a banker who used to work at the central bank and is an old university mate of Elizabeth Smith, who more recently has become a suitor of her, sensing the relationship with Ryan is crumbling.
Ms Allday, the teacher thinks that Chris will straighten the students out about the material in the textbook.
The students, particularly Kevin and Brian have been asking her uncomfortable questions about government currencies and she wants them to stop reading blog posts and to concentrate on learning the material in the textbook.
Unfortunately, things turn out badly for her as Chris sets her straight and reinforces the student rebellion against the textbook Groupthink.
You can follow the – Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – throughout Season 2, with new episodes appearing fortnightly.
Book Event – Melbourne, September 12, 2024
Readings Bookshop in Melbourne is hosting an event – Bill Mitchell with Alan Kohler – which will be held at the Hawthorn Shop (687 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122) on Thursday, September 12, starting at 18:30.
I will be there with ABC Finance personality Alan Kohler to discuss my new book (co-authored by Warren Mosler) – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure.
Copies of the book will be available at discount prices and my pen might come out if you want it signed.
Readings have increased the capacity for the event, after their usual audience size was oversubscribed.
The event is free but you need to book a ticket.
You can find more details and booking information – HERE.
Music – Road to Cairo
This is what I have been listening to while working this morning.
I was looking through a box of old albums in my cupboard last night and dug this one out – a 1969 release – Let the Sun Shine In (Polydor) – by – Brian Auger and The Trinity – who featured the singer – Julie Driscoll.
They were a Hammond B3 organ led band which achieved some popularity in the late 1960s.
Brian Auger – was a jazz organist who made the cross-over to rock and R&B as the British invasion gathered pace.
The distinctive feature of the band was the absence of an electric guitar.
I loved electric guitar but I also loved the B3,which is why I liked this band.
This song – Road to Cairo – was written by American singer-songwriter – David Ackles – and was released as a single in October 1968.
But I first heard it when it came out on the album which I got the following year.
I had enrolled in a record club as a high school student and the albums were very cheap.
One album I acquired under that scheme was this one which had 13 tracks of all their major hits.
Here is an interesting interview piece with Brian Auger (March 29, 2012) – Brian Auger In Conversation – which documents some of his dealings with Jimi Hendrix leading up to the latter’s premature death.
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2024 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
It looks like population control will not be needed 🙂
See Professor Tom Murphy’s excellent research on recent declines in global Total Fertility Rates, which he says points towards a global population peak in the next ten years or so:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/peak-population-projections/
The UN population projections do not account for the precipitous TFR fall and so over-estimate the population maximum, more on this here:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/stubborn-expectations/
Bill, I’m not sure I agree with you here.
From the OECD data in 2020, only Israel was above the stable population birth rate of 2.1 children per woman, at 2.5. The next highest was France with 1.9 and the overall average was 1.56. This tells us the big consumers of resources would have a declining population if immigration was not a factor.
It’s not controversial to say that the biggest fertility rates are in developing countries, i.e. fertility rates are inversely correlated with economic development. But these are also the countries with the highest infant mortality and shortest life expectancy.
So, an anti-growth agenda that includes population control that is not biased against the poor is prima facie impossible, unless the sole population control is raising living standards.
I don’t think any Progressive worthy of the title would object to that.
I would posit that the population explosion came about largely due to advancements in medicine but not the other levels of living standards in those countries. It’s cheap and easy to send millions of Malaria vaccines, much harder to build infrastructure and other services.
There’s no Infrastructure Sans Frontiers or International Red Cross Job Guarantees, in other words. Only the IMF or China, with all their strings attached.
“At present, on a global scale, it means we are using the natural resource base 1.7 times more than it can regenerate.”
Can you explain how you reach this figure please?
Cue the resource wars of extermination, among other grim aspects of William Gibson’s period of chaos and destruction known in future history as “The Jackpot” …
The whole of population growth and demographic change has to be seen in the context of the Demographic Transition.
We in the UK, and all industrial nations, excepting Israel as noted, are below 2.1 fertility, and hence there is no imperative for direct population control, except to counteract the right wing pro-natalist neoliberal dogma of 2.1 being essential for economic and social stability and long term survival, which is demonstrable rubbish.
Industrial economies are all in Stage 4b, now renamed as Stage 5, where DR is above BR. so marking slow decline in total population and with an initial period of 20-30 yrs with higher old aged populations during the transition from Stage 4.
Japan has not had 2.1 since the mid 1970s, and with South Korea, can offer object lessons in how declining population can be managed, and problems avoided.
The disincentives for child bearing in South Korea are reported as including domestic finances, housing issues, and emerging disincentives in ‘live to work’ GDP growth demands, and other quality of life matters.
As far as developing nations are concerned, then their path to Stage 5 will be marked by declining BRs and trends to fertility falling below 2.1.
The levels of female education and attractive employment opportunities are a, if not the, crucial factor in declining birth rates and then overall fertility.
However, there must not be a corresponding surge in overall consumption per capita, especially energy use per cap., unless that energy is renewable, and not fossil fuel driven.
That this precludes GDP growth objectives and associated Ponzi scheme consumerism is obvious.
To reach net zero developing nations need to be aided in renewable energy and sustainable industrial development, preferably in more efficient local grids and networks, with fully circular economies integral to development strategies..
A Norwegian uses over 500x the energy of a Nigerian per annum. As part of any sustainability transition, not only do Norwegians need to switch to renewable energy, but Nigerians need to have affordable access to renewables too from the outset.
I agree with you. Degrowth is urgent. But is it possible? There are ways to get degrowth, but most of them are bad solutions.
Genocide is one of them. The plague or some murder patogen is another (bird flu, covid, monkey pox, you name it).
But it all reeks too much like the WEF agenda.
Leaving the world for the elites to enjoy, while killing most of the population is just another version of nazism. Fascism is not solution for anything.
Maybe we should follow the Chinese example, and implement birth control, not by austerity – that only gets the 1% fatter – but by education of the people.
But what about the global south?
How do we get poor Africans to understand degrowth and accept it?
Certainly not by getting them overloaded with debt – the neoliberal solution for profiteering!
The neoliberal regime is the main enemy of humanity.
Only when we ditch it, we can start talking about degrowth.
“there is no imperative for direct population control“
The TFR is only one very small part of the overall picture though. The carrying capacity of the planet (without the FF bounty) was always around or below one billion people and when the oil and gas run out later this century the capacity will be much reduced as we will have exhausted many other of the planet’s natural resources and destroyed most of the ecosystems we depend on to support life. The longer we try to maintain the global population at this level, the greater the damage to the planet and the less chance our descendants have of avoiding extinction.
These are a couple of links that you may find helpful.
1. Megan Seibert & Bill Rees: Through the Eye of a Needle. 4.2 Population Reduction
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/energies/energies-14-04508/article_deploy/energies-14-04508-v3.pdf?version=1643380894
2. Albert Bartlett: Exponential growth, population & energy
https://youtu.be/kZA9Hnp3aV4?si=Vhd3bCWnasHKWFKu
3. Tom Murphy: DotheMath blog. Metastatic Modernity Video Series:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/metastatic-modernity-video-series/
“But advocating population control does not have to be targetted at the poor exclusively.”
Spot on, Bill, although a much stronger statement can be made. A recent study conducted for Oxfam finds that the richest 10% of people on this planet are responsible for 50% of global greenhouse gas emissions. So, it’s the population of the rich that should be of greatest concern. This suggests that wealth and inheritance taxes are needed to reduce spending and investing by the rich.
I still believe the west will be in a pickle to supply its needs as it continues to slide into more deluded fantasies of neoliberalism, nato expansionism, anti China lies and so forth.
All this does is ensure supply gets reduced.
With global change being a massive problem and globalism coming to an end pillaging from global south.
I do see doomsday and zero prosperity for the majority. The usual elite minority wont notice a thing.
Degrowth will likely happen as a direct result of the elites deluded narratives that will incinerate many.
I see no change happening.
Democracy imho is no longer delivering or capable of delivering that of which it was designed to do, a better quality of life, for all.
Malthus, in the first edition of his essay (1798), mentions a few of the historical checks to human population. In the sixth edition of his essay (1826), however, he provides a complete historical and global overview of checks to human population.
I find it difficult, after reading the sixth edition, to situate the modern explosion of human population outside, or apart from, the carbon pulse that has enabled it. (Malthus wrote before the carbon pulse.)
Ironic, is it not, that the carbon pulse that enabled feeding so many humans now threatens the long, cool geological period that makes highly-productive agriculture possible?
“…and the world’s population control must be reduced.”
The world’s population must be controlled?
The world’s population must be reduced?
Surely not a reduction of population control?
This is a very important post from Prof Mitchell – and almost all ecological economists would agree with it. The challenge now is to synthesis MMT with ecological economics since they both focus on different, but complementary, aspects of the real world.
Coincidentally, perhaps, this post follows on from an unusually brave yarn in The Guardian on overshoot and demography: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/18/slow-the-growth-save-the-world-why-declining-birth-rates-need-not-mean-an-end-to-prosperity
We cover all these issues in detail in the book ‘Sustainability and the New Economics: Synthesising Ecological Economics and Modern Monetary Theory’ (Springer, 2022) – with big thanks to Prof Phil Lawn.
In 2022, Verso published in English (for the first time?):
Feminism or Death: How the Women’s Movement Can Save the Planet, by Francoise d’Eaubonne (1974).
Not a classic from the 70s; but a book that surveys the current environmental crises from a deep green resistance perspective (ie not anthropocentric) is Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert (2021).
Ecological overshoot is a waste management problem. All of us here know where the infinite supply of money comes from, so that’s not any form of problem apart from having that understanding recognised by the many. William Rees spells out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MVmkIYy9aI the overpopulation foundations derived from exploitation of fossil fuels. We humans have employed energy dense fossil fuels to overcome the negative feedbacks that were restraining our end phase of exponential growth up until the last couple of hundred years.
The website populationbalance.org is worth a look on the topics of human population and planetary overshoot.
Their vision is “We envision a future where our human footprint is in balance with life on Earth, enabling all species to thrive.”
and a number of actions and policies are set out around three themes/’pillars’, which are:
Beyond Pronatalism Toward Liberated Choices
Pronatalism—the social bias and pressure toward having children—is the fundamental driver of our population growth as well as reproductive and social injustice worldwide. We empower people to make liberated and informed choices for themselves, their families, and the planet, including adopting broader understandings of “family” with our human and nonhuman kin.
Beyond Anthropocentrism Toward Ecocentrism
Anthropocentrism is a widely shared worldview that humans alone possess intrinsic value and that nature and all other beings hold value only in their ability to serve humans. We advocate for a radical shift in our relationship with all animals and with the entire natural world: from one of domination and exploitation, to one of reverence, justice, and care.
Beyond Social Inequities Toward Social Justice
Vast social inequity, in which billions live in poverty while millions enjoy enormous wealth, is an inevitable consequence of the pursuit of unlimited growth on a finite planet. We challenge the unjust and growth-driven socioeconomic systems that exploit and disempower human communities and threaten all life on Earth.
The 1.7 is determined by comparing humankind’s Ecological Footprint (EF) with the Earth’s Biocapacity (BC). The EF indicates the area of land ‘required’ to generate the resources and assimilate the wastes to meet the demands of humankind. It basically represents humankind’s demands on the planet. The BC indicates the area of land ‘available’ to generate resources and assimilate wastes on an ecologically sustainable basis. It basically represents the planet’s maximum sustainable supply of resources, waste sinks, and ecosystem services. Currently, at the global level, EF = 1.7 x BC, meaning humankind’s demands on the planet are presently 1.7 times (70% larger) than what the planet can sustainably provide. It also means that, to sustain humankind’s demands, we would need 1.7 Earths. We have one Earth. Clearly unsustainable! The last time global EF was less than global BC was the early-1970s.
How can the EF be 1.7 times BC? Humankind not only exploits the resources and services that natural capital yields (no problem), it eats into the stock of natural capital (big problem). We have expanded Gross World Product (GWP) to its current level by gnawing away at natural capital. We must learn to confine ourselves to the ‘natural’ income that natural capital provides (i.e., operate where EF ≤ BC). That is, we need to limit the rate at which we extract resources and generate wastes to the Earth’s regenerative and waste assimilative capacities, whichever is most limiting, which might be on the waste side given the climate change crisis we face (a case of the generation of CO2 exceeding the capacity of the Earth to safely assimilate CO2). This means having to reduce GWP, since GWP is not produced from thin air. And don’t give me nonsense about shifting from goods to services, a non-existent escape hatch ignoring the trophic structure of economic systems (i.e., the output of the primary trophic level (extracted natural resources) is the input of the secondary trophic level (goods manufacturing), which is the input of the tertiary trophic level (services)). Tell me I’m wrong the day you can prove it is possible to get a haircut from an imaginary barber in an imaginary barbershop using imaginary utensils whilst I sit on an imaginary barber’s chair, all products of natural resource transformation.
Redistribution (both between nations and within nations) will be critical as well as population growth control. A smaller economic pie will have to satisfy the essential needs and fewer trivial wants of the world’s population. I have long felt that a Job Guarantee (JG) is an essential element of the redistribution process. The very rich will have to be taxed more to reduce their share of the smaller pie (justifiable on pure equity grounds) to free up real stuff for the poor to access. The unemployed (poor) should not be given a handout in the form of a Universal Basic Income to access the freed-up stuff but be given a minimum income in the form of a JG wage. This way, the poor get the real stuff they need to live decently and a paid job to be an active and contributing (mentally healthy) member of society. A JG can be used to expand GDP in countries where EF BC. Around three-quarters of all countries have an EF > BC. Using the JG as a redistribution mechanism amounts to shifting the full-employment level of GDP back to a sustainable (smaller) scale, which is very different from increasing spending to boost an already unsustainable GDP up to the full employment level.
Don’t tell me that population doesn’t matter. I have used a variation of Ehrlich’s I=PAT identity to easily demonstrate it does. I have come up with F=PAR where:
* F = Ecological Footprint
* P = Population
* A = Affluence = GDP/P
* R = Resource or Footprint intensity of GDP = F/GDP
* F = PAR = P x GDP/P x F/GDP = F
Globally, over the past fifty or so years, F has doubled, P has doubled; A has doubled; and R has halved. That is, 2x = 2 x 2 x 0.5. If the world’s population was what it was around fifty years ago, F would not have changed and EF ≈ BC (sustainable, albeit we’d be on an ecological precipice).
Thanks Philip – appreciate the comprehensive explanation. It’s certainly a nice, easy way to illustrate overshoot to the masses. I see difficulty is quantifying EF, especially in terms of assimilating waste from the marine environment. Assessing the level of fish stocks is one thing, but considering the amount of plastic waste that cannot be assimilated but is instead ingested by marine life, thus rendering it toxic for human consumption. Our footprint is therefore subject to cumulative effects of pollution and may be far greater than suggested here.
The EF and BC values have long been calculated by the Global Footprint Network. They have recently joined forces with York University, Toronto. Estimating EF and BC, like many macro indicators, is subject to criticism because of the assumptions made and because environmental data is scant compared to economic data – a sad indication of our priorities. We know more about the surface of Mars than we know about some patches of Earth.
I know some of the people involved in calculating the EF and BC values. They adopt a very conservative approach. Because the EF is likely to err on the low side, it is probably much larger than reported. Also, the EF is the sum of sub-footprints (e.g., a sub-footprint for grazing land and for forests). The same applies for BC. It may be possible that the ecological constraint is determined by the most limiting sub-footprint, which would constitute a greater ecological restriction. For example, Australia has oodles of agricultural land (which is not particularly fertile), but much of Australia has very little and spasmodic rainfall. Water is a limiting factor in most parts of Australia and its major river basins are over-committed for irrigation purposes.
So, rather like the individual who wins $1m on the lottery and deposits at a bank guaranteeing 10% annual interest. If he keeps his spending below $100,000 then he can live without reducing the capital value (ie sustainably), but should he be profligate and has an annual spend of $170K – then not only does the capital value fall, but so does his next annual interest payment. If left unchecked, the amount drawn down from the capital deposit will increase as the interest return falls, increasing the loss each year.
Wont be long before the letter from the Bank Manager arrives…
The UN has a record of underestimating peak global population. I can recall the UN predicting some time ago that the world’s population would peak at 9 billion, which was up on prior predictions. The world passed 8 billion in November 2022 and is now 8.15 billion. It is still growing at around 80 million per year (an extra one billion every 12 years) and has done so remarkably consistently since passing 4 billion in 1975 (5 billion in 1987; 6 billion in 1999; 7 billion in 2011). This constitutes a smaller percentage growth rate over time, but it is difficult to believe it won’t go well beyond 10 billion.
I was born in 1964. The population then was 3.25 billion. An absurd increase in just 60 years. The population bomb that that Paul and Anne Ehrlich referred to in 1968 is still ticking away and is getting bigger and will be more destructive when it eventually explodes.
Malthus could not have foreseen humankind’s ability to develop new technologies to access and liquidate the Earth’s natural capital to the extent that it has. He, like the Club of Rome, will prove to be correct with time. He only got the timeline wrong. The continuing rise of the global EF and its growth well beyond global BC is clear indication that we have not pushed back ecological limits, as is wrongly claimed.
Good analogy, Mark Russell. We’re just fortunate that Mother Nature endowed us with so much natural capital and is incredibly resilient. She provides enough natural income for all of us to live decent and meaningful lives provided it is equitably shared in the form of human-made goods (transformed natural income), which it isn’t, and provided there aren’t too many people on Earth at a point in time, which there are.
By eating so much into Earth’s natural capital, we have already reduced the number of people who will get the chance to live a decent and meaningful life. A lot of people now, but a lot more people missing out and/or never coming into existence in the future.
It isn’t really that difficult to understand, Philip but even if we educate people as Bill suggests:
“The challenge for the Left and the Degrowth proponents (which I count myself among) is to craft an anti-growth agenda that includes population control but is not coercive and biased against the poor. The reality is that unless we can come up with that sort of strategy, the deteriorating climate and the overshoot will reduce the population through famine etc, just as the Erlich’s originally conceived.”
Most folk won’t get past the ‘denial’ stage. The reality is that we’ve become addicted to modernity and personal wealth. Like tobacco and narcotics, even when the habit threatens our very existence, few will have the ability or will power to quit. That is especially true for those whose existence is defined by modernity and wealth. The rest of us are simply collateral in their delusion.
I’m too old and cynical to have much faith in mankind and share James Lovelock’s opinion that it’s too late to reverse the damage already inflicted to make survival of our species (and others) a realistic proposition. Thank you for your posts.