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Ken Smail, PhD
Culture Change Jan Lundberg Editor’s note: One can run into a good report on a critical subject, only to find the author has a deficit of understanding on peak oil, for example. Or one may encounter the delusion that population growth is a problem basically in “Third World” countries. Not with this new essay for Culture Change. Professor Ken Smail has put together the best argument for facing depopulation.
Its full title was Acknowledging and Confronting the Inevitable: A Significant Shrinkage in Global Human Numbers, and Other Inconvenient Truths. Some readers may find Ken’s timing-scenario for depopulation optimistic — picturing it further off into the future than the 21st century — but he acknowledges its possibly being played out earlier due to today’s “toxic brew” of crises.- JL
Assuming then, my postulata as granted, I say that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
- Thomas Malthus (1798)
Editors Note: The following article by Peter Goodchild is reprinted with permission from the author’s blog, Countercurrents.org. The potential for four billion people succumbing to famine is certainly a symptom of poor health.
“Of all the humans who have ever lived on the Earth, most were born in the last 50 years.”
Around the beginning of the twenty-first century, there began a clash of two gigantic forces: overpopulation and oil depletion. The event went unnoticed by all but a few people, but it was quite real. As a result of that clash, the number of human beings on Earth must one day decline in order to match the decline in oil production.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to get those two giant forces into equilibrium in any gentle fashion, because in every year that has gone by for the last few thousand years — and every year that will arrive — the human population of Earth is automatically adjusted so that it is roughly equal to the planet’s carrying capacity. Like so many other animals, human beings always push themselves to the limits of that carrying capacity. The Age of Petroleum made us no wiser in that respect, and in fact dependence on fossil fuels has led us to a crisis far greater than any in the past…
Editors Note: The following book review appeared in Public Health Reports / January-February 2009 / Volume 124. It appears here through the kind permission of the Journal. A PDF version can be downloaded here.
“Having heard all of this you may choose to look the other way… But you can never say again you did not know.”
William Wilberforce, British Parliamentarian, 17891
I recently finished reading a critically important book by Professor William R. Catton, Jr., entitled, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change.”2 I not only consider it one of the most influential books I have ever read, but I believe it ranks as one of the most important books ever written, period. I wished I had read it 27 years ago, but at that time I had already left my undergraduate ecological roots behind me while engaged in the excitement and challenges of the start of my public health career at the Wisconsin State Health Department. Well, better late than never!
Despite its maturity, Overshoot remains a vividly fresh and visionary work of brilliance and foresight. The ecological foundations of Catton’s thinking are strong and enduring due to his careful research and interpretive power. His treatise explains much about the human condition that we find ourselves in now, early in the 21st century. In a breathtaking yet concise sweep of history and biology through the eyes of a human ecologist, Catton reveals how we got here and where we are in all probability headed. He summarizes this view as follows:
By Tony Davenport
[Editors Note: This article was originally published on page 16 of the S. African Sunday Independent on October 12, 2008]
It is not as bad as you might imagine – it’s worse, and before you bury your heads in the sands of collective denial, please consider how it is coming about. The truth will set you free, but first it will probably make you ill.
We have had it too easy with cheap energy for a century and the cheap part is going to disappear. Quickly. Energy is the ubiquitous part of everything we consume, and liquid fuel is getting scarce.
The easy part is to understand how we got to where we are. The difficult part is predicting how we can possibly manage to make our way out of this one. It will draw on our deepest resolve and wisdom, and probably require a “Copernican” shift in our thinking (Copernicus was the first astronomer to prove scientifically that the sun rather than the Earth was at the centre of our cosmic system).
We seem to have scientific prowess, but there’s no time for self-congratulation. This time the solutions are the cause of a much bigger problem. Our current pursuit of growth and the elevation of human material wants above all else are the raison d’être of the problem. We promote consumption and ignore efficiency. We live as though there is no tomorrow, and the way we are going there probably won’t be.
We might have just one last window of opportunity and it requires that we draw deeply on our resolve, think wisely and act purposefully. People will need to make unpleasant choices.
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