Copyright © 2021 Joseph George Caldwell. All rights reserved. Posted at Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org. May be copied or reposted for non-commercial use, with attribution to author and website. (16 February 2021; updated 18 March 2021; minor edit 9 July 2021)
Contents
How We Got Here: A Summary of Recent Human Development 15
Impact of a Large Human Population on Science and Technology 23
The Demographic Transition. 26
The Demographic Transition “Double Whammy” 31
Prognosis: Forecasts of the Future. 40
Historical Population Control Measures. 43
Proposals to Address the Situation. 44
Analytical Methodologies for System Control 47
What Happened? How Did It Happen?. 50
Energy Sources for Human Activity. 66
Growth Cannot Go on Forever; Exponential Growth Is Quickly Over 77
The Nature of Decline of Complex Systems. 79
Modes and Mechanisms of the Collapse of Global Industrial Civilization 85
Bioregionalism and The Need for a Single World State. 94
When Will the Collapse Occur?. 98
How Many Will Survive? Who Will Survive? In What Environment? 99
What Will the Aftermath Be Like?. 104
Revisited: Why Is Nothing Effective Being Done to Resolve the Global Environmental Crisis?. 110
Corollary: The United States Has Too Many People. 155
Appendix A. Population Forecasts. 157
Appendix B. Proposals to Solve the Environmental Crisis. 171
Appendix C. Excerpts from Bertrand Russell Nobel Lecture. 195
Appendix D. Discussion or Rights, Ethics and Morality. 206
Appendix E. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 219
Appendix F. Reasons Why the Population / Environment Problem Is Not Being Solved. 226
Appendix H. Definitions of Bioregionalism and Related Terms. 259
Appendix I. Sciences and Technologies Involved in Addressing the Global Environmental Crisis. 263
Appendix J. Additional Comments on Mankind’s Purpose and Goals 283
Appendix K. Information about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors. 287
Appendix L. Definitions of Ideological and Related Terms. 298
This article describes a plan for establishing a long-term-sustainable planetary management system on Earth. The proposed system will enable humankind to live with a high level of freedom and without poverty in harmony with an ecologically rich biosphere.
The current global civilization based on a high level of human population and industrial production has proved disastrous both for mankind and the biosphere. Three-quarters of the human population – about six billion people – live in miserable conditions, enduring poverty, hunger, crowding, disease, oppression, limited freedom, limited access to nature, and lack of opportunities to lead meaningful lives and achieve a significant measure of fulfilment and happiness.
The high level of human population and industrial production has caused great damage to the environment, including pollution of the atmosphere, land and oceans; destruction of natural habitat; mass species extinction; and climate change. A recent (2018) report estimated that human activity has destroyed 83 per cent of all wild animals, 80 per cent of marine mammals, 50 per cent of all plants, and 15 per cent of all fish. Almost two-thirds of all tropical rainforest has been destroyed, and much of the old-growth forest has been degraded. The current rate of extinction of species has been estimated at about 1,000 times higher than the natural background extinction rate. The release, caused by human activity, of large amounts of “greenhouse gasses” into the atmosphere is contributing to global warming of the atmosphere and oceans to a degree that represents an existential threat to millions of species, including the human species itself.
While the species that have been exterminated are gone forever, and while it is not considered possible to stop global warming immediately, mankind possesses the technology and resources to bring the destruction of the biosphere to a halt and to provide decent living conditions to all people. Mankind has the capacity to resolve the ecological crisis. All that is lacking is the will to do so. This article examines the reasons for the lack of will, and develops a plan for overcoming this obstacle.
The mechanism by which human population has soared to biosphere-destroying levels is growth-based economic activity, implemented by capitalism. Growth-based economics / capitalism has proved to be the greatest weapon of mass destruction, exhibiting the power to destroy a planetary biosphere in less than two centuries. While growth-based economics / capitalism has played a key role in causing the current ecological crisis, it has at the same time been a tremendously powerful tool for advancing scientific and technical knowledge and technological development. The human population explosion has been accompanied by an explosion in knowledge. This knowledge represents the key both to understanding the nature of the crisis and to resolving it.
Growth-based economics / capitalism has caused the ecological crisis and simultaneously provided the means – science and technology – to resolve it. Through its phenomenal success in achieving truly astounding growth in industrial development and in knowledge, this system has sown the seeds of its own destruction. It has been extremely useful, but it has served its purpose and now poses an existential threat to the biosphere and to the human species. Mankind now possesses profound knowledge of the nature of the physical universe and sophisticated technology to interact with it.
To allow growth-based economics / capitalism to continue to operate will result in the annihilation of the species-rich biosphere, perpetuation of human misery, and, arguably, the extinction of the human species. For mankind to continue to exist, and to achieve a high-quality existence, the operation of this incredible system must now be halted, and it must be replaced with a system that enables mankind to live in harmony with a species-rich biosphere. Such a system is eco-socialism, implemented in the framework of steady-state economics.
Over the past century, there has been much hand-wringing about mankind’s destruction of the environment, but, despite the facts that the nature of the problem is well understood and means for addressing it are available, to date no effective plan has been constructed or course of action has been taken to halt the destruction. This article presents a feasible plan for replacing the planet-destroying system of large-scale industry with a long-term-sustainable system of planetary management, of replacing growth-based economics / capitalism with steady-state economics and eco-socialism. The essence of the plan is to make use of the present system of growth-based economics / capitalism to make preparations for an immediate transition from that system to eco-socialism in the wake of a global catastrophe, such as economic collapse, social collapse, severe pandemic or famine, global nuclear war, ecological collapse, or radical climate change.
The new world order to be established will be designed, implemented, operated and maintained using the methodology of systems engineering. With this methodology, many alternative systems are synthesized, analyzed, evaluated and compared, and a preferred system selected. Here follow the major characteristics of one such candidate system.
As global petroleum reserves exhaust, the world will soon see a massive wave of construction of nuclear power reactors, to generate both heat and electricity energy. The following alternative incorporates this feature, of moving from the petroleum age to the nuclear age.
1. Government: A unitary system of government, based on representative democracy and eco-socialism.
2. Global organizational structure: The world is divided into approximately 100 city-states based on the concept of bioregionalism, with maximum population of eight million per city-state. Industrial activity is permitted only within the cities.
3. Economic features: No capitalism. No private ownership of means of production. No property income (rents, interest-bearing loans, profits). Fiat money. (Economics is the science of the management of scarcity, of efficient allocation of limited resources. The proposed system will be designed to operate in harmony with the biosphere, so that natural resource limits will not impose global constraints on human activity. There will be no scarcity and no poverty. Economics may be used to accomplish efficient allocation of renewable resources, but not to allocate nonrenewable resources. To this extent, the economic system may be characterized as steady-state economics in the tradition of Georgescu-Roegen, Daly, Kohr and Schumacher.)
4. Welfare: Guaranteed employment, basic income. No poverty.
5. Health care: Free basic health-care.
6. Education: Universal; mandatory eight years; free merit-based beyond eight years.
7. Judicial: Roman law (civil law). No prisons. If violate laws, then reeducate. If reeducation is not successful, must live outside the city.
8. Rights: All human beings are full citizens of the unitary state. Basically, human rights are the same as specified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but with “symmetry” so that the cost to society of providing the benefit of the right is reasonable. All people have a right to travel anywhere on the planet. No right to own land or fixed property (land, buildings). No right to own other human beings (slaves) or living creatures. No factory farming. No battery production.
9. Ethics: Consequential and symmetric, à la Taleb.
10. Energy: All industrial energy is from nuclear power plants or renewable biomass. No fossil fuels. No solar (solar electric, hydro, wind, tides).
11. Defense / security: Confidential.
“Earth has too many people!” What does this mean? Out of context, this statement is merely an opinion, a value judgment, an unjustified assertion. What I mean by this statement is that the large number of people and high level of industrial production on Planet Earth are causing substantial changes to the biosphere in which humankind evolved, which changes threaten its long-term existence and happiness. This article will summarize why I hold this opinion, and will describe alternatives for lessening the threat.
Recent centuries have seen massive growth in the size of the human population and the amount of industrial production. The level of population and industrial activity has caused substantial changes to occur in Earth’s physical environment and biosphere, leading to pollution, global warming, habitat loss, species extinction, loss of ecological diversity, and loss of esthetic appeal. A massive number of people live in dire poverty, misery and hopelessness. Their leaders live in luxury, and are generally indifferent to the condition of the masses of people, to the ecological state of the planet, and to the threat of human extinction. So far, civilization has been an effective system for producing great wealth for a few and poverty for many, for growing the human population, and for advancing science and technology. At the same time, it has brought about increase in overcrowding, disease, hunger, conflict and misery; caused massive destruction to the biosphere, including global warming; and caused a mass species extinction, which may include the human species itself.
The current situation is unstable and unsustainable, and it is difficult to see why the current system of global civilization will not soon come to an end. What system of global civilization replaces it remains to be seen, but its nature can be affected by human action. This article describes means by which humankind can bring about a global civilization that promotes long-term survival of humanity in an ecologically rich biosphere similar to the one in which it evolved.
I have written on this topic since 1994. These writings have included books, articles and brief notes. They have been posted on the Foundation website, http://www.foundationwebsite.org, since 1999. The books and many of the articles were long, appropriate for reading on a desktop or laptop microcomputer display, or in hard copy, but not for easy reading on a mobile device such as a cell phone or e-reader. This article will summarize some of my views, very briefly, in a document of size and format that can be read on a mobile device. It omits detailed explanations, graphs, tables, and mathematical formulas. It is not intended as a comprehensive summary of past work, but simply a statement of major points, discussion of key concepts, updated assessment of the situation today, and identification of alternative ways if achieving a long-term-survivable human population in an ecologically rich biosphere.
This article summarizes points, such as observations, conclusions and hypotheses, but it does not present detailed arguments. It may present some basic rationales or principal reasons, but no detail. Many of the assertions made here have much reasoning behind them. Examples are Rare Earth (335 pages), Guns, Germs, and Steel (528 pages), Food, Energy, and Society (363 pages), Overshoot and Collapse (298 pages) and The Collapse of Complex Societies (250 pages). For detailed discussion of many of the assertions presented here about the size of a long-term-sustainable human population living in a biosphere similar to the one in which it evolved, see the book Can America Survive? (1999 by Joseph George Caldwell, posted at the Foundation website at http://www.foundationwebsite.org/CanAmericaSurvive.htm , not the 2010 book of the same title by John Hagee) and the other sources cited in the References.
Except for my book, Can America Survive? (CAS), the references cited at the end of the article are not sources for the global population proposals described in CAS and in this article. They are sources for factual information relevant to the discussion and for descriptions of methodologies that are useful for assessing the merits of these proposals. The primary source for the proposals presented in this article is CAS.
The nature of exponential population growth has been understood and discussed since the publication of Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Much has been written about the destructive effects of human population growth on the biosphere since the 1960s. Despite much awareness, consideration, analysis and discussion of the problem, no effective measures have been taken in the last fifty years to solve it. In 1970 the world population was 3.7 billion; this year, 2021, it is 7.8 billion. In the past fifty years the environment has been ravaged, global warming is upon us, and the number of people in desperate poverty has increased by four billion. Human society is in the process of destroying its own nest – the biosphere in which it evolved and on which its welfare and very existence depend. Humankind has the knowledge and ability to rectify the problem, but chooses not to do so. This situation begs the question of why the situation is becoming disastrously worse, year after year, not better. Much of this article addresses this curious and tragic situation.
CAS presented a basic concept – the minimal-regret population – but it did not explore the concept in detail. This paper identifies a number of alternative implementations of the concept.
Two final notes. First, having considered a wide range of alternative futures for the future of human civilization, I have identified scenarios that correspond to a hellish future in a ruined biosphere, as well as scenarios that paint a tremendously engaging future for mankind. Moreover, I see circumstances and developments that, in my view, suggest that mankind’s future will more likely resemble one of these very appealing scenarios, and cause me to be optimistic about the long-term future of humankind and the biosphere.
Second, this article is a research paper, not a call to action. Many of the scenarios that I describe involve social engineering and warfare. While I identify a number of scenarios, some of which are appealing for humankind and some of which are not, I am not promoting actions to bring about any of them. To do so might invite charges of insurrection or terrorism. I am a researcher, not a warrior. While I am a proponent of lower global human population, and while I hope that the current environmental crisis is resolved without further destruction of the biosphere, I am not an activist. My goal is to identify a variety of alternatives for the future of mankind and the biosphere, and explore their characteristics, so that the planet’s leaders may make informed choices for the future. This paper diagnoses the present environmental situation and identifies a number of ways that it may be changed, for better or worse.
To date, there has been a lot of “hand wringing” about the long-term future of mankind and the biosphere, with no effective actions taken. The time for effective action is nigh, and some entities will soon be making the “hard choices” that investigators such as Garret Hardin and Jared Diamond have talked about, to determine this future. The discussion presented in this paper is intended to identify and clarify the essential features of alternative futures, and to describe a methodology for identifying a preferred alternative, so that better decisions can be made by those in charge to accomplish desired, and, it is hoped, desirable, change.
This article makes liberal use of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, as a source for facts, definitions, and summary information on many topics. For each use of Wikipedia or other Internet source, the title of the article is given, and in some cases the Internet website address is specified. I hereby express my deep appreciation for Wikipedia for its very valuable service. If you find this article to be of value, please consider making a donation to Wikipedia!
This article is designed for primary use on computers, e-readers and smart cellphones. To make effective use of those devices, it includes many hypertext hyperlink references. Unfortunately, the hyperlink references are of little value to someone reading a hard-copy version of the article – the information is not immediately available. To address this issue, I have included some summary material, extracted from the hyperlink source, along with each hyperlink reference. This approach has the drawback, however, of substantially increasing the size of the article. To address this problem, I have moved many of the hyperlink references and associated references to appendices, which comprise about half of the article.
Human-Caused Atmospheric, Oceanic and Land Changes
Mankind’s large numbers and industrial activity have caused macroscopic changes to the planet. These include increases in carbon dioxide, methane and other gases in the atmosphere; global warming; acid rain; glacier melting; ocean pollution; mercury-poisoned lakes; loss of wetlands; poisoning of topsoil with pesticides, insecticides and herbicides; loss of topsoil; soil compaction; desertification; and destruction of wild rivers by dams.
Human-Caused Biospheric Changes
Changes to the biosphere that have resulted from mankind’s activity include: destruction of rain forests, including the Amazon rainforest (18 percent now destroyed, the soil turned to brick-hard laterite after just a few years of farming); destruction of about one-fourth of the forest covering much of North America; near-total destruction of the North American tallgrass prairie; destruction of natural habitat; collapsed fisheries from industrial-scale fishing; increase in wildfires; topsoil loss; loss of species diversity; species extinction (the sixth mass species extinction, this one human-caused). Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey estimated that about 30,000 species are being wiped out each year. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates.
The lifetime of species is often long, on the order of one to ten million years. The rise of new species takes millions of years. What species arise depends on the nature of the environment. The modern human species has existed for about 200,000 years. Human civilization has existed for about 6,000 years. While the focus of this article is the next few years or decades, the “planning horizon” is millions of years. If the current generation of mankind ruins the biodiversity-rich environment, but the human species does not become extinct, that is the duration to which the current generation will have sentenced all future generations to live on a biodiversity-impoverished planet.
Perhaps the most powerful and succinct summary of humankind’s impact on the biosphere is presented in Kirkpatrick Sale’s book, The Collapse of 2020 (2020). The following paragraph is excerpted from the chapter titled “Environmental Collapse: Self Extinction”: “A new report the following year [i.e., following 2017] attempted to put quantitative figures to what the human imprint has meant for the world’s biomass. Three biologists, two from the Weizmann Institute in Israel and one from the California Institute of Technology, determined that humans, .01 percent of all life on earth, have annihilated 83 per cent of all wild animals, 80 per cent of marine mammals, 50 per cent of all plants, and 15 per cent of all fish. (A subsequent report, in October 2018, calculated also that between 45 and 76 per cent of insects have gone extinct.) Of what’s left, livestock – domestic animals – accounts for 60 per cent and humans for 36 per cent, which leaves only 4 per cent for all wildlife. In other words, we have been so successful at birthing and developing our single bipedal species that we have virtually exterminated all the rest – so far, and we are proceeding to complete that at a pace so fast that it is beyond control.”
Human-Caused Changes in the Human Condition
The most apparent change in the human condition resulting from population growth is loss of open space and crowding. In the United States, land having a relatively low density of human beings existed through the 1800s. In 1890, a year after the Oklahoma Land Rush, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the frontier was closed. The 1890 census had shown that a frontier line, a point beyond which the population density was less than two persons per square mile, or a little less than one person per square kilometer, no longer existed. Even that population density is high, compared to the density generally estimated for pre-agricultural man – about eight persons per 100 square kilometers of habitable land, or about one person per 12.5 square kilometers.
Civilization and crowding have brought much misery to the human condition: high levels of poverty, disease, oppression, human bondage and unhappiness (mental illness, depression, despair, hopelessness, suicides, crime, and drugs). Another indicator of the stressed system is the increasing frequency of outbreaks of epidemic disease transmission from wild animals (Black Plague, Spanish Flu, HIV, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, Ebola, COVID-19).
Throughout most of the history of civilization, a major hallmark of civilization was slavery. Although modern human beings are no longer slaves in the sense of chattel property, many are prisoners in the global system of civilization, which has stripped them of much of their freedom and high-quality living space and, for billions, most of their opportunities for significant satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness.
Human population has increased tremendously in the past decades, and remains at a high, biodiversity-destructive level.
With its exponential growth, the human species no longer exists in equilibrium with the rest of the biosphere. Unlike other species, it is destroying its “nest” – its habitat in the biosphere in which it evolved. It has a high breeding rate and is very avaricious. It is intelligent, and very aware of the situation, but indifferent to the biocide that its large numbers and industrial production are causing.
Current environmental efforts have proved feckless in reducing the level of biospheric destruction. A primary reason for the failure of environmental efforts to solve the environmental problem is population growth. For example, if conservation (e.g., recycling) reduces consumption or waste by ten percent, and the population is growing by one percent per year, then in ten years that accomplishment is completely neutralized. Current environmental efforts may be successful in temporarily reducing some pollution levels, in saving a few “islands” of biodiversity, or in postponing the extinction of a few species, but they accomplish nothing to reduce the level of large human numbers and industrial production, or to restore the damaged biosphere, or even to halt further human-caused biospheric destruction.
The root cause of all of humankind’s severe environmental problems is the large human population. With a low human population, all of these problems can be resolved. With a high human population, none of them can. Earth has too many people!
In his book, After Eden: The Evolution of Human Domination (2006), Kirkpatrick Sale describes the evolution of the human species from a species that existed in harmony as a very small component of the biosphere to the single most dominant species of Planet Earth. Sale’s book describes the evolutionary changes that occurred over the past 70,000 years. This section describes events of the last ten thousand years, since the dawn of the age of agriculture. For additional discussion, see The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) by Edward O. Wilson and Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) by Jared Diamond.
Prior to the advent of agriculture, about ten thousand years ago, it has been estimated that global human population was in the range of 1-10 million people. (The population estimates presented here are from the United States Census Bureau table, “Historical Estimates of World Population,” posted at Internet website https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html.) With the advent of agriculture and then of civilization, human population gradually increased, to an estimated 170-400 million in year 1 AD, 226 – 240 million in 900, 254-345 million in 1000, 425-540 million in 1500, 629-961 million in 1750, 813-1125 million in 1800, 1128-1402 million in 1850, 1550-1762 million in 1900, 2400-2558 million in 1950, 6.1 billion in 2000 and 7.8 billion today (2021).
Deforestation
The growth of population after 900 was accompanied by massive destruction of forest cover and conversion to farmland for crops and grazing. Here follows an extract from the Wikipedia article, Deforestation, posted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation.
“From 1100 to 1500 AD, significant deforestation took place in Western Europe as a result of the expanding human population. The large-scale building of wooden sailing ships by European (coastal) naval owners since the 15th century for exploration, colonisation, slave trade, and other trade on the high seas, consumed many forest resources and became responsible for the introduction of numerous bubonic plague outbreaks in the 14th century. Piracy also contributed to the over harvesting of forests, as in Spain. This led to a weakening of the domestic economy after Columbus' discovery of America, as the economy became dependent on colonial activities (plundering, mining, cattle, plantations, trade, etc.).
“The massive use of charcoal on an industrial scale in Early Modern Europe was a new type of consumption of western forests; even in Stuart England, the relatively primitive production of charcoal has already reached an impressive level. Stuart England was so widely deforested that it depended on the Baltic trade for ship timbers, and looked to the untapped forests of New England to supply the need. Each of Nelson's Royal Navy war ships at Trafalgar (1805) required 6,000 mature oaks for its construction.
“Norman F. Cantor's summary of the effects of late medieval deforestation applies equally well to Early Modern Europe:
‘Europeans had lived in the midst of vast forests throughout the earlier medieval centuries. After 1250 they became so skilled at deforestation that by 1500 they were running short of wood for heating and cooking. They were faced with a nutritional decline because of the elimination of the generous supply of wild game that had inhabited the now-disappearing forests, which throughout medieval times had provided the staple of their carnivorous high-protein diet. By 1500 Europe was on the edge of a fuel and nutritional disaster [from] which it was saved in the sixteenth century only by the burning of soft coal and the cultivation of potatoes and maize.’”
According to a study published in Scientific Reports, if deforestation continues at its current rate for the next 20 – 40 years, it can trigger a full or almost full extinction of humanity. To avoid it humanity should pass from a civilization dominated by the economy to "cultural society" that "privileges the interest of the ecosystem above the individual interest of its components, but eventually in accordance with the overall communal interest"
Deforestation is more extreme in tropical and subtropical forests in emerging economies. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the world live in tropical forests. As a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) remain of the original 16 million square kilometres (6 million square miles) of tropical rainforest that formerly covered the Earth.
Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years.
Global deforestation sharply accelerated around 1852. As of 1947, the planet had 15 million to 16 million km2 (5.8 million to 6.2 million sq mi) of mature tropical forests, but by 2015, it was estimated that about half of these had been destroyed. Total land coverage by tropical rainforests decreased from 14% to 6%. Much of this loss happened between 1960 and 1990, when 20% of all tropical rainforests were destroyed. At this rate, extinction of such forests is projected to occur by the mid-21st century.
In the early 2000s, some scientists predicted that unless significant measures (such as seeking out and protecting old growth forests that have not been disturbed) are taken on a worldwide basis, by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining, with another 10% in a degraded condition. 80% will have been lost, and with them hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable species.
Between 15 - 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Belgium, are destroyed every year, on average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
From the Wikipedia article, “Deforestation in the United States”: Prior to the arrival of European-Americans, about one half of the United States land area was forest, about 1,023,000,000 acres (4,140,000 km2) estimated in 1630. Recently, the Forest Service reported total forestation as 766,000,000 acres (3,100,000 km2) in 2012. The majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910 with the Forest Service reporting the minimum forestation as 721,000,000 acres (2,920,000 km2) around 1920. The forest resources of the United States have remained relatively constant through the 20th century. A 2017 study estimated 3 percent loss of forest between 1992-2001.
From Wikipedia article, “Forest cover”: About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests. Since the onset of agriculture (about 12,000 years ago), the number of trees worldwide has dropped by 46%, according to one research published in 2018. More than half of the world’s forests are found in only five countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Russian Federation and United States of America).
Destruction of Tallgrass Prairie
Prior to the arrival of Europeans to North America, much of the central portion of the continent was tallgrass prairie. From 1800 to 1930, most of this prairie was destroyed, for conversion of the land use to agriculture. Here follows an excerpt from the Wikipedia article, “Tallgrass Prairie,” posted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallgrass_prairie.
“Retreating glaciers deposited the parent material for soil in the form of till, i.e., unsorted sediment, about 10,000 years ago. Wind-dropped loess and organic matter accumulated, resulting in deep levels of topsoil. Animals such as bison, elk, deer, and rabbits added nitrogen to the soil through urine and feces. Prairie dogs, a ground squirrel-like rodent considered to be a keystone species, dug tunnels that "aerated the soil and channeled water several feet below the surface". For 5,000 to 8,000 years, more than 240 million acres (970,000 km2) of prairie grasslands were a major feature of the landscape. Between 1800 and 1930, the vast majority was destroyed. Settlers transformed what they named "The Great American Desert" or "The Inland Sea" into farmland. Major reasons for the prairie's demise were the confined grazing pattern of European cattle versus bison, the near-extermination of prairie dogs, and the plowing and cultivation of the land, which breached tallgrass root systems and interrupted reproduction. Furthermore, extensive tile drainage has changed the soil's water content and hydrodynamics, and ongoing soil erosion results in its increasing loss.
“Estimates differ of how much original tallgrass prairie survives, ranging from less than 1% mostly in ‘scattered remnants found in pioneer cemeteries, restoration projects, along highways and railroad rights-of-way, and on steep bluffs high above rivers’ to 4%.”
The Rise of Industrial Agriculture
The Industrial Revolution is said to have begun during the period 1760 – 1830. In 1750, global population is estimated at 629 – 961 million. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, agricultural technology had seen a few improvements, such as the invention of the horse collar, but agriculture was powered by human power or animal power or hydropower, not by engines and motors such as the steam engine, internal combustion engine, or electric motor. The primary source of energy for agriculture was solar energy. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, significant advances occurred, including the invention of machines and a rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels to power them.
Introduction of the iron plow occurred about 1800. Development of powerful steam engines about 1800 and large mechanical looms shortly thereafter led to the development of a large textile manufacturing industry, and increased demand for cotton and wool. By the year 1800, the population level is estimated at 813 – 1,125 million. By 1850, it is estimated at 1,128 – 1,402 million.
Introduction of the internal-combustion-engine tractor occurred about 1900. Much development of agrochemicals (insecticides, pesticides, herbicides) occurred in the 1940s, and their use increased greatly from 1950. Global use of fertilizer increased slowly in the first half of the twentieth century, and exploded after 1950. The so-called Green Revolution occurred in the period 1950 – 1970, with the introduction of high-yield varieties of cereals, fertilizers, agrochemicals and irrigation.
By 1900, the estimated global population was 1550 – 1762 million. By 1950, 2400 – 2558 million. By 2000, 6.1 billion. Today, 2021, 7.8 billion.
At present, mankind is operating under a system of industrial agriculture without a halt to destruction of forests or prairies. The large prairies are gone, a substantial portion of the rainforest has been destroyed, and much of the forest cover has been destroyed or damaged.
Global Warming
From the Wikipedia article, “Carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere” posted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere. Global annual mean carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has increased by more than 45% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, from 280 ppm during the 10,000 years up to the mid-18th century to 415 ppm as of May 2019. The present concentration is the highest for 14 million years. The increase has been attributed to human activity, particularly deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. This increase of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere has produced the current episode of global warming. Between 30% and 40% of the CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into the oceans, wherein it forms carbonic acid and effects changes in the oceanic pH balance.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
Global warming and acidification of the oceans can cause the extinction of many plants and animals.
Habitat loss, biodiversity loss; extinction
In summary, destruction of the biosphere is proceeding at a frightful pace. More than half of the planet’s rainforests, which contain a substantial amount of all species, has been destroyed by human beings, and, if destruction continues at its present rate, all will be destroyed within 40 years. It is estimated that the human-caused extinction rate is about 1,000 times greater than the natural extinction rate of about one species per million species per year (E. O. Wilson, The Future of Life (2002), The Meaning of Human Existence (2014), and Half Earth (2016)).
In view of the preceding information, a summary of the approximate size of human population of Earth under different types of technology is as follows:
Hunter-gather society (pre-agricultural, prior to 8,000 BC): population 1-10 million; for reference, say, a nominal 5 million. Environmental impact: The human species living in equilibrium with the biosphere in which it evolved.
Primitive agriculture, forests and prairies left intact (pre-industrial, prior to 900 AD; renewable solar-energy-based (mainly wood, little coal), animal-drawn plows, no engines (motive power), no advanced technology (such as chemical engineering or genetic engineering)): population 300 million. Environmental impact: Little impact.
Primitive agriculture, forests and prairies not left intact (pre-industrial, prior to 1750 – 1800 AD; limited burning of fossil fuels): population 800 million – 1 billion. Environmental impact: Massive destruction of forests and prairies (grassland, savanna, bush); substantial biodiversity loss, significant extinction of species, but not a mass species extinction. No human-caused change in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, and no global warming. Most human-generated waste is biodegradable.
Industrial agriculture (since 1800; forests and prairies not preserved, large-scale burning of fossil fuels): population 1 billion in 1800 to 7.8 billion today (2021). Environmental impact: Massive destruction of forests and prairies; massive biodiversity loss; mass species extinction. Substantial increase of CO2 (from deforestation and burning of fossil fuels) and industrial gasses in atmosphere; substantial global warming. Massive pollution of land, lakes, rivers, ocean, and atmosphere.
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. That proverb helps explain the rise of technology after 1750. Deforestation in England had motivated the use of coal, and a better method was needed to pump water out of coal mines. That better method was the steam engine. The increasing population stressed the agricultural capacity, motivating development of the iron plow. Other significant agricultural inventions included the cotton gin, the grain reaper/binder harvesting machine, and the grain thresher. The steam engine was used to power cotton gins, textile and lumber mills, heavy farm equipment and locomotives. With the invention of the internal combustion engine followed tractors and trucks.
The development of the science and technology of electricity and magnetism opened up a world of new inventions, including electrical generators, electric motors, transmission of electricity over long distances using alternating current, telegraph, telephone, electric lighting, radio, television and computers. Other developments in physics include X-rays, firearms, aircraft, nuclear weapons and nuclear power, solar electric, space flight and communication satellites.
The development of chemistry brought agrochemicals, plastics, synthetic textiles and a myriad of other materials and processes.
The development of biology brought an understanding of germs and the development of vaccines, antibiotics, synthetic steroids, high-yield varieties of cereal grains and genetically modified foods.
While some of the initial technological discoveries and inventions were accomplished with little or no knowledge of science, later developments, such as nuclear energy, required a solid understanding of science. It is fair to say that demand for food for an expanding human population was a primary motivation for the advances in technology. A French version of “Necessity is the mother of invention” is “Hunger makes people resourceful.” It is also without question that the development of modern science and technology was enabled by a large population, which provides the resources to fund scientific enquiry. Some science, such as arithmetic and geometry, developed in ancient times. It is hard to imagine that Isaac Newton would have developed his theories of physics had he been born on a remote island having a population of a thousand people. The developments of the theory of electricity and magnetism and the theory of relativity were founded on centuries of observation, investigation and invention enabled by large populations in complex societies.
From the Wikipedia article “Necessity is the mother of invention”: In an address to the Mathematical Association of England on the importance of education in 1917, Alfred North Whitehead argued that "the basis of invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity," and in contrast to the old proverb "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer to the truth.
On the one hand, science and technology, along with the massive amount of energy available from fossil fuels, have enabled human population to grow to unsustainable levels. On the other hand, the existence of a large human society has also provided the means for solving this problem. The larger the population, the greater the number of highly intelligent, inquisitive and creative people. The larger the population, the greater the intellectual resources available for working on invention.
The rise of a large industrial human population on Earth has resulted in an extreme environmental problem that threatens to destroy the biosphere as we know it. If the human species survives, but in a degraded biosphere, then the actions of the current generation of human beings will cause much misery to billions of human beings over millions of years. This would matter very much, for very many people, for a very long time. If the human species does not survive, then no one will be aware, no one will be the wiser. Unless you believe in an afterlife and a final day of reckoning, this would not matter at all.
The stress of limited food availability motivated the development of technology, which increased the food supply, which in turn led to even higher population levels. This, in turn, led to an explosion of the number of people living in poverty. The very high population levels created an environment conducive to the rise of science and advanced technology. Key features of that environment included the much larger number of highly intelligent individuals (extreme values of the distribution) and sufficient time and resources available to them to develop their scientific theories and technological applications. At present, the world is in crisis, with billions of people living in poverty and the biosphere being rapidly destroyed. This expanded scientific and technical knowledge will enable the solution to the population / environment problem. Mankind has a very good understanding of the nature of the problem and a massive amount of data about the status of the biosphere and its processes. Science and technology can bring about the evolution of the planet from one with a high human population, most of whom live in freedomless poverty, to one with a small human population living with a high quality of life and much freedom.
The term “demographic transition” usually refers to the shift from high birth rates and high infant death rates in societies with minimal technology, education and economic development, to low birth rates and low infant death rates in societies with advanced technology, education and economic development. A significant feature of the demographic transition process is that the decline in fertility rates is slow, so that the population tends to increase very much in size before the process is complete. Note that for this increase to happen, there must be a corresponding increase in the food supply.
The demographic transition process may be viewed as having three distinct phases. In Phase 1, infant mortality (death) rates start to decline, but the natality (birth) rates typically remain high, so that the population begins to grow. The end of Phase 1 occurs when the natality rates decline to be in balance with the infant mortality rate. At this point, we are in Phase 2 of the demographic-transition process. Although birth rates and death rates balance, the population continues to grow for some time (several generations), as the large families from the earlier high-fertility period have their children.
If birth rates and death rates remain similar, the age distribution of the population will eventually (after several generations) stabilize, as will the population size.
Phase 1 of the demographic transition process can take a long time to complete. There are today many countries in Africa that are “stuck” in Phase 1: infant mortality rates have fallen to low levels, but the birth rates have not fallen commensurately (i.e., to replacement level), and the population continues to grow exponentially.
The serious problem that arises with the demographic transition is that the new population size may be much larger than the size prior to the beginning of the demographic transition, and may exceed the carrying capacity of the area. This has happened in many places, where many of the larger population live in poverty and the larger population size has caused extreme damage to the environment and / or biosphere.
The great tragedy of the demographic transition process is that it has transformed many primitive societies in which people were living in harmony with the environment / biosphere, in freedom and non-poverty, to industrial societies in which people are living in freedomless poverty and a seriously degraded environment / biosphere.
In recognition of this outcome, it is useful to define a third phase of the demographic transition process, which occurs when the population transitions to a size and structure that achieves a high quality of life for the population, the damaged environment has been restored, and the population is living in harmony with the biosphere. The term “structure” is used as a catch-all intended to include all aspects of human society, reflected in many descriptors such as nature, form, quality, type, level, composition, configuration and functionality. (Note that this characterization of the demographic transition as consisting of three phases is not standard; the standard definition of term implies just two phases, from high birth rate and infant mortality rate to low birth rate and infant mortality rate.)
The situation that exists today is that very few countries have advanced to Phase 3 of the demographic transition process. Many countries are still in Phase 1, with exploding populations, and many more are in Phase 2, with large populations living in poverty and causing much destruction to the biosphere.
The main existential problem facing mankind at present is that the demographic-transition phenomenon has been accompanied by a global explosion of human population to biosphere-destroying levels, with vastly more people living in poverty than before the demographic transition began. The number of people living in poverty and the magnitude of the environmental destruction are directly related to the total population. More specifically, they are directly related to the total energy consumed by that population. For the demographic-transition process to result in a successful conclusion, it is necessary that the population transition to size and structure that lives in harmony with the biosphere. When that situation occurs, the population has reached Phase 3 of the demographic transition.
The technologies that enabled the first phase of the demographic transition (moving from high infant natality and mortality rates to low infant natality and mortality rates) were those of the early part of the Industrial Revolution (now sometimes referred to as the First Industrial Revolution), including advances in agricultural technology, public health and medicine. The technologies that will enable transition to low population not living in poverty (i.e., to the third phase of the demographic transition) are associated with the more recent part of the Industrial Revolution (the so-called Second Industrial Revolution), including nuclear technology, electronics, communications, information technology, systems theory, complexity theory, antifragility, systems engineering, organizational science, sociobiology, social science / humanities and ethics.
It is interesting to observe that, on the one hand, the one-time windfall of fossil-fuel energy from the Fossil-Fuel Age was a direct cause of the environmental crisis, by enabling the human population to soar to astronomical, unsustainable, biosphere-destroying levels and mass poverty; but that, on the other hand, it was the existence of this very large population that enabled the explosion of knowledge and the development of the technology that will enable a reduction in the population to low, sustainable levels, with human beings enjoying a high quality of life (no poverty, much freedom, fulfilment). Out of the environmental crisis evolved the motivation and tools to solve it.
The astronomer Fred Hoyle once observed, in reference to the one-time windfall of fossil fuel, that mankind only gets “one bite at the apple” – that once it is gone, it is gone forever. Mankind has put this one-time windfall both to very bad use and to very good use. As things were progressing, from the birth of agriculture 10,000 years ago, most of humanity has lived in grinding poverty, with no prospect for change in sight. On the one hand, the fossil-fuel age dramatically increased the number of people living in poverty and terrible damage to the biosphere. On the other hand, it has enabled the growth of knowledge and technology that will enable transition to a lower population living high-quality lives in harmony with (what remains of) the biosphere. In other words, this knowledge and technology will enable mankind to move to Phase 3 of the demographic transition.
Mankind has converted the windfall of fossil fuels into a massive body of knowledge and technology. This knowledge and technology will be the key to transforming the world from one filled with people living in poverty, misery and little freedom to a world of no poverty, much freedom, and much capacity for people to achieve their full potential and satisfying fulfilment. If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, it is conceivable that the acquisition of this knowledge and technology might never have occurred without the presence of, and problems of, the extremely large population that was enabled by fossil fuels. Had this not happened, mankind might continue to live indefinitely in the poverty that was introduced and maintained by the rise of agriculture and civilization. The tapping of fossil fuels caused several explosions: an explosion in population, an explosion in industrial production, an explosion in deforestation, an explosion in pollution and an explosion in species extinctions and other environmental problems. Simultaneously, it has caused explosions in knowledge and technology that will enable solutions to at least some of these problems to be developed.
Fossil fuels are about gone, but the tools and technology that they enabled remain. We now have the tools to manage a planet properly. We are now in a position to dispose of the old, planet-destroying order and replace it with a new order in which it will be possible for all future human beings to experience a high level of freedom and opportunity for fulfilment, while at the same time living in harmony with nature.
The future of mankind does not have to be bleak, at least, not because of human actions. It does not have to be a living hell, created by human actions, for billions of people for millions of years. It does not have to be extinction caused by human actions. It can be a glorious future on a planet inhabited by millions – but not billions – of people for millions of years. All it takes is action. Effective action. Now.
In the Introduction to this piece, it was stated that it would not include mathematical formulas. Because of the fact that environmental impact is so frequently summarized in terms of a very simple formula (I = PAT), this section will depart from this convention and express some results in terms of this formula. This section may be skipped without significant effect on the rest of the article.
Before proceeding, a few comments will be made about the I = PAT formula and its application. Use of the formula has been criticized on the grounds that it is too simplistic, and cannot represent all of the complex relationships among all of the variables that affect environmental impact. While those assertions are certainly true, they do not constitute sufficient reason for not using the formula to make certain points.
The I = PAT formula is used to succinctly represent some aspect of environmental impact. It is a mathematical model used to describe an aspect of reality. The statistician George E. P. Box pointed out that all models are wrong, but some are useful. Use of the I = PAT formula is analogous to representing an aspect of a system by means of a bivariate graph or table. The graph or table does not express all relationships among all variables. It describes a conditional or marginal relationship between two (or a small number of) variables. Graphs and tables are very useful in summarizing aspects of a system, even though the perspective that they use may be limited.
A simple example will serve to illustrate the utility of using a simple model involving two variables to describe a feature of a complex system. Suppose that we wish to describe the performance of an automobile. There are many aspects to performance, such as fuel efficiency, pollution, speed, power, capacity, maneuverability and comfort. Suppose further that we wish to focus on fuel efficiency. Many variables affect fuel efficiency, including speed, fuel octane rating, engine capacity, transmission type, use of air conditioning, tire type, tire pressure, windows open or closed, engine size, vehicle size, vehicle streamlining, road type, terrain type, terrain elevation, weather, urbanicity, traffic conditions and driver abilities.
Suppose that we construct a two-dimensional graph that shows the relationship of fuel efficiency to speed. Such a graph may show automobile fuel efficiency as a function of speed, averaged over all sorts of automobile makes and models and driving conditions, or it may show fuel efficiency for a particular make and model of automobile under specific conditions, such as city vs. highway driving. Neither model is “correct,” in the sense that it is a comprehensive, complete and accurate representation of all variables and relationships affecting fuel efficiency. Yet both are very useful. Automobile drivers may use either graph to estimate the driving range for a full tank of fuel, or to estimate the fuel cost for a trip, going at different speeds. The models are not “correct,” but they are very useful. Similarly, the I = PAT formula is not “correct,” but it is nevertheless useful for describing basic relationships between some of the variables that affect environmental impact, under specified conditions.
In various applications, the terms of the formula are defined in different ways. Just as in the case of using a table or graph, it is important to keep in mind the assumptions and conditions that apply to the formula, in order for the tool to be used appropriately and be of use in promoting understanding.
As pointed out above, the term “demographic transition” normally means the transition of a society having a high birth rate and high infant mortality rate to one having a low birth rate and low infant mortality rate. This transition is accomplished through the introduction of modern technologies such as health care, economic development, education, and social engineering. Since the decline in birth rate invariably lags the decline in infant mortality rate, the population starts to grow when the transition process starts and grows exponentially until birth rates and infant mortality rates equalize. After the rates equalize, the population growth rate declines, but population growth continues for several generations because of population “momentum” (population growth associated with the higher fertility of previous generations).
From a demographic viewpoint, the salient effect of the demographic transition is an increase in population. The magnitude of this increase depends on how rapidly the transition process occurs. The population level after the demographic transition ends can be massively larger than the pre-transition level.
The immediate effect of the demographic transition on the environment is the simple increase in population size. Even if the population continued lived in equilibrium with the environment (i.e., biosphere) prior to the transition and in equilibrium after the transition, human beings require living space. It has been estimated that the average amount of habitable land used by primitive man (in pre-agricultural times) was about 12.5 square kilometers per person (this corresponds to a population of five million on 64 million square kilometers of habitable land). The present density of human beings is 7.8 billion people per 64 million square kilometers, or about 122 persons per square kilometer of habitable land, or about .82 hectares per person.
The demographic transition is a world-wide phenomenon. While this process has completed in the world’s economically developed nations, it is far from completion in the developing world. The United Nations prepares population projections under various assumptions about when the demographic transition will complete. Under the “low variant” assumption about fertility rates, world population will peak at about nine billion people in the year 2050. Under the “median variant” assumption, it is projected that world population will soar to over 11 billion by the year 2100, and still increasing. Under a “high variant” assumption, the population will soar to over 16 billion, and still increasing at a high rate of growth.
Demographic transitions begin in different countries at different times, depending on when health, economic and social conditions motivate a decline in the fertility rate. The process is complete for the highly industrialized economies but very incomplete for many other nations.
The world is already a very crowded place, and, if the UN projections are viewed as credible, it is going to become substantially more crowded.
A hectare equals 2.471 acres. It has been estimated that each immigrant to the United States results in the destruction of about one acre of natural land for construction of roads, parking lots, buildings and other infrastructure.
The destruction of natural land to provide living space for human beings, however, is just one of the impacts of the demographic transition. The demographic transition takes place with a concurrent increase in economic development and economic activity. For economic development and economic activity to occur requires energy – large amounts of industrial energy. Industrial energy is required to produce all of the goods and services associated with development, such as agriculture, construction, transportation, infrastructure, utilities and consumer goods. Regrettably, the use of large amounts of industrial energy is causally related to the large amount of damage to the environment and biosphere that represent the planet’s environmental and ecological crisis.
While the salient effect of a demographic transition is a demographic one – a large increase in population – the transition is invariably accompanied by a very large increase in the consumption of energy. This increase in energy consumption invariably occurs because energy is required to fund the economic development and activity that motivates the demographic transition. As noted, increased energy consumption may lead to increased damage to the environment and biosphere.
A demographic transition hence has two strong effects – the demographic effect of a large increase in population, and the environmental / ecological impact of a large increase in the consumption of energy. This two-fold impact of the demographic transition is referred to as the “double whammy” effect of the demographic transition.
Before continuing the discussion of the “double whammy” impact of the demographic transition, it is helpful to discuss briefly a standard way of summarizing environmental impact.
Measuring Environmental Impact
In 1970, Barry Commoner, Paul R. Ehrlich and John P. Holdren developed the symbolic formula I = PAT to characterize the relationship of the environmental impact (I) of population (P), resource consumption (or affluence, A), and environmental disruptiveness (or technology, T). (See the Wikipedia article “I = PAT” for discussion.) Affluence may be represented in a number of ways, e.g., as gross domestic product per capita or as energy consumption per capita. In this case, the factor T is expressed as the environmental impact per unit of consumption, and I represents the total environmental impact.
The I = PAT formula is a mnemonic for representing the relationship of environmental impact to population, consumption and technology. It is far too simple to reflect the complex interrelationships among these quantities, but it has proved to be useful in general, high-level descriptions of basic concepts.
Environmental impact may be measured in any number of ways, depending on how the affluence term is defined. As mentioned, the affluence term may represent aggregate consumption, or it may represent a particular resource, such as the stock of a species of fish, or solar radiation. In these cases, the environmental impact is the amount of the resource used for human purposes.
At present, a standard way of expressing environmental impact is by means of an “ecological footprint,” or geographical area required to support a population in a particular lifestyle. Using this approach, affluence is measured in units of global hectares per capita, say, G, where a “global hectare” is the world's annual amount of biological production for human use and human waste assimilation, per hectare of biologically productive land and fisheries, and the technology factor, T, is a unitless quantity, an “efficiency factor” used to adjust the affluence term to different contexts. (See Wikipedia articles, “Ecological Footprint,” “Global hectare,” and “Global Footprint Network” for discussion.) Using this approach, the affluence term represents aggregate consumption of natural resources, and impact is measured in units of global hectares, I = PGT.
Using global footprint analysis, the organization Global Footprint Network estimates that, as of 2014, humanity has been using natural capital 1.7 times as fast as Earth can renew it, which they describe as meaning humanity's ecological footprint corresponds to 1.7 planet Earths.
Returning now to the discussion of demographic transition, we shall represent the environmental impact of the demographic transition in the I = PAT framework. From a global viewpoint, almost all of the environmental and ecological harm that is being caused by human presence and activity is directly associated with the use of energy. From this perspective, it is appropriate and useful to define the affluence term, A, as primary energy consumption per capita.
Having defined affluence as per-capita energy consumption, the technology term, T, represents the environmental impact per unit of energy. The term “environmental impact” is, at this point, not defined. It may refer to a specific environmental variable, such as species loss, or to an aggregate measure, such as carbon footprint. Since virtually all global measures of environmental impact are directly related to energy consumption, and since all of the world’s nations are using about the same industrial technology, the value of T is approximately the same for each nation undergoing the demographic transition at a given time. In this case, it is appropriate simply to drop the technology term from the impact formula (since it is constant) and represent environmental impact by the two terms Population (P) and Energy Per Capita (E), or total energy consumption by human beings, I = PE. The aggregate measure of environmental impact in this case is total energy consumption by human beings. This approach is analogous to the “ecological footprint” approach, in which environmental impact is equal to Population, P, times Global Hectares Per Capita, G, times a unitless efficiency factor, T. In this case, the aggregate measure of environmental impact is global hectares associated with human presence and activity.
Using the I = PE model to represent environmental impact, the environmental effect of the demographic transition may be represented as DI = P2E2 – P1E1, where P1 is the population size at the beginning of the demographic transition, P2 is the population size at the end of the demographic transition, E1 is the primary energy use per capita at the beginning of the demographic transition, and E2 is the primary energy use per capita at the end of the demographic transition. It remains to estimate values for these quantities. For simplicity, we shall base the estimates on recent values of these quantities.
In 2016, primary energy consumption varies from about one kilowatt-hour (kWh) for undeveloped countries to about 50 kWh for industrially developed countries, i.e., it increases by a factor DE of about 50 from the start of the demographic transition to the end of it. From historical data, it may be seen that population increases by a factor DP of about 10 over the demographic transition period, for many countries. These are admittedly very approximate estimates – nominal values used for an example – but they serve to illustrate a point.
In terms of DE and DP we may write E2 = DE E1 and P2 = DP, so that the environmental impact, DI, of the demographic transition is DI = P2E2 – P1E1 = DP P1 DE E1 – P1E1 = (DP DE – 1) P1 E1.
If the energy consumption increase associated with the demographic transition were ignored, it would appear that the environmental impact of the demographic transition is simply the change in population, estimated as P2 – P1 = DP P1 – P1 = (DP – 1) P1. Taking into account the fact that energy consumption invariably increases (since increased energy consumption is both the enabler and the goal of demographic transition), the environmental impact of the demographic transition is seen to be the change in primary energy consumption, estimated at (DP DE – 1) P1 E1. Since DP and DE are both substantially greater than one, the approximate value of DP DE -1 is DP DE. That is, the environmental effect of the demographic transition is approximately equal to DP DE times the energy consumption at the beginning of the transition.
If we substitute the exemplar values DP = 10 and DE = 50, we obtain DI = (10 * 50 – 1) P1E1 = 499 P1E1. Hence we see, in this example, that, although the demographic (population-change) impact of the demographic transition is a very substantial “whammy” value of (DP – 1) P1 = 9 P1, the environmental impact is a truly massive “double whammy” value of (DP DE – 1) P1 E1 = 499 P1 E1!
The only way of reducing of avoiding the severe environmental impact of the demographic transition is to reduce the value of the technology factor, T. As mentioned, this factor was dropped from the formulas of the preceding example, since it was assumed to be constant in the example. The technology factor specifies the amount of environmental damage caused per unit of energy used. It varies, of course, for every environmental variable (e.g., species loss, habitat loss, rainforest destruction, pollution, global warming). It can be reduced to zero only if energy is used in such a way that no damage is caused to the biosphere (e.g., by recycling all manufactured waste to biodegradable waste that can be metabolized by the planet’s biosphere) and no pollution is released to the environment. While accomplishment of this goal is technically feasible, the leaders of today’s industrial society evidently have no desire or will to accomplish it.
Because the state of future population is important to most areas of human endeavor, the activity of predicting, or forecasting, future population has received a lot of attention for a long time. Population forecasts are made under a variety of assumptions about factors that affect population, and they vary over a substantial range of values. Several of the well-known forecasts made over the past few years predict that global human population will continue to rise over the next several decades, to a level of about ten billion people by 2050 and about eleven billion people by the year 2100.
A problem with almost all of these forecasts is that they predict that population will continue at a high, biodiversity-destroying level. As was discussed earlier, history indicates that a human population that lived in equilibrium with the planet’s environment for a long time (hundreds of thousands of years) was a hunter-gatherer population of about five million people, and that a population that appeared to have little effect on the planet’s long-term environment existed for about ten thousand years was a primitive, pre-industrial agricultural population of less than 300 million people. When the global population exceeded 300 million, large-scale (planetary-scale) deforestation began to occur. Once technology advanced to the industrial phase, human population began to grow to very high levels, with much destruction of the biosphere and loss of biodiversity.
Because of the massive destruction caused by human populations of size over 300 million, any forecast that the human population will stabilize at levels over one billion is hard to accept as credible. That so many forecasts lie in this range is an indication of how serious the population / environment problem is.
Additional discussion of population forecasts is presented in Appendix A.
Based on a knowledge of history and an understanding of human nature, it is unreasonable to expect that the global birth rate will drop below replacement level as long as the current human civilization continues. In this situation, the size of the human population would not be expected to decrease and the rate of biospheric destruction from human causes would be expected to continue. It would appear that destruction cannot continue for long, however, for two main reasons. First, the biosphere is finite, is being destroyed at a horrific rate, and is not renewing itself as fast as humanity is destroying it. Species that lose their habitat decrease in size or become extinct. Second, the number of people living in poverty is massive (about six billion) and increasing by about 80 million per year. An unhappy population of this size is a time-bomb ready to explode. Some might add a third reason, that the major energy source that supports the large human population – fossil fuels – is nonrenewable and rapidly exhausting. This factor is ignored by many and dismissed or rejected by many economists, who assert that the energy loss from the exhaustion of fossil fuels will be compensated for, somehow.
The dire problem facing humanity is that these high levels of people are destroying the biosphere, on which human life depends. It does not matter at all that global population tapers off to ten billion or to 16 billion, when massive environmental damage began to occur when the population size exceeded 300 million!
The destruction that is being caused to the biosphere is being caused by 8 billion people and their industrial activity. The current 8 billion people, however are just the “tip of the iceberg.” This 8 billion consists or about one billion people living at a high standard of living and 7 billion people living in poverty. It has been estimated that the people living at a high standard of living consume about 30 times as much energy as people living at a low standard of living (this is an approximate, “nominal,” figure; the ratio varies tremendously by country). In today’s civilization, virtually all of that energy goes into making products that cannot be recycled by the planet’s biosphere.
The really big problem facing mankind is that the 7 billion poor people want to have a high standard of living, similar to that of the people living in economically / industrially developed countries, or the wealthy living in their own countries. If that were to happen, then the amount of energy being used to generate non-biodegradable waste would increase by a factor of about 7 times 30 (using the “nominal” figure), or about 210. So, even if the global population of Earth were suddenly to stop increasing, the growth of energy use, under the planet’s growth-based economic system, would keep increasing.
In view of the massive biospheric damage being caused by just one billion high-level-of-energy users and 7 billion low-level-of-energy users, the amount of damage caused by eight billion high-level-of-energy users would be inconceivable. It is simply not going to happen!
The desire for people living in poverty to a better life has been embodied by the United Nations as a universal right (see The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Appendix E), and leaders of all countries of the world are calling for increased economic growth. Here follows an extract from the book, The energy requirements of a developed world (2016), by Iñaki Arto, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Rosa Lago, Gorka Bueno and Roberto Bermejo: “An adequate energy supply has been identified as a key prerequisite for economic, cultural and social development in complex societies (L A. White, 1943, F. Cottrell, 1955, J. Tainter, 1990). The United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1986 its “Declaration on the Right to Development” (UN, 1986), which established the right to development ‘as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights’, setting out a catalog of objectives for ‘equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education, health services, food, housing, employment and the fair distribution of income’. Ultimately, energy, in its different forms, is essential to provide all these goods and services linked to the achievement of human development targets, playing a key role for overcoming poverty (A. Najam and C. J. Cleveland, 2003, S. Karekezi et al., 2012).”
The principal means by which population growth has been moderated in recent centuries include war, disease, famine, birth control and social engineering. War was an instrument of population control in the Middle Ages, when it was considered the “game of kings.” Examples of the effects of disease include the Black Death (1347 – 1351) and the decimation of North American Indians following the introduction of European diseases from 1492 on. Many famines have occurred in human history (see the Wikipedia article “List of famines” posted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines). Famines can cause the deaths of millions, but they do not have a lasting effect on global population (birth rates continue as before). Examples of birth control include the eugenics movement of the twentieth century, family planning programs, and China’s One-Child policy. Examples of social engineering include women’s education and economic development, which motivates a “demographic transition” from a population having high infant mortality rates and fertility to a population with low infant mortality rates and low fertility.
While the preceding measures may have been successful in slowing the rate of global population growth, they have not caused it to decrease to zero, much less to fall below zero. Fertility rates have fallen to below-replacement levels in a number of economically developed countries, but the high fertility rates of other countries lead to a global net population increase (currently 80 million people per year). There is little evidence that these measures would lead to a global decrease in population – most governments work to avoid decreases in population size and encourage immigration to maintain population levels, should they occur.
The human birth rate is subject to control by individuals and governments, if they choose to do so. At present, most governments leave the decision about how many children a woman has to the family (China discontinued the One Child policy in 2015, and reverted to a Two Child policy, as has been adopted at times in recent years in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Vietnam, India, Singapore and Iran).
Many books about addressing the situation simply propose conservation measures that do not address the fundamental source of the problem (large human numbers and industrial production), would have no long-term effect and do not consider a fundamental paradigm shift in human society’s relationship to the biosphere.
Proposals to decrease human population size by strong measures are generally met with derision and hostility. Perhaps the most famous example of this involves Garrett Hardin. In the 1968 article, “The Tragedy of the Commons” in Science, he described the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment. He expanded his discussion of population and the environment in his 1993 book, Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos (1993), and in his last book, The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia (1999). For his support of abortion and strict immigration control as measures to limit population and environmental damage, the Southern Poverty Law Center branded Hardin a white nationalist, whose publications were "frank in their racism and quasi-fascist ethnonationalism.”
Some proposals, such as John Zerzan’s call for anarchy to improve the human condition, are met with scorn. Civilization, science and technology are now out of the box, and return to an anarchist / primitive lifestyle will not willingly be accepted. It is incumbent on the critic of the present system to suggest ways in which suggested improvements might be accomplished.
While proposals to decrease human population are ridiculed and rejected, proposals of efforts that might enable the high levels of population and industrial production to continue are accepted and even greeted with enthusiasm. These include conservation; pollution control; geoengineering (such as seeding the atmosphere with reflecting chemicals to reduce global warming); and economic development and growth.
Most proposals for action to address the population / environment problem are oriented toward actions that will enable high population and industrial levels to continue, and even to increase. These include proposals to reduce the threat of nuclear war, actions to combat disease, actions to extend human life, efforts to increase food production (e.g., green revolutions), efforts to increase the efficiency of food production, efforts to shift diets from animal protein to vegetable protein (lower the trophic level of food production), efforts to increase energy availability (e.g., fracking, solar electric), efforts to reduce global warming (e.g., geoengineering), and efforts to brainwash the masses into accepting the status quo. These methods do nothing to halt the massive, ongoing destruction of the biosphere and, it follows, the threat of collapse of modern global civilization and the potential extinction of mankind.
A major driver of the continuation of the present global-industrial system is economics. The economist Ester Boserup argued that necessity is the mother of invention, and that food production is driven by demand (rather than the Malthusian view that population is determined by food supply). This viewpoint is generally accepted and promoted, e.g., by the economist Julian Simon.
The global economic / financial / industrial system is highly efficient, designed for growth, and highly integrated (interdependent). These characteristics, along with the fact that increased expected financial returns are associated with increased risk, render it susceptible to large expansions and contractions, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the global recession of 2007-2010. The recent (and ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic illustrates just how fragile the global economy is. Even though the annual death rate from COVID-19 (about two million within the past year) is much less than the annual growth rate of Earth (about 80 million per year), the pandemic caused a major economic dislocation.
Many proposals incorporate rigid constraints, such as no forced population control. It is difficult to control population when efforts to control population are not allowed! The human development goals promoted by the United Nations, such as the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals, do not mention population control, birth control, reduction in human population, reduction in industrial production or the cessation of activities that harm the biosphere. They are focused on economic growth, not on saving the biosphere.
A salient absence of measures employed in recent years date is the use of politics, warfare and organizational science to address the population / environmental problem.
Appendix B presents a list of people who have proposed solutions to the global environmental crisis, along with brief descriptions of some of their proposals. Some of them diagnose the problem and suggest what must be done to solve it, but offer little or no suggestions for accomplishing the suggested change.
Since it is clear that population control measures used in the past have been ineffective, it is of interest to analyze why they have failed, and to consider approaches that overcome the obstacles to achieving a solution.
Appendix A discusses the role of forecasting relative to the global environmental crisis in which we find ourselves at the present time. Many of the forecasts touted by futurists are worse than useless, since they give a false sense of security about the future – they do not adequately indicate the uncertainty of the forecasts, and they are based on the assumption that a large industrial global civilization will continue.
Basing policy decisions for complex systems on forecasts is, in general, a poor way to proceed. The fact is, when it comes to predicting “sea-change” events that have a substantial impact on the human condition, history has shown that we simply cannot predict. More appropriate approaches are afforded by methodologies designed specifically to achieve a particular goal, such as optimization, control theory, systems modeling and analysis, decision theory and game theory.
Many of the standard methodologies for developing control systems are data-intensive and empirical. Addition methodologies that can be applied to the population / environment problem include complexity theory (such as used by Joseph Tainter), Nicholas Taleb’s antifragility and ethics concepts, and the synergetics concepts of Hermann Haken.
The preceding methodologies provide useful frameworks for taking into account a wide range of alternatives, for constructing strategies for systems involving behavioral response, and for constructing strategies for dealing with situations involving much uncertainty, including rare and/or catastrophic events.
While these methodologies have found success in many application areas, they have not proved very useful for addressing the population / environment problem. They are best suited for developing control policies for small, simple, non-evolving systems; for machines such as industrial robots, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), and self-driving cars; and for situations where much data may be collected under controlled conditions.
For developing large complex systems, the methodology of systems engineering has proved useful. In discussing the environmental crisis, it is important to recognize that there are two distinct systems involved. One is the biosphere, and the other is human global civilization. The latter system contained in the former, and totally dependent on the former. On the other hand, the latter is capable of making macroscopic changes to the former. In analyzing and addressing the environmental crisis, systems analysis and modeling is applied to understand the nature of the biosphere, and systems engineering can be applied to develop a human society that would work in harmony with the rest of the biosphere. It is not the goal of systems engineering to manage or control the biosphere, but to develop a human system that accommodates it.
The issue is not that the methodologies for working with systems or developing systems do not work. They do work, and often very well. The mechanisms of the population / environment are well understood, and there is no lack of methodologies that could be applied to improve the situation. The fact is that they are not applied, not used in the real world, to solve the population / environment problem. No entity capable of taking steps capable of reducing human population and industrial activity is willing to do so.
In summary, to date, all attempts to resolve the population / environment problem have failed, dismally. The nature of the population / environment problem is well understood. This understanding rests heavily in science, technology and the humanities. The failure is not due to a lack of understanding of the problem. The reason for the failure is a lack of action by any entity to reduce the size of human population and industrial activity to levels that would halt the continued destruction of the biosphere, and, to the extent possible, repair the damage. The species that have been made extinct are lost forever, but actions can be taken to restore forests, prairies, and wetlands, and to reduce pollution on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere. Human society possesses the capability to solve the population / environment problem – not to restore the lost species, which are gone forever, but to prevent further species loss. All that is required is action.
As will be discussed in the next section, there are a number of reasons for a lack of action. Several principal possibilities that come to mind are (1) traditional ethics do not permit lowering of the human population by any non-voluntary means, in which case the high human population and industrial production will continue until stopped by some external force (such as global nuclear war or decimation of the biosphere); or (2) the humanities have provided us with a flawed system of ethics, which is resulting in flawed response to the population / environment problem; or (3) traditional ethics are well-founded, and it is appropriate to destroy the biosphere, causing the extinction of millions of species, including the human species; (4) all life is sacred, humanity is a cancer having a pernicious impact on the biosphere, destroying life and the diversity of life (causing the extinction of millions of species) on a grand scale, and so, it is advantageous to other life that humanity become extinct (the fact that much of the biosphere’s diversity will be lost before mankind becomes extinct is irrelevant, because, following a mass extinction, a new highly biodiverse system is back again in, say, 50 million years, this time likely without intelligent life (which arose in only one of the previous five mass species extinctions)).
To understand why effective action has not been taken to date, it is helpful to review the process by which the problem evolved, and identify specific factors underlying the lack of action.
Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), presents a detailed description of history of the rise of civilization and its evolution to its present state. Significant factors involved in the rise of civilization included the following:
The end of the last (mini) ice age
The domestication of animals
The development of agricultural crops
The spread of disease
The rise of cities, states and empires; many alternative political systems (monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, republic, democratic republic, plutocracy, fascism, dictatorship); the nature of warfare
The growth of human population
The development of mathematics and science (physics, chemistry, biology)
The development of technology (machines, steam engines, internal combustion engines, gunpowder, weaponry, dynamite, electricity, communications, electric motors, ships, automobiles, aircraft, electronics, radio, television, radar, atomic weapons, computers, information technology, rockets, spacecraft, communication satellites, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, engineering, applied mathematics, economics, capitalism)
The tapping of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas)
Industrial revolution; manufacturing; consumerism
Modern warfare
The control of disease (in plants, animals and human beings)
The development of genetically modified varieties of crops (high-yield, disease resistant, drought resistant, salt resistant)
Human population explosion; globalization; finance; corporatism; economics; capitalist liberal democracy / plutocracy / fascism)
Destruction of the biosphere; the sixth mass species extinction (human caused)
The end of the Petroleum Age
Global warming / climate change
Human society has been described in terms of a small number of phases: the primitive phase, prior to the use of tools; the hunter-gatherer phase, in which human beings used tools; the agricultural phase (or Agricultural Age), from about 10,000 years ago; and the industrial phase, which began about 200 years ago with the Industrial Revolution. The current period of the industrial phase, in which the economic value of services exceeds the value of manufactured goods, is often referred to as post-industrial, although that term is a misnomer since the importance of industry and the level of industrial production have not diminished, but increased. The post-industrial phase is also known as the Information Age. The Information Age began in the mid-20th century and is characterized by a shift from the basic industries established by the Industrial Revolution to the high-technology industries of nuclear energy, electronics, communications, computers and information technology.
Books such as Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel provide a good description of how human society evolved to its current state, but they do not explain why, given the intellectual brilliance of humankind, the situation could possibly have evolved to the present one, in which, by its own actions, humankind is on the brink of disaster, in an existential crisis in which population may collapse, civilization may collapse, the biosphere as we know it may be destroyed, and mankind become extinct. There have been indicators and warnings from the time of Thomas Malthus (1700s) that human population growth could not continue exponentially for very long. Countless studies, articles and books have documented the situation. A number of books on the subject of population and the environment are listed in the References.
There is a global awareness of the graveness of the situation, but no effective steps are being taken to rectify the situation. How and why did it get this far?
There are many factors that help explain why mankind has failed to take effective action to solve the environmental crisis. Most of them relate to human drives and values. We shall now summarize aspects of these two topics.
Human Drives
Human drives affecting the population problem include the drive to reproduce, the instinct to survive, curiosity, acquisitiveness, greed, and envy. In his acceptance speech on December 11, 1950, for the Nobel Prize for Literature, Bertrand Russell described the desires that drive human behavior. Here follow excerpts from that speech. See Appendix C for additional excerpts from the speech.
All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be dutiful. If you wish to know what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths.
Man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this.
[Russell identifies four such infinite desires — acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power.]
Acquisitiveness — the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods — is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries. I once befriended two little girls from Estonia, who had narrowly escaped death from starvation in a famine. They lived in my family, and of course had plenty to eat. But they spent all their leisure visiting neighbouring farms and stealing potatoes, which they hoarded. Rockefeller, who in his infancy had experienced great poverty, spent his adult life in a similar manner.
However much you may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you.
But acquisitiveness, although it is the mainspring of the capitalist system, is by no means the most powerful of the motives that survive the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much stronger motive. The world would be a happier place than it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation.
Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying “Look at me.” “Look at me” is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame.
But great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering, there is one which outweighs them all. I mean the love of power. Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is not by any means the same thing. What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it is easy to have glory without power ….Many people prefer glory to power, but on the whole these people have less effect upon the course of events than those who prefer power to glory… Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.
Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates.
In any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure.
It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities. If your capacities are theoretical or technical, you will contribute to knowledge or technique, and, as a rule, your activity will be useful. If you are a politician you may be actuated by love of power, but as a rule this motive will join itself on to the desire to see some state of affairs realized which, for some reason, you prefer to the status quo.
I come now to other motives which, though in a sense less fundamental than those we have been considering, are still of considerable importance. The first of these is love of excitement. Human beings show their superiority to the brutes by their capacity for boredom, though I have sometimes thought, in examining the apes at the zoo, that they, perhaps, have the rudiments of this tiresome emotion. However that may be, experience shows that escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings.
What is serious about excitement is that so many of its forms are destructive. It is destructive in those who cannot resist excess in alcohol or gambling. It is destructive when it takes the form of mob violence. And above all it is destructive when it leads to war. It is so deep a need that it will find harmful outlets of this kind unless innocent outlets are at hand. There are such innocent outlets at present in sport, and in politics so long as it is kept within constitutional bounds. But these are not sufficient, especially as the kind of politics that is most exciting is also the kind that does most harm. Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.
Our mental make-up is suited to a life of very severe physical labor. I used, when I was younger, to take my holidays walking. I would cover twenty-five miles a day, and when the evening came I had no need of anything to keep me from boredom, since the delight of sitting amply sufficed. But modern life cannot be conducted on these physically strenuous principles. A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive — a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable — other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement… I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.
Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting… More seriously, pains should be taken to provide constructive outlets for the love of excitement. Nothing in the world is more exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and many more people are capable of experiencing such moments than is sometimes thought.
[End of Russell speech extract.]
Human Values
With respect to human drives, the terms involved, such as acquisitiveness and love of power, are well understood, and they have not been defined here. With respect to values, however, some basic concepts are not widely understood, or may not have unique definitions, or may be described by different terms. The concepts involved in these terms are important considerations in the discussion of why no effective effort is being undertaken to resolve the environmental problem, when it is so important. It is hence useful to define a number of terms before proceeding. These include right, privilege, entitlement, natural right, legal right, natural law, alienable right, unalienable right, inalienable right, ethics, morality, moral absolutism (“absolute morality”) and consequentialism (“relative morality”). A discussion of these terms is presented in Appendix D. Most of the definitions presented there are obtained from Wikipedia.
A detailed analysis of the biological origins of human values is presented in The Biological Origin of Human Values (1977) by George Edgin Pugh.
Morality has little effect on the environmental crisis
Many people have decried the destruction of the environment from an ethical or moral viewpoint. It is wrong to cause millions of species to become extinct. It is wrong to sentence all future generations of human beings to live on a biodiversity-impoverished planet. It is wrong for billions of people to live in grinding poverty and misery. Yet, despite that fact that the situation could be changed, nothing effective is done. The proclaimed ethics don’t matter. The proclaimed morality doesn’t matter. The proclaimed human rights don’t matter. We see very clearly that, relative to the environmental crisis, the stated ethics, morality, and rights that global civilization proclaims, are all irrelevant. All that matters is survival ethics, and relative morality, à la Nicholas Taleb (as discussed in Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012) and Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (2018)) or Robert D. Kaplan (as discussed in Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (2002).
In a civilized society there is a distribution of power and, it follows, of status, income and wealth. The structure of civilized society is configured by those in charge – the controllers – to ensure their security and to increase their power and wealth. The current system of civilization does a tremendous job of creating fabulous wealth for the controllers. Perhaps the most salient and amazing feature of present human society is that the apparent failure of the controllers to ensure their long-term security. According to many competent scientists, the system is on verge of catastrophic collapse, and no effective measures have been taken to change this.
Mankind is very aware of the problem. It has much knowledge about the nature of the problem. It possesses the science, technology and resources to solve the problem, if it chose to do so. The really big question at the present time is: If mankind possesses the knowledge, technology and resources to solve the population / environment problem, why does it choose not to do so? There are many reasons for this, associated with the characteristics of human beings, both leaders and followers. It is apparent from history that ethics has little to do with solving the environmental crisis. What does?
Two authors who have analyzed the phenomenon of societal collapse are Joseph Tainter and Jared Diamond. Tainter’s thesis is that, in the process of addressing problems that confront them, societies evolve in complexity, that maintenance of that complexity involves a cost in energy and resources, and when the point is reached that the maintenance cost exceeds the availability of energy and resources, then the society collapses.
Other writers, such as William Catton and Meadows et al. present theories of collapse (such as “overshoot and collapse”), but this discussion will be limited to consideration of Diamond and Tainter.
Jared Diamond categorizes the reasons for the collapse of societies into four categories, as follows (from his book, Collapse (2005)):
“First of all, a group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives. Second, when the problem does arrive, the group may fail to perceive it. Then, after they perceive it, they may fail even to try to solve it. Finally, they may try to solve it but may not succeed.”
Diamond’s work recognizes the importance of the environment in shaping a society. From the Wikipedia article, “Environmental determinism”: Environmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Many scholars underscore that this approach supported colonialism and eurocentrism, and devalued human agency in non-Western societies. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst, Ian Morris, and other social scientists sparked a revival of the theory during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This "neo-environmental determinism" school of thought examines how geographic and ecological forces influence state-building, economic development, and institutions.
Tainter’s and Diamond’s theories are derived from observing the collapse of historical societies, some of which collapsed quickly and some of which collapsed slowly. They are not very useful for predicting the nature of the decline of future societies, since they associate the nature of collapse with behavioral and decision factors, which are difficult to predict.
Modern global society has not yet collapsed, and so it is not yet known into which of Diamond’s and Tainter’s categories it will fall, if any, when it does. The current population / environmental problem may be considered to be a partial collapse of the biosphere, in view of the very substantial damage it has suffered (sixth mass species extinction), and it may be considered to be a substantial failure of global civilization, in view of the very high number of people living in poverty. From this viewpoint, it is of interest to see into which categories this partial collapse falls.
The global response to the destruction of the biosphere has involved all four of Diamond’s categories. The large-scale burning of fossil fuels began in the late 1800s, before people realized the impact that this would have on global warming from pollution of the atmosphere and biodiversity loss from deforestation. The sixth mass species extinction began with the extinction of megafauna by human beings with the appearance of modern man, between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. The mass extinction of plants has occurred mainly in the past two hundred years, since the Industrial Revolution, heavy use of fossil fuels, human population explosion and mass deforestation. Mankind has the knowledge and technology to solve the problem, but has exerted only slight efforts that have not solved the problem. It is fair to say that mankind has hardly tried to solve the problem. To the extent that it has tried, those efforts have been a failure – global warming increases, and mass extinction increases, largely unabated.
At the present time, global human society falls primarily into Diamond’s category three: it is not even trying to solve the problem. From the point of view of Tainter’s theory, society still possesses the energy resources to maintain its system.
Under category three, Diamond discusses the tragedy of the commons. He observes that there are examples where this problem has been overcome.
From the Wikipedia article, “Tragedy of the commons”: The tragedy of the commons describes a situation in economic science when individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use, act independently according to their own self-interest and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action. The concept originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist William Forster Lloyd, who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land (also known as a "common") in Great Britain and Ireland. The concept became widely known as the "tragedy of the commons" over a century later after an article written by Garrett Hardin in 1968.
Although open-access resource systems may collapse due to overuse (such as in over-fishing), many examples have existed and still do exist where members of a community with regulated access to a common resource co-operate to exploit those resources prudently without collapse or even creating "perfect order". Elinor Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic science for demonstrating exactly this concept in her book Governing the Commons, which included examples of how local communities were able to do this without top-down regulations or privatization.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
Today’s economic problem exemplifies the tragedy of the commons, from the point of view that today’s population of human beings shares Earth’s biosphere with all future generations. The destruction of the biosphere by Earth’s present human population denies all future populations the opportunity to benefit from the biosphere. Diamond’s and Ostrom’s examples involve situations in which the users of the commons – other than its natural (non-human) denizens – are able to speak for themselves. The unusual aspect of today’s environmental problem is that the users of the biosphere who will be most affected by its destruction are future generations, unable to speak for themselves.
Both Tainter and Diamond present examples to support their theories of collapse, relative to historical societies, and some discussion of application of their theories to address the current environmental crisis. The truly amazing aspect of the current global environmental crisis is that, although the nature of the situation is well understood, and although mankind possesses the knowledge and resources to resolve the problem, it chooses not to do so. Appendix F presents some additional discussion of reasons why mankind does not choose to solve the problem. This issue will be addressed again in a later section.
Once that it is accepted that the planet Earth and its biosphere have a limited ability to support a large number of human beings, the question that naturally follows is how many people can the planet support, i.e., to estimate the planet’s human carrying capacity. Most books simple recognize that there are limits, but few estimate what those limits are. The most famous book on this topic is Joel E. Cohen’s book, How Many People Can the Earth Support (1996). Cohen’s general answer to this question is how many at what material level of living, under what social and political conditions, and in what sort of environment.
From consideration of the amount of energy required for hunting and gathering, it is estimated that the size of the human population that existed for millions of years in harmony with the biosphere was on the order of five million people. The estimate of five million people for a global hunter-gatherer population is obtained by estimating the amount of habitable land required for a hunter-gatherer and multiplying the global amount of habitable land by that estimate. The population level no doubt varied over time, as environmental conditions (climate changes, ice ages) came and went, and varied locally as migrations occurred. It is generally estimated that global human population density averaged about eight persons per hundred square kilometers of habitable land. See Pimentel and Pimentel’s Food, Energy, and Society (1979, revised edition 1996) for detailed discussion; Cohen observes that mitochondrial (DNA) evidence suggests that the human population may have dropped at one time from about 100,000 persons to 10,000 persons.
Cohen presents lists of alternative definitions of carrying capacity and of estimates of carrying capacity, constructed by many researchers. The estimates vary substantially, with many falling in the range from four to 16 billion people.
Pimentel and Pimentel present detailed discussion of the various factors, such as energy and water, that constrain population growth or limit the quality of human life. They avoid presenting specific estimates of carrying capacity, but suggest that two billion people might be a reasonable size.
Population density can vary widely over space, with substantially higher densities in some areas.
Except for the book Can America Survive? (CAN), all books that estimate carrying capacity focus on the issue of what is the maximum number of people that can be supported under various conditions, or what is an optimal number of people, relative to some criterion. The book Can America Survive? approaches this issue from a quite different point of view, and answers the question, what is a level that assures the long-term survival of the human species living in harmony (stable equilibrium) with a biosphere similar to the one in which it evolved. CAN answers it by asserting that, although it cannot estimate the maximal or minimal level of population that will accomplish that goal with high likelihood, it can estimate a feasible population, i.e., one that works (satisfies the goal / constraints / requirements), even though it may not be optimal in some sense.
Apart from attempting to satisfy mankind’s insatiable desire for more, there is no convincing argument for maximizing the number of human beings on Earth. What are people for? It may be argued that a certain minimal number or distribution is desirable from the point of view of avoiding extinction from a localized event, or that a certain minimum number is required to achieve some specific purpose (such as build the Great Pyramid of Giza, or develop the theory of electricity and magnetism), but, apart from considerations such as these, the main effect of a large number of people is to cause a large amount of environmental damage. The argument that mankind should obey the Biblical exhortation to fill the Earth with people may be appealing to some people, but for most, it leads to massive overcrowding and misery.
A known feasible human population that accomplishes the goal is the one that existed for millions of years, prior to the advent of civilization. As just discussed, it has been estimated to be on the order of five million people. It has been cited by a number of authors (e.g., US Bureau of the Census, Pimentel and Pimentel, Lynn Collins and John Leslie). It is represented to be of low accuracy, since it no doubt fluctuated considerably over time. As noted earlier, Cohen estimates that the number may have been as low as 10,000 at one time. The estimate is sometimes qualified as “within an order of magnitude.” This means that the estimate is being asserted within an order of magnitude, i.e., is approximate within a power of ten (above or below).
The size five million is just one feasible population size. Other feasible levels could be substantially smaller or larger. The criterion for assessing feasibility is whether the size is consistent with a low likelihood of human extinction from human causes and a small impact on the Earth’s biosphere. Whether a population is considered feasible depends on the impact that it has on the rest of the biosphere, and that would depend on many factors, including its location and activities. The size of 300 million people supported by primitive agriculture appeared to continue for hundreds of years during the First Millennium with little impact on the global environment. The population of one billion equipped with simple tools (axes, iron plows, animal power) in the Second Millennium caused much ecological damage (destruction of forests in Europe and the Great Plains in North America).
The problem of deciding on a size and structure of human population is a decision problem, and it can be addressed by applying the methodology of decision theory. In decision theory, a standard approach is to specify a decision criterion, and seek solutions that satisfy the criterion. The salient feature of the problem of deciding on a human population level and structure is that if the wrong decision is made, the result could be the destruction of the biosphere, sentencing all future generations of mankind to live in a degraded environment, or it could lead to the extinction of mankind. The viewpoint adopted in CAN is that it is desirable to attempt to keep low the likelihood that catastrophic outcomes such as these might occur. To this end, it adopts the minimal regret decision criterion – it seeks a solution that minimizes (or at least keeps at a low level) the regret associated with the outcome. It does not attempt to minimize or maximize (extremize, optimize) the size of the human population. It seeks to find a population (size and structure) that works (to achieve the stated goal), without worrying, at least for the present, on whether it is best, or optimal, with respect to any measure other than the minimal-regret criterion.
The discussion in CAS cited a population of five million as one example of a minimal-regret population. It may very well be that the human population could be substantially larger than five million, live in harmony with the biosphere, and have a high likelihood of long-term survival. This article will consider a number of different populations, of sizes exceeding five million, as candidates that satisfy the minimal-regret criterion.
The size of five million may be regarded as a lower bound. A disadvantage of a very small population, or a geographically compact one is that a single small local event could wipe it out.
While carrying capacity is a useful concept for general discussion of population size relative to an environment and for explaining reasons for population collapse, it is difficult to quantify.
A variety of energy sources is currently used by humanity: solar (includes solar electric, solar thermal, wind, tides, ocean thermal, biofuel (wood, biomass and oil crops), hydroelectric, all of which utilize solar radiation, directly or indirectly), petroleum, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and geothermal. Petroleum, coal and natural gas are also solar – “ancient sunlight” – but not renewable (i.e., not based on the current flux of solar radiation impinging on the planet). In the long term, the sources of energy available to mankind are current solar, geothermal, and nuclear.
Whether nuclear energy is considered renewable depends on the way in which the nuclear fuel is used in a reactor. With the early designs of nuclear reactors, the global supply of fuel would last about a century, and was hence not renewable. With modern breeder reactors, the world’s supply of nuclear fuel could last for millions of years, and is renewable.
Some global energy statistics follow.
International Energy Agency Key World Energy Statistics 2020
Global share of total energy supply by source, 2018
Fossil fuels 81.3 (Oil 31.6%; Coal 26.9%; Natural gas 22.8%)
Biofuels and waste: 9.3%
Nuclear 4.9%
Hydro 2.5%
Other 2.0%
In 2017, solar power provided 1.7% of total worldwide electricity production.
From Our World in Data: In 2019, almost two-thirds (63.3%) of global electricity came from fossil fuels. Of the 36.7% from low-carbon sources, renewables accounted for 26.3% and nuclear energy for 10.4%.
From the Wikipedia article, “Energy in the United States”: Data from 2019 shows that 37% of the nation's energy originates from petroleum, 32% from natural gas, 11% from coal, 11% from renewable energy, and 8% from nuclear power.
From the Wikipedia article, “Renewable energy”: Based on REN21's 2017 report, renewables contributed 19.3% to humans' global energy consumption and 24.5% to their generation of electricity in 2015 and 2016, respectively. This energy consumption is divided as 8.9% coming from traditional biomass, 4.2% as heat energy (modern biomass, geothermal and solar heat), 3.9% from hydroelectricity and the remaining 2.2% is electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, and other forms of biomass.
Nuclear energy is very high-tech, and requires much security and technical oversight. Using breeder reactors, nuclear energy can last for a very long time (millions, if not billions, of years). Breeder reactors are described in the Wikipedia article posted at Internet website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor. The use of nuclear energy has several disadvantages in a low-population world (which is expected to ultimately happen). These include: (1) the high demands for security and technical oversight are very costly; (2) if the high-tech population of Earth were geographically concentrated, a single nuclear disaster could wipe out the planet’s high-tech human society (this danger is not present in today’s situation, with civilization dispersed over the planet and nuclear power plants far apart); (3) in a low-population setting, all of society’s energy needs could be supplied with a single nuclear power plant, and it is not prudent to be in the vulnerable position of depending on all energy from a single source; and (4) in a very low-population world, all needed energy can be supplied by renewable solar and geothermal, in which case nuclear energy is not necessary.
Energy Availability Is Not the Problem
Apart from a human-caused disaster such as a collapse of the biosphere because of global warming or habitat destruction, energy availability might appear to be the main factor that will determine the size and distribution of human population and the scope of its activities (primitive, hunter-gatherer, agricultural, technological), with politics, religion, war and technology as secondary factors. This is not the case. Energy availability is not a limiting factor. Nuclear energy has the potential to provide a virtually unlimited amount of energy, both for creating waste and for cleaning it up. When fossil fuels exhaust, all of the energy provided by them, and more, can be provided indefinitely by nuclear energy.
Production of Non-Biodegradable Products Is Not Necessarily the Problem
It might be thought that a limiting factor associated with nuclear energy is the production of nonbiodegradable products. That, too, is not a limiting factor. The energy cost associated with long-term storage of radioactive waste can be a small fraction of the total energy produced. Nuclear energy may be used to produce nonradioactive products that are not biodegradable, but those, too, can be converted to harmless waste, similar to mine tailings, that can be deposited in ocean beds for processing by geological processes (formation of sedimentary rock, eventual ingestion into the Earth’s core). The key is that the nuclear energy not interfere with maintenance of the biosphere, that is, that some of the energy be used to reprocess the waste associated with the energy use.
Entropy Is Not the Problem
Some writers have argued that a limiting factor with respect to mankind’s use of energy is entropy. Entropy is an inverse measure of the capacity of a system to do work. Whenever work is done by a system, there is less energy available to do additional work, and the entropy of the system increases. A system’s entropy can be decreased only by adding energy to it from an external source. For example, the trees of a forest may be burned to produce energy to run machines and manufacture products. The burning converts the trees’ wood into heat, carbon dioxide, ash, water vapor and perhaps a myriad of other manufactured products. The energy content of the trees has been used to do work. The capacity of the system to do that amount of work is gone (the system’s entropy has increased), until solar energy is used to grow new trees and replenish the store of available energy (the system’s entropy is decreased).
Note that entropy is a global attribute of a system, not a characteristic of an individual component of a system. It can be represented as the expected value, or mean, of a certain probability distribution.
Some writers have implied that the burning of fossil fuels has increased the entropy level of the Earth system, and that this represents a problem. It is not necessarily a problem. If the burning of fossil fuels (or the use of nuclear energy, or the diversion of solar energy to support human activities) decreases the capacity of the biosphere to maintain itself, it is a problem. Otherwise, it is not.
Energy availability is not a key factor limiting human population size, structure and activities. Entropy is not a key factor. The key factor limiting human population size, distribution and activities is the state of the biosphere. The survival of mankind and the quality of its existence depend on that.
Diversion of Solar Energy from Biological Uses to Industrial Use Is Part of the Problem
The environmental crisis has many aspects, including global warming and mankind’s wanton extinction of millions of species caused by clearing of rainforests. A significant aspect that is not as evident as these is that the biosphere lives off the current flux of solar energy, and a large portion of current solar energy is being diverted from photosynthesis by the biosphere’s plants to other uses. Many people believe that industrial use of solar energy is a solution to the “energy problem.” It is not. At the present time, it is estimated that about half of all solar radiation is being put to human use other than maintaining the biosphere. The biosphere works because all of the waste produced by all of the organisms in it are reprocessed. As human beings destroy forests and pollute the oceans, less and less of the biosphere is being rejuvenated. For mankind to survive, it is absolutely essential that most solar radiation be allowed to be processed by living plants. When solar energy is put to non-biospheric purposes, the biosphere is degraded, and mankind’s existence is threatened.
The biosphere is the engine that uses current solar energy to maintain itself, and provide a habitat for mankind and the other fauna and flora of Earth.
A very apt analogy to the biosphere’s functioning is the comparison of the biosphere’s plants, such as those of the Brazilian rain forest, to the lungs of a human being. A person’s lungs are necessary for the person to live. If the lungs are destroyed, then the person dies. If the biosphere’s plants are destroyed, then the biosphere dies.
Industrial energy systems, such as solar panels, hydroelectric dams, coal-fueled power plants, biofuels, geothermal or nuclear power plants, do not restore anything back into biological life, i.e., they do not rejuvenate the biosphere. Only the living biosphere does that. If part of the biosphere system is destroyed, such as burning of the rain forest in the Amazon Basin of Brazil, then a portion of the planet’s capacity to maintain the biosphere is destroyed.
The cutting down of a few trees in a location like Maine, for example, has little effect on the biosphere. The biodiversity is low and the topsoil remains intact. There is little species loss. In eighty years, new trees have taken the place of the old ones. This situation hardly differs from the normal life-growth-death cycle of the trees. If trees are cut down in Amazonia, however, the results are quite different. The region is very biodiverse.
From the article, “The Amazon: Nutrient-rich rainforests on useless soils” posted on the Deutsche Welle website at https://www.dw.com/en/the-amazon-nutrient-rich-rainforests-on-useless-soils/a-50139632. Nowhere else in the world is the number of animal and plant species as high as in the Amazon rainforest. Not even the rainforests in Asia or Africa can compare. The Amazon region has more species per square kilometer than in the whole of Europe. One example: In just one hectare (about the size of a sports field), researchers were able to identify more than 450 tree species. In all of Germany, by comparison, there aren't even 100. The numbers are so huge that it's difficult to imagine how such a thing is possible.
The soil is of poor quality. It is laterite, which, without forest cover, turns brick-hard in a few years, incapable of supporting either crop-growing or rainforest. The biodiversity is lost, and the oxygen-generating capacity of the cut-down area is lost.
The key issue here is the sustainability of the harvesting of the trees. In Maine, a small amount of tree harvesting has no significant long-term effect on the biodiversity of the biosphere or in its functioning to support itself and all of the species that depend on it. In Amazonia, a small amount of harvesting causes long-term damage, and long-term reduction in the capacity of the biosphere to maintain itself and the species that depend on it for their existence.
Placing solar panels on desert land has little long-term impact on biodiversity and bioreplenishment, if little of the energy used to manufacture them was diverted from use by the biosphere. Placing solar panels on biologically productive land, and diverting significant amounts of solar energy from the biosphere to support the industrial processes used to manufacture and maintain them, does.
The Key Issue Is Whether Human Energy Use Damages the Biosphere, and by How Much
Human use of energy can be harmful to the biosphere in many different ways. It may be used to destroy part of the biosphere and cause the extinction of many species, such as in clearing a rainforest. It may be used to create and disseminate chemicals that poison the land, water and air, and the creatures who inhabit the biosphere. It may be used to pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. It may be used to create nonbiodegradable waste products that cause long-lasting pollution. It may divert solar energy from being used by plants, interfering with the biosphere’s rejuvenation process.
If these things were done on a small scale, the total damage to the biosphere could be negligible. The environmental crisis of today results from the fact that they are being done on a grand scale. Human beings living a primitive existence, even though they may number in the millions, do not cause significant damage to the environment and biosphere. The damage that they cause is repaired by the biosphere. The waste that they generate is biodegradable. The problem arises with large-scale industrial activity, which causes damage and generates waste of a type or at a rate such that the biosphere cannot restore itself.
Human beings can exist in large numbers, and they can engage in industrial activity, without causing significant harm to the biosphere. The issue is one of scale. If mankind is to exist for a long time in a biodiversity-rich environment similar to the one in which it evolved, it must place stringent limits on industrial activity. At the extremes, a low level of industrial activity may be achieved by a large population engaging in little industrial activity, or a small population engaging in significant industrial activity. The fact is, however, that now that humanity has experienced the benefits of industrial technology, most people want the products and services associated with it. All the nations’ leaders are calling for industrial development, and the United Nations has proclaimed that all human beings have a basic human right to development. So, realistically, achieving peace with the planet can be achieved only by keeping human numbers sufficiently low that their combined industrial activity does not cause significant harm to the biosphere. Regrettably, that is not at all the situation today.
Wrap-Up
Industrial energy is used to provide heat, to power machines, to build infrastructure, and to produce the manufactured products used by mankind.
The building of infrastructure and human settlement has caused tremendous damage to the biosphere. The forests of Europe have been largely destroyed, as has the tallgrass prairie of North America. The building of roads in Amazonia is leading to the rapid destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. The building of the Welland Canal of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1830s introduced sea lampreys to the Great Lakes, leading to the collapse of game fish there. Mass travel has introduced invasive species around the world, including starlings in North America, boa constrictors in Florida, and rabbits and foxes in Australia. The ongoing worldwide mass extinction of amphibians is considered to be primarily the result of human-caused habitat loss, disease and climate change. Building of dams and reservoirs for hydroelectric power has caused extensive destruction of wild rivers, such as Kariba Dam / Lake Kariba, Bratsk Dam / Bratsk Reservoir, Daniel-Johnson Dam / Manicouagan Reservoir, Akosomba Dam / Lake Volta, Aswan High Dam / Lake Nasser, Three Gorges Dam / Three Gorges Reservoir, Hoover Dam / Lake Mead, Glen Canyon Dam / Lake Powell, Grand Coulee Dam / Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake and Bonneville Dam / Lake Bonneville (see the Wikipedia article, “List of reservoirs by volume” for more). The building of dams along the Columbia River in western United States and Canada caused massive damage to the landscape and ecosystem, and wiped out salmon fishing in much of the Columbia River system. Each immigrant to the United States causes the destruction of about one acre of natural land, for infrastructure (roads, parking lots, homes, buildings). Industrial-scale fishing caused the collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery.
To produce industrial products, industrial energy is used to transform molecules of certain types into molecules of other types, such as converting mineral oxides (ores) into elemental metals, or oil into plastic.
The manufacturing process generates waste – waste produced during the manufacturing process and the waste produced when the manufactured product is disposed of at the end of its useful life. For mankind to live in harmony with the biosphere, this waste must be disposed of in a way that does not harm the biosphere. Some wastes can be handled simply by expending additional energy, such as capturing carbon dioxide or recycling. For some wastes, such as herbicides and pesticides that poison the soil, lakes and wildlife, and gasses that pollute the atmosphere, their production causes serious damage to the biosphere, and it is very difficult to repair the damage (i.e., remove the pollutants). If the environment is to be protected or rejuvenated, this type of destruction must cease.
With respect to the global environmental crisis, industrial energy systems such as fossil fuels, solar panels, hydro and nuclear energy are not the inherent problem, as long as they are not used to damage or degrade the biosphere (such as by producing industrial chemicals to pollute or poison the land, oceans and atmosphere, or machines to cut down forests). The waste that they produce must be containable and capable of being totally recycled or disposed of in a manner that does not degrade the biosphere. They must not divert solar energy that is needed to maintain the biosphere.
Industrial energy is generally not used to convert the biosphere’s waste products into new plants and animals. That process is accomplished, very efficiently, by the biosphere, using solar radiation and photosynthesis, and does not use electricity. Industrial energy does not recreate trees that have been burned. It does not recreate species that have been made extinct.
To reiterate a key point: Fossil fuels, solar panels and nuclear power plants can be used to produce industrial wastes that have the potential to harm the biosphere. To the extent that these wastes are recycled or converted back to readily biodegradable products, they are not a serious problem. For example, nuclear power could be used to convert every square meter of laterite created by clear-cutting and burning of the Amazon rainforest back into a sound base for rainforest. By the law of entropy, of course, this restoration process would require more energy to accomplish than was obtained from clearing the forest. And, of course, it does not replace the countless number of species that were destroyed.
Population growth cannot continue forever on a finite world.
Economic growth cannot continue forever on a finite world.
Exponential growth is explosive growth, and explosions do not last very long. Perhaps the most common example of exponential growth is compound interest. A loan earning compound interest cannot continue indefinitely. Without a reduction in the principal or the interest, the amount owed eventually grows to astronomical levels. Either the loan must be repaid or forgiven, or it will end in default. Just two hundred years of exponential growth of industrial society has resulted in substantial changes to the ecology of an entire planet. (For discussion of compound interest, see Ellen Hodgson Brown’s book, The Web of Debt (2007, revised and updated 2008); or George S. Clason’s The Richest Man in Babylon (the original version, restored and revised, 2007.)
All large living creatures go through periods of exponential growth. It is absolutely necessary to grow from a single cell to a being consisting of trillions of cells, in a short period of time. But the growth is rigidly controlled. It follows a “sigmoidal” (or logistic) growth curve of exponential growth followed by cessation of exponential growth and non-growth equilibrium maintenance. A problem with human population is that for the past few thousand years the growth rate has almost always been positive, not zero or negative.
A key issue is the extent to which the biosphere can be degraded before some sort of collapse occurs. To date, an estimated 18 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed by Brazilians. It has been observed that when the destruction of a rainforest exceeds the neighborhood of 20 percent, rainfall patterns may be seriously disrupted and it may collapse catastrophically and transition to a different form of land cover, such as savanna. The issue here is the “tipping point.” By tolerating the continued clearing of the Amazon rainforest, mankind is “playing with fire.”
The rate of global human population growth has declined in recent years, but the absolute level of population is incredibly high and unsustainable. More significantly, a large proportion of the population (i.e., the seven billion residing outside of industrially developed countries) is endeavoring to increase its standard of living, and hence energy use, by a large factor, e.g., 30. The high level of population and industrial activity continues to damage and destroy the biosphere.
Population growth and industrial growth will continue, since modern civilization has embraced growth-based economics, not steady-state economics. Opportunities for growth in wealth are much greater in a growing society than in a steady-state one. Leaders lie about the dismal quality of life that economics has brought to billions of people by focusing on rates, rather than numbers. They assert, year after year, that the mean monetary income of billions of people is increasing, when the significant fact is that those people remain in grinding poverty, year after year.
Biospheric degradation will continue as long as human numbers and industrial production remain high. Now that the human population is so large, the population growth rate is now essentially irrelevant. Politicians around the globe tout the slowing of the growth rate as an indicator of success, but it is in fact an indicator of failure. The global industrial system is already so large that it is destroying the biosphere. Given this dire situation, calls for more growth are suicidal, insane. To save the biosphere from further destruction and return it to its state of just a few hundred years ago will require a massive reduction in the number of human beings and industrial production, not a leveling off. The number of human beings and industrial production are now massive and modifying the biosphere substantially.
To halt destruction of the biosphere, the amount of energy used for industrial processes must be drastically reduced. With all of the world’s leaders calling for increased economic growth, and the United Nations calling for an increased standard of living for all people, the planet is headed for a catastrophe. Actually, it is already in a catastrophe – what it is really headed for is catastrophic collapse.
In today’s political climate (human-centered, tolerant, permissive, extreme / asymmetrical human rights, collapse-denial, collapse-indifferent), large human numbers and large-scale industrialization will continue for as long as possible.
In his book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992), Francis Fukuyama argues that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government. In view of the massive amount of poverty and massive destruction of the environment that this system has caused, that conclusion would appear to be absurd.
Because high levels of large human numbers and industrial production are causing so much misery for people and so much damage to the environment, they will not continue forever. They will eventually decline. How long will that be, and what will be the nature of the decline?
History shows that complex societies collapse. The term “society” is vague, and could refer to a cohesive group of people from the size of a village to global civilization. The term “complex society” will be taken here to refer to a society of some size, such as a world nation, or empire, or global civilization. This article is concerned with the future of global civilization. A difficulty in addressing the issue of the future of global industrial civilization, such as how long it will last and whether it collapses rapidly or declines slowly is that today’s global industrial civilization is the first of its kind. There are no empirical data to analyze and use as a basis for making predictions. The closest thing available are major empires, such as the Roman and British empires, and those empires did not face the environmental challenges that today’s global civilization faces.
The world has seen many empires rise and fall. The Wikipedia page “List of largest empires,” lists about 200 of them. They are all gone. Of today’s nations, most are less than one hundred years old, and most of the old ones have seen many governments come and go. It would appear that most large human societies do not last very long.
The likelihood that growth in human population and industrial activity will taper off and stabilize at high levels for a long time would appear to be nil. Current levels are destroying the biosphere at a horrific rate, and making substantial changes to the soil, oceans and atmosphere. To save the biosphere, it would appear that the future will include a substantial decline in human population and industrial production. History and experience show that complex systems such as human civilization generally do not decline gracefully, but tend to collapse catastrophically.
This phenomenon has been discussed by a number of authors, including Joseph Tainter, William Catton, Donella Meadows et al. and Jared Diamond. There are several reasons why collapse occurs suddenly or catastrophically. One is the occurrence of a significant disruptive event, such as plague or war. The primary reason underlying the collapse of North American indigenous societies following the arrival of a few small parties of conquistadors in the 1400s and 1500s was not military defeat but the arrival of Old-World diseases such as smallpox. The primary reason for the collapse of the Plains Indians in the 1800s was the overwhelming invasion by European settlers with superior technology.
As discussed by Tainter, there are examples of societies that collapsed slowly. The explanation for the slow collapse is that there were neighboring states that took actions that slowed the collapse. There is no “neighboring state” to Earth’s present global civilization.
A primary reason for sudden collapse is the inverse relationship between the growth of a society and the carrying capacity of its environment, and the phenomenon of “overshoot and collapse.” It happens to societies that are dynamic and growing. When the society is young and growing, its growth is little constrained by environmental limits. As it grows, however, it tends to degrade the environment on which it depends, or fill the available space. Because the carrying capacity is decreasing and the population size is increasing, the population reaches the carrying capacity limit quickly. The realization of what is happening may not sink in until resource limits are reached, or, even if the society realizes the problem, it may have insufficient time, will, resources and skills to adjust. The response to the resource limits is too late to adjust the growth rate to accommodate the carrying capacity limit. The requirement for resources sufficient to sustain historic levels of growth quickly exceeds their availability. The growth ceases, and a significant crisis occurs. The society does not adjust to the new conditions, and collapses.
The phenomenon of overshoot and collapse is discussed by a number of authors, including Tainter, Catton, Diamond and Meadows. Societies that have evolved slowly in harmony (equilibrium) with their environment, such as indigenous peoples around the world, tend not to experience overshoot and collapse. It is a characteristic of dynamic, growing, expanding societies.
Many authors have discussed the fact that the Fossil-Fuel Age is drawing to a close. These include Thom Hartmann in The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (1998); Richard Heinberg in The Party’s Over (2003); Kenneth F. Deffeyes in Hubbert’s Peak (2001); Matthew R. Simmons in Twilight in the Desert (2005); Paul Roberts in The End of Oil (2004); and Daniel Yergin in The Prize (1991, about the history of oil, not the exhaustion of oil reserves). While many of the authors discuss the depletion of global fossil-fuel reserves, most of them are vague about what the nature of human society will be after they are exhausted.
Perhaps the most striking description of the process is the Olduvai Theory (1989) described by Richard C. Duncan, who predicts that large-scale industrial society defined by high per-capita energy production will have a lifetime of about 100 years. High per capita energy consumption has been enabled by the availability of massive amounts of fossil fuels. As fossil fuels exhaust but human population remains at high levels, that high level is expected to decline substantially. Global oil reserves will soon be exhausted, but coal reserves will last for some time to come.
Human industrial society has seen this coming for some time, and is making an effort to replace energy from fossil fuels with solar energy and nuclear energy. In some less developed countries, wood has been used as a primary energy source. As the population size has grown, the energy requirement exceeded the regrowth rate of trees, forests and savannahs have been destroyed, and the population has migrated to cities.
The destruction caused by large human numbers and industrial activity has been evident for a very long time, yet no decrease in human population or industrial activity has occurred. It is not even discussed or proposed. The leaders of all nations call for increased economic growth, and many, such as the United States, have policies of increased population growth. The human population growth rate is very high – 1 percent per year (80 million people), and has been very high for several centuries. Irrespective of quality of life, and even the threat of extinction, human population seems bound to increase as long as it can.
Will any nation willingly decrease its population? No. Human society will grow (or remain at a destructively high level) to the tipping point. While the survival instinct is very strong for individuals, why would mankind collectively destroy its habitat, when it is very aware of the situation, knows exactly the cause, and has complete control over its behavior? As discussed earlier, there are several reasons for this. Two of these reasons appear to be more important than the rest. The first reason is that the present global system of civilization, based primarily on capitalism, democracy and growth-based economics, is working very well for the wealthy elite. At present, this system is powerful, has a stranglehold on human society, and is unwilling to address the environmental crisis in a meaningful way.
The second reason is that human beings tend to discount the importance of things both in time and in space. Events that are distant either in time or in space are not a great concern. At every level of society, individuals and organizations work hard to optimize in the near term. The people who will be most affected by the destruction of the biosphere by the current generation of human beings do not yet even exist. The wealthy elite of today have no interest in decreasing their wealth to assure a good life for future human beings, or to assure that they even exist at all.
The evidence is strong that manmade systems (governments, businesses, communities) contained within a dynamic environment either grow or they die, they do not remain in steady state for long. (Even primitive settlements are abandoned, as soon as they have degraded the local environment.) The wealthy elite have a vested interest in seeing the current system grow. To ensure continuation of their wealth, it is best that the system grow, not just stay the same.
The preceding paragraphs have identified reasons why it is viewed that today’s global industrial civilization will collapse. Not just collapse, since all systems eventually collapse, but collapse soon. Many economists, however, do not view that this will happen, or at least, not in the foreseeable future. Their view is that as conditions change, such as a change in the availability of a resource, such as food or energy, necessity will be the mother of invention and technology will be developed to stave off collapse.
Many of the forecasts of today about the future of global industrial civilization project that human population and economic activity, including industrial production, will continue at high levels. As fossil fuels exhaust, energy will be obtained from other sources, such as solar and nuclear, but the basic large global industrial society will continue. The biosphere will likely be ruined (there is no sign of stopping the near-total destruction of the world’s rainforests), and massive numbers of human beings will be forced to live in grinding poverty on a biologically impoverished planet, but mankind will find ways of surviving and generating massive wealth for a small percentage, as it always has.
The very unfortunate aspect of this scenario is that once the biosphere is radically changed by a mass species extinction, it takes millions of years for evolution to repopulate it with new species diversity. Once the present biosphere is ruined, it will remain that way for a long time. Once the present generation of human beings ruins the biosphere, future generations of mankind, if they survive at all, will live on a biologically impoverished planet for millions of years.
The future described in the just-preceding paragraphs is very likely to become reality. It does not, however, have to be that way. If the cruel future described in the preceding paragraph were destined to be imposed on billions of people for thousands or millions of years, some would argue that extinction of the human species would be preferable to its survival, from the point of view of suffering avoided (not just suffering of human beings, but intensely cruel suffering of animals – sentient creatures – caused by battery production of animals in factory farms, to produce meat for human consumption).
Here, we are referring to collapse of global large-scale industrial civilization, not of global civilization per se. Global civilization may well continue, but in a different configuration (i.e., without the high level of destruction of the environment from industrial production).
Also, we are considering human causes of collapse, not collapse from non-human sources such as collision of Earth with an asteroid.
The major modes and mechanisms of collapse are the traditional ones. These are the mythical “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”: war, famine, plague (large-scale disease, with a high mortality rate), and death (collapse from all other causes, such as aging, accidents, violence, atrophy, loss of sense of purpose or drive, change in environment or resource availability (global warming, biosphere destruction), evolution, asteroid collision).
A detailed discussion of the variety of ways in which the human species may become extinct is presented in John Leslie’s book, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996).
This section presents some comments about some of the major factors that might lead to a collapse of present global civilization.
Major factors / players in the collapse.
The Role of Civilization / Politics
Civilization has brought about the destruction of the biosphere and the unhappiness of mankind. It created the current disastrous situation for mankind and the environment. The primary goal of civilization is to generate power and wealth for the controllers. Because of the politics of envy, some would rather see the biosphere destroyed and humanity made extinct, than lose their wealth-generating system. Political systems and agriculture thrived on all continents inhabited by people (including Aboriginal Australia). Economic growth is a goal of all nations, and population growth is a goal of many.
The primary function of the world’s political systems is to generate wealth for the systems’ controllers. It is not to preserve the biosphere or to keep the number of people living in poverty low.
The Role of Economics
Economics is a primary handmaiden of civilization. It is an integral part of political systems, and was formerly called political economy. It is the science and technology of the management of scarcity. For economics to be of use, scarcity (resource constraints) is needed. There is no need for economics for a society living in equilibrium with nature. In today’s world, scarcity is assured by the admonition of the world’s major religions to fill the Earth with people.
Economics is concerned with extremization (maximization or minimization) of certain quantities, such as profits, inflation or unemployment, subject to constraints. The purpose of civilization is to generate wealth for controllers. The purpose of economics is to generate more wealth for the system controllers (increase growth, increase efficiency, control risk; welfare economics: keep the masses under control). Uneven income and wealth distributions are intentional, the goal. Efforts to make the distributions of income and wealth less extreme are not motivated by altruism but by the desire of the controllers to promote their survival and welfare.
All free land is gone, and now all people are dependent on economic systems for livelihood. Civilization and economics have succeeded in putting a price on everything. All people are slaves to the system controllers. It is much easier to generate wealth for controllers when masses have no free land, and are totally dependent on society for necessities. Economics largely ignores nonmonetary costs and benefits, such as ecology. These are termed “externalities.” They are out of scope, the concern of some other area of science or technology, or human endeavor.
Most branches of economics are oriented toward economic growth: economics is a spur to keep the system growing, and assure its eventual collapse. One branch of economics (steady-state economics) recognizes that growth cannot continue, although even in a non-growth state a society may continue to destroy the biosphere.
Growth-based economics is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. It is a direct cause of massive destruction to the biosphere and creating a world in which billions of people live in dismal poverty. It, along with capitalism, is one of the most important factors contributing to today’s social and ecological crisis.
The mathematician / economist John Maynard Keynes recognized the destructive effects of economics. In his 1930 essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, he observed the fatal limitations of economics as a long-term basis for human society: “Some day we may return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue – that avarice is a vice, that the extraction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is detestable. But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little while longer.”
Because of the very significant role that economics has played in causing the global social and ecological crisis, more will be said about it in the section following this one.
Additional discussion of the role of economics is presented in Appendix G.
The Role of War
In earlier times, war was used (“the game of kings”) to acquire additional land or other resources, and to relieve population pressure. In recent times, with the rise of a large military-industrial complex (government / business), there is a strong economic incentive to wage low-level proxy wars and thereby stimulate production of military goods, generating more wealth for the wealthy elite (than if no war). In his book Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel (1949), George Orwell explores the theme of using war to consume excess industrial production, and to enhance social cohesion by means of a strong external threat to state security.
Because modern warfare can be so destructive, it has been tightly controlled by the major powers, limited to proxy wars in faraway countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan. It is managed in such a way as to generate a substantial demand for weapons of war, and for their consumption, but to keep the number of casualties low for the world powers in control of it. Nuclear war has been waged only once (1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan). Because the threat of war is so effective as a means of controlling the masses, the threat of war is maintained at a high level.
To date, war has played a role in moderating population growth, but it has not avoided the present environmental catastrophe. Global nuclear war might be effective in reducing human population, but it could also destroy the present biosphere (via nuclear winter). Global warming may lead to famine that would constrain human population size, but that would damage the entire biosphere and not, in itself, diminish continued human depredation. Chemical warfare has not proved useful on large scales. Biological warfare could be effective in moderating human population, but it, too, is difficult to control.
The Role of Religion
Throughout the history of civilization, organized religion has been a useful tool of political leaders. From Edward O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence: “For ages no tribe could survive unless the meaning of its existence was defined by a creation story. The price of the loss of faith was a hemorrhage of commitment, a weakening and dissipation of common purpose. … Obviously no two creation stories can both be true. All of those invented by the many known thousands of religions and sects in fact have certainly been false. A great many educated citizens have realized that their own faiths are indeed false, or at least questionable in details. But they understand the rule attributed to the Roman stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger that religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”
Organized religion has been a useful tool of civilization in the past, but its function in controlling the population has been to a considerable extent taken over by science, including political science (democracy, threat of war, indoctrination, propaganda, managed scarcity). Its primary role is to promote ethics useful to the system controllers, such as obedience, honesty, industry and duty to country. Basically, what is ethical is what promotes survival of the species and wealth and security for the system controllers. Ethics for the masses are generally absolute morality (commandments, laws, rules, regulations), whereas ethics for the elite are relative morality (the ends justify the means; what is morally correct is what helps achieve a goal, and it is relative to that goal).
Organized religion has played a very significant role in the environmental problem in the past, and it is in a position to play a significant role in the future. As discussed by Lynn White, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) do not promote harmony with nature. They assert that man was made in the image of God, that in all of nature only man has a soul, and that God directed man to dominate nature – subjugate it and use it. The Abrahamic religions exhort followers to multiply and fill the Earth with people. This mandate assures the scarcity necessary for economics to work well. The ever-larger population endures poverty and misery, while the presence of scarcity, coupled with human nature and economics, promotes extreme inequality in wealth.
Organized religion promotes a tribal mentality. This corresponds to the group-level evolutionary selection that is considered (by E. O. Wilson) to be an essential ingredient of the evolution of intelligent life and the human species. The tribal instinct appears to be fundamental to the human species, having played a significant role in its evolution. If a solution is to be found to the environment problem, it is likely that it will at least recognize and accommodate this fact, and at best take advantage of it.
Some organized religions have a world view of a single world government, such as the Baháʼí vision of a New World Order.
The Role of Disease
In the past, diseases contributed to a higher mortality rate, which was offset by a higher fertility rate. The Black Death had a short-term beneficial impact on the human condition, but no long-term impact. Diseases that cause extinctions of populations are rare (but not nonexistent: an example is the extinction of some amphibian species by chytrid fungus).
The recent and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affords an example of the possible effect of a disease. That disease is highly infectious, but has a relatively low mortality rate. It took almost a year to develop a vaccine for it.
Because of its low mortality rate, the COVID-19 pandemic will have little long-term effect on human population growth (two million deaths this past year from COVID-19 vs. an annual increase of about 80 million). If a virus arose having a high infection rate and a high mortality rate, it could decimate human population. Significant factors causing the high infection rate are the facts that the human population density is high and it is highly mobile.
The Role of Climate Change
The addition of large amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other gasses to the atmosphere is having substantial impact on the environment, including global warming and acidification of oceans (from the dissolving of carbon dioxide in seawater, to produce carbonic acid).
Climate change can have a substantial effect on species extinction rates. The Chicxulub asteroid collision of 66 million years ago caused the extinction of three quarters of the world’s species, including all tetrapods weighing over 25 kilograms.
Global warming is estimated to have raised the average temperature of the atmosphere by about one degree Celsius, and is expected to result in a global temperature of at least another degree. Warming of the atmosphere causes species loss for several reasons. First, some species are adapted to live in a certain temperature range, and can fail to thrive if the temperature changes by even a small amount. Global warming can cause substantial changes in rainfall patterns, causing desertification and conversion of forests to savanna. Global warming can lead to increased wildfires and changes in weather patterns (e.g., frequency and strength of hurricanes).
Warming of the seas and reduced alkalinity can lead to the collapse of coral reefs and fish stocks.
Global warming causes the sea level to rise, because of expansion of oceans and melting of polar ice sheets. Mean sea level has risen 8-9 inches since 1880, and is expected to rise .3 – 2.5 meters by 2100. This is recognized to be a low estimate.
From the Yale School of the Environment Yale Environment 360 website: “How Fast and How Far Will Sea Levels Rise?” by Nicola Jones, October 21: When the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sat down to hash out the chapter on sea level rise for their new report, which was released last month, they had their work cut out for them.
Sea level forecasts were the most controversial part of the previous report, issued in 2007: Scientists and the public alike bristled at the lowball estimate of under 60 centimeters (nearly two feet) by 2100, which, the IPCC admitted, did not include the possibility of rapid ice flow from Greenland or the Antarctic into the sea. That was clearly important — those two ice sheets alone hold enough water to raise sea level by 65 meters, compared to 0.4 meters from all the world’s mountain glaciers. But researchers’ understanding of the ice sheets was so uncertain, the IPCC said, they just couldn’t bring themselves to put a number on it. “Some things had to be neglected,” says Don Chambers, sea level researcher at the University of Texas. “Because of that, the projections were on the low side.”
A rapid sea rise destroys wetlands. If the rise is slow, then wildlife has time to relocate. If the rise is fast, species extinction can occur. A substantial sea rise would cause many cities near the ocean would be flooded.
Severe climate change from a global nuclear war is considered unlikely.
It was mentioned above that economists attempt to reduce the exploitation of natural resources by assigning a monetary value to them. This approach fails because the ecosystem is a complex multidimensional system whereas money is a one-dimensional quantity, and it is impossible to specify a one-to-one correspondence (invertible function) between the two. Because of the extreme complexity of the biosphere, it is not possible to limit harm to it by placing restrictions on a few selected variables that characterize its operation. The reason for this is expressed well by the adage, “you can’t change just one thing” – the system is so complex that making changes in just a few variables generally has unintended consequences. The only known feasible way of protecting the environment from harm is to leave large portions of it alone, unexploited, with minimal interaction from human beings other than unobtrusive monitoring. That is the approach suggested by E. O. Wilson in his book, Half Earth (2016), in which he proposes that half of the area of Earth be set aside as nature reserves.
Bioregionalism Defined
A key feature of the ecological crisis is the fact that the biosphere is a large, complex system. Although it is planetary in extent, it is comprised of a number of geographically distinct land areas – the continents – and the continents are in turn comprised of geographically and ecologically distinct subareas.
The discussion of this section uses a number of terms related to ecological zones, such as biogregionalism. Detailed definitions of terms relating to the classification of large land areas according to ecology are presented in Appendix H.
Brief definitions of important terms are the following:
Ecosystem: A community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system.
Ecosphere or biosphere: A planetary ecological system. The combined collection of all ecosystems on Earth. The zone of life on Earth.
Biogeographic realm: The broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. The realms delineate the large areas of Earth's surface within which organisms have been evolving in relative isolation over long periods of time, separated from one another by geographic features, such as oceans, broad deserts, or high mountain ranges, that constitute barriers to migration.
Bioregion: A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographical realm, but larger than an ecoregion.
Ecoregion: An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion.
Bioregionalism: Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and ecological system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local human populations, knowledge, and solutions.
Books on the subject of bioregionalism include The Breakdown of Nations (1957) by Leopold Kohr; Human Scale (1980) and Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision (1985) by Kirkpatrick Sale; The United States of Europe: A Eurotopia? (2nd ed. 1992) by Alfred Henry (“Freddy”) Heineken; and The Nine Nations of North America (1981) by Joel Garreau.
Systems Analysis and Modeling: The Inappropriateness of Reductionism
In dealing with complex systems that span geographic areas, such as the biosphere or a bioregion it is generally counterproductive to take a “reductionist” approach, of examining subparts piecemeal, to obtain a good understanding of the system and how to interact with it (respond, predict, control).
From the Wikipedia article, “Reductionism”: Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena, which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts. Reductionism can be applied to any phenomenon, including objects, problems, explanations, theories, and meanings.
Stuart Kauffman has argued that complex systems theory and phenomena such as emergence pose limits to reductionism. Emergence is especially relevant when systems exhibit historicity. Emergence is strongly related to nonlinearity. The limits of the application of reductionism are claimed to be especially evident at levels of organization with greater complexity, including living cells, neural networks, ecosystems, society, and other systems formed from assemblies of large numbers of diverse components linked by multiple feedback loops.
Disciplines such as cybernetics and systems theory imply non-reductionism, sometimes to the extent of explaining phenomena at a given level of hierarchy in terms of phenomena at a higher level, in a sense, the opposite of reductionism.
The need to avoid reductionism is exemplified in the approach used to manage water basins. Political boundaries generally have little to do with water-basin boundaries, and water basins frequently cover a number of political subdivisions, such as the Colorado River water basin in southwestern United States, or the Columbia River water basin covering portions of western US and Canada. In managing a water basin, it is important to consider the basin as a whole, not as a set of independent parts. To address this issue, regional authorities or treaties are implemented to enable analysis and interaction with the complete basin system.
In the case of the atmosphere, all nations of the world are included in that system, and groups such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are set up to facilitate a coordinated approach.
The Need for a Single World Government
A major difficulty associated with addressing issues that involve multiple nations is that they do not necessarily agree, and there is no overall authority to force compliance with policies. Examples of this are the current global population explosion, where a number of countries (China, India, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh) have extremely large populations that produce massive amounts of industrial waste and pollution, and many other countries (most countries in Africa and many in Asia) have population policies of explosive population growth.
At present, the world consists of 195 sovereign states. Prior to the Industrial Age, whether these states acted independently or together had little impact on the environment. The situation today is totally different. The current system of multiple sovereign states is a roadblock to implementing effective solutions to global problems, such as global warming, pollution of the oceans and global species loss. Because of phenomena such as “tragedy of the commons,” this global governmental system, along with growth-based economics and capitalism, is a major cause of the global ecological crisis. To address the current global ecological crisis effectively will require abolishing the system of multiple sovereign states, and the establishment of a single world government.
Predictions are difficult to pinpoint in time. The situation can change. For example, fracking extended the lifetime of the petroleum age. On an evolutionary timescale, the rise and fall of modern civilization is virtually instantaneous – a blip. According to Richard C. Duncan (Olduvai Theory, or "transient-pulse theory of industrial civilization"), industrial civilization will have a lifetime of about 100 years.
Rather than attempt to predict a specific collapse date, it is more useful to construct a spectrum of alternative futures, and consider factors affecting each, and the likelihood of each (unconditionally and conditional on the factors). The collapse of the current system of civilization could be a direct result of the end of petroleum age, biocollapse, epidemic, global warming, global nuclear war, political. Which specific factor directly causes the collapse is not important (in the long run), except relative to what condition it leaves the biosphere when it has run its course.
Since energy is a major constraint, and since the major source for industrial energy is petroleum, and since we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age, it is reasonable to speculate that a human population decline as the Petroleum Age ends, which is expected within the next few decades. Such a decline could be precipitous, because of the overshoot phenomenon.
It is not clear that the end of the Petroleum Age will necessarily bring about a collapse of industrial society. The energy lost from the exhaustion of fossil fuels may be replaced by renewable solar energy and nuclear energy.
The monetary cost of oil is just one factor affecting the extraction of oil. The primary constraint is the energy cost of extraction. As oil reserves are exhausted, it becomes more and more expensive to obtain. Oil in oil shale and tar sand deposits is more expensive to extract than oil in conventional oil fields. When the point is reached at which the energy cost of extracting the oil equals the energy content of the extracted oil, no further extraction is done for energy purposes, no matter what the price. At that point, energy must be obtained via a different technology or from another source (e.g., solar, nuclear), or decreases must occur in per-capita use or the in the population.
More important than the approximate lifetime of the Petroleum Age is the state of the biosphere when that Age is over.
The answers to the questions of how many will survive and who will survive depend a lot on the nature and extent of preparations. In the chaos and mayhem of a collapsing civilization, there will be much violence and destruction, and many random events. It would be advantageous for an organization wishing to see some of its members survive to design its preparations to take advantage of the chaos and benefit from it, rather than be threatened by it (i.e., it should design its preparations to be antifragile).
An organization that has components distributed around the world would have a higher likelihood of survival, since of some components are destroyed, one or more of the remaining components may still function as intended. (As an analogy, this corresponds to the lessening of risk in an asset portfolio through the selection of a number of diverse (low-correlation) assets, rather than having all eggs in one basket.)
The book Can America Survive? discusses this situation. It will be discussed in summary fashion later in this article. An example of a long-term-survivable human population, living in a diverse biosphere similar to the one in which it evolved, is on the order of about five million human beings. That is the level estimated in the time prior to the age of agriculture. That level of population assumes reliance of human society on solar energy. As long as industrial use of energy does not degrade the environment, it is sustainable, and human population could exceed this number without causing damage to the biosphere. For example, 300 million. Or perhaps 800 million. But not two billion, because that number was seen to be associated with massive destruction of the biosphere.
How to Prepare for the Coming Collapse
Preparation for the coming collapse could be done by a number of different entities, including international organizations, national governments, subnational governments, private groups, or individuals. The only point for to preparing for the coming collapse is that it is reasonable to believe that the preparations will make a difference in the future. There are a number of different ways in which preparations can make a difference: in the nature of the collapse; in the likelihood of survival of the entity (and related entities, such as descendants, ethnic group, human species, other species); in the future quality of life of the entity (and related entities); and in the state of the biosphere.
This article is addressing the global environmental crisis, the population / environment problem at the highest level. It is concerned with the survival and future condition of the human species and the biosphere in which it evolved. From this perspective, it is not concerned with the survival of any particular individual, ethnic group or nation, except to the extent that doing so might make a difference in the survival and future condition of the human species, species of particular interest to it, and the biosphere in which it evolved.
Biodiversity is measured in a number of different ways. Here follows an excerpt from the Wikipedia article, “Measurement of biodiversity”: Taxonomic Diversity. Biodiversity is usually plotted as taxonomic richness of a geographic area, with some reference to a temporal scale. Whittaker described three common metrics used to measure species-level biodiversity, encompassing attention to species richness or species evenness:
Species richness - the simplest of the indices available.
Simpson index
Shannon-Wiener index
Recently, another new index has been invented called the Mean Species Abundance Index (MSA); this index calculates the trend in population size of a cross section of the species. It does this in line with the CBD 2010 indicator for species abundance.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
The preceding measures of biodiversity are objective (quantitative, mathematical, statistical, distributional) measures that do not recognize the subjective value of particular species as they relate to the quality of mankind’s existence. They would show little change in value if a particular species, such as Homo sapiens or Vulpes vulpes (fox) were removed. The measures do not reflect the aesthetic value of species to human beings, e.g., that African elephants are of greater aesthetic value to human beings than boa constrictors. Another example: Suppose that the number of a certain species of rabbit had the same population size as that of human beings – 7.8 billion. Then the preceding measures of biodiversity would have the same value if this species became extinct as if the species H. sapiens became extinct.
What preparations are appropriate depends on a number of factors, including the assessed nature of the collapse (e.g., rapid collapse vs. slow decline), the nature of the entity making the preparations (nation, individual), assessment of the value of the preparations (expected payoff, relative to goals). The preparations will depend very much on whether the entity plans to take a passive role in the collapse vs. an active role in affecting when and how it happens (e.g., by working to avoid global nuclear war or to cause it to happen). That is, preparations will vary depending on whether an entity intends to take a reactive role or a proactive role in the collapse.
A specific individual or community or nation cannot assure its survival. All that is possible at a reasonable level of likelihood is survival at the level of the species and biosphere, i.e., at a planetary or global level. The instinct for survival is strong in any species. The nature of the survival instinct varies significantly from species to species. The ecologist E. O. Wilson describes the concept of eusociality and the phenomena of group selection vs. individual selection in evolution. Just as individuals of some species (bees, ants) sacrifice themselves for the good of the community, some human beings do the same – they are considered to be weakly eusocial. Some will work for survival of the species, even if they know that their own survival is virtually certain not to happen, and that the preparations will not enhance it.
Like Demolition Derby or Survivor! – someone ends up a winner, but it is very difficult to predict the specific winner (perhaps can predict the likely type of traits of winner with some higher degree of certainty). The future will belong to the prepared. Not all of the prepared. Many of the prepared will perish. The future will belong to the lucky prepared. To assure survival of the human species, it is important to have redundancy – many prepared, in different ways, in different places.
Biological species are programmed to survive. The human species is programmed also to build. If human society is not exterminated, it will rebuild. Preparations made now can have a profound effect on the likelihood of survival, the nature of a rebuilt human society, and the quality of the biosphere (i.e., a barren wasteland or a Garden of Eden). The important thing is to prepare for after the collapse. Not much can be done to prepare for the collapse, unless you are a perpetrator of the collapse (the odds of survival, for the attacker and for humanity and for the biosphere, are in favor of a preemptive first strike). The major world powers can accelerate the collapse, through the use of global nuclear war. See Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War (1960) for more discussion.
It has been estimated that, at current rates of destruction, the world’s rainforests will be virtually eliminated within forty years. Since political and economic efforts have completely failed to stop this destruction, it is increasingly possible that military action will be taken to stop the destruction. With each passing year, there is considerably less to save; in forty years, there will be no rainforest left to save. It has been assessed that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest is quite near a tipping point at which rainfall patterns will change and the entire are could transform to savanna. This situation represents a strong motivation, an urgency, for initiating military action as soon as possible. From the viewpoint of saving the biosphere, war sooner is preferable to war later.
All societies eventually collapse. The main feature of the collapse is whether it is fast, catastrophic, or slow, gradual. Here follow four different collapse scenarios, which would appear to contain a large number of possibilities. (These scenarios will be referred to later, in the section dealing with the design of a post-industrial society.)
Scenario 1. Business as usual – destroy the biosphere, but no immediate collapse of global industrial civilization
This scenario assumes that the present system of global civilization continues. That civilization includes a high human population and a high level of industrial production, with the predominant system of politics being capitalist democracy and growth-based economics.
Under this scenario, human population size continues to grow as long as possible. It may remain high for some time, or it may decrease in size, at which point the descriptor “growth-based” would no longer apply. After about forty years, the rainforests have been essentially destroyed. This has resulted in the extinction of the millions of rainforest species, along with many other species outside of rainforests. Under the system of capitalist democracy and economics, there would continue to be a high level of economic inequality (high Gini coefficient for income and wealth) and a high level of poverty. As is the case today, the quality of life would be high for a small wealthy elite, modest for a middle class, and poor for most people.
(From the Wikipedia article, “Gini coefficient”: In economics, the Gini coefficient, sometimes called the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality or wealth inequality within a nation or any other group of people. It was developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini. If all people have non-negative income (or wealth, as the case may be), the Gini coefficient can theoretically range from 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality).)
Scenario 2. A nature-friendly spiritual awakening
Under this scenario, the attitude of human supremacy over nature is replaced by one in which human society realizes that it is dependent on a biodiversity-rich biosphere for its own existence and well-being, and the entire planet adopts a one-child reproduction policy for four generations, as described by Eileen Crist. Human population starts to decline, but the decline is far too late to stop the destruction of the rainforests and prevent completion of the sixth mass species extinction. The results are as in Scenario 1 (impoverished biosphere, high levels of economic inequality and poverty).
Scenario 3. Unmanaged collapse
This scenario is the same as Scenario 1 (“Business as usual”), except for the fact that some sort of event or chain of events occurs to bring about the rapid collapse of civilization. Examples of precipitating events might be global nuclear war, famine, or disease. If this happens soon, much of the biosphere’s diversity may remain. With such a major shock, it is possible that a significant and effective effort might be taken by the survivors to save the biosphere, such as destruction of countries that possess substantial rainforests, or forced migration of all people from areas having high levels of biodiversity, such as tropical areas. If no such effort is taken, the end results are the same as for Scenario 1. If an effective effort is taken, the sixth extinction might be stopped. Without planning for this contingency, however, it seems unlikely that any such effort would be taken.
Scenario 4. Planned, initiated and managed collapse
Under this scenario, a militarily powerful country initiates war intended to destroy much of global industrial civilization, while retaining sufficient residual military and industrial capacity to assume control of the entire planet at war’s end. There are two primary long-term goals of the war: (1) to save what is left of the biosphere’s biodiversity and rejuvenate the biosphere, to the extent possible; and (2) reduce the human population to a sufficiently small size that a high-quality lifestyle can be provided to every human being on the planet, in a high-tech society and in a biodiversity-rich biosphere. By “long-term” is meant for many years to come; that is, the goal is to establish a society that has a low likelihood of human extinction and a high likelihood of preserving and maintaining a biodiversity-rich biosphere.
The war might be a global nuclear war or a biological war. If global nuclear war is the agent of destruction, then it is possible that any nuclear power could initiate it, but that only the United States or Russia could finish it, since only they possess a sufficient number of nuclear weapons (warheads and delivery platforms) to destroy much of global industrial society.
There are two sub-scenarios to this scenario. In the first sub-scenario, the war is initiated too late to save much of the biosphere. In the second sub-scenario, the war is initiated soon, and much of the biosphere’s biodiversity remains. It is assumed (as is believed to be the case) that no nuclear winter occurs to destroy the biosphere, as a result of nuclear war. In either case, the result is a relatively small human population living in a natural biosphere having much flora and fauna. The only difference is that if the war is initiated too late, then this biosphere, though it may be richly populated with flora and fauna, is lacking the millions of species that were destroyed in the rainforests. To the extent that this loss is viewed as great, there is motivation to initiate the war sooner rather than later.
In the convulsions and uncertainties of global nuclear war, it is difficult to predict the outcome. It could be that the two nuclear superpowers (United States and Russia) annihilate each other, and that some other power is able to assume control after the war. In general, those who are prepared have a better chance of surviving and prevailing than the unprepared.
There are two types of strategic preparations a country may make, depending on whether it plays an active or proactive role versus a passive or reactive role. A country may plan, prepare for, and carry out a preemptive (first strike) attack. Or it may wait for war to occur, see what happens, and take opportunistic but not preplanned actions in response. Or it may make advance preparations to take advantage of the situation after the perpetrator has played his hand. The world contains a number of nuclear powers and many industrial nations. The situation may be represented conceptually as a many-player general-sum game.
History has many examples of the effects of preparations. In the Black Death, no one was prepared. The luckier survived and, with a substantially reduced population, realized significant improvements in the quality of life.
In the Rwanda genocide, the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) was prepared and it prevailed. A high level of preparation is not necessarily a predictor of success. Hitler was prepared, and failed. Britain and America were not prepared, but prevailed.
After World War 1, France constructed the Maginot Line, which the Germans easily circumvented in World War 2. The preparations were completely useless.
In the aftermath of nuclear war in Japan, a number of countries constructed and stocked fallout shelters. Some, such as the United States, decided that they served little purpose, and discontinued them. Others, such as Germany, Norway, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland maintain fallout shelters today.
In previous collapses of societies, some other more able (stronger, smarter, luckier), society took over. Tainter discusses this situation, in explaining why some societies collapse more slowly than others. In previous collapses, the global context – a rich biosphere, high energy availability – remained the same. In these cases there was a lot of energy. In the future, survivors will take over again, but with less energy resources. The context is different.
Astronomer Fred Hoyle opined that, with respect to the rise of a high-technology civilization, mankind has just one bite at the apple. After fossil fuels are exhausted and the readily extractable minerals have been mined, it would be quite difficult for mankind to rebuild a high-technology civilization, if this one collapses. If current technological society collapses, it could be a long time before it rises again.
There is a full spectrum of alternative scenarios for the future of mankind and the biosphere. The next section considers some of the ways in which these scenarios might occur.
The brief answer to the question “Can anything be done?” is “yes.” Since all efforts to date have failed to stop the sixth extinction, it is not any of those efforts, although they might be of some use in an ancillary context. There are three categories into which efforts may be organized. The first is efforts to diagnose the problem and prescribe solutions. The second is efforts taken to precipitate an immediate collapse of global industrial civilization, to bring an immediate halt to the sixth extinction. The third is efforts to manage post-collapse society.
Specific sciences and technologies exist that help to diagnose the problem and prescribe solutions, in all three categories. These include ecology, earth sciences, sociology, ethics, political science, military science, economics, systems theory, complexity theory, organization theory, information technology and systems engineering. They are reflected in the works of Edward O. Wilson, Fritjof Capra, James Hansen, Joseph Tainter, Jared Diamond, Garrett Hardin, John Leslie, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Herman Kahn, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Herman Daly, John B. Cobb, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Nicholas Taleb, Hermann Haken, Herbert Simon, and many others.
A brief summary of the science and technologies listed above is presented in Appendix I. The fact of the matter is that mankind understands the nature of the global environmental crisis very well, and possesses the tools to solve the problem. The fact that the problem remains unresolved is not due to a lack of understanding, or lack of know-how or resources to address it. The problem remains unresolved because human society refuses to take effective actions to address it. The situation begs the question: Why is this so? This question was addressed in some detail earlier. The next section addresses this issue with an eye to identifying ways of overcoming some of the barriers to taking effective action.
The present global industrial system has created two very substantial problems: (1) it has destroyed much of the biosphere’s diversity and threatens to destroy much more; and (2) it has resulted in a very large human population living in misery. These problems will not be resolved unless effective action is taken. Mankind has the skills and resources to solve these problems, but no effective action has been taken. Mankind possesses the ability to solve these problems but chooses not to do so. There are many reasons why no effective action has been taken to date, and these were discussed earlier.
Collectively, there is no will to take effective actions to address the problem. Many of the factors that explain this lack of will were identified in Appendix F. These factors were sorted into four major categories: indifference, lack of confidence in success, spirituality, and fear of repercussions. People are not going to take action if they don’t care about the goal, or if they believe that the action would likely fail, or if doing so would put their mortal souls in jeopardy, or if it might bring harm to themselves or the ones they care about.
This section will address each of the four areas listed above.
Indifference
Countless books, articles, and film documentaries have been produced over several decades about the global environmental crisis, yet no effective action has been taken to resolve it. Every day, Internet and television news stories are broadcast about the effects of global warming, such as wildfires and stranded polar bears on melting ice floes. A major reason why nothing effective is being done is that, by and large, people just don’t care. In view of the substantial amount of effort that has been expended in discussing the issue and the length of time over which this effort has been expended, it is reasonable to conclude that the level of indifference is not going to change.
Lack of Confidence in Success
Efforts to address the global environmental crisis include pollution regulations, purchase of natural habitat and waste recycling programs. The primary drivers of the environmental problem are the large number of human beings on the planet and the rising standard of living of the human population (more consumption of energy and other resources, more destruction of the biosphere, more production of waste). For a time, China adopted a one-child policy to slow population growth, and a number of countries have adopted two-child policies. None of these efforts has been successful in decreasing the size of the human population, or decreasing the level of industrial production, or stopping the destruction of the biosphere and its biodiversity.
Given the length of time over which these programs have been tried, and their ineffectiveness, it is understandable why there is a lack of confidence in the success of efforts to solve the environmental crisis by any means that have been used to date.
Spirituality
Primitive societies had a high respect and regard for nature. Most of civilized man does not. The creation story of the three Abrahamic religions is that God created man in his image, gave man dominion over all of nature and instructed him to fill the Earth with people. It is taught that in all of nature only man possesses a soul. This theology is a fundamental reason for the contempt and disregard that modern civilization has for nature. Some apologists argue that the theology can be interpreted to mean that mankind should exercise a stewardship role over nature. While this may be consistent with the view that mankind has dominion over nature, it has not led to any change in attitude, action, or results.
Some ecologists reason that mankind should change its attitude toward nature to show more reverence for it, to recognize that we are a dependent part of it, and that it is essential for our own well-being and happiness to protect it. In view of the amount of reasoning, passion and effort that has gone into ecologists’ pleas for so long, it is obvious that there is not going to be any spiritual reawakening, and that mankind is not going to change its attitude toward nature.
Fear of Repercussions
The controllers of modern civilization are in a position to change things, but they have not chosen to do so. Apart from the occurrence of a globally catastrophic event, such as biospheric collapse or global nuclear war, it would appear that the current system of global civilization is going to continue to wreak destruction on the biosphere and continue to keep billions of people in misery for as long as it can.
Since there appears to be no prospect of evolutionary change to a solution, one possibility is revolutionary change – a mass uprising of people against a global system that generates a massive number of people living in misery. The problem with revolutions is that people have to take a stand and put their lives on the line. In a revolution, many people can lose their lives.
Many revolutions are not successful, in which case the perpetrators can be imprisoned or lose their lives. The fear of imprisonment or death keeps many people from considering revolutionary response, no matter how just their cause may seem. On the other hand, some revolutions are successful, such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Mexican Revolution.
It is always possible that conditions could be worse after a revolution than before.
If conditions are sufficiently bad, or if the odds of success appear high, then the fear of repercussions may be overcome.
In order for an effort to stop the biospheric destruction to be successful, it would appear that changes must occur in the first and second items listed above: indifference and lack of confidence in success. It is not clear that any means are available to change mankind’s attitude toward nature. Given its superior intelligence, mankind is in fact in a position of dominance over nature, at least part of it, for a time. If lack of confidence in success is diminished, then fear of repercussions also diminishes.
The fundamental issue to be addressed in this section is whether anything should be done to change the environmental-crisis situation. Resolution of this issue requires answers to four questions: Is the biosphere worth saving? Is the biodiversity of the biosphere worth saving? Is the human species worth saving? Is the condition (quality of life) of the human species worth improving?
The answers to these questions are value judgments, and they depend on the values of the person (or entity) asking the questions.
The question, “Should anything be done?”, implies that doing or not doing something is an option, a discretionary choice. That may not be the case. Human beings have a survival instinct. E. O. Wilson asserts that human beings are eusocial, and that natural selection in human beings takes place at both the level of the individual and the group (kin selection and group selection). From this point of view, it may very well be that something effective will be done, whether it “should” be done or not.
This section will discuss each of the preceding questions, and provide answers of a sort to each of them.
Is the biosphere worth saving?
The answer to this question, and the others that follow, depends on who is asking. For anyone living in the biosphere who values something in the biosphere, such as his life, the answer is yes. We shall assume that the answer to this question is yes.
Is the biodiversity of the biosphere worth saving?
The biosphere has been around for millions of years. It has undergone five mass species extinctions. Whenever a mass species extinction has occurred in the past, a high level of biodiversity has rebounded. Highly intelligent life – mankind – arose only since the last mass species extinction, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, occurred 66 million years ago.
A very large number of conditions are required for the evolution of highly intelligent life. These conditions are discussed in Rare Earth (2000) by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, and in How to Build a Habitable Planet (1987) by Wallace S. Broecker. It can be argued that it is quite possible, even quite likely, that the human species is the only highly intelligent species in the universe.
If that were true, would it suggest that Earth’s biosphere is worth saving because it may be the only biosphere in the universe to contain intelligent life, and this might be of interest to someone? The answer to this question, as posed, is not known. Conditional answers are available. If the human species is worth saving, then the biodiversity of the biosphere is worth saving, since the former depends on the latter.
The term, “saving biodiversity” is vague and ambiguous. More specific questions are: Is it worthwhile to preserve the current level of diversity? Are some species more valuable than others from some points of view? Does it matter if the rainforests are destroyed, and an estimated half the planet’s biodiversity is destroyed?
Because effective actions could be taken to save the planet’s biodiversity, and yet it is being destroyed on a massive scale at an incredible rate, it would appear, from the viewpoint of the planet’s controllers, that the answer to all of these questions is no (since they have the knowledge and resources to stop the destruction, but choose not to do so).
As pointed out in the discussion of representative democracy (Appendix F), it is quite possible that most people would have the opinion that it is worthwhile to save the planet’s diversity, even though their representatives, beholden to the wealthy elite, choose otherwise. It is fair to say that all ecologists and outdoorsmen, for example, feel very strongly that the planet’s biodiversity should be saved. A person living in poverty and misery would probably not care at all.
Under the present system of world government, most people live in misery. They endure poverty and lack of freedom. For most of them, their work is not meaningful, their lives are hopeless, and they are unhappy.
The unhappy state of the human species is being caused by two things: (1) intense crowding; and (2) severely limited freedom and highly distasteful lifestyle alternatives / opportunities. For growth-based economics to work, scarcity of resources is required. The present system of global civilization both requires and assures that resources be scarce, that people have no alternative but to work for the system, that there be nowhere to go, no access to natural land. These requirements are assured by a massive human population, assisted by religions that promote uncontrolled population growth and a United Nations that promotes massive increases in economic standards of living.
Under the present system of global civilization, most people live in poverty and misery: to obtain sustenance and living facilities, and must work long hours at meaningless, dreary jobs. They may have life, but not liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness, including a high level of personal freedom, much natural living space in a biodiverse-rich environment, and an interesting, meaningful, high-quality life, are not possible in an overcrowded world under the present political / economic / industrial system. A high level of human happiness for all people is possible only if the human population density is low. A low population is not consistent with the present system of world civilization. To generate much wealth for the elite, a large population is desirable – not necessary, but desirable. In order to achieve a high level of inequality in the distribution of wealth, scarcity is necessary.
Mankind evolved living with a high degree of freedom in a biodiversity-rich biosphere having a low density of human beings. Human beings existed in that environment for millions of years. That environment was the natural environment for the human species. In that environment, humankind enjoyed the privileges of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a high degree. They possessed meaningful work and achieved satisfaction.
In order to have a high degree of freedom in any environment, biodiversity-rich or not, it is necessary to have a low population density. It is not possible to achieve a high level of happiness to all people in a highly crowded world with low biodiversity. From the viewpoint of most people on the planet, living under crowded, wretched, oppressive conditions, the answer to the question, “Is the biodiversity of the planet worth saving?” is a resounding “Yes!”, even though they may not realize it.
The total land area of Earth is 148.9 million square kilometers, of which 33 percent is barren (11 percent glaciers) and 24 percent is mountainous. This leaves about 64 million square kilometers of habitable land. A total population size of say, 5 million, hence represents a density of about 8 people every 100 square kilometers of habitable land.
In preagricultural times, the planet had a human population density of on the order of five million people, hence a global population density of 8 people per 100 square kilometers of habitable area, or .08 persons per square kilometer of habitable area. With a population of 7.8 billion on 64 million square kilometers of habitable area, the human population density is now about 122 persons per square kilometer of habitable area, or almost 1,600 times that. Inverting these ratios, in preagricultural times each person was associated with 12.5 square kilometers, or 1250 hectares, of habitable land, whereas today’s person is associated with just .0082 square kilometers, or .82 hectares, of habitable land.
The density figures do not mean much. In preagricultural times, the density was relatively uniform, with people living in small communities. Today there are large areas having very high density, such as massive urban areas having density about 1600 persons per square mile (618 persons per square kilometer).
From the viewpoint of the wealthy elite, it is advantageous to have a large human population and to make full use of (exploit) all that is available from nature. For these, the biodiversity of the biosphere and number of people living in poverty are essentially irrelevant. Biodiversity is not totally irrelevant to the wealthy elite, however, since it may be possible to generate more wealth in a more biodiverse environment than in a less biodiverse one.
From the viewpoint of the intellectually curious, having a large human population is advantageous. Large complex systems generate more interesting and challenging problems to solve than small, simple systems. Studying a planet having an extremely high level of biodiversity is much more interesting to an ecologist than studying a planet having impoverished biodiversity. Since necessity is the mother of invention, a large population that stresses the environmental and social systems generates a stimulus for the development of science and technology to solve the problems that arise.
The odds of having very highly intelligent people in human society increases with the size of the population (since the number of people in the top n-th percentile of a probability distribution increases in direct proportion to the number of people in the population). Hence, the odds of solving mankind’s difficult social and environmental problems increases with the size of the human population and the level of sophistication of industry and technology. A large number of people is needed to raise the odds of obtaining the intelligent, creative, ambitious people necessary to solve the environmental crisis.
Large human population and technology caused the environmental crisis, and it could be that a large human population and technology is necessary to solve it. On the other hand, Einstein observed that the kind of thinking that got you into a problem is probably not the kind required to get you out of it.
In summary, from the viewpoint of a non-wealthy-elite person who values a high quality of life on planet Earth, the answer to the question, “Is the biodiversity of the planet worth saving?” is “yes.” From the viewpoint of much of the wealthy elite, the answer is “no” (since they have the wherewithal to save it and have chosen not to do so). For some others, the answer is “absolutely yes”, and for some others it is “maybe.” Opting for a simple, single answer, we shall take the answer to this question to be yes, definitely.
Of course, it should be recognized that an implicit assumption in the discussion of this question is that the human species is present (not extinct).
Is the human species worth saving?
The question, “Is the human species worth saving?”, is equivalent to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” This article has no intention or pretense of offering an answer to this question. For a summary discussion, see the Wikipedia article, “Meaning of life.” Since the universe exists, there is obviously a reason for its existence, but what the purpose of that existence is, if anything, is not known. By the same token, the purpose of human life is unknown. The answer to the general question, “Is the human species worth saving?”, is not known, since it does not specify to whom or to what purpose.
The human species may be of some value to other species, such as pet goldfish and dachshunds, but such facts do not constitute an answer to the general question. It may even be of value to the rest of the present biosphere, if, for example, by means of its advanced technology be able to divert an asteroid from crashing into Earth and causing another mass extinction. Apart from such contrived examples, it would appear that the human species is in fact of strong negative value to the rest of the current biosphere, since it is causing the sixth mass species extinction.
It has been estimated that this extinction may ultimately cause the extinction of half of all species in the present biosphere. Since this extinction is being caused by mankind and mankind is in a position to stop it, half of the present biosphere is now dependent on the actions of mankind for its survival. To a large proportion of the present biosphere’s species, the human species is now very much worth saving.
Related to the topic of purpose is the topic of goals. Purpose may not be known or understood, and it may be exogenously determined. Goals, on the other hand, may be set by individual human beings and society. Once they are set, then they become a part of purpose. Appendix J lists some items for consideration relative to mankind’s purpose and goals.
Is the condition (quality of life) of the human species worth improving?
We have finally arrived at an answerable question, at least within the context of this article. The condition of the human species matters very much to the people currently alive. It matters to the billions of people who are at present doomed to live in miserable squalor.
The condition of the human species will also matter very much to all potential future generations of human beings. Because of the human tendency to discount in time and space, the quality of life of future generations does not mean much to the people currently alive.
Having addressed all four questions posed at the beginning of this section, we are now in a position to answer the question, Should Anything Be Done? The answer to each of the four questions was either “cannot answer,” or a “qualified yes,” or an “unqualified yes.” We shall hence take the answer to the question to be “yes.” Note that the reasoning leading to this conclusion had nothing to do with religious views or spiritual attitudes toward nature, or with particular ethical or moral norms. It did not have anything to do with the existence or nonexistence of billions of future human beings, or with the quality of life of those hypothetical beings. The arguments rested solely on whether the biosphere, or biodiversity, or the human species, or the condition of human beings, mattered to people currently alive. The reason for focusing on these people is that they are the ones who will make the decisions and take the actions that determine the fate of themselves, their descendants, the biosphere, and the biodiversity of the biosphere (even though they don’t care much for anyone other than themselves).
The arguments of some that it is too late to save the biosphere, or that it is already ruined, or that nothing has worked thus far so that there is no point to continuing to try, are rejected. Although these arguments are rejected, it is nevertheless of interest to consider them, because they shed light on the attitudes and desires of the people making them. The introduction of a new global civilization will be facilitated if it takes into account human desires, such as the inclination to value things in the short term over those in the long term.
A previous section identified four possible scenarios describing the collapse of the present global civilization. Scenario 4 was labeled, “Planned, initiated and managed collapse.” This section presents a “broad-brush” example of the application of the methodology of systems engineering to design a new global civilization under this scenario. Ordinarily, a systems engineering effort would be preceded by a detailed systems analysis. The present system (actually, two interrelated systems – the biosphere and global human civilization) has been analyzed thoroughly. Prior to undertaking a systems engineering design effort in the event of a planned, initiated and managed collapse, a detailed systems analysis would be conducted of the global system(s) at that time.
A systems engineering effort consists of six major steps:
Needs Analysis. A formal analysis of the needs for the system under consideration. The needs for the proposed system are well documented, in the ecological / environmental / sociological literature of past decades.
Requirements Specification and Analysis. A requirements specification and analysis, which specifies the fundamental features that the system is to possess, and an analysis of the way in which these requirements satisfy the needs for the system. Requirements may be classified as primary (essential) or secondary (desirable, nice-to-have).
Specification of Performance Measures. Identification of criteria (measures of effectiveness and efficiency) that will be used to evaluate the performance of candidate systems.
Synthesis of System Alternatives. (Alternative Systems, Candidate Systems, Proposed Systems). This is accomplished by “brainstorming.” To do it well requires substantial creativity and imagination. For each system alternative, make sure that all requirements have been met and that all needs have been satisfied (this is usually summarized in a two-dimensional matrix (row and column table) that has requirements on one dimension and needs on the other).
Evaluation of System Alternatives. Assessment of each system alternative with respect to each performance measure. The assessment is performed for a number of different scenarios, to assess performance under a variety of conditions (e.g., robustness, antifragility, regeneration, and resilience).
Selection of a Preferred System. This selection is done by the purchasers and potential users of the system. Since the utility of complex systems is multidimensional, the selection cannot be done by standard optimization methodologies (which can extremize but a single variable). The problem posed by multidimensional utility is resolved in systems engineering through the specification of multiple requirements and multiple performance criteria. (More specifically, the problem is formulated in terms of setting constraints on consumption of nonrenewable resources, not by attempting to specify “use values” (such as “carbon taxes”) to discourage consumption.) Application of game-theoretic criteria such as Nash Equilibrium (noncooperative games), and Nash Bargaining Solution (cooperative games) is helpful. For an individual person, the choice of a preferred alternative will rest on a “gut feeling” about which system is best, overall, taking into account all of the performance criteria and the individual’s personal value system (morals, desires, preferences, antipathies). A practical rule is to “follow one’s heart” and choose the system that “feels” best. That way, later on, one has few regrets, having given the matter due consideration and making what one thought was, overall, the best choice.
Systems analysis is heavily used in the development of hardware and software systems, but it can be applied to develop a system in any substantive area. See my book, The Value Added Tax: A New Tax System for America (posted at Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org/VAT.htm), for a detailed example of the application of systems engineering to develop a new tax system. (This book was published in 1987. In 1989, 48 countries used a value-added tax (VAT). In 2018, 166 out of the 193 countries having full UN membership used a VAT.)
The preceding summary is a very simplified description of the systems engineering process. It describes the methodology at a very high level. In practice, there are alternative approaches and a variety of software tools for applying the process. For a detailed description, see Arthur D. Hall’s A Methodology for Systems Engineering (1962) or Andrew Patrick Sage’s Systems Engineering (1992). An example of a tool used in systems engineering is a “use case.” From the Wikipedia article, “Use case”: In software and systems engineering, a use case is a list of actions or event steps typically defining the interactions between a role (known in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as an actor) and a system to achieve a goal. The actor can be a human or other external system. [Use cases are used] to capture and specify requirements of a system using textual, structural, and visual modeling techniques to drive object-oriented analysis and design.
This section will illustrate application of the systems engineering approach to developing a new global civilization (planetary management system) by constructing a single system, and assessing its performance. This example is just an “off the cuff” example, to illustrate the concept. In actual practice, much effort would be invested in each of the steps listed above, and a number of system alternatives and scenarios would be identified for consideration, and specified in detail.
It is important to recognize that systems engineering is a process. The merits of a proposed social system may be assessed in terms of specific performance criteria, but it is not reasonable to choose or reject any system by itself, out of context. It is important that a proposed system be compared to other alternatives. Such an evaluation is a process, a methodology. The primary international standard for assessing the quality of a process is the ISO 9000 family of standards for quality management. An example of quality management in the case of software development is provided by the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model.
Systems Engineering Example: Top-Level Design of a Long-Term-Sustainable Global Society
Needs Analysis: Embodied in books and articles describing the current global environmental crisis.
Requirements Specification
General Requirement: A world governmental system is desired that has a high likelihood of long-term survival of the human species in a diversity-rich biosphere, and that enables a high-quality existence for all human beings (no poverty, much living space, high degree of personal freedom, essentially unlimited opportunity for personal fulfilment).
Specific Requirements: Not considered here (in this top-level illustrative example).
Requirements Analysis: Not illustrated here.
Specification of Performance Measures:
General performance measures: antifragility, robustness, resilience, ethics, skin in the game.
Environmental performance measures: Cessation of sixth mass species extinction. Cessation of destruction of all old forests. Cessation of degradation of soil. Cessation of degradation of wetlands. Cessation of pollution of rivers and lakes. Cessation of pollution of oceans. Cessation of pollution of atmosphere (e.g., halt to increase in CO2 and methane levels in atmosphere, and prompt return to pre-industrial levels). No human settlements in half of the planet’s land area. (The preceding measures are binary measures (two values, achieved or not achieved); in general, performance measures may be discrete with more than two values, or continuous.)
Human quality-of-life performance measures: No poverty. Global human population not to exceed 800 million total on the planet. Personal freedom similar to that in today’s economically developed countries, except that all personal rights are to be symmetrical (rights with responsibilities; rights that do not impose unreasonable costs on society or others). Mandatory eight years of education for all. Free merit-based access to higher education and vocational training. Guaranteed merit-based employment. Free visiting access to the entire planet, and free settlement access to half of the planet’s land area. Equal protection under the law. Access to a full range of science, technology, and humanities, to enable human beings to achieve their full potential.
Synthesis of System Alternatives
System Alternative 1: A Nuclear-Energy World
The System Alternative 1 is developed in the context of a specific collapse of global civilization, as described in Scenario 4, “Planned, initiated and managed collapse.”
Vision for System Alternative 1:
Physical description. A low-population world containing up to 100 small, high-technology city-states and no mechanized agriculture or industry outside of cities. Each city-state contains 1-8 million people and is technologically independent and materially self-sufficient. It may contain any number of cities (urban areas having at least 50,000 people), subject to the limitation that the total city-state population not exceed 8 million. Village settlements affiliated with each city-state may exist outside of the boundaries of each city (i.e., in the country of the city-state), but not to the point of having more than a negligible effect on the natural biosphere. All transmitted electrical energy is from nuclear power plants. No industrial use of solar energy. The total global population is not greater than 800 million. Associated with each city-state is an area approximately equal to one percent of the global habitable area. The global habitable area is 64 million square kilometers, so each city-state is associated with .64 million square kilometers of habitable area. If this area were square, that would be a square with sides of length 800 kilometers (about 500 miles by 500 miles). (There are no restrictions on the physical size or geometry of the city-states. Their borders would associate with geological, ecological and ethnological features. The areas would correspond to the bioregions of bioregionalism.)
Government. The form of government is a single unitary state. For reference, let us call this state Terra. See the Wikipedia article, “Unitary state” for information about this form of government. (A large majority of the world's states (166 of the 193 UN member states) have a unitary system of government. Many unitary states have no areas possessing a degree of autonomy. In such countries, sub-national regions cannot decide their own laws. Examples are Romania, Ireland and Norway.) Although the 100 city-states comprising Terra are geographically distinct, they are not sub-national units. They are all integral parts of the single unitary state (Terra), and possess no separate powers, authority or autonomy. The reason for this is that, because the global nuclear war may essentially never end, any of the city-states may be destroyed at any time and the remaining city-states must have the capacity to continue operation unaffected by the loss. All city-states have the same functionality, capability and purpose (operation of a long-term-sustainable society of human beings having a high quality of life and living in a diversity-rich biosphere). If all but one of the city-states were destroyed, it would not matter which one remained, from the viewpoint of functionality, capability and purpose.
In addition to being a unitary state, the government of Terra is democratic socialism; more specifically, it is a democratic socialist republic (i.e., power is held by the people and their elected representatives) adhering to the principles of eco-socialism. Each city-state elects three senators / representatives. At any given time, the government is in session in one of the city-states, with at least one senator of each city-state in his home city-state and at least one senator at session. In senate votes, each city-state has one vote (so that if two senators are present, each has one-half a vote).
As discussed earlier, a major shortcoming of representative democracy is the fact that special interests exert tremendous influence (since the cost of the benefit given to them by the elected representative seems small when spread over the entire electorate). To ameliorate this drawback, provision is made for plebiscites, i.e., for direct vote by all citizens on issues of special importance (i.e., direct democracy).
All human beings on the planet are citizens with identical basic rights, basically, the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Citizens are free to move wherever they please on the planet, subject to obeying Terran laws and not infringing on the rights of other citizens. Every citizen is provided a basic (unearned) income and right to merit-based employment. Citizens may earn more than the basic income by engaging in employment (“to each according to his contribution”). Collectively, the city-states comprising Terra have dominion over the entire planet. There is no private ownership of real property (land and improvements). All citizens have a right to access public property subject to use restrictions set by the state (i.e., by Terra, not by the city-state). There is no capitalism (private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit). No property income, i.e., no rents, no interest-bearing loans, no profits. There are no private associations (such as corporations) having special rights.
All citizens have a right to a free basic (eight-year) education, and merit-based right to free education or vocational training beyond that. Basic education is compulsory and universal.
Citizenship duties: education; obey laws. Employment is guaranteed, but not mandatory. If an able-bodied person refuses to work, or if a person commits crimes, then re-educate. If re-education is not successful, the person is prohibited from residing in the city. There are no prisons.
No mechanized agriculture outside of cities. No large-scale (industrial-level) fishing or battery production (“factory farming”) of animals for food or other animal products. Domestic animals are permitted.
Money (fiat money) is not necessary for basic necessities (food, lodging, clothes, health care, education) but may be earned (by services (work for state or others, entertainment) or production of goods) and expended on goods or services as long as does not interfere with government’s mission. No charging of interest.
Use of force. Industrial operations outside of cities will be neutralized. The use of force is guided by survival ethics, à la Nicholas Taleb (relative morality / consequentialism (an action is ethical relative to a goal if it is consistent with achieving the goal), and group selection à la E. O. Wilson (ethics at the group level; for a problem of comparable seriousness, trumps ethics at the individual level)).
Rights. People may have all rights specified in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Appendix E), subject to state laws. Rights will be redefined to be symmetric (be associated with responsibilities, and not impose costs on society or others that are substantially greater than the benefits to the individual exercising the right, and are not inconsistent with the common good). As is presently the case, some rights are limited. For example, the right to free speech does not permit a person to cry “Fire!” in a crowded theater, if there is no fire. Under this scenario, private ownership of land and improvements on land is not permitted. (This provision is a limitation on what is property, but it is a not in violation of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 17 (1) “Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others,” since ownership of land and improvements by individuals or associations is not permitted. Similarly, it is prohibited to own human beings.) Some rights are irrelevant (such as Articles 13 and 14, since there is but a single state).
The preceding paragraphs sketch out a single scenario of scenario type 4, one in which fossil fuels are replaced by nuclear energy. A wide range of scenarios is specified. These are used in the evaluation of system alternatives. A system is desired that is regenerative, robust, antifragile, and resilient. This can be assessed only by evaluating the performance relative to a very wide range of alternative scenarios, including ones that appear to be unusual. It is desired to “stress” candidate systems against a wide range of situational contexts, including those that are unlikely but would have major impact.
The single scenario that is specified as an example is one in which fossil fuels are replaced by nuclear energy. Other candidate scenarios might include (1) Business as usual – making no preparations at all, biospheric destruction continues, sixth extinction continues, global warming continues, mass famines and epidemics, impoverished biosphere, capitalism and growth-based economics continue, human misery and poverty continue; (2) Collapse occurs because of biological warfare on agricultural crops, causing mass famine; (3) Collapse occurs because of biological warfare on human beings: a disease is genetically engineered that wipes out human populations on all continents, leaving alive only a few scattered human settlements on remote islands; (4) Collapse occurs because of biological warfare on human beings: a disease is genetically engineered that wipes out 95% of the human population; (5) Nuclear bombs are detonated in Antarctica, causing part of the western ice shelf to move into the sea. Sea levels rise 100 feet, flooding many cities; (6) Planet is geoengineered to lower its storage of heat in the atmosphere, but the change is too great and cannot be undone, causing a nuclear winter.
A system alternative must be found that works well against all of the preceding scenarios, and many others.
Evaluation of System Alternatives
The evaluation of the performance of candidate systems is done under each scenario, relative to each of the performance measures. Here follows the specification of a particular scenario, followed by an evaluation of it.
Scenario 4.1: A Nuclear-Energy World. This scenario is a particular example of a Scenario 4, “Planned, initiated and managed collapse.”
General Description of Scenario 4.1
From the Wikipedia article, “List of states with nuclear weapons”: According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the worldwide total inventory of nuclear weapons as of 2019 stood at 13,865, of which 3,750 were deployed with operational forces. In early 2019, more than 90% of the world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States. (1750 deployed by the US, 1572 by Russia)
As of now (2021), there are about 10,000 cities in the world having population over 50,000, 1170 cities with population over 500,000, and 557 with population over one million. (Source: World Population Review website, World City Populations 2021, and Next City website article, “There are 10,000 Cities on Planet Earth. Half Didn’t Exist 40 Years Ago.”)
Because of the high level of interdependency of today’s industrial society, it is not necessary to destroy most of the world’s cities in order to destroy modern industrial civilization. Destruction of all cities having population over one million could be quite sufficient. It has been estimated that Israel possesses as many as 400 nuclear warheads. That number could well be sufficient to destroy modern industrial civilization.
For specificity, for this example, let us assume that global nuclear war has occurred, that all 3,750 deployed weapons were used, and that the world’s largest 3,750 cities have been destroyed, most of them in the countries possessing nuclear weapons: The United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Turkey. It is assumed that, at the end of the war, 10,115 operational nuclear weapons remain.
An issue to address in defining this scenario is what use is made of the remaining nuclear weapons after the end of the initial weapon exchanges. In all likelihood, the command-and-control systems / installations that waged the war will have been destroyed. If not, with no more support from the industrialized society that supported them, they would likely become nonoperational after a few years. For definiteness, we shall assume that some sort of automated artificial-intelligence system, or “doomsday” system, has been put in place to destroy any enemy city that exhibits signs of life. It is assumed that the global satellite system will have been destroyed, and any aircraft-based systems as well, so any residual monitoring system would be land-based, perhaps powered by solar energy, nuclear energy, or geothermal energy. At some point, perhaps decades, possibly centuries, it is expected that the detonation of nuclear bombs would cease. In a rather depressing (but by no means “worst-case”) scenario, the 10,115 weapons remaining after the initial exchanges might be detonated one-at-a-time, once a year, in which case the global nuclear war would continue for 10,115 years.
The reason for conjecturing a difficult scenario is that any system intended to promote a long-term-sustainable global society must be robust and antifragile.
More-Specific Description of Scenario 4.1
Some Background
On December 8,1953, US President Dwight David Eisenhower presented his “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations General Assembly. From the Wikipedia article, “Atoms for Peace”: The United States then launched an "Atoms for Peace" program that supplied equipment and information to schools, hospitals, and research institutions within the U.S. and throughout the world. The first nuclear reactors in Israel and Pakistan in Islamabad were built under the program. … Two quotations from the speech follow:
It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life.
To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you—and therefore before the world its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma—to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.
Under Atoms-for-Peace-related programs the U.S. exported over 25 tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to 30 countries, mostly to fuel research reactors, which is now regarded as a proliferation and terrorism risk. Under a similar program, the Soviet Union exported over 11 tons of HEU.
As the petroleum age is drawing to an end, the world still obtains about 81.3 percent of its energy from fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas), 9.3% from biofuels and waste, 4.9% from nuclear, 2.5% from hydro, and 2.0% from other, of which 1.7% is solar electric. Solar energy, including solar electric, hydro and biofuels, are damaging to the environment, and draw solar energy away from use by the biosphere (photosynthesis for rejuvenation). It is not feasible to replace the 81.3 percent of current energy consumption with solar energy, without causing massive damage to the biosphere. An alternative to solar energy is nuclear. While its use is not without problems, it can supply massive amounts of non-carbon energy without damaging the biosphere.
From the World Nuclear Association website, “Nuclear Power in the World Today”: Nuclear energy now provides about 10% of the world's electricity from about 440 power reactors. Nuclear is the world's second largest source of low-carbon power (29% of the total in 2018). Over 50 countries utilise nuclear energy.
While nuclear energy provides about 10% of the world’s electricity, it provides only about 5% of total energy. It does this with about 440 nuclear power reactors. With, say, twenty times this number of reactors, say 8800 reactors, nuclear energy could provide all of the world’s current energy consumption, at current levels. With, say, 4400 reactors, it could provide all of the world’s current electrical energy consumption. (Nuclear power plants vary considerably by electricity generating capacity. The estimates depend very much on the assumed capacities. The capacity of a nuclear reactor may be specified relative to generation of thermal energy or relative to generation of electrical energy. In what follows, we shall restrict discussion to electrical-energy capacity.)
Let us suppose, for this scenario, that the US and Russia extend the Atoms for Peace program to supply 12,000 nuclear reactors to cities around the world. The number 12,000 is much larger than the 8800 needed to supply all the world’s current energy consumption, or the 4400 needed to supply all the world’s current electricity energy consumption. This number is taken since it exceeds the assumed number of remaining nuclear weapons, 10,115, after a nuclear exchange using all deployed weapons. With 12,000 reactors in place, all remaining weapons could be discharged, and yet many nuclear reactors would survive.
While this number may seem excessive, it must be kept in mind that most of the world’s nations and people are champing at the bit to increase their standards of living, and accomplishing this will require a massive increase in global energy consumption. From this perspective, the amount of 12,000 reactors is viewed as conservative.
Because of economies of scale, there is an economic motivation to build large nuclear power plants. At present, substantial effort is being expended on the design of small modular nuclear reactors. Appendix K presents basic information about small modular reactors (SMRs). Here follows a list of some of their features:
1. Because of their small size, they may be manufactured at a factory and transported to the installation site.
2. Because of standardized designs, regulatory and licensing costs would be substantially decreased (since many reactors will be made from the same design (or small number of designs)).
3. SMRs are small, so that the on-site installation costs are less than for past reactors, which were sized large to achieve economies of scale.
4. Because SMRs are ready for use as soon as the installation facility is ready, the time and cost expended before they are generating power is substantially less than for larger and custom-tailored reactors.
5. SMRs can be used in remote locations, without the need to connect to a large electrical power grid.
6. The power needs in remote locations are variable. SMRs employ load-following designs that can accommodate variable loads.
7. The development risk associated with SMRs is lower than for custom-tailored designs (because many SMRs would be made from the same design).
The US military is currently funding work on the design of mobile nuclear reactors. See Appendix K for information about this effort.
Every few years, the spent nuclear fuel must be reprocessed. For reprocessing, the spent fuel is sent to a reprocessing facility. See the Wikipedia article, “Nuclear reprocessing” for information. At present, there are just a couple of dozen nuclear reprocessing sites in a handful of countries around the world. In the event of global nuclear war, many of these sites may be destroyed. For the proposed system to be survivable, a capacity for refueling and reprocessing would be necessary in many city-states.
As fossil-fuel reserves exhaust, demand will increase for nuclear reactors. As mentioned, fossil fuels now account for about 82 percent of global energy consumption, and it is not feasible to replace that amount by other means. If standards of living are to increase in less-developed countries, the demand for energy will skyrocket. The industrialized world will jump at the opportunity to build 12,000 SMRs for use around the world. The economic incentive to move to an all-nuclear-energy world will be irresistible. Nuclear energy is “carbon-free” (generates no carbon emissions and hence, no greenhouse-gas emissions, such as nuclear or large hydroelectric), which will appeal to people who wish to address global warming.
As a condition of acceptance of a free nuclear power station, each recipient must agree to accept a permanent team of 1,000 technicians from the donor country. (This is not an arbitrary requirement: SMRs require the presence of operating and maintenance personnel.) Apart from the technical need for these personnel, an even more compelling reason for this stipulation is Machiavelli’s assertion that there are three ways to subjugate a people after conquest: (1) annihilate them; (2) set up puppet governments; (3) interbreed with them. The technicians are the way of accomplishing method (3).
Under this scenario, the Atoms for Peace program is so well-received that other nuclear powers, such as the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel jump on board, and initiate similar programs. If a global nuclear war occurs, the home countries of these powers will likely be annihilated. Unless they participate in Atoms for Peace, there is little likelihood that their genes or cultures will survive.
Performance Evaluation relative to Scenario 4.1
Since the purpose of this section is simply to illustrate the nature of a systems engineering development of a long-term-survivable society, no effort will be made to evaluate the candidate system relative to performance measures. The systems engineering process is typically an evolutionary, iterative one, in which specifications of the requirements, performance measures, candidate systems, and scenarios are modified many times. International standards have been developed to guide the systems engineering life-cycle development process (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 Systems and software engineering — System life cycle processes). The development process is continued until the potential users are quite satisfied with it.
Here follows a brief discussion of some features of the proposed system that would be of note in the evaluation process, as well as some issues that would be addressed. As a preliminary means of assessing and summarizing the usefulness of a candidate system, a SWOT analysis can be undertaken (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).
Salient Features of System Alternative 1
Strategic Advantages
From a strategic viewpoint, this system alternative offers two key advantages. First, it overcomes the resistance of society to plan for a catastrophic collapse of global industrialized society (since it offers a solution to avoid it). Second, it accomplishes all of the preparations needed for the post-industrial world (the 12,000 SMRs and the thousands of technicians required to support them) through use of the industrial establishment, which will enthusiastically embrace the effort. There is no need to solicit funds for preparation.
It might be argued that the financial cost of the proposed system alternative is very high. That is true. As the world runs out of fossil fuels, however, and it is realized that renewable solar energy cannot reasonably replace the energy of fossil fuels, the importance of price will diminish.
Because of the high cost, it might further be argued that the global establishment might balk at the high price tag for this system alternative, and prefer to do nothing. The counter to this argument is the fact that the establishment will not be paying the cost of the system, but will be enjoying (reaping) the cost of the system, since it will be building the thousands of SMSs needed by the system alternative. In general, the industrial establishment is the enemy of the ecosphere. This enemy is very strong, and attempting to overcome it using a “frontal assault” would be foolish. From the viewpoint of military strategy, the tremendous advantage of the enemy – its economic power – is used to overcome it.
As the exhaustion of the petroleum age fuels draws near, the world is about to see a “mad scramble” to build nuclear power reactors. The world is about to embrace nuclear power whole-heartedly. Unlike the case of solar-electric power, no government incentives will be required to cause this to happen. This “power shift” will be motivated by economic and political considerations. It will occur very fast, for two main reasons: (1) the world is rapidly exhausting its oil reserves; and (2) political leaders and citizens of all developing countries are screaming for economic development for their burgeoning populations (and, it might be added, the UN asserts that people have a right to economic development). The ethical / environmental / ecological arguments in favor of nuclear power, that it is carbon-free and much safer than conventional power, will have little to do with this change. The ethical argument against nuclear power that it generates radioactive waste that lasts for thousands of years will be ignored. The world is about to see a rapid conversion from fossil-fuel energy to nuclear energy.
The initial conditions for global catastrophe defining Scenario 4.1 are established: despite decades of nuclear disarmament talks, nuclear disarmament has not happened; global warming is now well under way and will continue as long as today’s global industrial civilization continues. The primary initial condition defining System Alternative 1 – a nuclear-energy world – is about to be achieved, to become a reality, with no external ethical reasoning, or economic incentives, or promotion, or planning, or preparation, or decisions, or action required.
Although System Alternative 1 represents a plan for surviving in the event of a global catastrophe such as global nuclear war, it works equally well if no such event occurs. This feature is a key “selling point” – it represents a “win-win” alternative. It affords high likelihood of survival at no cost to the current economy. In fact, its implementation would represent a substantial boon to the economy (the construction of thousands of SMRs) and a solution to the global energy crisis.
Ethical Features
A key motivation for considering System Alternative 1 is its appeal to the short-term interests of Earth’s current generation of people, current wealthy elite, and current controllers. It appeals to their desire to maximize their own satisfaction, without regard to the welfare of others. It offers the benefit of access to high levels of energy, so that current lifestyles are not compromised, but will be improved. It does not call for population reduction by any means (population planning, population control or war). Nuclear energy can provide sufficient energy to accomplish the development goals of the world’s leaders and to meet the right to development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The initial implementation of System Alternative 1 (i.e., the pre-war preparation) does not depend on ethical or moral values about the value of human life, either those currently alive or potentially alive in the future. It does not depend on an attitude of respect or reverence for nature. It takes into account the nature of human beings to discount in time and space. It is based on the desire of today’s human beings and wealthy elite to maximize their satisfaction and likelihood of survival. Following the establishment of the alternative by a triggering event (such as nuclear war), however, the system will definitely depend on ethical values (e.g., respect for nature) to maintain it.
History has shown that any plan to reduce population or reduce material quality of life are rejected. It has shown that attempts to resolve the environmental crisis that are based on morality or ethics or respect for nature are doomed. The proposed System Alternative 1 possesses neither of these features.
Other Features
Appeal to Many Interest Groups
System Alternative 1 will appeal to world leaders since it affords a solution to the end of the fossil-fuel age. It will appeal to ecologists since it moves to a completely carbon-free industrial energy system. The proposed system affords essentially unrestricted access to nature, with minimal authority (hardly any outside of the cities, except for the requirement to educate children and eschew industrial production, industrial agriculture, and factory farming). There is no capitalism. While the system is perhaps best described as eco-socialist, it would appeal in varying degree to all facets of the environmental movement: radical environmentalists, Earth liberationists, eco-nationalists, anarcho-primitivists, animal liberationists, bioregionalists, green anarchists, deep ecologists, eco-psychologists, ecofeminists, anti-globalists and anti-capitalists. For these interest groups, the proposed system is as good as it gets. There is always some form of authority present in any human society. Under this alternative, the size of the governmental system is small and it is purposed to achieve high quality for human existence and the biosphere, not to generate economic wealth.
Feasibility
The salient feature and major shortcoming of all groups offering alternative societies, such as environmentalists and anarchists, is that, while they wax poetic in their criticism of the current world political system, they offer no feasible way of implementing their proposals. From the point of view of realizing their vision or achieving their goals, they may as well be proposing that we return to the Garden of Eden. They offer no plan, no strategy, for righting the wrongs that they document, or for implementing a transition to an alternative future that better suits their preferences. A key aspect of System Alternative 1 is that it is totally feasible. Although the ultimate goal is a society without capitalism or growth-based economics, all of the preparations for this system alternative will be motivated by economic incentives withing the current capitalist system. A triggering event will occur at some point, and when it does, a system alternative such as this one (which, for convenience of definiteness in discussion, is premised on the occurrence of nuclear war) will go into effect. The success of the proposed alternative is assured by capitalism and growth-based economics, the very systems that it aims to replace.
Antifragility
The proposed system is highly antifragile. The proposed system thrives on chaos. The likelihood of success is, however, a nonlinear function of the magnitude of the destruction caused by nuclear war. If the nuclear war is very small, the present global industrial civilization will rebuild, and the vision will not be realized. If the nuclear war causes the extinction of mankind or annihilation of the biosphere, the vision will not be realized. The proposed alternative can be implemented if the damage to global industrial civilization from nuclear war or other triggering event is substantial, but not to the point of annihilating all of the cities that are prepared to become the cities of the city-states of the alternative.
A Weakness: The Crucial Role of Ethics in Maintaining the System
The proposed system alternative is, in essence, a system for “managing the peace” after a nuclear war or other cataclysmic event. A major threat to a successful outcome is that one or more of the city-states would reject the goal of establishing a biospherically-friendly system such as that proposed, and attempt to implement a different sort of system, such as a restoration of global industrial capitalism employing growth-based economics. System Alternative 1 is a feasible program for establishing a framework for such a biospherically-friendly system. Whether that framework is used as intended and maintained will rest in the hands of the people.
The proposed system has two basic goals: to achieve a high quality of life for human beings, and to preserve and nurture what remains of the biosphere. Ethics may not have played much of a role in the nuclear war or other event that triggers the initiation of this system alternative, and ethics does not play a major role in motivating the pre-war preparations for this post-war alternative. Ethics does play, however, a crucial role in establishing and maintaining the proposed system after the war or other triggering event occurs.
The incentives for making the pre-war preparations were the profit to the wealthy in building thousands of SMRs, and the availability of sufficient (nuclear) energy for political leaders to maintain their present high-level, high-population industrial society. After the war (or other triggering event) has occurred, these goals become irrelevant. The present global industrial system will have been seriously wounded, and its wealthy elite, political leaders, and planetary controllers will no longer be supremely powerful. The goal at that time is to convince people that to preserve their freedom and high quality of life, they must require their leaders to commit to maintaining the planned biospherically-friendly society. They must be convinced that they have the power to overthrow the leaders at any time. If they do this, the system will succeed. If they do not, it will fail.
It is here that ethics will play an essential role. For the proposed system to last, people must be committed to maintaining a biospherically-friendly society. Having that attitude in today’s society was of no significance, since the wealthy elite and the planet’s controllers, who were committed to amassing wealth and power regardless of the cost to the biosphere or to the people, were too strong. After the occurrence of the triggering event, however, the situation is dramatically changed. The global industrial establishment will have been seriously if not mortally wounded, and the people will be in a position to take back their freedom and regain access to nature and a high quality of life. This can be accomplished if the people commit to an attitude of respect for nature, and recognition that humankind will have a quality existence only if it is a minor part of the biosphere.
A Weakness: The Use of Representative Democracy
The proposed system is based on representative democracy. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Plato recognized the weakness of democracy, that people would elect bad leaders who made seductive promises. A major flaw in representative democracy is that it contains a strong incentive to cater to special-interest groups (since the benefit to them is high but the per-person cost to the electorate is low).
A Weakness: Dependence on an Informed Electorate
The proposed system alternative provides people with the means to have a high-quality life in a biodiverse biosphere. Whether they choose to adopt that system and maintain it is up to them. The dependence of the proposed alternative on the people (through the use of representative democracy) is both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, an enabled electorate represents a strength against the threat to democracy from elites. On the other hand, a recognized weakness of democracy is that the electorate does not always act in their own best interest. As Noam Chomsky noted, democracy works best if people are well-informed about the issues. The proposed system emphasizes education (universal and mandatory for eight years and merit-based free afterward). The people will have been provided a means to achieve a good life. The choice will be up to them, and they will get exactly the kind of government they deserve. May they choose well.
Issues to Address; Discussion
The purpose of this section is to illustrate the approach of using systems engineering to design a feasible planetary management system. It is not intended to provide details, just top-level concepts associated with the methodology. This subsection identifies some of the issues that would be addressed in a more detailed implementation of the method. The issues are listed in no particular order.
Ecological Considerations
E. O. Wilson proposes setting aside half of the Earth’s surface as a human-free natural reserve to preserve biodiversity. How much of the planet’s surface should be set aside? It would seem that half is not sufficient, since large areas are necessary to maintain a high level of genetic diversity. The proposed system alternative in effect sets aside the entire planet, except for the cities (i.e., the areas outside of the cities are free of industrial development or operations).
Humankind’s presence cannot be so large as to cause macroscopic changes in the biosphere. Human population size must be so small that we make negligible impact on the biosphere. E.g., 300 million. Should virtually all impinging solar energy be used by plants, and none diverted to electricity?
In the wake of a catastrophic event such as global nuclear war, ecological collapse, or substantial climate change, it is possible that a significant demographic transition may occur, resulting in movement toward unsustainably high human populations. In the discussion on demographic transition, the point was made that movement to a higher population level does not necessarily cause environmental damage, if the energy use is such that no pollution and no environmental or ecological damage results. In a world powered by nuclear energy, it is possible to achieve this condition.
Technical Considerations
How many people are required to maintain a self-sufficient high-tech society; that is, what is the approximate minimum size of a high-tech city-state? How large a population size is needed to manage a planet? How large a size is needed to maintain advanced technology (e.g., a nuclear society)? Five million? One billion? Can a society that large recycle virtually all of its industrial waste, running on nuclear energy?
The modern globalized integrated economy is highly fragile. The main reason why it is so fragile is that its components – nations and corporations – are highly interdependent. In the proposed system, the various city states are not interdependent. They are interconnected, but not interdependent. Here follow two recent examples of the interdependency of the present system. (1) A few years ago, a substantial portion of the world’s production of computer hard drives was located in Thailand. A flood disrupted production, and the global supply was inadequate for about a year. (2) Since the COVID-19 pandemic began a year ago, it has killed approximately two million people, many of them older. The annual increase in global human population is about 81 million people. The COVID-19 annual death amount is a small fraction of the annual population increase, yet it has wreaked havoc with global economies.
With the use of SMRs, the need for a large power grid extending to remote areas is obviated.
With the availability of large amounts of nuclear energy, the waste from industrial production can be managed. The essential issue is to not reduce the size or complexity of the biosphere!
Advantages of having a large number (100) of city-states: redundancy (increased survivability); it is easier to implement control over smaller regions; increased challenge / stress of managing several entities; increased antifragility, uncertainty, challenge, opportunities, diversity. Different groups could insure against different threats, to increase the antifragility of the whole.
Discuss solar civilization vs atomic (nuclear) civilization. Is it possible to have a high-technology solar-energy civilization without destroying the biosphere? Is it feasible to have both solar and nuclear? Solar is simpler, less complex, but its industrial use “steals” solar radiation from use by the biosphere. Nuclear is more complex, lower entropy, more interesting, more demanding, more purposeful, more challenging, riskier. Or is it in fact less risky, from the point of view of preserving the biosphere? Anyway, science and technology are out of the bag. If nuclear power fails, solar power will in fact be the backup (since fossil fuels will eventually exhaust).
Discuss survivability / reliability / antifragility. Thriving on chaos / uncertainty. Example: Children are healthier if exposed to germs and a variety of foods. New Department of Agriculture / Health and Human Services Department nutrition guidelines (December 2020).
Political Considerations
Bertrand Russell’s Theorem. Bertrand Russell asserted that a single world government was not feasible since there was no external threat (i.e., another nation) to promote cohesion of the population. An example of the role of an external threat is the constant war in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. System Alternative 4.1 is a single world state, with no competition. In the absence of such a state, how can cohesion be accomplished? Is providing each person with the opportunity for a meaningful life a sufficient incentive?
Discuss advantages of a single unitary state vs. a federalist government. Cannot have a single central government, or it would surely be targeted and destroyed. Discuss incentives, participation, tolerance, inclusiveness, skin in the game, stability, ethics, satisfaction, permanency, antifragility, energy, entropy, waste, bio-rejuvenation.
Discuss bioregionalism, including Kirkpatrick Sale’s and Leopold Kohr’s assertions that a political system comprised of many small units is much more stable than one that includes some of substantially larger-than-average size.
Most people view collapse of civilization as a very bad thing. History has shown, however, that this is not necessarily the case. Tainter asserts that when a society’s complexity becomes an oppressive burden, the citizenry welcomes the collapse, such as in the case of the barbarian takeover of the Roman Empire (see Tertulian). Following the Black Death, in which one-third of the population of Europe may have died, Europe experienced a substantial rejuvenation, and the quality of life was better for the survivors in a less-densely populated world.
The wealthy elite will not object to the Atoms for Peace, since the additional energy that it provides simply makes them wealthier. After the collapse, however, there will be no wealthy elite. A classless society (i.e., no one is born into a social class).
Some have proposed anarchic-primitivism or anarchic-socialism as a remedy for the crisis faced by the present global civilization (biospheric destruction, widespread human misery). Now that science and technology are out of the bag, human beings will never willingly return to anarchy. Global anarchy is not a reasonable goal. Any group that adopted it would be conquered by a group that did not.
It is noted that the proposed candidate system satisfies all of the desires of the anarchic-primitivists and primitivists, except for the non-existence of a governmental state. The primary purpose of the proposed government, however, is to maintain the biodiversity of the planet and assure a high quality of life for all human beings. For primitivists, this is as good as it is going to get. There is no capitalism and no poverty. There are no ruling classes, no wealthy elite. Most of the planet is in a primitive, natural state, and all people are free to travel anywhere. In human society, there is always authority, even in a primitive tribal existence. By complexity theory (self-organization), human society will always evolve to more complexity (subject to energy constraints). For a primitivist, the best that can be hoped for is an authority that is committed to maintaining the natural state of the biosphere and a high quality of life for human beings in that biosphere.
A system alternative having some high-tech states and some low-tech or primitive areas not part of those states will not work in the long run. The low-tech areas would constantly wish to conquer the high-tech areas. They would be impossible to control. They would be oppressed. This system would not afford a free, high-quality life and equal opportunities to any human being living in a primitive area. It is demeaning to sentence part of humanity to ignorance. Under the proposed system alternative, all human beings have the same opportunities for education, employment, personal development and lifestyle, and access to nature.
The preceding issue brings to mind the song, “How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree?).” (See the eponymous Wikipedia article for discussion.) Under the proposed system alternative, people are free to live in the city (if employed) or the country (whether or not employed). For the system to work, it is necessary that people fill the jobs required to support and maintain a technological city. Since history shows that many people prefer urban life to rural life, the availability of human resources to operate the cities does not appear to be a problem. If few people prefer rural life, that is fine – the rural areas will have low population. What may be an issue, however, is that with low population densities in rural areas, and with rural areas now offering high-quality natural settings, many people may prefer to live in the country. History also shows that people living in open rural areas tend to have high birth rates. If that were to occur, the long-term-sustainability of the proposed system alternative would be threatened. In the main, goals and objectives will be achieved by means of education and incentive. As stated earlier, a premise of this proposed system alternative is the proscription of industrial activity outside of the city. Without the use of industrial activity, the rural population faces the natural constraint of having a population size that is consistent with the natural carrying capacity of the area.
Educational Considerations
Education is required to show the advantages of a low-population planet. It is clear that a large population is causing severe problems. Discuss the advantages of a small population. Chomsky emphasizes that people cannot make good choices if they do not possess good information. While having good information is necessary for making good decisions, it is not at all sufficient, as shown by the following examples. (1) The industrialized world has known about the existential threat of global warming for decades and has known how to stop it, but has done nothing effective to do so. (2) Most of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest is to clear the land for cattle ranching (because the soil is laterite, it is not suitable for raising crops). Brazil is now the world’s largest exporter of beef. If there were no worldwide demand for beef, then this would not be profitable, and the deforestation would cease. The world knows this, but it is not willing to give up eating of beef to save the Amazon rainforest. (3) The facts that cattle are a major contributor of methane gas to the atmosphere, and that methane is one of the more potent greenhouse gasses, have been widely publicized for decades, yet people persist and insist on eating large amounts of beef. It appears that people will not be denied their hamburgers, even though they contribute substantially to their demise.
Education is required to convince people of the tremendous and permanent loss of diversity from continuing the present system, and to convince them that mankind will never have as good an opportunity as now (with the energy from fossil fuels and the present high technology) to transition to a sustainable biosphere and high-quality human existence. As astronomer Fred Hoyle observed, mankind will never have the windfall of fossil fuels again, will have but one bite at the apple to construct a high-tech civilization, and this is it. Hoyle surmised the future of mankind as consisting of a number of periods of growth to large numbers followed by collapse. What is the point to that? Why not skip all of the failures, cut to the chase, and install a long-term sustainable population after the first collapse? We are smart enough to do this. We just need the opportunity, motivation and will. Do it now, because we will never have a better chance! Perhaps not even another chance.
Universal education is necessary to convince the people that they are the ultimate source of governmental power, and that they can retain their liberty and high quality of life if they are diligent. Ten thousand years of history under oppressive rule shows the tragic consequences of ceding power to a ruling elite.
Sociological Considerations
A proposed solution must recognize the human drive to improve, not regress or even remain the same. It must take into account human nature (intelligence, drive to breed, desire for change, discounting in time and space, avarice, warlike, diverse (races, ethnicities, languages, politics, religions)). As living organisms, human beings are driven to complexity and thrive on it. For its health and happiness, the human species needs many things, including complexity, challenge, work, diversity and excitement. Discuss how the proposed system satisfies all basic human drives.
Characteristics of successful city-states: Lucky (to survive global nuclear war). A sense of purpose, destiny. Vibrant. Hard working. Prepared.
It is not considered feasible that, in a low-energy, low-technology world, a single small state could exercise control of the entire planet and accomplish the desired goal. Through nuclear energy, the new civilization has access to all the energy it needs, or even desires.
People need meaningful, purposeful work to be happy. The inhabitants of the high-tech states will have demanding, challenging, interesting high-technology jobs, in an orderly and disciplined, but not oppressive, social structure. Discuss Schumacher on work. Discuss Andrew Carnegie “My heart is in the work.”
An interesting, challenging, make-work project: The construction of new cities. A useful task would be to rebuild the cities of the high-tech state, and the villages of the low-tech states, suitable for a solar civilization. This will be one of the greatest development projects of all time. When those cities are completed and lived in for a few generations, it may be useful to destroy them and build new cities in new places. This was the basic approach used by nomadic peoples. Live for a time in one place, wear it out / trash it, move on to a new place, and let nature heal the old place. In this scheme, there will be types of work available for all levels of human capability, and a full spectrum of skills and interests. The concept of replacing cities after a time is reminiscent of George Orwell’s concept of planned destruction to fully utilize production capacity. Many of today’s cities are deteriorating, quite unfit for happy habitation. The cities of the new world will be designed for a solar civilization and to bring a full level of comfort and satisfaction to the citizens. See Kunstler’s and Mumford’s (and others’) works on cities for discussion of city planning.
Discuss Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that people are willing to accept a measure of limitation on their freedom from big things (governments), if they have substantial freedom in little things (personal activities).
Discuss why is it that the masses submit so willingly to control by a few. Discuss how to convince people that the establishment and operation of a single-unitary-state global government is totally feasible; that the system of many competing states has been proved disastrous and is a major part of the problem; that it does not have to be this way.
Selection of Preferred Alternative / Performance Evaluation
All proposed system alternatives would be evaluated under all identified scenarios, and a preferred alternative selected.
It was reported on television on Dec. 25, 2020, that 60 million Americans are living in food insecurity. Many are begging for food at food distribution centers. The democratic capitalist system has failed them miserably.
In the United States, population growth in recent decades is from immigration. The birth rate was at replacement level in 1972. Population growth in the United States has resulted in a massive increase in the number of people living in poverty. It has seriously diminished the quality of life for many people. It has degraded the environment and diminished the quantity and quality of living space. From the viewpoint of stopping the decline in the quality of life for US citizens and the quality of the biosphere, it would appear that it is advisable to end all immigration, except as necessary for national defense.
Each immigrant to the US destroys an acre of natural land (for building of roads, houses, schools, hospitals, businesses, government facilities). This causes a reduction in living space, overcrowding, increased pollution, destruction of nature, and death by alien. It has contributed to disease, such as COVID-19. Legal immigrants are more damaging to biosphere than illegal aliens, since they use more energy.
The Dark Side of US Immigration Policy
America’s immigration policy of mass immigration from developing countries has caused and is causing great damage to the biosphere. In 1972, when the US achieved replacement-level fertility (2.1 children per woman), its population was 210 million people. Its population today (2021) is 331 million. Since 1972, all of the increase, 331 million – 210 million = 121 million, is the result of immigration and births to immigrants.
The vast majority of immigrants to the United States are from less-developed countries. The per-capita energy consumption in those countries is far lower than in the US. In 2016, the per-capita primary energy consumption for the US was 79,000 kWh, and the median per-capita primary energy consumption for other countries was about 15,000 kWh. When an immigrant using 15,000 kWh of energy in his home country becomes a US resident using 79,000 kWh, the increase in energy use is 64,000 kWh per year. This is a massive increase in energy use – about four times as much as was being used previously.
As discussed earlier in this article, energy use is strongly associated with damage to the environment. The US policy of accepting immigrants from poor countries imposes a massive cost on the environment. This “externality” of US immigration policy is never discussed. Under US immigration policy, the vast majority of immigrants is from poor countries – in the range of 80-90 percent (data source: Migration Policy Institute table, “Immigration Population by Region and Country of Birth, 2000 to 2019,” posted at https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrants-countries-birth-over-time). As mentioned, the increase in US population from immigration is 121 million people. Eighty percent of this amount is almost 100 million people. So, US immigration policy imposes, this year, an estimated environmental-impact cost of approximately 100 million people x 64 MWh/person = 6,400 MWh = 6.4 GWh (gigawatts) on the biosphere and all of the countries of the world. Over the 49 years since 1972, the estimated environmental-impact cost of US immigration policy has been approximately 49 x 6.4 GWh / 2 = 157 GWh. (See the section, ‘The Demographic Transition “Double Whammy”’ for a discussion of estimation of environmental impact.)
Discussions about future populations involve estimates of future situations under various assumptions. To assess the seriousness of the environmental problem facing mankind, it is helpful to review some of these. Because much has been written on the subject of population and the environment, this Appendix Js somewhat long.
Knowing about the nature of future population sizes, structures and conditions is important to all nations, and people have been making population forecasts for a long time. The fact is, however, that most forecasts of population even just a few decades into the future have not been very accurate. Moreover, for several hundred years, some population forecasters have predicted imminent population collapse, and this, obviously, has not happened. These two facts beg the question as to why population forecasts have a poor track record. To understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to discuss population forecasting at some length.
Before proceeding further, it is helpful to define a few
terms. An estimate is an assertion about the value of some quantity,
such as the average amount of rainfall in a region. An estimate of a future
value is called a prediction or forecast. The terms
estimate, prediction and forecast usually imply the use of a reasoned basis for
the assertion, such as the use of a formal or standardized or accepted
methodology such as statistical analysis, optimization or systems analysis. An
estimate or forecast may be conditional on one or more specified
assumptions, or it may be unconditional. Because the future can be
affected by human action, it is conditional forecasts that are of most
interest.
A projection is the future value of a quantity obtained by making one or more assumptions about how the future value is related to the present and past values, but without making considered or justified assertions about the reasonableness of the assumptions. For example, a projection of the population five years in the future may be obtained by assuming that the population growth rate in the next five years will be the same as the population growth rate in the most recent five years, without any assertion being made about the reasonableness of this assumption.
Most projections are not represented as forecasts, unless accompanied by an assessment of the reasonableness of the assumptions on which the projection is based. Estimates are invariably accompanied by assessments of the uncertainty (measures of precision, reliability, validity, bias, accuracy) associated with the estimate. Projections are accompanied simply by a statement of the underlying assumptions.
Demography is the field of science relating to the study of populations (usually human populations), so it might be speculated that most forecasts about the size and structure of human populations would be made by demographers. That is not the case. Demographers almost always construct and present population projections, not population forecasts. Most population forecasts are made by persons in other fields (areas of science or technology), such as physicists, biologists and social scientists.
Although most demographic statements about the future size and structure (age, sex, race, region) of a population are projections, that is not always the case. Demographic forecasting is a branch of demography. A good book on this topic is Demographic Forecasting by Federico Girosi and Gary King (2008).
An interesting example of the application of demography to make forecasts is the book, Boom, Bust and Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift by David K. Foot with Daniel Stoffman (1996). These demographers refer to population projections as demographic forecasts. The most well-known projections of global human population are the projections produced by the United Nations. These projections are invariably represented as projections, not as forecasts. They are based on stated assumptions about mortality (death) rates and natality (birth) rates.
Much forecasting is done using the tools of statistics and econometrics. Most mathematical forecasting methods are not useful for making predictions far into the future, since they assume that the future will resemble the past from a statistical viewpoint, and they generate forecasts based on a model constructed from statistical analysis of past data, such as time-series data. These methods are not useful for making forecasts about the long-term future of mankind since the future will be very different from the past with respect to factors that affect the relationship of the human species to the biosphere. Fossil fuels will be gone, and the biosphere changed substantially from the past. Since the availability of a large amount of inexpensive energy and the state of the biosphere are factors that have a substantial effect on human population, any model that forecasts human population must take them well into account.
Since human population is increasing at an exponential rate, and exponential growth cannot continue on a finite planet, the cessation of this growth is certain to occur. Based on the assumption that fertility rates decrease to replacement level before long (e.g., by 2100), it is currently projected by the United Nations and other organizations dealing with demographic data that global human population will increase from its current size of about eight billion people to about ten billion by the year 2050 and eleven billion by 2100. Note that I use the word projection here rather than the word forecast. These projections are based on the assumption that the global human reproduction rate will fall to replacement level within a few decades.
Forecasts are made in many fields by many people and organizations, using a wide variety of methodologies. People who make forecasts of the state of human society over the next few decades are called futurists. Futurists make forecasts about the full spectrum of social and economic factors, not just about population. The fact is, however, that these factors depend very much on population, and population in turn depends on them. For this reason, this discussion covers futurists in general, not just those who focus on forecasting population.
Most futurists make forecasts in the context of a high-human-population, highly industrialized multistate world similar to the present one. These forecasts are called long-range forecasts or technological forecasts. The description “long-range” is relative. On an evolutionary timescale, human existence is a short era, civilization is nothing more than a blip, and technological civilization an instantaneous “flash.” In the field of forecasting, the term “long-term” generally means from ten to 100 years into the future.
A list of well-known futurists, and some of their books, includes the following: H. G. Wells (The Shape of Things to Come (1933)); Herman Kahn and Norbert Wiener (The Year 2000 (1967); The Coming Boom (1982)); Daniel Bell (The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (1973)); Lester Brown (Worldwatch and Earth Policy Institute publications (1980s-2000s)); Alvin and Heidi Toffler (Future Shock (1970), Third Wave (1980), Power Shift (1990), Creating a New Civilization (1994)); John Naisbitt (Megatrends (1982); Megatrends 2000 (1990)); George Friedman (The Next 100 Years (2009), Stratfor, Geopolitical Futures); and Jeremy Rifkin (The Third Industrial Revolution (2013).
Many books, reports and articles have been written describing the current situation concerning humankind and the biosphere. Most of them are simply descriptive, rather than diagnostic or prescriptive. Books include The Global 2000 Report to the President commissioned by US President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and published in 1980; the many publications of Lester Brown’s Worldwatch Institute / Earth Policy Institute (1980s – 2000s); Making Peace with the Planet by Barry Commoner (1975-90); Our Angry Earth by Isaac Asimov and Frederic Pohl (1991); Only One World by Gerard Piel (1992); Living within Limits by Garrett Hardin (1993); The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Mankind by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (1995); Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail to Succeed by Jared Diamond (2005); and the many works of Arthur C. Clarke.
A very large number of books have been written on population projections. The most famous early book on this topic was Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). More recent works include The Population Bomb (1968) by Paul Ehrlich; The Population Explosion (1990) and Healing the Planet (1991) by Paul and Anne Ehrlich; a number of books by Donella Meadows and others, including The Limits to Growth (1972, Donella H. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows, William W. Behrens III); Beyond the Limits (1993, Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers), Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (2004, Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers), and 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years by Jorgen Randers; and a number of books by economist Julian Simon, including Population Matters (1990); The State of Humanity (1995); and The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996).
A book that is both descriptive and prescriptive is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail to Succeed by Jared Diamond (2005). Diamond describes the factors involved in the collapse of many historical societies and identifies what must be done (planning and hard choices) for the present global society to avoid a similar fate. It is interesting to note that in the years since he wrote this book, there is scant evidence that his recommendations have been taken to heart.
People who make forecasts about future population size are generally reluctant to make specific suggestions about what to do about it. Garret Hardin presented a metaphor comparing the overpopulation of Earth to a lifeboat having too many people, and he received much criticism for this. Jared Diamond, on the other hand, also asserted strongly that hard choices must be made, but he was not specific about exactly what to do, and he was not criticized as Hardin was.
Although a substantial human population decrease is predicted by some authors, and a catastrophic collapse of global industrial civilization is predicted by others, such events have not yet happened. Some authors, such as Julian Simon, assert that the current system of large human population and global industrial civilization will continue indefinitely. Most authors end their books with the admonition that if strong actions are not taken soon, it “will be too late.” Few authors state that it is already too late, or that human population is far larger than can be supported by the biosphere for a long time, or that it will not decrease slowly, or that population collapse is inevitable.
While some authors predict a coming human population reduction, most futurists do not predict this. Their predictions are simply projections of current trends, based on the assumption that global industrial civilization will continue at its present high level. They assume or assert or predict that the high-human-population global industrial civilization will continue, and evolve to have new characteristics, such as moving from a focus on manufacturing and electro-mechanical machines to a focus on services, electronics, computers, information and communications. Jorgen Randers is one of the few futurists who accept that it is already “too late,” and that mankind’s future looks bleak.
Such forecasts make for interesting reading and they are very comforting to most people. They are embraced by people who have a vested interest that the present high-human-population system continue, such as politicians, business leaders, economists, and anyone who hopes that his children and grandchildren will survive. These forecasts are easy to construct, are easy to defend, and easy to “sell,” since they are based on the palatable assumption that the future will pretty much continue as in the past. As comforting as these forecasts may be, however, they are limited in their usefulness, for a number of reasons.
First, many of the forecasts are not conditional on the values of other variables on which future population levels depend, such as resource availability, economic conditions, and population control policies. Unconditional forecasts are not very useful for policy analysis since they do not indicate how the future might be affected by changes in such variables.
Even conditional forecasts are limited in usefulness, since they are usually based on analysis of probabilistic (statistical) associations (“correlations”) of passively-observed historical data, without consideration of causal relationships. These forecasts may be used to predict the future levels of population if the system continues to operate as in the past, but not to make predictions of what might occur if forced changes are made in some of the variables. To be credible, a forecast should be based on a causal model, i.e., a mathematical representation of reality that includes consideration of the dependence of the size of the human population to causal variables, such as the availability of energy, economic conditions, or population-control measures.
If a forecast is based on a causal model, then, in order to calculate a forecast of a model output (effect) variable. it is necessary to forecast the values of the causal (explanatory, input) variables (or, at least, of their probability distribution). For example, if a population model shows that the size of human population is dependent on energy inputs, then, to calculate a forecast of future population, it is necessary to predict the future availability of those energy inputs.
A few authors consider causal models to forecast human population. Their publications are generally marginalized, for several reasons, summarized here.
First, many causal-model-based forecasts assert that the future global human population will be much smaller than today’s population, and few people wish to entertain a world of substantially lower human population, since in such a world they and their descendants have a smaller likelihood of survival than in the rosy one in which we all survive. People tend not to purchase books that, in essence, predict that they are unlikely to survive, and so publishers do not publish them and most aspiring authors do not write them. Optimistic forecasts sell and pessimistic forecasts do not. Projections based on the assumption that human society will continue in the future much as in the past are palatable. They are good for business, good for government, and good for the wealthy controllers of the planet, since they generally lend justification to their own plans. Their projects, programs and plans are generally not supported by projections of doom, gloom, and impending catastrophic collapse, no matter how well-reasoned. They have succeeded in the current context, and prefer forecasts that the future is consistent with “business as usual.”
Second, compared to causal-model-based forecasts, projections are relatively easy to make. For a projection, there is no need to justify the assumptions on which the projection is based. There is no need to consider, construct, justify or analyze a causal model. The projection is simply an extrapolation conditional on the stated (or implicit) assumptions. For a forecast based on a reasoned, well-founded causal model, it is necessary to posit a reasonable causal model, estimate the strength of causal relationships, and forecast the values of the causal (explanatory) variables. Accomplishing this goal is a substantially more challenging undertaking than the task of making a projection.
Another reason why projections are much easier to construct than forecasts (whether based on causal models or simply on observed statistical associations) is that a forecast should be accompanied by an assessment of its uncertainty (its accuracy (precision and bias), or at least its precision (reliability)). Assessing the accuracy or precision of an estimate requires much more insight and effort than calculating a projection. It generally requires consideration of probability models, statistical analysis of data, and critical examination of assumptions. Since discussion of uncertainty tends to lessen confidence in forecasts, most futurists do not focus on this aspect of forecasting. Furthermore, many users of futurists’ forecasts do not have a sound appreciation of uncertainty, are not comfortable with it, and are not interested in it. Having to deal with a range of forecasts is considerably more difficult than dealing with a single “best guess.” Consideration of uncertainty does not promote sales of futurists’ products, and so it is not emphasized.
Third, the primary purpose of constructing a causal model is to conduct policy analysis (answer “what if” questions about what will happen if changes occur or are made in the causal variables) and to control the outcome variables of the model (i.e., human population size and the state of the biosphere). If the conclusion from a causal model is that the biosphere will be destroyed unless human population is substantially decreased, this begs the question of how this decrease will occur or be accomplished. Means that come to mind are state-enforced birth control (such as China’s one-child policy) or war. Few futurists are willing to become involved in such a discussion. Herman Kahn did not shy from addressing this sort of issue (On Thermonuclear War (1960)), but most futurists do. The futurist books that I cited earlier, such as The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, Megatrends, The Third Wave, and The Third Industrial Revolution have sold many millions of copies. Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War sold a few thousand (14,000 copies).
Fourth, most futurists concern themselves only with projections of likely futures in the near future, based on means and trends. They generally do not consider unlikely futures or futures that differ substantially from the present, no matter how serious their impact may be. Most of the time, the important aspects of human existence change slowly and rather smoothly – that is, they gradually evolve – and the near-term future does resemble the recent past. Futurists who predict that the future will resemble the past will usually have good prediction track records and sell lots of books to business planners. The instances of major events of substantial impact on many people are very few. While such events may dramatically affect the lives of many people when they occur, they don’t occur very often and they are irrelevant to most people, most of the time. Examples are the Black Death, the two World Wars of the Twentieth Century, the Great Depression, the Recession of 2007-2010, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who survive – the winners – carry on, and those who do not – the losers – are soon forgotten. Those who are most negatively affected, i.e., those who lost the war, or went bankrupt, or died, do not have much voice in complaining about the inaccuracy of a forecast that did not predict or even consider the major event that changed their lives so much. In short, a futurist who predicts a future similar to the past is generally right and has a large market for his forecasts. In those few instances in which he is terribly wrong, those affected negatively will not be in a position to complain, and the lucky survivors won’t much care.
Fifth, although forecasts based on consideration of causal models are generally easier to defend (more logical, higher validity) and of broader utility for policy analysis, the use of causal modeling is not necessary for constructing a good (reliable, valid) forecast. A reasonable forecast can be constructed based on analysis of associational (probabilistic) relationships, without consideration of any causal relationships at all. If all that is desired is the forecast, with no desire to control it or condition it on future values of causal variables, then there is no need for the causal model. Most futurists are interested only in making general, unconditional forecasts about the future, not in prescribing strategies or actions to change the future – that is the bailiwick of their clients.
Sixth, the forecasts made by popular futurists are made in the context of a stable situation or context, called an equilibrium. The exponential growth of a population explosion is highly unstable. It is not an equilibrium. It is like an explosion, and cannot continue for long. Even constant (linear) growth cannot continue indefinitely in a finite environment. If a forecaster takes limits into account, the task of forecasting becomes much more difficult – it is necessary to estimate when and how the limit will manifest itself. Resource limits are notoriously difficult to deal with, because of the substitutability of certain resources for others and the adaptive capabilities of human society.
Futurists generally concern themselves with prediction of likely outcomes in a familiar context. They do not focus on constructing alternative forecasts or forecasts based on unlikely events for several reasons. First, to the audience of the forecast, consideration of alternatives to a main story line lowers the subjective perception that the main-story-line forecast will occur. It is far easier for a business planner to justify his business plan relative to a single forecast than to a set of alternative futures. Second, as discussed earlier, representing uncertainty in forecasts substantially increases the amount of work to construct them and to explain them. Many people do not have a good grasp of uncertainty. Much has been written about the fact that people tend to underestimate the likelihood of occurrence of rare events, and tend not to take the likelihood of occurrence of rare events properly into account (see the work of Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan) and Kahneman and Tversky (behavioral psychology and economics) in this regard).
Prediction of rare events is difficult for several reasons, the principal one being limited data. Most businesspersons have little interest in rare events, because their income is determined by how they manage events that happen frequently, not on how they might handle events that happen rarely or may never happen. For example, bank executives are rewarded for their performance during stable or boom times, which are more common than recessions. In bust times, the government will bail them out. They do not need to plan for that contingency. They are part of the government / business elite that control the political and economic system. They have no financial interest in planning for bank failures; they are not rewarded for that activity, and, in America at least, not punished for it. If world population collapses, the bank executive will be out a job whether he prepares for it or not. Futurists profit from describing stable futures that are acceptable to normal business operations, not for describing chaotic ones that are irrelevant to normal operations. Predictions of population decreases are generally made by physicists and biologists, not by top-selling futurists.
Examples of futurists who base their forecasts on causal models are few. They identify paths for mankind’s future that may differ starkly from the rosy projections of most futurists, and include alternatives with global human populations lower than those of today. Books that describe causal-model-based population forecasts include David and Marcia Pimentel’s Food, Energy, and Society (1979, 1996); William R. Catton, Jr.’s Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (1980); Joseph A. Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988); Richard C. Duncan’s Olduvai Theory (1989); Robert Heilbroner’s Visions of the Future (1995); John Leslie’s The End of the World (1996); Donella Meadows et al.’s “Limits to Growth” books (1972, 1992, 2004); Jorgen Randers’ 2052 A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (2012); and Jared Diamond’s Collapse (2005).
The preceding paragraphs have discussed the role of forecasts in population and environment planning. Forecasts are of interest because they provide a better understanding of likely futures, and can help us better prepare for those futures or take actions to change them. Preparation of and consideration of forecasts are, however, just initial steps in planning. They may be of use to assess the seriousness of a situation. Once a forecast is available for quantities of interest, and it is decided that some sort of actions are warranted to prepare for or change the future, the next step is to decide what actions to take. Unfortunately, a forecasting model is not designed to do this. Even a causal-model-based forecasting model, by itself, is not of much help. Some of the causal variables may be subject to control, and some may not. A forecasting model is designed to make a forecast taking into account the values of causal variables that can be controlled, but it does not specify what the values of those control variables should be in order to achieve a desired goal. For that purpose, a more general type of model – a control model – is required.
Another type of model that is useful is a model that incorporates behavior and goal seeking. For example, two approaches used for macroeconomic forecasting are (1) time series analysis, which estimates a model from statistical analysis of historical time series data; and (2) a general equilibrium model (GEM), which is a model that predicts outcomes by optimizing certain variables. The former model describes probabilistic relationships among variables over the time period of the data. The latter model takes into account the fact that an economy is a system under control, oriented to controlling variables such as growth, unemployment and inflation. It may be called a “behavioral” model. There are many types of behavioral models, including constrained optimization, decision theory, and game theory.
Forecasts of population and environment range over a wide spectrum. Since we live on a finite planet, no credible forecast can predict endless human population growth. Most population forecasts assert that the human population growth rate will decrease over the next few decades, and in that time human population will not exceed about 16 billion people. Most forecasts about the state of the environment are not sanguine. They predict that large-scale industrial activity will continue, and that the environment will continue to be degraded. To date, despite a good awareness of the seriousness of the situation and understanding of the causes of the environmental destruction, efforts to reverse pollution of the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere have failed. Efforts to halt the destruction of the Amazon rainforest have failed. Efforts to halt global warming have failed. The number of desperately poor people increases by about 80 million per year. The threat of massive damage to human civilization from global nuclear war or climate change continue.
This appendix presents a list of people who have proposed solutions to the global environmental crisis, along with brief descriptions of some of their proposals. Some of them diagnose the problem and suggest what must be done to solve it, but offer little or no suggestions for accomplishing the suggested change.
E. F. Schumacher. From Wikipedia: Ernst Friedrich Schumacher was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies. Schumacher was born in Bonn, Germany in 1911. His father was a professor of political economy. The younger Schumacher studied in Bonn and Berlin, then from 1930 in England as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, and later at Columbia University in New York City, earning a diploma in economics. He then worked in business, farming and journalism. His sister, Elizabeth, was the wife of the physicist Werner Heisenberg.
In 1955 Schumacher travelled to Burma as an economic consultant. While there, he developed the set of principles he called "Buddhist economics", based on the belief that individuals need good work for proper human development. He also proclaimed that "production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life." He travelled throughout many Third World countries, encouraging local governments to create self-reliant economies. Schumacher's experience led him to become a pioneer of what is now called appropriate technology: user-friendly and ecologically suitable technology applicable to the scale of the community; a concept very close to Ivan Illich's conviviality. He founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) in 1966. His theories of development have been summed up for many in catch phrases such as "intermediate size", and "intermediate technology".
The 1973 publication of Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, a collection of essays … brought his ideas to a wider audience. One of his main arguments in Small Is Beautiful is that we cannot consider the problem of technological production solved if it requires that we recklessly erode our finite natural capital and deprive future generations of its benefits. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism, and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement and community movement.
Barry Commoner. From Wikipedia: Barry Commoner was an American cellular biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He was the director of the Center for Biology of Natural Systems and its Critical Genetics Project. He ran as the Citizens Party candidate in the 1980 U.S. presidential election. His work studying the radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing led to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
In his 1971 bestselling book The Closing Circle, Commoner suggested that the US economy should be restructured to conform to the unbending laws of ecology. For example, he argued that polluting products (like detergents or synthetic textiles) should be replaced with natural products (like soap or cotton and wool). This book was one of the first to bring the idea of sustainability to a mass audience. Commoner suggested a left-wing, eco-socialist response to the limits to growth thesis, postulating that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for environmental degradation, as opposed to population pressures. He had a long-running debate with Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb and his followers, arguing that they were too focused on overpopulation as the source of environmental problems, and that their proposed solutions were politically unacceptable because of the coercion that they implied, and because the cost would fall disproportionately on the poor. He believed that technological, and above all, social, development would lead to a natural decrease in both population growth and environmental damage.
See also: The Ultimate Resource, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, and Malthusian catastrophe
One of Commoner's lasting legacies is his four laws of ecology, as written in The Closing Circle in 1971. The four laws are:
Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.
Everything must go somewhere. There is no "waste" in nature and there is no "away" to which things can be thrown.
Nature knows best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, "likely to be detrimental to that system"
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.
The Poverty of Power
Commoner published another bestseller in 1976, The Poverty of Power. In that book, he addressed the "three e's" that were plaguing the United States in the 1970s, the three e's being the environment, energy, and the economy. "First there was the threat to environmental survival; then there was the apparent shortage of energy; and now there is the unexpected decline of the economy." He argued that the three issues were interconnected: the industries that used the most energy had the highest negative impact on the environment. The focus on non-renewable resources as sources of energy meant that those resources were growing scarce, thus pushing up the price of energy and hurting the economy. Towards the book's end, Commoner suggested that the problem of the three e's is caused by the capitalistic system and can only be solved by replacing it with some sort of socialism.
Time reported in its February 1970 issue that "the national concern over the environment has reached an unprecedented level of intensity." On the cover, the visage of Barry Commoner projected a powerful image of ecology, which took the stage for the first time in the public eye.
Making Peace with the Planet
In 1990, Commoner published Making Peace with the Planet, an analysis of the ongoing environmental crisis in which he argues that the way we produce goods needs to be reconstrued.
Poverty and population
Commoner examined the relationship between poverty and population growth, disagreeing with the way that relationship is often formulated. He argued that rapid population growth of the developing world is the result of its not having adequate living standards, observing that it is poverty that "initiates the rise in population" before leveling off, not the other way around. Developing countries were introduced to the living standards of developed nations, but were never able to fully adopt them, thus preventing these countries from advancing and thereby decreasing the rate of their population growth.
Commoner maintained that developing countries are still "forgotten" to colonialism. These developing countries were, and economically remain, "colonies of more developed countries". Because Western nations introduced infrastructure developments such as roads, communications, engineering, and agricultural and medical services as a significant part of their exploitation of the developing nations' labor force and natural resources, the first step towards a "demographic transition" was met, but other stages were not achieved because the wealth created in developing countries was "shipped out", so to speak, to the colonizer nations, enabling the latter to achieve the more advanced "levels of demographic transition", while the colonies continued on without achieving the second stage, which is population balancing.
"Thus colonialism involves a kind of demographic parasitism: the second population-balancing phase of the demographic transition in the advanced country is fed by suppression of that same phase in the colony". "As the wealth of the exploited nations was diverted to the more powerful ones, their power, and with it their capacity to exploit increased. The gap between the wealth of nations grew, as the rich were fed by the poor". This exploitation of resources extracted from developing nations, aside from its legality, led to an unforeseen problem: rapid population growth. The demographer, Nathan Keyfitz, concluded that, "the growth of industrial capitalism in the Western nations during the period 1800–1950 resulted in the development of a one-billion excess in the world population, largely in the tropics".
This is evident in the study of India and contraceptives, in which family planning failed to reduce the birth rate because people felt that "in order to advance their economic situation", children were an economic necessity. The studies show that "population control in a country like India depends on the economically motivated desire to limit fertility".
Commoner's solution is that wealthier nations need to help exploited or colonized countries develop and "achieve the level of welfare" that developed nations have. This is the only path to a balanced population in these developing countries. Commoner states that the only remedy for the world population crisis, which is the outcome of the abuse of poor nations by rich ones, is "returning to the poor countries enough of the wealth taken from them to give their peoples both the reason and the resources voluntarily to limit their own fertility".
His conclusion is that poverty is the main cause of the population crisis. If the reason behind overpopulation in poor nations is the exploitation by rich nations made rich by that very exploitation, then the only way to end it is to "redistribute [the wealth], among nations and within them".
Julian Simon. From Wikipedia: Julian Lincoln Simon wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic subjects. He is best known for his work on population, natural resources, and immigration. Simon is sometimes associated with cornucopian views, but he denied the label. Rather than focus on the abundance of nature, Simon focused lasting economic benefits from continuous population growth, even despite limited or finite physical resources, empowered primarily by human ingenuity which would create substitutes, and technological progress.
He is also known for the famous Simon–Ehrlich wager, a bet he made with ecologist Paul R. Ehrlich. Ehrlich bet that the prices for five metals would increase over a decade, while Simon took the opposite stance. Simon won the bet, as the prices for the metals sharply declined during that decade.
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. From Wikipedia: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen was a Romanian mathematician, statistician and economist. He is best known today for his 1971 magnum opus The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, in which he argued that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. A progenitor and a paradigm founder in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's work was seminal in establishing ecological economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in economics.
Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time, and some historians of economic thought have proclaimed the ingenuity of his work. In spite of such appreciation, Georgescu-Roegen was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, although benefactors from his native Romania were lobbying for it on his behalf. After Georgescu-Roegen's death, his work was praised by a surviving friend of the highest rank: Prominent Keynesian economist and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Samuelson professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by posterity instead.
In the history of economic thought, Georgescu-Roegen was the first economist of some standing to theorise on the premise that all of earth's mineral resources will eventually be exhausted at some point. In his paradigmatic magnum opus, Georgescu-Roegen argues that economic scarcity is rooted in physical reality; that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity; that the carrying capacity of earth – that is, earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels – is bound to decrease some time in the future as earth's finite stock of mineral resources is being extracted and put to use; and consequently, that the world economy as a whole is heading towards an inevitable future collapse, ultimately bringing about human extinction. Due to the radical pessimism inherent in his work, based on the physical concept of entropy, the theoretical position of Georgescu-Roegen and his followers was later termed 'entropy pessimism'.
Early in his life, Georgescu-Roegen was the student and protégé of Joseph Schumpeter, who taught that irreversible evolutionary change and 'creative destruction' are inherent to capitalism. Later in life, Georgescu-Roegen was the teacher and mentor of Herman Daly, who then went on to develop the concept of a steady-state economy to impose permanent government restrictions on the flow of natural resources through the (world) economy.
As he brought natural resource flows into economic modelling and analysis, Georgescu-Roegen's work was seminal in establishing ecological economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in economics in the 1980s. In addition, the degrowth movement that formed in France and Italy in the early-2000s recognises Georgescu-Roegen as the main intellectual figure influencing the movement. Taken together, by the 2010s Georgescu-Roegen had educated, influenced and inspired at least three generations of people, including his contemporary peers, younger ecological economists, still younger degrowth organisers and activists, and others throughout the world.
The inability or reluctance of most mainstream economists to recognise Georgescu-Roegen's work has been ascribed to the fact that much of his work reads like applied physics rather than economics, as this latter subject is generally taught and understood today.
Georgescu-Roegen's work was blemished somewhat by mistakes caused by his insufficient understanding of the physical science of thermodynamics. These mistakes have since generated some controversy, involving both physicists and ecological economists.
Herman Daly. From Wikipedia: Herman Edward Daly (born July 21, 1938) is an American ecological and Georgist economist and emeritus professor at the School of Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park in the United States. In 1996, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "defining a path of ecological economics that integrates the key elements of ethics, quality of life, environment and community." He is closely associated with theories of a steady-state economy.
For a detailed summary description of steady-state economics, see the Wikipedia article “Steady-state economy,” posted at Internet website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy. A brief excerpt from that article follows.
A steady-state economy is an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time. The term usually refers to the national economy of a particular country, but it is also applicable to the economic system of a city, a region, or the entire world. Early in the history of economic thought, classical economist Adam Smith of the 18th century developed the concept of a stationary state of an economy: Smith believed that any national economy in the world would sooner or later settle in a final state of stationarity.
Since the 1970s, the concept of a steady-state economy has been associated mainly with the work of leading ecological economist Herman Daly. As Daly's concept of a steady-state includes the ecological analysis of natural resource flows through the economy, his concept differs from the original classical concept of a stationary state. One other difference is that Daly recommends immediate political action to establish the steady-state economy by imposing permanent government restrictions on all resource use, whereas economists of the classical period believed that the final stationary state of any economy would evolve by itself without any government intervention.
The world's mounting ecological problems have brought about a widening interest in the concept of a steady-state economy. Critics of the steady-state economy usually object to it by arguing that resource decoupling, technological development, and the unrestrained operation of market mechanisms are capable of overcoming any resource scarcity, any rampant pollution, or population overshoot. Proponents of the steady-state economy, on the other hand, maintain that these objections remain insubstantial and mistaken — and that the need for a steady-state economy is becoming more compelling every day.
Herman Daly's concept of a steady-state economy
Since the 1970s, Herman Daly has been the world's leading proponent of a steady-state economy. Throughout his career, Daly has published several books and articles on the subject. He has also helped founding the Center for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy (CASSE). He has received several prizes and awards in recognition of his work.
According to two independent comparative studies of American Daly's steady-state economics versus the later, competing school of degrowth from continental Europe, no differences of analytical substance exist between the two schools; only, Daly's bureaucratic — or even technocratic — top-down management of the economy fares badly with the more radical grassroots appeal of degrowth, as championed by French political scientist Serge Latouche.
Consequently, Daly recommends that a system of permanent government restrictions on the economy is established as soon as possible, a steady-state economy. Whereas the classical economists believed that the final stationary state would settle by itself as the rate of profit fell and capital accumulation came to an end (see above), Daly wants to create the steady-state politically by establishing three institutions of the state as a superstructure on top of the present market economy:
The first institution is to correct inequality to some extent by putting minimum and maximum limits on incomes, maximum limits on wealth, and then redistribute accordingly.
The second institution is to stabilise the population by issuing transferable reproduction licenses to all fertile women at a level corresponding with the general replacement fertility in society.
The third institution is to stabilise the level of capital by issuing and selling depletion quotas that impose quantitative restrictions on the flow of resources through the economy. Quotas effectively minimise the throughput of resources necessary to maintain any given level of capital (as opposed to taxes, that merely alter the prevailing price structure).
The purpose of these three institutions is to stop and prevent further growth by combining what Daly calls "a nice reconciliation of efficiency and equity" and providing "the ecologically necessary macrocontrol of growth with the least sacrifice in terms of microlevel freedom and variability."
Among the generation of his teachers, Daly ranks Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Kenneth E. Boulding as the two economists he has learned the most from. However, both Georgescu-Roegen and Boulding have assessed that a steady-state economy may serve only as a temporary societal arrangement for mankind when facing the long-term issue of global mineral resource exhaustion: Even with a constant stock of people and capital, and a minimised (yet constant) flow of resources put through the world economy, earth's mineral stock will still be exhausted, although at a slower rate than is presently the situation (see below).
Responding specifically to the criticism levelled at him by Georgescu-Roegen, Daly concedes that a steady-state economy will serve only to postpone, and not to prevent, the inevitable mineral resource exhaustion: "A steady-state economy cannot last forever, but neither can a growing economy, nor a declining economy". A frank and committed Protestant, Daly further argues that...
... the steady-state economy is based on the assumption that creation will have an end — that it is finite temporally as well as spatially. ... Only God can raise any part of his creation out of time and into eternity. As mere stewards of creation, all we can do is to avoid wasting the limited capacity of creation to support present and future life.
Later, several other economists in the field have agreed that not even a steady-state economy can last forever on earth.
Lester Brown. From Wikipedia: Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934) is a United States environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day referred to him as "one of the great pioneer environmentalists."
Brown is the author or co-author of over 50 books on global environmental issues and his works have been translated into more than forty languages. His most recent book is The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy (2015), in which he explains that the global economy is now undergoing a transition from fossil and nuclear energy to clean power from solar, wind, and other renewable sources. His previous book was Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (2012).
The recipient of 26 honorary degrees and a MacArthur Fellowship, Brown has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." As early as 1978, in his book The Twenty-Ninth Day, he was already warning of "the various dangers arising out of our manhandling of nature...by overfishing the oceans, stripping the forests, turning land into desert."
In the mid-1970s, Brown helped pioneer the concept of sustainable development, during a career that started with farming.
His book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (2009) sets forth a plan for stabilizing world population at eight billion people.
Fritjof Capra. From Wikipedia: Fritjof Capra is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher College.
Capra is the author of several books, including The Tao of Physics (1975), The Turning Point (1982), Uncommon Wisdom (1988), The Web of Life (1996), The Hidden Connections (2002) and The Systems View of Life (2014).
He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy located in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education.
Capra’s view (from The Web of Life) is that one of the most effective ways to solve the ecological crisis is by means of an ecological tax reform that would gradually drive wasteful and harmful technologies and consumption patterns out of the market.
Jared Diamond. Diamond's book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, published in 2005, examines a range of past societies in an attempt to identify why they either collapsed or continued to thrive and considers what contemporary societies can learn from these historical examples. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, he argues against explanations for the failure of past societies based primarily on cultural factors, instead focusing on ecology. Among the societies mentioned in the book are the Norse and Inuit of Greenland, the Maya, the Anasazi, the indigenous people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Japan, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and modern Montana.
The book concludes by asking why some societies make disastrous decisions, how big businesses affect the environment, what our principal environmental problems are today, and what individuals can do about those problems.
Diamond is not specific about what actions can be taken to solve the environmental crisis, but he does have this to say: “Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values.
Joseph Tainter. From Wikipedia: Joseph Anthony Tainter is an American anthropologist and historian. Tainter has written and edited many articles and monographs. His arguably best-known work, The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988), examines the collapse of Maya and Chacoan civilizations, and of the Western Roman Empire, in terms of network theory, energy economics and complexity theory. Tainter argues that sustainability or collapse of societies follow from the success or failure of problem-solving institutions and that societies collapse when their investments in social complexity and their "energy subsidies" reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. He recognizes collapse when a society involuntarily sheds a significant portion of its complexity.
Garrett Hardin. From Wikipedia: Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of human overpopulation. He is most known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons, in a 1968 paper of the same title in Science, which called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable."
E. O. Wilson. From Wikipedia: Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, naturalist, and writer. Wilson is considered the most important and outstanding living biologist in the world and on numerous occasions he has been nicknamed "The New Darwin", "Darwin's natural heir" or "The Darwin of the 21st century". His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he has been called the world's leading expert.
Wilson has been called "the father of sociobiology" and "the father of biodiversity" for his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters.
In his book, Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life (2016), Wilson proposes that half of the Earth's surface should be designated a human-free natural reserve to preserve biodiversity.
From the Wikipedia article, “Half-Earth”: Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life is a 2016 book by the biologist E. O. Wilson, in which the author proposes that half of the Earth's surface should be designated a human-free natural reserve to preserve biodiversity. Wilson noted that the term "Half-Earth" was coined for this concept by Tony Hiss in his Smithsonian article "Can the World Really Set Aside Half the Planet for Wildlife?"
Paul Ehrlich. Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist, best known for his warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources. He is the Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of Stanford University and President of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology.
Ehrlich became well known for the controversial 1968 book The Population Bomb which he co-authored with his wife Anne, in which they famously stated that "[i]n the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Among the solutions suggested in that book was population control, including "various forms of coercion" such as eliminating “tax benefits for having additional children," to be used if voluntary methods were to fail. Ehrlich has been criticized for his opinions; for example, Ronald Bailey termed Ehrlich an "irrepressible doomster". Ehrlich has acknowledged that some of what he predicted has not occurred, but maintains that his predictions about disease and climate change were essentially correct and that human overpopulation is a major problem.
In the book, Healing the Planet (1991), Paul and Anne Ehrlich present strategies for resolving the environmental crisis.
Jorgen Randers. From Wikipedia: Jørgen Randers is a Norwegian academic, professor emeritus of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and practitioner in the field of future studies. His professional field encompasses model-based futures studies, scenario analysis, system dynamics, sustainability, climate, energy and ecological economics. His publications include the seminal work The Limits to Growth (co-author), Reinventing Prosperity.
In 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (2012), Randers asserts that it is “too late” to do much about the environmental crisis, and he offers advice for how to cope with the difficult times ahead. Here follow Randers’ Twenty Pieces of Personal Advice.
1. Focus on satisfaction rather than income.
2. Do not acquire a taste for things that will disappear.
3. Invest in great electronic entertainment and learn to prefer it.
4. Don’t teach your children to love the wilderness
5. If you like great biodiversity, go see it now.
6. Visit world attractions before they are ruined by the crowd.
7. Live in a place that is not overly exposed to climate change.
8. Move to a country that is capable of decision making.
9. Know the unsustainabilities that threaten your quality of life.
10. If you can’t stand a job in services or care, go into energy efficiency or renewables.
11. Encourage your children to learn Mandarin.
12. Stop believing that all growth is good.
13. Remember that your fossil-based assets – suddenly one day – will lose their value.
14. Invest in things that are not sensitive to social unrest.
15. Do more than your fair share – to avoid a bad conscience in the future.
16. In business, explore the business potential in current unsustainabilities.
17. In business, don’t confuse growth in volume with growth in profits.
18. In politics, if you want reelection, support only initiatives with short-term benefits.
19. In politics, remember that the future will be dominated by physical limits.
20. In politics, remember that equal access to limited resources will trump free speech.
21. Learn to live with impending disaster without losing hope.
Jeremy Rifkin. From Wikipedia: Jeremy Rifkin is an American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist. Rifkin is the author of 21 books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. His most recent books include, The Green New Deal (2019), The Zero Marginal Cost Society (2014), The Third Industrial Revolution (2011), The Empathic Civilization (2010), and The European Dream (2004).
Rifkin is the principal architect of the Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic sustainability plan to address the triple challenge of the global economic crisis, energy security, and climate change. The Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) was formally endorsed by the European Parliament in 2007 and now is being implemented by various agencies within the European Commission.
Rifkin’s latest book is The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth (2019). In it he argues that renewable energy, without increased use of nuclear power, will power the world in the years following the Fossil Fuel Age.
John Zerzan. From Wikipedia: John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist ecophilosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time.
His six major books are Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Running on Emptiness (2002), Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (2005), Twilight of the Machines (2008), and Why hope? The Stand Against Civilization (2015).
Some authors such as Andrew Flood have argued that destroying civilization would lead to the death of a significant majority of the population, mainly in poor countries. John Zerzan responded to such claims by suggesting a gradual decrease in population size, with the possibility of people having the need to seek means of sustainability more close to nature.
Flood suggests this contradicts Zerzan's claims elsewhere, and adds that, since it is certain that most people will strongly reject Zerzan's supposed utopia, it can only be implemented by authoritarian means, against the will of billions.
Noam Chomsky. From Wikipedia: Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the author of more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, and mass media. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.
Applied ethics. A significant feature of analytic philosophy since approximately 1970 has been the emergence of applied ethics—an interest in the application of moral principles to specific practical issues. The philosophers following this orientation view ethics as involving humanistic values, which involve practical implications and applications in the way people interact and lead their lives socially.
Topics of special interest for applied ethics include environmental issues, animal rights, and the many challenges created by advancing medical science. In education, applied ethics addressed themes such as punishment in schools, equality of educational opportunity, and education for democracy.
Relatively little of Chomsky’s writing deals directly with the environmental crisis. Two books directly related to this issue are Internationalism or Extinction (2020) and Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal (2020) with Robert Pollin and C. J. Polychroniou. In the first he discusses the issues of global warming and nuclear war. In the second he discusses global warming.
Christopher Manes. Christopher Manes is author of the book, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization (1990). The radical environmental movement aspires to what scholar Christopher Manes calls "a new kind of environmental activism: iconoclastic, uncompromising, discontented with traditional conservation policy, at times legal..." Radical environmentalism presupposes a need to reconsider Western ideas of religion and philosophy (including capitalism, patriarchy and globalization) sometimes through "resacralising" and reconnecting with nature.
The movement is typified by leaderless resistance organizations such as Earth First!, which subscribe to the idea of taking direct action in defense of Mother Earth including civil disobedience, ecotage and monkeywrenching. Movements such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Earth Liberation Army (ELA) also take this form of action, although focusing on economic sabotage, rather than civil disobedience. Radical environmentalists can include earth liberationists as well as Eco-nationalism, anarcho-primitivists, animal liberationists, bioregionalists, green anarchists, deep ecologists, ecopsychologists and less often, ecofeminists, neo-Pagans, Wiccans, Third Positionists, anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist protesters. However, this does not mean that everyone subscribing to those beliefs and values should be considered a radical environmentalist.
John Maynard Keynes. From Wikipedia: John Maynard Keynes was an English economist, whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and was one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Keynes spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking, challenging the ideas of neoclassical economics that held that free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. He argued that aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment. Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. He detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1936. By the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes's policy recommendations. Almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes's death in 1946.
Economics is the driving force that has corrupted mankind and is destroying the planet. Economics – the dismal science. As mathematician John Maynard Keynes observed (in his 1930 essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”) the fatal limitations of economics as a long-term basis for human society:
“Some day we may return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue – that avarice is a vice, that the extraction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is detestable. But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little while longer.”
Eileen Crist. From Eileen Crist’s website: Eileen is Associate Professor Emerita of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Boston University, and a B.A., also in sociology, from Haverford College. Her work focuses on the ecological crisis and its root causes and pathways toward creating an ecological civilization. She is author of Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind (1999) and coeditor of a number of books, including Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth (2014) and Protecting the Wild: Parks and Wilderness, the Foundation for Conservation (2015). She is also author of numerous academic papers and writings for general audience readers. Her most recent book, Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2019.
In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our expansionism?
China’s One-Child Policy. From the Wikipedia article, “One-child policy”: The one-child policy was part of a program designed to control the size of the rapidly growing population of the People's Republic of China. Distinct from the family planning policies of most other countries, which focus on providing contraceptive options to help women have the number of children they want, it set a limit on the number of births parents could have, making it the world's most extreme example of population planning. It was introduced in 1979 (after a decade-long two-child policy), modified beginning in the mid-1980s to allow rural parents a second child if the first was a daughter, and then lasted three more decades before the government announced in late 2015 a reversion to a two-child limit. The policy also allowed exceptions for some other groups, including ethnic minorities. Thus, the term "one-child policy" has been called a "misnomer", because for nearly 30 of the 36 years that it existed (1979–2015), about half of all parents in China were allowed to have a second child.
To enforce existing birth limits (of one or two children), provincial governments could, and did, require the use of contraception, abortion, and sterilization to ensure compliance, and imposed enormous fines for violations. Local and national governments created commissions to promote the program and monitor compliance. China also rewarded families with one child, in accordance with the instructions on further family planning issued by the Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council in that year, regulations awarded 5 yuan per month for families with one child. Parents who had only one child would also get a "one-child glory certificate".
The impact of China's birth restrictions has been hotly debated. According to its government, 400 million births were prevented. That statistic originally referred to all births averted since 1970, although later it referred to just the one-child era beginning around 1980. Some scholars have disputed the official estimates. They claim that the one-child program had little effect on birth rates or the size of the total population when one considers the large drop in fertility during the two-child decade preceding it and that other countries – such as Thailand and the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu – experienced notable fertility declines without official birth quotas. A recent study even suggests that, contrary to popular belief and its government's intentions, the one-child phase of the birth program had a pronatal effect that raised birth rates above what they otherwise would have been. Yet this study has itself been disputed as an implausible "erasure of the impact of this program from history." Moreover, the comparative models proposed by those dismissing official estimates as exaggerations imply that, even when China's rapid development is considered, its birth program since 1970 has already averted at least 600 million births, a number projected to grow to one billion or more by 2060 given the averted descendants of the births originally averted by policy. The real dispute concerns what portion of that massive number of averted births (and population) should be attributed to the tightened one-child limits (and related enforcements) after 1980, as opposed to the two-child program that preceded it.
Recently Proposed United States Legislation Relating to the Climate Crisis
Here follows a recent example of the ineffective efforts undertaken in the pretense of doing something about the crisis.
On February 4, 2021, three progressive lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would require President Joe Biden to declare a national climate emergency, arguing that the US is "out of time and excuses" to deal with the climate crisis. The National Climate Emergency Act, introduced by Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, along with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, would direct Biden to declare a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, allowing him to unlock sweeping presidential powers and be able to organize resources to mitigate climate change.
If passed, the bill would require Biden to provide Congress with a report detailing the executive branch's actions in combating the climate crisis. The bill would push the executive branch to upgrade infrastructure, modernize buildings to curb pollution, and protect public lands, among other investments.
These efforts will do nothing to stop the destruction of biodiversity in the Amazon, or anywhere else in the world.
Excerpt from Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969, posted at Internet website https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1950/russell/lecture/
Bertrand Russell
Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1950
What Desires Are Politically Important?
All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be dutiful. If you wish to know what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths.
There are some desires which, though very powerful, have not, as a rule, any great political importance. Most men at some period of their lives desire to marry, but as a rule they can satisfy this desire without having to take any political action. There are, of course, exceptions; the rape of the Sabine women is a case in point. And the development of northern Australia is seriously impeded by the fact that the vigorous young men who ought to do the work dislike being wholly deprived of female society. But such cases are unusual, and in general the interest that men and women take in each other has little influence upon politics.
The desires that are politically important may be divided into a primary and a secondary group. In the primary group come the necessities of life: food and shelter and clothing. When these things become very scarce, there is no limit to the efforts that men will make, or to the violence that they will display, in the hope of securing them.
But man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this. When the Arabs, who had been used to living sparingly on a few dates, acquired the riches of the Eastern Roman Empire, and dwelt in palaces of almost unbelievable luxury, they did not, on that account, become inactive. Hunger could no longer be a motive, for Greek slaves supplied them with exquisite viands at the slightest nod. But other desires kept them active: four in particular, which we can label acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power.
Acquisitiveness – the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods – is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries. I once befriended two little girls from Estonia, who had narrowly escaped death from starvation in a famine. They lived in my family, and of course had plenty to eat. But they spent all their leisure visiting neighbouring farms and stealing potatoes, which they hoarded. Rockefeller, who in his infancy had experienced great poverty, spent his adult life in a similar manner. Similarly the Arab chieftains on their silken Byzantine divans could not forget the desert, and hoarded riches far beyond any possible physical need. But whatever may be the psychoanalysis of acquisitiveness, no one can deny that it is one of the great motives – especially among the more powerful, for, as I said before, it is one of the infinite motives. However much you may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you.
But acquisitiveness, although it is the mainspring of the capitalist system, is by no means the most powerful of the motives that survive the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much stronger motive. Over and over again in Mohammedan history, dynasties have come to grief because the sons of a sultan by different mothers could not agree, and in the resulting civil war universal ruin resulted. … The world would be a happier place than it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation.
Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying «Look at me». «Look at me» is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame. … One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about. The condemned murderer who is allowed to see the account of his trial in the press is indignant if he finds a newspaper which has reported it inadequately. And the more he finds about himself in other newspapers, the more indignant he will be with the one whose reports are meagre. Politicians and literary men are in the same case. And the more famous they become, the more difficult the press-cutting agency finds it to satisfy them. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the influence of vanity throughout the range of human life, from the child of three to the potentate at whose frown the world trembles. Mankind have even committed the impiety of attributing similar desires to the Deity, whom they imagine avid for continual praise.
But great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering, there is one which outweighs them all. I mean the love of power. Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is not by any means the same thing. What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it is easy to have glory without power. The people who enjoy the greatest glory in the United States are film stars, but they can be put in their place by the Committee for Un-American Activities, which enjoys no glory whatever. In England, the King has more glory than the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister has more power than the King. Many people prefer glory to power, but on the whole these people have less effect upon the course of events than those who prefer power to glory. When Blücher, in 1814, saw Napoleon’s palaces, he said, «Wasn’t he a fool to have all this and to go running after Moscow.» Napoleon, who certainly was not destitute of vanity, preferred power when he had to choose. To Blücher, this choice seemed foolish. Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.
Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates. In the happy days before 1914, when well-to-do ladies could acquire a host of servants, their pleasure in exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive.
But it has other sides which are more desirable. The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities. If your capacities are theoretical or technical, you will contribute to knowledge or technique, and, as a rule, your activity will be useful. If you are a politician you may be actuated by love of power, but as a rule this motive will join itself on to the desire to see some state of affairs realized which, for some reason, you prefer to the status quo. A great general may, like Alcibiades, be quite indifferent as to which side he fights on, but most generals have preferred to fight for their own country, and have, therefore, had other motives besides love of power. The politician may change sides so frequently as to find himself always in the majority, but most politicians have a preference for one party to the other, and subordinate their love of power to this preference. Love of power as nearly pure as possible is to be seen in various different types of men.
I come now to other motives which, though in a sense less fundamental than those we have been considering, are still of considerable importance. The first of these is love of excitement. Human beings show their superiority to the brutes by their capacity for boredom, though I have sometimes thought, in examining the apes at the zoo, that they, perhaps, have the rudiments of this tiresome emotion. However that may be, experience shows that escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings.
It is not altogether easy to decide what is the root cause of the love of excitement. I incline to think that our mental make-up is adapted to the stage when men lived by hunting. When a man spent a long day with very primitive weapons in stalking a deer with the hope of dinner, and when, at the end of the day, he dragged the carcass triumphantly to his cave, he sank down in contented weariness, while his wife dressed and cooked the meat. He was sleepy, and his bones ached, and the smell of cooking filled every nook and cranny of his consciousness. At last, after eating, he sank into deep sleep. In such a life there was neither time nor energy for boredom. But when he took to agriculture, and made his wife do all the heavy work in the fields, he had time to reflect upon the vanity of human life, to invent mythologies and systems of philosophy, and to dream of the life hereafter in which he would perpetually hunt the wild boar of Valhalla. Our mental make-up is suited to a life of very severe physical labor. I used, when I was younger, to take my holidays walking. I would cover twenty-five miles a day, and when the evening came I had no need of anything to keep me from boredom, since the delight of sitting amply sufficed. But modern life cannot be conducted on these physically strenuous principles. A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive – a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable – other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which – like opium – has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.
What is serious about excitement is that so many of its forms are destructive. It is destructive in those who cannot resist excess in alcohol or gambling. It is destructive when it takes the form of mob violence. And above all it is destructive when it leads to war. It is so deep a need that it will find harmful outlets of this kind unless innocent outlets are at hand. There are such innocent outlets at present in sport, and in politics so long as it is kept within constitutional bounds. But these are not sufficient, especially as the kind of politics that is most exciting is also the kind that does most harm. Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. In Australia, where people are few and rabbits are many, I watched a whole populace satisfying the primitive impulse in the primitive manner by the skillful slaughter of many thousands of rabbits. But in London or New York some other means must be found to gratify primitive impulse. I think every big town should contain artificial waterfalls that people could descend in very fragile canoes, and they should contain bathing pools full of mechanical sharks. Any person found advocating a preventive war should be condemned to two hours a day with these ingenious monsters. More seriously, pains should be taken to provide constructive outlets for the love of excitement. Nothing in the world is more exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and many more people are capable of experiencing such moments than is sometimes thought.
Interwoven with many other political motives are two closely related passions to which human beings are regrettably prone: I mean fear and hate. It is normal to hate what we fear, and it happens frequently, though not always, that we fear what we hate. I think it may be taken as the rule among primitive men, that they both fear and hate whatever is unfamiliar. They have their own herd, originally a very small one. And within one herd, all are friends, unless there is some special ground of enmity. Other herds are potential or actual enemies; a single member of one of them who strays by accident will be killed. An alien herd as a whole will be avoided or fought according to circumstances. It is this primitive mechanism which still controls our instinctive reaction to foreign nations. The completely untravelled person will view all foreigners as the savage regards a member of another herd. But the man who has travelled, or who has studied international politics, will have discovered that, if his herd is to prosper, it must, to some degree, become amalgamated with other herds.…We love those who hate our enemies, and if we had no enemies there would be very few people whom we should love.
All this, however, is only true so long as we are concerned solely with attitudes towards other human beings. You might regard the soil as your enemy because it yields reluctantly a niggardly subsistence. You might regard Mother Nature in general as your enemy, and envisage human life as a struggle to get the better of Mother Nature. If men viewed life in this way, cooperation of the whole human race would become easy. And men could easily be brought to view life in this way if schools, newspapers, and politicians devoted themselves to this end. But schools are out to teach patriotism; newspapers are out to stir up excitement; and politicians are out to get re-elected. None of the three, therefore, can do anything towards saving the human race from reciprocal suicide.
There are two ways of coping with fear: one is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. The conquest of fear is of very great importance. Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. Nothing has so beneficent an effect on human beings as security. If an international system could be established which would remove the fear of war, the improvement in everyday mentality of everyday people would be enormous and very rapid.
You may have been feeling that I have allowed only for bad motives, or, at best, such as are ethically neutral. I am afraid they are, as a rule, more powerful than more altruistic motives, but I do not deny that altruistic motives exist, and may, on occasion, be effective.
I do not think it can be questioned that sympathy is a genuine motive, and that some people at some times are made somewhat uncomfortable by the sufferings of some other people. It is sympathy that has produced the many humanitarian advances of the last hundred years. We are shocked when we hear stories of the ill-treatment of lunatics, and there are now quite a number of asylums in which they are not ill-treated. Prisoners in Western countries are not supposed to be tortured, and when they are, there is an outcry if the facts are discovered. We do not approve of treating orphans as they are treated in Oliver Twist. Protestant countries disapprove of cruelty to animals. In all these ways sympathy has been politically effective. If the fear of war were removed, its effectiveness would become much greater. Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.
The time has come to sum up our discussion. Politics is concerned with herds rather than with individuals, and the passions which are important in politics are, therefore, those in which the various members of a given herd can feel alike. The broad instinctive mechanism upon which political edifices have to be built is one of cooperation within the herd and hostility towards other herds. The co-operation within the herd is never perfect. There are members who do not conform, who are, in the etymological sense, «egregious», that is to say, outside the flock. These members are those who have fallen below, or risen above, the ordinary level. They are: idiots, criminals, prophets, and discoverers. A wise herd will learn to tolerate the eccentricity of those who rise above the average, and to treat with a minimum of ferocity those who fall below it.
As regards relations to other herds, modern technique has produced a conflict between self-interest and instinct. In old days, when two tribes went to war, one of them exterminated the other, and annexed its territory. From the point of view of the victor, the whole operation was thoroughly satisfactory. The killing was not at all expensive, and the excitement was agreeable. It is not to be wondered at that, in such circumstances, war persisted. Unfortunately, we still have the emotions appropriate to such primitive warfare, while the actual operations of war have changed completely.
I do not wish to seem to end upon a note of cynicism. I do not deny that there are better things than selfishness, and that some people achieve these things. I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.
And among those occasions on which people fall below self-interest are most of the occasions on which they are convinced that they are acting from idealistic motives. Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. When you see large masses of men swayed by what appear to be noble motives, it is as well to look below the surface and ask yourself what it is that makes these motives effective. It is partly because it is so easy to be taken in by a facade of nobility that a psychological inquiry, such as I have been attempting, is worth making. I would say, in conclusion, that if what I have said is right, the main thing needed to make the world happy is intelligence. And this, after all, is an optimistic conclusion, because intelligence is a thing that can be fostered by known methods of education.
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. (Wikipedia article, “Rights.”)
As defined here, a right is simply a principle. It is of no practical value unless a power, such as a tribe or nation, is able and willing to defend it. Otherwise it is unrealized or unexercised. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Rights (Appendix E) is a grand statement of desired principles, but it is of no value unless some power causes those principles to be realized. The United States Declaration of Independence specifies a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those principles may or may not become reality.
An entitlement is a provision made in accordance with a legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.
A privilege is a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
From the Wikipedia article, “Natural rights and legal rights”: Natural rights and legal rights are the two basic types of rights.
Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable (they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights). Natural law is the law of natural rights.
Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights.
The distinction between alienable and unalienable rights was introduced by Francis Hutcheson. In his Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Hutcheson foreshadowed the Declaration of Independence, stating: “For wherever any Invasion is made upon unalienable Rights, there must arise either a perfect, or external Right to Resistance…. Unalienable Rights are essential Limitations in all Governments.” Hutcheson, however, placed clear limits on his notion of unalienable rights, declaring that “there can be no Right, or Limitation of Right, inconsistent with, or opposite to the greatest public Good." Hutcheson elaborated on this idea of unalienable rights in his A System of Moral Philosophy (1755), based on the Reformation principle of the liberty of conscience. One could not in fact give up the capacity for private judgment (e.g., about religious questions) regardless of any external contracts or oaths to religious or secular authorities so that right is "unalienable." Hutcheson wrote: "Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another; nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart. The right of private judgment is therefore unalienable."
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
The terms “unalienable” and “inalienable” are considered equivalent. The latter term is the predominant form in use today. The term “unalienable rights” appears in the US Declaration of Independence, but the term “inalienable rights” occurred in the Rough Draft.
From the Wikipedia article, “Natural law”: Natural law is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independent of positive law (the enacted laws of a state or society). According to natural law theory, all people have inherent rights, conferred not by act of legislation but by "God, nature, or reason". Natural law theory can also refer to "theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality."
From the Wikipedia article, “Morality”:
Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness."
Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality', and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics, sometimes distinguish between ethics and morals: "Although the morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant, based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue, and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations."
From the Wikipedia article, “Ethics”: Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior". The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value, and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called axiology.
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.
From the Diffen website: Ethics and morals relate to “right” and “wrong” conduct. While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they are different: ethics refer to rules provided by an external source, e.g., codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in religions. Morals refer to an individual’s own principles regarding right and wrong.
From the Wikipedia article, “Moral absolutism”: Moral absolutism is an ethical view that all actions are intrinsically right or wrong. Stealing, for instance, might be considered to be always immoral, even if done for the well-being of others (e.g., stealing food to feed a starving family), and even if it does in the end promote such a good. Moral absolutism stands in contrast to other categories of normative ethical theories such as consequentialism, which holds that the morality (in the wide sense) of an act depends on the consequences or the context of the act.
Moral absolutism can be understood in a strictly secular context, as in many forms of deontological moral rationalism. However, many religions also adhere to moral absolutist positions, since their moral system is derived from divine commandments. Therefore, such a moral system is absolute, (usually) perfect and unchanging. Many secular philosophies, borrowing from religion, also take a morally absolutist position, asserting that the absolute laws of morality are inherent in the nature of people, the nature of life in general, or the Universe itself. For example, someone who absolutely believes in non-violence considers it wrong to use violence even in self-defense.
From the Wikipedia article “Consequentialism”: Consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act (or on some views, the rule under which it falls) will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. Different consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one's preferences, and broader notions of the "general good".
Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological ethics (or deontology), in that deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central, derives the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct from the character of the behaviour itself rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is also contrasted with virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics which treats morality like science: advancing socially over the course of many lifetimes, such that any moral criterion is subject to revision.
In this article, I shall generally use the term “relative morality” for “consequentialism” and the term “absolute morality” for “moral absolutism,” although this usage is not standard (more standard reformulations being “moral relativism,” “relativist morality,” “ethical relativism,” “ethical absolutism,” and “relativist ethics”). I may use the term “relativism” to refer to either moral relativism or ethical relativism, and the term “absolutism” to refer to either moral absolutism or ethical absolutism, when it is not necessary to distinguish between ethics and morality.
[End of definitions.]
Rights and Responsibilities; Asymmetric Rights
A key concept in the consideration of rights is Francis Hutcheson’s observation “there can be no Right, or Limitation of Right, inconsistent with, or opposite to the greatest public Good." Rights confer the freedom to make decisions and take actions. But those freedoms are not without restriction. As noted in the definition of natural right, one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights. Associated with rights are restrictions and responsibilities. It is incumbent upon the person exercising a right to consider the consequences of exercising the right, and to act accordingly. The philosopher Charles Frankel observed, “A decision is responsible when the man or group that makes it has to answer for it to those who are directly or indirectly affected by it.”
Hardin presents the following discussion about the issue of rights and responsibilities.
Rights and the Welfare State
Considerable newspaper space was devoted to an account of the first birth in the year 1991 in the California town that serves Vandenberg Air Force Base. An eleventh child joined six brothers and four sisters, ranging in age from one to sixteen. The mother was thirty-eight years old; the father, a technical sergeant, was forty-one. Supporting their large brood on a salary of $23,000 a year might be impossible were it not for the extensive welfare benefits enjoyed by members of the armed forces. Housing is essentially free; to accommodate the growing family the government joined together two four-bedroom houses. Their medical expenses were almost completely taken care of by Uncle Sam: the most the family ever paid for child delivery was $50, when twins were born. (Obstetrical chares to civilians vary greatly around the nation, but as of 1990 they were seldom less than $1,000 per birth.)
“Will there be more children?” the reporter asked.
“We’ll let the Lord decide,” replied the father, “It’s another joy in the house.”
The couple, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are a telling example of what C. G. Darwin had in mind when he coined the term, Homo progenitivus. A nation that generously supports such a “cultural subspecies” cannot realistically expect to control the size of its population.
A Suicidal Right
The essentials of the account given above are repeated in only a fraction of the American population, and so might seem to require no general treatment. The story, however, raises general problems in the relation of rights to responsibilities in a world in which “global” thinking is fashionable. Many people approve of the United Nations’ statement on the rights of the family: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else. [See Appendix E for the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.]
This statement, like many position papers, explicitly discusses rights but says nothing whatever about matching responsibilities. The Universal Declaration surely implies that the ultimate responsibility for keeping children alive rests with the larger community – the nation, or the whole world – while the right to have children is passionately – “irrevocably” – asserted to reside in the nuclear family.
But no stable system is possible when rights and responsibilities are thus separated. The United Nations has given its blessing to a CC-PP game: the costs of raising a child are to be communized, while the profits – the psychological gains of parenthood – are assigned to the parents. The United Nations did not invent this game, of course: it was anticipated by the philosophers of the welfare state, who did not understand how suicidal the game could be in a world in which the population controls of starvation and disease have been largely neutralized.
The United Nations’ definition of universal human rights does not meet the challenge of Charles Frankel’s definition of responsibility: A decision is responsible when the man or group that makes it has to answer for it to those who are directly or indirectly affected by it….
The growth of social welfare has created an asymmetry in the distribution of responsibility. So long as reproduction in society is strictly laissez-faire, little burden is placed on society by the birth of a child. But the growth of the welfare state has shifted more and more of the burdens from the parents to the state. The United Nations’ statement takes no cognizance of this change. If Frankel’s criterion of responsibility it to be met, the assertion of reproductive rights needs to be made asymmetrical, thus: Every woman has the unqualified right to refrain from having children; but the privilege of bearing a child must take into account the interests of society, which shoulders so many of the costs of child-rearing.
On the topic of why it got this far, a good book is Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization (2019) by Eileen Crist. She explains that a major factor underlying the present environmental problem is mankind’s attitude toward nature, which she characterizes as “Human Supremacy.” She opines that a solution will not be found until there is a shift in human attitudes to respect nature. She suggests that a sustainable population for Earth might be the figure suggested by David Pimentel, of two billion people. She observes that human population could decline to that number if just four generations adopted a one-child reproduction policy. She offers no suggestions about how such a policy might be implemented.
In An Outline of Philosophy (1961), Bertrand Russell wrote: “Every living thing is a sort of imperialist seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself and its seed.” As observed by David and Marcia Pimentel, “This law suggests that the human population will increase until food or some other basic need limits its survival and growth.”
Another book that addresses the issue of why it got this far is the book, Ecology and Religion in History (1974) by David and Eileen Spring. Some excerpts from the Introduction follow.
Albert Schweitzer, for example, remarked in a well-known sentence, “The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man.” Aldo Leopold, a biologist who is also an essayist of charm, lamented in his Sand County Almanac the lack of what he called a “land ethic.” Land, he protests, like Odysseus’ slave girls, is still property. Our relations to it are still “strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.”
Representing what we may be pleased to think is a more practical point of view are the reflections of Carl Sauer, a noted geographer. Surveying man’s work upon the face of the earth he wonders if “our newly found powers to transform the world…are proper and wise beyond the tenure of those now living.” Apparently they are not, for Sauer concludes that man needs a revised ethic and aesthetic. Somewhat similar are the reflections of the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. Noting that maggots in a sack of flour can become so numerous that their activity poisons the flour and they thereby bring on their own extinction, Lévi-Strauss wonders whether man may not similarly annihilate himself through poisoning the biosphere. He concludes that man will save himself only by profound spiritual change.
These are important – even revolutionary – insights. Nevertheless they are substantially indictments and warnings. They do not explain why we take the attitude to nature that we do. Recently, however, an explanation has been offered. In a provocative article Lynn White has put forward the thesis that the root cause of our ecological problems is to be found in the Judeo-Christian ethic.
White’s thesis may be very briefly summarized. White believes that by emphasizing the dominion of man over nature Christianity has sanctioned an exploitative ethic. He further believes that Christianity has thereby fostered science and technology. Since these are forces that now pose – even in their peaceful use – manifold threats to the environment and possibly even to the life of our planet, it follows that Christianity “bears a huge burden of guilt” for our ecologic crisis.
The discussion that has attended this thesis has centered upon three ideas – upon the two leading ideas explicit in the thesis and upon another that is assumed by it.
First, there is the idea that Christianity has taught an ethic unsympathetic to the natural world. There undeniably are biblical injunctions that easily may be so interpreted. And undeniably these injunctions are fundamental. They are to be found in the Creation story and are intended to set out the basic relations between man and nature. Thus, in Genesis 1:28, God instructs Adam:
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And so in Genesis 9:2, God repeats for Noah after the flood:
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
The second idea contained in White’s thesis concerns the relation of Christianity to science and technology. White does more than charge that Christianity has taught an ethic unsympathetic to the natural world. He believes that the Christian ethic has worked itself out in a particularly momentous way in Western history. These are, for White, the “realization of the Christian dogma of man’s transcendence of and rightful mastery over nature.”
Two authors in this book deny the close relationship of Christianity and science. Lewis Moncrief has Christianity a cause of science and technology but only tenuously. Moreover, he notes that science and technology have been abetted by largely secular forces such as capitalism and democracy.
Finally, as we mentioned earlier, there is an idea assumed in White’s thesis. White assumes that what men think about nature much affects what they do about nature; he assumes that religion or philosophy has ecological consequences.
Lynn White writes:
Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen. As early as the 2nd century both Tertullian and Saint Irenaeus of Lyon were insisting that when God shaped Adam he was foreshadowing the image of the incarnate Christ, the second Adam. Man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature. Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions (except, perhaps, Zoroastrianism), not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.
…the present increasing disruption of the global environment is the product of a dynamic technology and science which were originating in the Western medieval world … Their growth cannot be understood historically apart from distinctive attitudes toward nature which are deeply grounded in Christian dogma. The fact that most people do not think of these attitudes as Christian is irrelevant. No new set of basic values has been accepted in our society to displace those of Christianity. Hence we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.
Of particular note in Ecology and Religion in History is the chapter, “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis,” by historian Lynn Townsend White, Jr. This article was the subject of much discussion following its publication.
From the Wikipedia article, Lynn Townsend White Jr.:
The historical roots of present-day ecologic crisis
In 1967, White conjectured that the Christian influences in the Middle Ages were at the root of ecological crisis in the 20th century. He gave a lecture on December 26, 1966, titled, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis" at the Washington meeting of the AAAS, that was later published in the journal Science. White's article was based on the premise that "all forms of life modify their context", i.e., every living organism in some way alters its environment or habitat. He believed man's relationship with the natural environment was always a dynamic and interactive one, even in the Middle Ages, but marked the Industrial Revolution as a fundamental turning point in our ecological history. He suggests that at this point the hypotheses of science were married to the possibilities of technology and our ability to destroy and exploit the environment was vastly increased. Nevertheless, he also suggests that the mentality of the Industrial Revolution, that the earth was a resource for human consumption, was much older than the actuality of machinery, and has its roots in medieval Christianity and attitudes towards nature. He suggests that "what people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them." Citing the Genesis creation story, he argued that Judeo-Christian theology had swept away pagan animism and normalized exploitation of the natural world because:
The Bible asserts man's dominion over nature and establishes a trend of anthropocentrism.
Christianity makes a distinction between man (formed in God's image) and the rest of creation, which has no "soul" or "reason" and is thus inferior.
He posited that these beliefs have led to an indifference towards nature which continues to impact in an industrial, "post-Christian" world. He concludes that applying more science and technology to the problem will not help, that it is humanity's fundamental ideas about nature that must change; we must abandon "superior, contemptuous" attitudes that makes us "willing to use it [the earth] for our slightest whim." White suggests adopting St. Francis of Assisi as a model in imagining a "democracy" of creation in which all creatures are respected and man's rule over creation is delimited.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Preamble
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, therefore,
The General Assembly, Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Article I
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.
Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11
1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21
1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26
1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29
1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
The main text identified general reasons why the population / environment problem is not being solved, such as the theories of Joseph Tainter and Jared Diamond. This appendix lists a number of more specific reasons why the problem is not being solved. These reasons have been sorted into four major categories: indifference, lack of confidence in success, spirituality, and fear of repercussions.
These reasons include the following.
Indifference
1. Stupidity. Many people simply do not possess the mental capacity to understand a situation explained to them; to comprehend complicated or complex concepts; to grasp the essential or important aspects of a situation; to comprehend implications or consequences of situations or actions. For example, some people deny that climate change is taking place, despite much evidence, such the fact that ice formed thousands of years ago is melting at the rate of 750 billion tons a year.
2. Ignorance. Some people have but a limited awareness of the seriousness of the ecological situation. Population and environmental changes occur slowly, and the magnitude of the change over time is not readily apparent. Some people do not realize that the amount of renewable solar energy available for industrial use will never approach the amount of energy available from fossil fuels. Many people do not realize that using much of the world’s supply of current solar energy for industrial uses prevents the biosphere from maintaining itself. Many people do not realize how natural evolution works, or how speciation occurs, and they seem oblivious to the fact that the species lost in a mass extinction are gone forever. They do not appear to realize that human existence and the quality of human life depend directly on the biosphere, on millions of other species, and that, by human presence and action, this biodiversity will be lost forever. Apart from our absolute dependence on the biosphere for our existence, it has been estimated that human beings depend rather directly on about forty thousand other species.
3. Caution, risk aversion, fear. Many people fear unfamiliar situations, are risk-averse, and tend to prefer accepting the known status quo to the unknown, preferring to take no action over acting.
4. Timidity. Many people have limited self-confidence or prefer not to take responsibility for actions, and prefer to let others make decisions and lead.
5. Laziness. Many people are unwilling to exert the effort required to analyze a complex problem and undertake actions to address it.
6. Lack of imagination or creativity. Many people have no strong vision for the future, other than as a similar continuation of the present. If there is a problem with the present, they have no vision or visions of alternative futures that would be preferable.
7. Inertia. If a system is working well, there is little incentive to change. Change is risky; the adage “don’t try to fix it if it’s not broken” is not without reason. Many people and organizations resist change, for little or no reason. For example, the chemical industry initially opposed the switch from chlorofluorocarbon refrigerant gas, stating falsely that such a change would cause a lot of economic harm. They ended up making massive amounts of money from the conversion and sale of the more expensive replacement gas. US automobile tire manufacturers initially resisted the introduction of the much-superior radial-ply tires, because they were introduced by European tiremakers. American tiremakers falsely claimed that radial-ply tires were not as safe as bias-ply tires. The design of radial tires was superior, and the US tire industry eventually switched to them. From 1941 to 1983, US automakers used sealed-beam headlights, in which the light bulb, lens and housing are all enclosed in a single, sealed, integrated unit. European automakers used replaceable light bulbs, which are a vastly superior design with respect to flexibility of use and lower cost. The major reason for the delay in switching to the superior design was the “not invented here” syndrome.
Change is natural, and an essential ingredient in evolution of systems to superior designs. In the examples given above, the alternatives under consideration involved no risk, since they involved proven technologies. All that was involved was a change in human activity to a slightly different industrial process, by the same manufacturers. The wealthy were still in charge – not just the top few percentiles of the income and wealth distributions, but, in these cases, the same people and organizations. Yet change was still resisted! The wealthy evidently did not really care whether their factories produced bias-ply tires or radial-tires. That is understandable – their primary goal was to amass wealth, not to produce the best tires. It would appear to be simple inertia.
8. Uncertainty. While some biologists, physicists and social scientists are predicting imminent collapse, some economists are predicting quite the opposite. Both sides base their predictions on scientific reasoning. Whom to believe?
9. Denial. While the evidence of global warming is ubiquitous and strong, not everyone accepts the assessment that global warming will cause irreparable harm to the biosphere and threaten the existence of a large human population, of global industrial civilization. Twenty-five years have passed since the publication of the Leakey / Lewin book on the Sixth Extinction, and it is not obvious that this extinction is making any difference. Well-known academics and economists such as Julian Simon have argued forcefully that there is not a problem, and that large-scale technological civilization will continue indefinitely.
10. Discounting in Time and Space. Human beings are programmed to discount in time and space. Events or situations that are remote in time or in space are not of great concern, unless it is believed that the faraway problem will affect them. They are highly tribal in nature. They have little empathy for the suffering of people who are not closely related to them. About 800,000 people were killed in the Rwanda Hutu/Tutsi massacre of 1994, and no nation intervened to stop the killing. An estimated 300,000 Ugandans were slaughtered by Idi Amin, and no country intervened. Most people realize that most of the products and services of modern civilization are enabled by fossil-fuel energy, but they seem unconcerned that global fossil-fuel reserves are exhausting. That development lies a couple of decades in the future, and is of no immediate concern. There is some reason for their lack of concern. According to many petrogeologists, the Petroleum Age was to be about over by now. But fracking was developed and the span of the Petroleum Age was extended. When fracking slows down, the extraction of oil from tar sands and oil shale will be ramped up. The end of the Petroleum Age no longer seems to be just around the corner – it is still a few years away. When it ends, then other sources of energy will be tapped, such as recurrent solar energy and nuclear energy. The fact that an estimated half of all solar energy hitting the planet is being put to human uses other than preserving the biosphere does not concern them. The fact that nuclear energy has substantial drawbacks (production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, nuclear accidents, nuclear waste disposal, threat of global nuclear war, substantial long-term costs of waste storage) does not concern them.
11. Discounting of unlikely events. Events that are unlikely to occur are dismissed from consideration, even if they may have serious consequences should they occur. It is not practical to attempt to prepare for a large number of contingencies that are unlikely to occur.
12. Arrogance, hubris. Because of its superior intelligence, mankind views that it is superior to the rest of nature. Mankind possesses a very high level of confidence that it can solve all of the problems facing it. Economists are particularly confidence that economic efficiency and growth will continue. Economic contractions may occur, but, in the long run, total growth is positive. If some resources become constrained, substitutes will be found for them. Two hundred years of history show are cited as support for this view.
13. Indifference. Some people tend to live in the present, and are not particularly concerned with the future. They realize and accept that as individuals they have little impact on the grand scale of things. Many people find little satisfaction and no personal fulfilment in their occupations in modern society. They have a lack of meaningful existence, purpose, and work. Life contains much misery and suffering. It has been this way for a long time, and it appears that things will likely not improve in the short term and may become much worse in the long term. There is little point to trying to improve things, because the likelihood of significant positive or long-term change is low.
14. Miscalculation. Human beings do not assess risk well, particularly the risk of rare events.
15. Disinformation. Media control. Propaganda. Julian Simon’s economic arguments.
16. Trust in leaders. In most cultures, there is a culture of civil obedience. Most people trust in their leaders, and, even if they have a low level of trust, accept that, on average, they are not very impressive – often, more managers than leaders. They accept that most leaders are in it for themselves (power and wealth), and that changing leaders imposes a cost but usually does not bring substantial or beneficial change.
17. The importance of freedom in small things. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that as long as man has a significant degree of freedom in small things, such as relationship to family, he is willing to accept a substantial degree of lack of freedom in large things (relationship to government). Given this perspective, man focusses on the little things that he can control, not on the big things (such as climate change) that he cannot.
18. Decline in Western values. In his book, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Nationalism, Populism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (2018), Jonah Goldberg argues that the original virtues of the United States have become vices in modern U.S. culture, and that the West is facing the risk of decline. In his book, The Strange Death of Europe (2017), [from Wikipedia] Douglas Murray explores two factors that explain why, in his view, European civilization as we have known it will not survive. The first is the combination of mass migration of new peoples into the continent together with Europe's below replacement birth rates. The second is what Murray describes as "the fact that… at the same time Europe lost faith in its beliefs, traditions, and legitimacy".
19. Greed, avarice and the politics of envy. No matter how much human beings have of something they desire, they tend to always want more. They are naturally competitive, and want more than their peers. They are envious of what others have. The politics of envy is the phenomenon that some people would rather have everyone worse off, rather than see someone better off than themselves. In a society with limited opportunities for growth, there is a motivation to put others down so that one’s relative position is higher.
20. Tragedy of the commons. From the Wikipedia article, “Tragedy of the commons”: The tragedy of the commons describes a situation in economic science when individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use, act independently according to their own self-interest and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action. The concept originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist William Forster Lloyd, who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land (also known as a "common") in Great Britain and Ireland. The concept became widely known as the "tragedy of the commons" over a century later after an article written by Garrett Hardin in 1968. More discussion of reasons for the tragedy of the commons is presented below, under the heading, The Double C – Double P Game.
21. Education / indoctrination / propaganda / brainwashing. Governments around the world indoctrinate their citizens to value urban life and devalue rural life, nature and wildlife. The major religions teach their adherents to have the attitude of Human Supremacy.
22. Society’s goals. Goals published by the UN (Sustainable Development Goals) are inconsistent with stopping destruction of the biosphere. See more below.
23. Welfare state. A very large number of people are now completely dependent on the state for their income. Twelve percent are on “food stamps” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) and 19 percent receive welfare benefits of some kind. These people are not motivated to change the system.
24. Welfare state, continued. Socialize the costs and privatize the benefits. Garrett Hardin referred to this as the CC-PP game (Commonized Costs, Privatized Profits). If banks, insurance companies and large corporations engage in risky behavior and fail, such as in the case of the Savings and Loan Scandal of the 1980s and 1990s, the Orange County Bankruptcy of 1994, and the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the government bails them out. This practice is a severe manifestation of moral hazard (the encouragement of risky behavior because another party bears the economic consequences of the risky behavior). This practice is also manifest in government subsidies in areas such as farm products and energy production (fossil fuels, solar energy), hydroelectric projects, lumber, disaster relief and neonatology. All of these practices encourage economic growth, which is ultimately destructive to the biosphere. An egregious example of the CC-PP game is the granting of sports franchises from the US government, and the building of sports stadia by cities to host games.
25. Preference for passiveness to activism.
26. Use of solar energy for nonbiological purposes. The amount of energy obtained from nuclear power plants and from solar has increased substantially. As noted earlier, using much of the world’s supply of current solar energy for industrial uses prevents the biosphere from maintaining itself. To preserve the biosphere, renewable solar energy must be used by plants, not for industrial applications. The main reason why less and less solar energy is being used by the biosphere to maintain / restore / rejuvenate itself is that it is the system that performs this function, and it is being degraded, destroyed, and reduced in size, effectiveness, efficiency, and capacity.
27. In certain ways, there is extreme personal freedom in present political / social system, and little motivation to change. In the present high-energy world, there has been an explosion of personal freedoms, including tolerance and inclusiveness, and permissiveness. People are free to have as many children as they please, no matter the burden placed on society and others. Moving to a lower level of consumption or population has negative appeal, compared to continuing with the present system, no matter how short-lived it may be and no matter what level of suffering it may impose on all future generations of human beings.
28. Catastrophes may be good for the survivors, and individuals have little power to avoid them, so there is no point in worrying a lot about them. See Tertullian (in Hardin) and Tainter (decline of Roman Empire).
29. False alarms, crying wolf. For many years after the first use of nuclear bombs in 1945, people were very concerned about the possibility of global nuclear war, and some governments established national fallout shelters for their populations. It has not happened in 75 years, and so people do not worry much about it.
Lack of Confidence in Success
30. Helplessness and hopelessness. According to some, we are quite past the point of no return, and collapse in unavoidable. What is the point to doing anything now? Steps to reduce human population in the long term require population-control measures, such as China’s one-child policy. Many governments are unwilling to take such steps, and many people do not want to take such steps. If population is to be reduced, it will have to be by some other means, such as famine or war. Most people consider that they alone have no power to change large things, and view that it is the responsibility of the government to do so. In the long run, human population will cease to exist, since the sun will burn out and the universe will suffer heat death. Since the extinction of the human species is certain, whether extinction happens now or a billion years from now is of no long-term consequence.
31. Nowhere left to go, nothing left to save. Mankind has populated the entire planet, established ownership of all land, and ruined much of nature. It is now very difficult for anyone to leave society, strike out on his own, and live off the land. All land is owned, and much of it stripped bare of natural fauna and flora. Many rivers and lakes have been poisoned or stripped bare of game fish. The oceans have been overfished to the point where fishing from shore is pointless. To many people, it looks as if the planet has already been destroyed. What is left to save?
32. All preceding efforts to stop the sixth extinction have failed. These involved some very intelligent, well-known and well-meaning people. It seems pointless to try.
33. Political systems. Political economy. All systems of government are oriented toward increasing security and wealth for the elite. The current global political system is very strong. There is some diversity of political systems in the world today, but the global financial system is highly integrated. The most successful system for generating wealth has turned out to be regulated free-market capitalism in liberal democratic societies. The global economic system is based on growth-based economics, which essentially views natural resources as unlimited free goods. Aspects of the global governmental system are addressed in items that follow.
34. Democracy. A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. A stable form of government that has worked well with capitalism and democracy to generate massive growth in population, industrial production, and wealth, at extreme cost to the biosphere and the creation of a massive amount of poverty. See additional discussion below.
35. Capitalism. An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
36. Economics. The branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth. The science of the management of scarcity. The predominant form of economics is growth-based economics, in which the primary goal of the system is to accomplish economic growth. This is in contrast to steady-state economics, which aims to protect the biosphere by placing limits on growth. Steady-state economics has not been embraced by any country. From the Wikipedia article, “Steady-state economy”: A steady-state economy is an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time. The term usually refers to the national economy of a particular country, but it is also applicable to the economic system of a city, a region, or the entire world. Since the 1970s, the concept of a steady-state economy has been associated mainly with the work of leading ecological economist Herman Daly.
37. Corporatism / corporatocracy and fascism. Governments around the world pretend to be democracies representing the people, but in fact they serve primarily business. From Wikipedia: Corporatocracy is a term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests. It is a form of Plutocracy. The concept has been used in explanations of bank bailouts, excessive pay for CEOs as well as complaints such as the exploitation of national treasuries, people and natural resources. It has been used by critics of globalization, sometimes in conjunction with criticism of the World Bank or unfair lending practices as well as criticism of "free trade agreements". Historian Howard Zinn argues that during the Gilded Age (170-1900) in the United States, the U.S. government was acting exactly as Karl Marx described capitalist states: "pretending neutrality to maintain order, but serving the interests of the rich". Economist Jeffrey Sachs described the United States as a corporatocracy in The Price of Civilization (2011). Refer to Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism (2008) for more discussion.
38. Money in politics and special interests (per James Hansen in Storms of My Grandchildren (2009)
39. Lying. Greenwashing. (See James Hansen.)
40. Media control by government and wealthy elite.
41. Rigidity of present the global political system. The present global political economic system is resistance to change. It is highly interdependent and fragile. It is heavily dependent on growth and the availability of inputs from nature, despite its lack of protection of those resources.
42. Nuclear power. The current system is not going to run out of power. Breeder reactors have the potential to provide as much power as was available from fossil fuels. Nuclear power is used to fuel industrial processes, and generates waste that cannot be recycled quickly by biological or geological processes. If nuclear power is used to offset fossil-fuel power but the waste that it generates is not recycled, the mountains of industrial waste on land, the islands of industrial waste in the seas, and the concentration of industrial pollutants in the atmosphere, will continue to grow. The poisoning of the environment with industrial chemicals will continue, habitat loss will continue, species extinction will continue, and the quality of life will continue to degrade. The threat of global nuclear war will continue.
Spirituality
43. Blind adherence to moral or ethical principles. Many people will dismiss out of hand logical, fact-based arguments that conflict with non-evidence-based religious beliefs.
44. Attitude toward nature / spiritual values / religious values. Modern cultures have a disdain for nature. Rather than focus on the fact that we are a dependent part of it, they view that we are to a considerable degree in control of it, and may make use of it as we see fit. This viewpoint has been promoted by the three Abrahamic religions, which assert that mankind has dominion over nature. Religion is used to justify the rape of nature, eugenics for plants and animals but not for human beings, the destruction of the biosphere, and the intense cruelty of factory farming (battery production of animals for human food). It is a sin to kill people, but not other living creatures, even sentient animals. In her book, Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist refers to this attitude as Human Supremacy. If saving the biosphere were to require the deliberate sacrifice or killing of one human life, many people would view that that would be ethically or morally the wrong thing to do – in essence, that all of the biodiversity of the biosphere is not equal in value to one human life.
45. Loss of contact with nature. Now that most people in the world (85%) are urban, people have lost touch with nature. For most people, nature is now a concept, not a tangible reality. They have no spiritual reverence or respect for nature, and this is unlikely to change.
46. Aesthetics. Urban mankind sees little of aesthetic value in nature, beyond idle curiosity (television documentaries).
47. Ethics and morality. See the main text for definitions of ethics and morality, relative morality, absolute morality. Morality, ethics and religion. Most people obey the law. Religion is a servant of the state, and encourages ethics that serve the state, such as the concept of mankind’s dominion over nature, and the concept that only human beings have souls. Christians have a strong work ethic, and no proscription against amassing wealth. Christian theology gives man dominion over nature. Constantine abolished the concept of reincarnation in Christianity, giving people just one chance at salvation, and much fear of disobeying their religion or government (Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s).
48. Natural rights. In the United States, the fundamental rights are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The United Nations has greatly expanded the list of basic human rights (See Appendix E). Giving these rights precedence over group rights causes paralysis. See additional discussion below. See also Taleb.
Fear of Repercussions
49. Fear of repercussions from government. Current global civilization is well entrenched. It is working well for those in power, who have little desire to change it. If the global environmental problem is to be solved, it appears that revolutionary change will be required. Revolutions, such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, involve warfare. When wars are fought, people get killed and injured. Many people would never take a revolutionary stand to save the biosphere, out of fear of repercussions.
50. Fear of repercussions from God. From a religious point of view, taking actions that kill other people may put one’s mortal soul in jeopardy.
Additional comments on democracy.
Plato: Democracy is a poor system of government for almost everyone except a small, wealthy elite. People will elect bad leaders who promise them anything. It does not matter whether it is direct democracy, representative democracy, or a combination (semi-direct). From Wikipedia: Socrates discusses four unjust constitutions: timocracy (a form of government in which possession of property is required in order to hold office), oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. He argues that a society will decay and pass through each government in succession, eventually becoming a tyranny, the most unjust regime of all. In his book, Civil Liberties and American Democracy (1984), John Brigham discusses three threats to democracy: from elites, from the people and from the experts (lawyers, technocrats). Democracy works well for small groups, and is a relatively stable form of government. In today’s setting, it has proved to be a very useful mechanism for the wealthy, through capitalism and growth-based economics, to cause great damage to the environment and an extreme distribution of wealth that is causing discord and instability.
Direct democracy is best suited for small groups. For larger groups, such as cities, states and nations, representative democracy is used, in which leaders (representatives) are elected to perform the functions of government. Under this system situations often arise where the choices made by leaders do not reflect the desires of the people who elected them. Leaders are generally more responsive to assertive special interests than to the general population.
In his book, Living within Limits, Garrett Hardin discusses this aspect of democracy in some detail, under the heading, An Unsolved Problem in Representative Democracy. He includes an excerpt from Katherine Bett’s book, Ideology and Immigration (1988): “Politicians do not invariably respond to majority interests. There may be more political advantage to be gained from taking up a focused and articulate minority interest than from supporting a diffuse and inarticulate majority interest. And there is a logical reason for this. Any given claim on resources that is successful and based on membership of a small category will result in a higher return for an individual than a similar claim made on the basis of membership in a large category, because in the latter case the benefit will have to be more widely shared. So it is in the best interests of individuals to make claims on politicians as members of an ethnic minority rather than as, for example, members of the working class or as citizens of the nation. From the politician’s point of view voters who receive a relatively large benefit are more likely to express their gratitude at the polls than voters who receive a relatively small benefit.”
Hardin cites several examples of this phenomenon. “…the majority of the American people are opposed to increasing the rate of immigration (and almost half want to decrease it). Despite these findings Congress has repeatedly encouraged more immigration. … The majority of the people are in favor of gun control, but for decades Congress has resisted passing needed legislation. The majority of people think women should be able to choose abortion over mandatory motherhood, yet Congress resists passing the needed legislation.
“In a representative democracy, a legislator counts noses in the boondocks less carefully than he measures nearby pressures. Who are the constituents that he is least able to ignore, and what do they want in the way of immigration?
“First, there is the businessman who wants to keep his labor costs low. The profits – deriving from the lower wages paid to immigrant workers – come to the businessman, who can therefore afford to spend a significant amount of money lobbying legislators. By contrast, the costs of immigration directly impinging on each taxpayer don’t amount to much; consequently, few citizens feel they can afford to spend much time or money lobbying legislators. In a representative democracy squawks count for more than noses.
“To the pressure of employers another pressure that has been added in recent years – the pressure of ethnic groups. Now that diversity and multiculturalism have become fashionable (and assimilation has become suspect), politicians among the ethnic groups believe that accentuating ethnicity is a golden road to personal power. They may be right.”
Under the heading of “’Diversity’ as a Problem for Population Control,” Hardin writes: “The waves of immigration into the United States during the first decades of the twentieth century were bearable because both residents and immigrants agreed that the newcomers should adopt the language and the ways of the residents as rapidly as possible. The process was called “assimilation.” Today, however, assimilation is out of favor: diversity is the magic word. “Ethnic pride” causes some minorities to resist assimilation. We can all rejoice when ethnic pride results in the descendents of immigrants becoming genuinely bicultural. But in recent years self-appointed leaders of immigrants have interpreted ethnic pride to mean ethnic intolerance – of the ways of the majority. This new development bodes ill for future peace in America.
“Of all the problems facing a multicultural nation none is more resistant to solution than population control. Every method proposed in a multiethnic society elicits a knee-jerk cry of “genocide.”
“It cannot be too often repeated that an extravagantly multicultural nation is poorly positioned to compete with nations that have not succumbed to the siren call for more “diversity.” … Whatever measures may be required to tame population growth, their difficulty will increase strictly in proportion to the amount of diversity in the population. In a multicultural nation patriotism withers under the onslaught of internal competition between ethnic groups. The nation is less favorably positioned to deal with external competition. Everyone within the multiethnic nations suffers.”
A liberal democracy is a practical system of civilization for keeping the masses under control, believing that they have some role in determining their situation / future. It is curious how so few people can control so many. In his book, The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (1993), Noam Chomsky discusses Hume’s Paradox. “That’s something that [English philosopher] David Hume pointed out a couple of centuries ago. In his work on political theory, he describes the paradox that, in any society, the population submits to the rulers, even though force is always in the hands of the governed.”
Capitalistic democracy was a good system for achieving growth of human population and civilization (all the way to the current “magic” age of electronics, computers, global communications at the personal level, air travel for the masses, and space travel to the moon), but the size of the human population and industrial activity is now so large that it is destroying the biosphere. A sustainable level is far lower than the current level. There is no indication that human population will decrease to a sustainable lower level, based on the human species’ historic behavior. To stop the destruction and return to a sustainable level will evidently require an external event, or events such as the end of the petroleum age, global warming, disease or war. To return to a sustainable level, given humanity’s propensity to breed no matter what the consequences will require control, and a system of civilization quite different from democracy.
A number of writers have brought strong criticism against democracy.
In his book, The Ostrich Factor (1999), Garrett Hardin writes, “In a stabilized nation there may still be a minority that dislikes a particular regime. Those who dislike what is agreed to by the majority have to consent to being coerced into obeying the law. To insist on unanimous agreement would be to make all forms of government impossible. The formula for a working society of our sort is quite simple: Mutual coercion mutually agreed upon. Do you still bristle at the word coercion? If so, you evidently do not recognize the above expression as the formula for a representative democracy or republic. To condemn the coercion of the individual by the group is to reject democracy.
Political activist Noam Chomsky cites many failings of democratic regimes. Here follows a summary of some of his views on American democracy, from the Wikipedia article, “Political positions of Noam Chomsky”: Criticism of United States democracy
Chomsky maintains that a nation is only democratic to the degree that government policy reflects informed public opinion. He notes that the US does have formal democratic structures, but they are dysfunctional. He argues that presidential elections are funded by concentrations of private power and orchestrated by the public relations industry, focusing discussion primarily on the qualities and the image of a candidate rather than on issues. Chomsky makes reference to several studies of public opinion by pollsters such as Gallup and Zogby and by academic sources such as the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland (PIPA). Quoting polls taken near the 2004 election, Chomsky points out that only a small minority of voters said they voted because of the candidate's "agendas / ideas / platforms / goals." Furthermore, studies show that the majority of Americans have a stance on domestic issues such as guaranteed health care that is not represented by either major party. Chomsky has contrasted US elections with elections in countries such as Spain, Bolivia, and Brazil, where he claims people are far better informed on important issues.
The Double C – Double P Game
In his book, Living within Limits, Garrett Hardin discusses asymmetrical relationships in social relationships. Some excerpts follow.
Hardin quotes commentator Walter Lippmann: Most men believe in laissez-faire for others while seeking to escape it themselves. He continues, “A half-century after Lippmann, the economist Milton Friedman repeated the criticism: ‘With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.’ This inconsistency violates the fundamental assumption of ethical theory that moral principles must be symmetrical – sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. But it is the very nature of egoism to want sauce for the goose only: the morality Ego lives by, if he can get away with it, is asymmetrical. The discovery that social arrangements are often asymmetrical can easily lead to cynicism.
“A particular instance illustrates ow the asymmetrical distribution of profits and costs works. A stockman in the western United States can raise his cattle either on private land or on government land managed by the Forest Service. In Idaho, as of 1990, the grazing fee on public land was only one-fifth what it was on private land. We can assume that a private land-owner sets his fee to cover the true cost of maintaining the carrying capacity of the land indefinitely. Obviously the government is not following this prudent rule. In direct costs, the Forest Service paid out $35 million for maintaining its grazing lands, the costs being offset by only $11 million taken in as fees. Who paid the deficit? Taxpayers, of course. Costs were communized while the profits (from the sale of beef) were privatized to the stockmen. The formula for this sort of game is simple: Commonized Costs – Privatized Profits, which can be abbreviated to the CC-PP game.
“Actually the costs that stockmen impose on American taxpayers are far greater than the ones that appear explicitly on the books of the Forest Service. Stockmen, because they do not own the grazing land, put more cattle on the range than the grass can tolerate. The standing crop of fodder diminishes, soil is eroded, streams and springs dry up, and natural reforestation is interfered with. The cost of all this degradation is imposed on the general public. The stockmen are, of course, great defenders of free enterprise – for other people. For themselves, they prefer sucking at the public teat. The CC-PP game.
“What’s wrong with this game? Principally two things. Looking at it from a distributional standpoint, it can be faulted for lack of equity and justice: why should one group of citizens get rich at the expense of the rest? Unrealistically low pasturage fees encourage stockmen to transgress the carrying capacity because their sins will mostly be paid for by posterity, not by themselves. Over time, the CC-PP game yields less total income from the exploitation of the rangeland; but, since the short-term profits are greater, stockmen fight to be allowed to continue the game. When one area is ruined, they will move to another or devise another CC-PP game.”
The previous paragraphs describe exactly what is occurring with today’s environmental crisis. The current generation of human beings (the “stockmen”) are raping the biosphere, destroying its biodiversity for their own profits, while all future generations of human beings will be forced to live in a biodiversity-impoverished world.
Hardin notes the ubiquity of the CC-PP game, in the externalities of economic models, farm subsidies, the pork-barrel politics of representative democracy, hydroelectric dams, lumber from forests on public land, disaster relief (flood control), government-funded medical research, and neonatology.
Hardin discusses the CC-PP game in neonatology in some detail. “In no area of medicine has the reward system been more hazardous to the interests of society as a whole than it is in neonatology – the medical treatment of newborn babies. … The public is just beginning to become aware of cases like the following.
At Howard Hospital, in the District of Columbia, intensive care for babies born to drug-addicted mothers runs as high as $1,786 a day. One abandoned infant ran up a bill of $250,000 for its 245-day stay.
At Stanford Hospital it is not unusual for the intensive care of a neonatal to cost $12,000 during its first week in the ICN (“Intensive Care, Neonatal”). One baby who spent nine weeks in the ICN cost $225,000.
In the Sheraton Corporation’s health plan, 12,000 employees spent $12.2 million in the year 1986. Three very premature babies accounted for 10 percent of the total, each one costing about $400,000. Each preemie cost about 400 times as much as the average worker covered by the plan.
For perspective, we should compare American practice with that of a strikingly different society, namely China.
“A Chinese View of Neonatology (Qui Renzong, 1987).
“In China, the financial costs of the technology of neonatal medicine are tremendous and intolerable, given out state of economic development. In addition, China is different from the United States culturally and socially. Three such factors are worth mentioning.
First, in China, lawyers have no right to intrude into medical matters….
Second, the medical costs of treatment must be paid for by their parents….
Third, China has a long tradition of Confucianism – about 2,000 years. And in recent decades we have Marxism. Both of these … have a holistic philosophy. By this I mean, that each individual is seen as a component of the whole society, the nation. Thus, each individual’s interests should properly be subordinate to the interests of the whole society or nation….
In China, if the physician insists on treating an infant with serious birth defects, the parents say, ‘Yes, if you pay the cost.’ However, the income of the physician is roughly the same as the parents – in the $40 to $50 per month range.”
From Hardin’s The Ostrich Factor: We are now ready to see why the so-called population problem is so resistant to solution. In today’s dominant cultures, two rights are asserted simultaneously:
1. The right to life. In practice we support the solemn pronouncement of the United Nations that every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition.
2. Reproductive right. Every woman has the right – perhaps with the agreement of her mate(s) – to determine how many children she shall produce.
On the Matter of Goals
The motivational speaker Zig Ziegler once claimed that he could hit a target using a bow and arrow more accurately than Howard Keel, the best archer in the world. He then paused, and added, “provided that Howard Keel is blindfolded.”
In order to achieve a goal, it is necessary to identify the goal and work toward it. The principal reason why underlying mankind’s present sorry state is that it is not the primary goal of national and international organizations to stop the destruction of the biosphere.
Here follow the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (from Wikipedia):
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". The SDGs were set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030. They are included in a UN Resolution called the 2030 Agenda or what is colloquially known as Agenda 2030.
The 17 SDGs are: (1) No Poverty, (2) Zero Hunger, (3) Good Health and Well-being, (4) Quality Education, (5) Gender Equality, (6) Clean Water and Sanitation, (7) Affordable and Clean Energy, (8) Decent Work and Economic Growth, (9) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, (10) Reducing Inequality, (11) Sustainable Cities and Communities, (12) Responsible Consumption and Production, (13) Climate Action, (14) Life Below Water, (15) Life On Land, (16) Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, (17) Partnerships for the Goals.
To date, it is fair to say that little substantive progress is being made on many of them. The fundamental problem is that the sorry state of affairs in most areas is caused by human overpopulation. But nowhere is there a goal to reduce human population!
A similar set of goals, the Millennium Development Goals, were set by the UN in 2000 (also from Wikipedia):
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) succeeded the MDGs in 2016.
All 191 United Nations member states, and at least 22 international organizations, committed to help achieve the following Millennium Development Goals by 2015:
To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
To achieve universal primary education
To promote gender equality and empower women
To reduce child mortality
To improve maternal health
To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
To ensure environmental sustainability
To develop a global partnership for development
Progress on achieving these goals was uneven, and they were succeeded by the Sustainable Development Goals in 2016.
The main reason why the preceding goals are not being achieved is that they not the main goals of the planet’s controllers. The true goal of the global political / economic system is generation of wealth for the planet’s controllers, and it is achieving that goal very well. The listed goals will be achieved to the extent that they generate wealth for the planet’s controllers or, at least, do not interfere with achieving that goal.
The sciences are categorized as hard sciences and soft sciences. The hard sciences include the natural sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology, and the soft sciences include social sciences such as economics, political science, military science, sociology and psychology. The hard sciences deal with facts about the natural world and are termed “descriptive” or “positive,” whereas the soft sciences deal with human values and are termed “prescriptive.”
Economics is the social science that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, and how people interact with value. Economics has been applied to many fields, including finance, health care and government. There are many categorizations of economics, such as macroeconomics and microeconomics; mainstream and heterodox; and positive and normative.
Initially, the standard definition of economics was the study of the production, distribution and consumption of wealth. The term “goods and services” was eventually substituted for “wealth,” when the science of economics was applied to fields other than material wealth (such as health, safety, education and welfare). In 1932 Lionel Robbins proposed an alternative definition of economics as the science of allocation of scarce resources: "Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.”
For much of the past two hundred years, a main focus of economics has been on increasing the wealth of nations, which is now generally measured in monetary terms as gross domestic product (GDP). A major cause of the environmental crisis of today is that the economic models from which policies were derived placed no value on natural resources (such as water, land, air and species diversity), other than the monetary costs associated with using them. Under this approach, natural resources were squandered, leading to the ecological crisis of today.
As a way of addressing this problem, some economists suggesting ascribing arbitrary monetary values on natural resources, to discourage their use, such as a “carbon tax” on trees. That approach has not worked to avoid the current crisis.
In response to the growing seriousness of the ecological crisis, additional branches of economics arose, such as environmental economics and eco-economics.
Here follows an extract from the Wikipedia article, “Eco-economics”:
Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, or eco-economics, is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially. By treating the economy as a subsystem of Earth's larger ecosystem, and by emphasizing the preservation of natural capital, the field of ecological economics is differentiated from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment. One survey of German economists found that ecological and environmental economics are different schools of economic thought, with ecological economists emphasizing strong sustainability and rejecting the proposition that physical (human-made) capital can substitute for natural capital (see the section on weak versus strong sustainability below).
Ecological economics was founded in the 1980s as a modern discipline on the works of and interactions between various European and American academics (see the section on History and development below). The related field of green economics is in general a more politically applied form of the subject.
According to ecological economist Malte Michael Faber, ecological economics is defined by its focus on nature, justice, and time. Issues of intergenerational equity, irreversibility of environmental change, uncertainty of long-term outcomes, and sustainable development guide ecological economic analysis and valuation. Ecological economists have questioned fundamental mainstream economic approaches such as cost-benefit analysis, and the separability of economic values from scientific research, contending that economics is unavoidably normative, i.e. prescriptive, rather than positive or descriptive. Positional analysis, which attempts to incorporate time and justice issues, is proposed as an alternative. Ecological economics shares several of its perspectives with feminist economics, including the focus on sustainability, nature, justice and care values….
European predecessors of ecological economics include K. William Kapp (1950) Karl Polanyi (1944), and Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971). Georgescu-Roegen, who would later mentor Herman Daly at Vanderbilt University, provided ecological economics with a modern conceptual framework based on the material and energy flows of economic production and consumption. His magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), is credited by Daly as a fundamental text of the field, alongside Soddy's Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt. Some key concepts of what is now ecological economics are evident in the writings of Kenneth Boulding and E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small Is Beautiful – A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973) was published just a few years before the first edition of Herman Daly's comprehensive and persuasive Steady-State Economics (1977)….
Criticism
Assigning monetary value to natural resources such as biodiversity, and the emergent ecosystem services is often viewed as a key process in influencing economic practices, policy, and decision-making. While this idea is becoming more and more accepted among ecologists and conservationist, some argue that it is inherently false.
[Douglas J. McCauley, professor of ocean science at the University of California Santa Barbara] argues that ecological economics and the resulting ecosystem service-based conservation can be harmful. He describes four main problems with this approach:
Firstly, it seems to be assumed that all ecosystem services are financially beneficial. This is undermined by a basic characteristic of ecosystems: they do not act specifically in favour of any single species. While certain services might be very useful to us, such as coastal protection from hurricanes by mangroves for example, others might cause financial or personal harm, such as wolves hunting cattle. The complexity of Eco-systems makes it challenging to weigh up the value of a given species. Wolves play a critical role in regulating prey populations; the absence of such an apex predator in the Scottish Highlands has caused the over population of deer, preventing afforestation, which increases the risk of flooding and damage to property.
Secondly, allocating monetary value to nature would make its conservation reliant on markets that fluctuate. This can lead to devaluation of services that were previously considered financially beneficial. Such is the case of the bees in a forest near former coffee plantations in Finca Santa Fe, Costa Rica. The pollination services were valued to over US$60,000 a year, but soon after the study, coffee prices dropped and the fields were replanted with pineapple. Pineapple does not require bees to be pollinated, so the value of their service dropped to zero.
Thirdly, conservation programmes for the sake of financial benefit underestimate human ingenuity to invent and replace ecosystem services by artificial means. McCauley argues that such proposals are deemed to have a short lifespan as the history of technology is about how Humanity developed artificial alternatives to nature's services and with time passing the cost of such services tend to decrease. This would also lead to the devaluation of ecosystem services.
Lastly, it should not be assumed that conserving ecosystems is always financially beneficial as opposed to alteration. In the case of the introduction of the Nile perch to Lake Victoria, the ecological consequence was decimation of native fauna. However, this same event is praised by the local communities as they gain significant financial benefits from trading the fish.
McCauley argues that, for these reasons, trying to convince decision-makers to conserve nature for monetary reasons is not the path to be followed, and instead appealing to morality is the ultimate way to campaign for the protection of nature.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
McCauley is absolutely right. The approach of attempting to place monetary values on natural resources has failed to address the ecological crisis. The value of natural resources cannot be captured, and they will not be protected, using such a simplistic approach. External to economic considerations, ecologically-based limits should be placed on human use of natural resources, and the economic models required to recognize those limits as inviolable constraints.
In his book, The Turning Point (1982), Fritjof Capra has much to say about the destructive effects of economics, in the chapter, “The Impasse of Economics.” Here follow a few excerpts from that chapter. Written almost 40 years ago, some of the examples are dated, but the essential points remain valid.
Present-day economics is characterized by the fragmentary and reductionist approach that typifies most social sciences. Economists generally fail to recognize that the economy is merely one aspect of a whole ecological and social fabric; a living system composed of human beings in continual interaction with one another and with their natural resources, most of which are, in turn, living organisms.
Another aspect of economic phenomena, crucially important but severely neglected by economists, is the economy’s dynamic evolution. In their dynamic nature the phenomena described by economics differ profoundly from those covered by the natural sciences.
The study of values is thus of paramount importance for all social sciences; there can be no such thing as a “value-free” social science.
Economics, with its basic focus on material wealth, is today the quintessential expression of sensate values. Attitudes and activities that are highly valued in this system include material acquisition, expansion, competition, and an obsession with “hard technology” and “hard science.” In overemphasizing these values, our society has encouraged the pursuit of goals that are both dangerous and unethical, and has institutionalized several of the sins known in Christianity as deadly – gluttony, pride, selfishness, and greed.
Marx recognized that capitalist forms of social organization would speed the process of technological innovation and increase material productivity, and he predicted that this, dialectically, would change social relationships. Thus he was able to foresee phenomena like monopolies and depressions and to predict that capitalism would foster socialism – as it has – and that it would, eventually, disappear – as it may. In the first volume of Kapital, Marx stated his indictment of capitalism in the following words:
Hand in hand with [the] centralization [of capital] … develop, on an ever-extending scale … the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic régime. Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation ….
One of the outstanding characteristics of today’s economies, both capitalist and communist, is an obsession with growth. Economic and technological growth are seen as essential by virtually all economists and politicians, although it should by now be abundantly clear that unlimited expansion in a finite environment can only lead to disaster.
The prevailing creed in government and business is still that the common good will be maximized if all individuals, groups, and institutions maximize their own material wealth – what is good for General Motors is good for the United States. The whole is identified with the sum of its parts, and the fact that it can be either more or less than this sum, depending on the mutual interference between the parts, is ignored. The consequences of this reductionist fallacy are now becoming painfully visible, as economic forces increasingly collide with each other, tear the social fabric, and ruin the natural environment.
The global obsession with growth has resulted in a remarkable similarity between capitalist and communist economies. The two dominant representatives of these so-called opposing value systems, the United States and the Soviet Union, no longer seem to be all that different. Both are dedicated to industrial growth and hard technology, with increasingly centralized and bureaucratic control, whether by the state or by so-called “private” multinational corporations. The universal addiction to growth and expansion is becoming stronger than all other ideologies; to borrow Marx’s phrase, it has become the opium of the people.
Since the conceptual framework of economics is ill suited to account for the social and environmental costs generated by all economic activity, economists have tended to ignore these costs, labeling them “external” variables that do not fit into their theoretical models.
[End of Capra excerpt.]
From the Wikipedia article, “Ecosphere”: An ecosphere is a planetary closed ecological system. In this global ecosystem, the various forms of energy and matter that constitute a given planet interact on a continual basis. The forces of the four Fundamental interactions cause the various forms of matter to settle into identifiable layers. These layers are referred to as component spheres with the type and extent of each component sphere varying significantly from one particular ecosphere to another. Component spheres that represent a significant portion of an ecosphere are referred to as primary component spheres. For instance, Earth's ecosphere consists of five primary component spheres which are the Geosphere, Hydrosphere, Biosphere, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere.
From the Wikipedia article, “Biosphere”: The biosphere, also known as the ecosphere is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on Earth. The biosphere is virtually a closed system with regards to matter, with minimal inputs and outputs. With regards to energy, it is an open system, with photosynthesis capturing solar energy at a rate of around 130 Terawatts per year. However it is a self-regulating system close to energetic equilibrium. By the most general biophysiological definition, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoiesis (life created naturally from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds) or biogenesis (life created from living matter), at least some 3.5 billion years ago.
In a general sense, biospheres are any closed, self-regulating systems containing ecosystems. This includes artificial biospheres such as Biosphere 2 and BIOS-3, and potentially ones on other planets or moons.
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system.
From the Wikipedia article, “Biogeographic realm”: A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into ecoregions, which are classified based on their biomes or habitat types.
The realms delineate the large areas of Earth's surface within which organisms have been evolving in relative isolation over long periods of time, separated from one another by geographic features, such as oceans, broad deserts, or high mountain ranges, that constitute barriers to migration. As such, biogeographic realm designations are used to indicate general groupings of organisms based on their shared biogeography. Biogeographic realms correspond to the floristic kingdoms of botany or zoogeographic regions of zoology.
Biogeographic realms are characterized by the evolutionary history of the organisms they contain. They are distinct from biomes, also known as major habitat types, which are divisions of the Earth's surface based on life form, or the adaptation of animals, fungi, micro-organisms and plants to climatic, soil, and other conditions. Biomes are characterized by similar climax vegetation. Each realm may include a number of different biomes. A tropical moist broadleaf forest in Central America, for example, may be similar to one in New Guinea in its vegetation type and structure, climate, soils, etc., but these forests are inhabited by animals, fungi, micro-organisms and plants with very different evolutionary histories.
The patterns of distribution of living organisms in the world's biogeographic realms were shaped by the process of plate tectonics, which has redistributed the world's land masses over geological history.
From the Wikipedia article, “Bioregion”: A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographical realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wildlife Fund classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the term in a rank-less generalist sense, similar to the terms "biogeographic area" or "biogeographic unit".
It may be conceptually similar to an ecoprovince.
From the Wikipedia article, “Ecoprovince”: An ecoprovince is a biogeographic unit smaller than an ecozone that contains one or more ecoregions. According to [Denis A.] Demarchi (1996), an ecoprovince encompasses areas of uniform climate, geological history and physiography (i.e. mountain ranges, large valleys, plateaus). Their size and broad internal uniformity make them ideal units for the implementation of natural resource policies.
From the Wikipedia article, “Ecoregion”: An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point).
From the Wikipedia article “Bioregionalism”: Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and ecological system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local populations, knowledge, and solutions.
Bioregionalism asserts "that a bioregion's environmental components (geography, climate, plant life, animal life, etc.) directly influence ways for human communities to act and interact with each other which are, in turn, optimal for those communities to thrive in their environment. As such, those ways to thrive in their totality—be they economic, cultural, spiritual, or political—will be distinctive in some capacity as being a product of their bioregional environment."
Bioregionalism is a concept that goes beyond national boundaries—an example is the concept of Cascadia, a region that is sometimes considered to consist of most of Oregon and Washington, the Alaska Panhandle, the far north of California and the West Coast of Canada, sometimes also including some or all of Idaho and western Montana. Another example of a bioregion, which does not cross national boundaries, but does overlap state lines, is the Ozarks, a bioregion also referred to as the Ozarks Plateau, which consists of southern Missouri, northwest Arkansas, the northeast corner of Oklahoma, southeast corner of Kansas.
Biogregions are not synonymous with ecoregions as defined by bodies such as the World Wildlife Fund or the Commission for Environmental Cooperation; the later are scientifically based and focused on wildlife and vegetation. Bioregions, by contrast are human regions, informed by nature but with a social and political element. In this way bioregionalism is simply political localism with an ecological foundation.
In a later part of this article, we shall discuss a planetary governmental system based on about 100 city-states. These city-states would correspond to bioregions of the bioregionalism concept.
This appendix will briefly summarize the sciences, technologies, humanities and authors involved in diagnosing the global environmental crisis and prescribing responses to it.
Before proceeding further, it is useful to define the terms “science” and “the humanities.”
The fields of human knowledge may be divided into several broad categories, including mathematics, the sciences, technology and the humanities. Science is the study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment (i.e., using the scientific method of investigation). The main branches of science are physics, chemistry and biology. The term “science” may be taken to include social science, which is the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. Social science encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, media studies, political science, psychology, and history. The humanities include the study of human society and culture, and includes politics, jurisprudence and law, philosophy, ethics, religion, languages, literature, philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, human geography and the arts. It includes fields of study outside of mathematics, and the natural and sometimes social sciences. Technology is the branch of knowledge dealing with engineering or applied sciences. Mathematics is not considered a science, but is the language used to describe the objects, phenomena, and concepts of the universe.
Ecology.
Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey and science writer Roger Lewin brought the sixth extinction to the attention of the world, in their book, The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind (1995).
Biologist Edward. O. Wilson has documented mankind’s destruction of the biosphere in several books, including Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016), The Future of Life (2002), The Meaning of Human Existence (2014), The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) and Sociobiology, the Abridged Edition (1975). In the last two books, he argues that it is mankind’s eusocial behavior – group selection in evolution (natural selection at the tribal or species level, as opposed to kin selection, or natural selection at the individual level) – that was a driving force in the evolution of the species intelligence. In Half Earth he argues that a feasible approach to save the biosphere’s remaining biodiversity is to set aside half of the planet for nature.
Physicist Fritjof Capra is best known for his book, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975, 4th ed. 1999). He discusses John Bell’s theorem, associated with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect, that asserts that the universe is fundamentally interconnected, interdependent, and inseparable. In the field of ecology, he has written a number of books, including The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture (1982), which argues that science needs to develop the concepts and insights of holism and systems theory to solve society's complex problems; The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (1996), which discusses complexity theory relative to an understanding of the key characteristics of life; The Hidden Connections (2002), in which he applies system dynamics and complexity theory to the social domain; and The Systems View of Life (2014).
Earth Sciences
In his book, Storms of my Grandchildren (2009), physicist James Hansen describes the effects of global warming and climate change.
Sociology
Books that discuss the collapse of human societies include Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988); Jared Diamond’s Collapse (2005); and William Catton’s Overshoot: The Ecological Basis for Revolutionary Change (1980).
Human nature
The new state must take into account and take advantage of human nature.
1. Discounting in time and space. Don’t care about the future, or people far away. Short term more important than long term.
2. A distribution of attributes. Some, the leaders, are acquisitive, greedy, ambitious, bold, adventure seeking, risk seeking, industrious, arrogant, not superstitious, compelled to work, want freedom in the large; many, the followers, are lazy, envious, gullible, superstitious, comfort seeking, risk averse, want freedom in small things.
3. Warlike, competitive.
4. High sex drive. Breed to the limit, until some external constraint is imposed. No self-regulation, no self-discipline; have no predators, need war, famine and disease to control.
5. Never satisfied, want challenge, change, diversity, variety, games, conquest, pleasure-seeking, comfort seeking, optimizing, risk seeking, thrill seeking, change seeking, confident, arrogant, bold.
6. Intelligent, creative, imaginative, visionary, goal seeking, adaptable, curious, inquisitive.
7. Add complexity (improve). Organizing, builders, social, tribal.
8. Survival-seeking, both for the individual and his tribe (weakly eusocial).
9. Security seeking, status seeking, power seeking, wealth seeking.
Additional discussion of human nature is presented in Appendix C, which includes Bertrand Russell’s views on basic human drives.
Ethics
The subject of ethics was discussed at some length, earlier.
In his book, Skin in the Game (2018) and Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2016), Nicholas Taleb discusses ethics at length. He discusses the need for symmetry in ethical considerations, and that ethics derive from the instinct for survival.
In his books, Living within Limits (1993) and The Ostrich Factor (1998), Garrett Hardin discusses ethics from the viewpoint of survival and symmetry.
From the Wikipedia article, “John B. Cobb”: John Boswell Cobb, Jr. (born 9 February 1925) is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. Cobb is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead
A unifying theme of Cobb's work is his emphasis on ecological interdependence—the idea that every part of the ecosystem is reliant on all the other parts. Cobb has argued that humanity's most urgent task is to preserve the world on which it lives and depends an idea which his primary influence, Whitehead, described as "world-loyalty".
Cobb is well known for his transdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from many different areas of study and bringing different specialized disciplines into fruitful communication. Because of his broad-minded interest and approach, Cobb has been influential in a wide range of disciplines, including theology, ecology, economics, biology, and social ethics.
In 1971, he wrote the first single-author book in environmental ethics, Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, which argued for the relevance of religious thought in approaching the ecological crisis. In 1989, he co-authored the book For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, Environment, and a Sustainable Future, which critiqued current global economic practice and advocated for a sustainable, ecology-based economics.
On the matter of rights
At present, personal universal rights are touted to take precedence over societal survival rights. Action by United Nations or any government to cause a population reduction are unlikely, because of moral climate or backlash. So, nothing will be precipitated. Instead, prepared entities (nations or non-national entities) will wait until collapse occurs, and then act to take control during the collapse or in its aftermath.
Political science
The present system of many sovereign nations evolved from a primitive human population scattered over the Earth. It survived for several millennia, in preindustrial times. A few large empires arose, but collapsed. Now that technology has arisen, and human society is deeply interconnected by communications, migration, and commerce, it is possible that that a global political system would arise to replace the present system of 195 independent states. While this is now feasible, it has not happened. There is a single superpower, the United States, and a number of very powerful nations, but no move to form a single global political entity. Why? Is it because of the different languages and cultures (tribes)?
Many alternative systems of government have been tried. The one in vogue at present is capitalist democracy using growth-based economics. Plato observed 2500 years ago that democracy is a poor system of government, since the people will elect bad leaders who promise them anything. He asserted that democracy evolves into tyranny.
Niccolò Machiavelli: There are three ways to control a conquered people: (1) exterminate (e.g., Rome vs. Carthage; Spain vs. Costa Rica and Argentina) or decimate (e.g., Spanish in the Americas (mainly via disease); United States vs. the American Indians); (2) overwhelm the culture by mass immigration and interbreeding (e.g., Chinese Sinicization of Tibet and Xinjiang; Spanish in Mexico); (3) set up puppet governments (as done by the Roman, British, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian empires).
At present, Noam Chomsky is perhaps the best-known critic of political systems. He is critical of present-day American democracy and suggests some improvements, such as greater use of direct democracy (participation of citizens in governmental affairs).
The following is extracted from the Wikipedia article, “Noam Chomsky”:
One of the most cited scholars alive, Chomsky has influenced a broad array of academic fields. … Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements.
… He usually identifies as an anarcho-syndicalist or a libertarian socialist. He views these positions not as precise political theories but as ideals that he thinks best meet human needs: liberty, community, and freedom of association. Unlike some other socialists, such as Marxists, Chomsky believes that politics lies outside the remit of science, but he still roots his ideas about an ideal society in empirical data and empirically justified theories.
Chomsky has been a prominent critic of American imperialism; he believes that the basic principle of the foreign policy of the United States is the establishment of "open societies" that are economically and politically controlled by the United States and where U.S.-based businesses can prosper. He argues that the U.S. seeks to suppress any movements within these countries that are not compliant with U.S. interests and to ensure that U.S.-friendly governments are placed in power. When discussing current events, he emphasizes their place within a wider historical perspective. He believes that official, sanctioned historical accounts of U.S. and British extraterritorial operations have consistently whitewashed these nations' actions in order to present them as having benevolent motives in either spreading democracy or, in older instances, spreading Christianity; criticizing these accounts, he seeks to correct them. Prominent examples he regularly cites are the actions of the British Empire in India and Africa and the actions of the U.S. in Vietnam, the Philippines, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Chomsky's political work has centered heavily on criticizing the actions of the United States. He has said he focuses on the U.S. because the country has militarily and economically dominated the world during his lifetime and because its liberal democratic electoral system allows the citizenry to influence government policy. His hope is that, by spreading awareness of the impact U.S. foreign policies have on the populations affected by them, he can sway the populations of the U.S. and other countries into opposing the policies. He urges people to criticize their governments' motivations, decisions, and actions, to accept responsibility for their own thoughts and actions, and to apply the same standards to others as to themselves.
In his youth, Chomsky developed a dislike of capitalism and the pursuit of material wealth. At the same time, he developed a disdain for authoritarian socialism, as represented by the Marxist–Leninist policies of the Soviet Union. Rather than accepting the common view among U.S. economists that a spectrum exists between total state ownership of the economy and total private ownership, he instead suggests that a spectrum should be understood between total democratic control of the economy and total autocratic control (whether state or private). He argues that Western capitalist countries are not really democratic, because, in his view, a truly democratic society is one in which all persons have a say in public economic policy. He has stated his opposition to ruling elites, among them institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and GATT (precursor to the WTO).
Chomsky highlights that, since the 1970s, the U.S. has become increasingly economically unequal as a result of the repeal of various financial regulations and the rescinding of the Bretton Woods financial control agreement. He characterizes the U.S. as a de facto one-party state, viewing both the Republican Party and Democratic Party as manifestations of a single "Business Party" controlled by corporate and financial interests. Chomsky highlights that, within Western capitalist liberal democracies, at least 80% of the population has no control over economic decisions, which are instead in the hands of a management class and ultimately controlled by a small, wealthy elite.
Noting the entrenchment of such an economic system, Chomsky believes that change is possible through the organized cooperation of large numbers of people who understand the problem and know how they want to reorganize the economy more equitably. Acknowledging that corporate domination of media and government stifles any significant change to this system, he sees reason for optimism in historical examples such as the social rejection of slavery as immoral, the advances in women's rights, and the forcing of government to justify invasions. He views violent revolution to overthrow a government as a last resort to be avoided if possible, citing the example of historical revolutions where the population's welfare has worsened as a result of upheaval.
Chomsky sees libertarian socialist and anarcho-syndicalist ideas as the descendants of the classical liberal ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, arguing that his ideological position revolves around "nourishing the libertarian and creative character of the human being". He envisions an anarcho-syndicalist future with direct worker control of the means of production and government by workers' councils, who would select representatives to meet together at general assemblies. The point of this self-governance is to make each citizen, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a direct participator in the government of affairs." He believes that there will be no need for political parties. By controlling their productive life, he believes that individuals can gain job satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment and purpose. He argues that unpleasant and unpopular jobs could be fully automated, carried out by workers who are specially remunerated, or shared among everyone.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
John Zerzan proposes global anarchy and the destruction of technology. Science and technology are out of the bag. Any civilization will make full use of them. Both growthers and biodiversity savers will use it. The cleverest / luckiest / most industrious / most prepared will prevail.
Military science
Sun Tzu, The Art of War discusses the basic concepts of warfare. From the Wikipedia article, “The Art of War”: The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (roughly 5th century BC). The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu ("Master Sun", also spelled Sunzi), is composed of 13 chapters. Each one is devoted to an aspect of warfare and how it applies to military strategy and tactics. For almost 1,500 years it was the lead text in an anthology that was formalized as the Seven Military Classics by Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1080. The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asian warfare and has influenced both Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy, lifestyles and beyond.
Robert Greene’s book, The 48 Laws of Power (1998) draws on the philosophies presented in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
The classic book on military strategy is Strategy (1954, 1967) by B. H. Liddell Hart. From the Wikipedia article, “Liddell Hart”: According to Brian Holden Reid, Liddell Hart's indirect approach has seven key themes:
1. The dislocation of the enemy's balance should be the prelude to defeat, not to utter destruction.
2. Negotiate an end to unprofitable wars.
3. The methods of the indirect approach are better suited to democracy.
4. Military power relies on economic endurance. Defeating an enemy by beating him economically incurs no risk.
5. Implicitly, war is an activity between states.
6. Liddell Hart's notion of "rational pacifism".
7. Victory often emerges as the result of an enemy defeating itself.
Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn’s 1960 book, On Thermonuclear War, discussed outcomes for a wide range of levels of nuclear war. The general thesis of the book was that there are many postwar states that should be distinguished, and that how a country looks five or ten years after the close of the war varies substantially depending on the preparations made before the war, the way the war started, and the course of military events.
Preparations made before the war include research, development, production and strategic deployment of offensive and defensive weapons, combat support systems and defensive countermeasures. The way the war started includes who initiated the war and the situation (season, day of week, time of day, weather, defensive posture, political situation). The course of military events includes damage to targets and support systems and tactical decisions.
The Role of Nuclear Weapons
At present, there are sufficient nuclear weapons in existence to immediately destroy modern industrialized civilization. See CAS for descriptions of possible nuclear war scenarios.
All nuclear powers, and many others, may be destroyed, if global nuclear war occurs. In any event, nuclear war or no, there could be many (e.g., 10,000) nuclear bombs remaining. Use one bomb per century to destroy emerging societies, prevent re-emergence of large technical society for one million years.
(From the Wikipedia article, “List of states with nuclear weapons”: According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the worldwide total inventory of nuclear weapons as of 2019 stood at 13,865, of which 3,750 were deployed with operational forces. In early 2019, more than 90% of the world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States.)
There may be 10,000 nuclear bombs remaining after the collapse. These could be used by the survivor to destroy emergent societies as they emerge (e.g., one a century, one a decade), for the next million years, assuring that the initial planetary management system has a good start.
In his book, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (2001), Michael Klare discusses conflicts that are likely to be waged in competition for resources. The scale of warfare discussed by Klare is relatively small regional conflicts, not global war.
Economics
Economics has been discussed earlier. Most of economics is growth-based economics, applicable to the context of a growing population and not-yet-exhausted resources. The use of growth-based economics has contributed much to the rise of the global environmental problem (by largely ignoring the effect of economic activity on the biosphere), to the growth of a massive number of people in poverty, to inequality in income and wealth, and to extreme wealth for the system controllers.
In his book, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen discussed the role of entropy in economic processes. Herman E. Daly and John C. Cobb, Jr., in For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (1989), discuss the importance of taking ecological considerations into account in economic modeling and analysis.
Other books on steady-state economics are Herman Daly’s Beyond Growth (1996) and Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics (1996) edited by Robert Costanza, Olman Segura, and Juan Martinez-Alier.
Systems theory
From the Wikipedia article, “Systems theory”: Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems. A system is a cohesive conglomeration of interrelated and interdependent parts which can be natural or human-made. Every system is bounded by space and time, influenced by its environment, defined by its structure and purpose, and expressed through its functioning. A system may be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior.
Complexity
From the Wikipedia article, “Complexity”: Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, meaning there is no reasonable higher instruction to define the various possible interactions. The term is generally used to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways, culminating in a higher order of emergence greater than the sum of its parts. The study of these complex linkages at various scales is the main goal of complex systems theory.
Complex systems
From the Wikipedia article, “Complex system”: A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication systems, social and economic organizations (like cities), an ecosystem, a living cell, and ultimately the entire universe.
Complex systems are systems whose behavior is intrinsically difficult to model due to the dependencies, competitions, relationships, or other types of interactions between their parts or between a given system and its environment. Systems that are "complex" have distinct properties that arise from these relationships, such as nonlinearity, emergence, spontaneous order, adaptation, and feedback loops, among others. Because such systems appear in a wide variety of fields, the commonalities among them have become the topic of their independent area of research. In many cases, it is useful to represent such a system as a network where the nodes represent the components and links to their interactions.
From the Wikipedia article, “Complexity theory and organizations”: Complexity theory and organizations, also called complexity strategy or complex adaptive organizations, is the use of the study of complexity systems in the field of strategic management and organizational studies. It draws from research in the natural sciences that examines uncertainty and non-linearity. Complexity theory emphasizes interactions and the accompanying feedback loops that constantly change systems. While it proposes that systems are unpredictable, they are also constrained by order-generating rules.
Complexity theory has been used in the fields of strategic management and organizational studies. Application areas include understanding how organizations or firms adapt to their environments and how they cope with conditions of uncertainty. Organisations have complex structures in that they are dynamic networks of interactions, and their relationships are not aggregations of the individual static entities. They are adaptive; in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to a change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.
Taleb. Antifragility. Skin in the game. Survival ethics. Uncertainty, rare events, black swans.
Organization theory
From the Wikipedia article, “Organization theory”: Organizational theory consists of many approaches to organizational analysis. "Organizations" are defined as social units of people that are structured and managed to meet a need, or to pursue collective goals. Theories of organizations include rational system perspective, division of labor, bureaucratic theory, and contingency theory.
From the Wikipedia article, “Herbert A. Simon”: Herbert Alexander Simon was an American economist, political scientist and cognitive psychologist, whose primary research interest was decision-making within organizations and is best known for the theories of "bounded rationality" and "satisficing". He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 and the Turing Award in 1975. His research was noted for its interdisciplinary nature and spanned across the fields of cognitive science, computer science, public administration, management, and political science. He was at Carnegie Mellon University for most of his career, from 1949 to 2001.
Notably, Simon was among the pioneers of several modern-day scientific domains such as artificial intelligence, information processing, decision-making, problem-solving, organization theory, and complex systems. He was among the earliest to analyze the architecture of complexity and to propose a preferential attachment mechanism to explain power law distributions.
Simon was a prolific writer and authored 27 books and almost a thousand papers. As of 2016, Simon was the most cited person in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology on Google Scholar. With almost a thousand highly cited publications, he was one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century.
From the Wikipedia article, “Peter Drucker”: Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an Austrian management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as "the founder of modern management".
Drucker's books and articles, both scholarly and popular, explored how humans are organized across the business, government, and nonprofit sectors of society. He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning. In 1959, Drucker coined the term "knowledge worker," and later in his life considered knowledge-worker productivity to be the next frontier of management.
Because the present system of world government has failed to protect the environment and deliver happiness to people, it is a failed approach that is unlikely to be tried again. It is chaotic, unmanaged. A more logical basis for running a planet is to run it as a business or a ship (e.g., Spaceship Earth). From an initial state of chaos (195 nations) to an orderly, managed system.
The present operational state of the global governmental system may be characterized as the first (initial) level of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model, chaotic:
1. Initial (chaotic, ad hoc, individual heroics) - the starting point for use of a new or undocumented repeat process.
2. Repeatable - the process is at least documented sufficiently such that repeating the same steps may be attempted.
3. Defined - the process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process
4. Capable - the process is quantitatively managed in accordance with agreed-upon metrics.
5. Efficient - process management includes deliberate process optimization/improvement.
The methodology of Quality Management (QM) is appropriate, but in this application it is necessary to focus on the product / goals, not just on the process. The new planetary management system must be goal oriented, teleological, adaptive, robust, antifragile. In the words of Albert Bates: The triple bottom line of this new economy is antifragility, regeneration, and resilience.
Evolutionary Operation (EVOP). Box – all models are wrong, but some are useful.
Information theory
From the Wikipedia article, “Information technology”: Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data or information. IT is typically used within the context of business operations as opposed to personal or entertainment technologies. IT is considered to be a subset of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (IT system) is generally an information system, a communications system, or, more specifically speaking, a computer system – including all hardware, software, and peripheral equipment – operated by a limited group of users.
Systems engineering
From the Wikipedia article, “Systems engineering”: Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function.
Issues such as requirements engineering, reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams, testing and evaluation, maintainability and many other disciplines necessary for successful system design, development, implementation, and ultimate decommission become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as industrial engineering, process systems engineering, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, production engineering, control engineering, software engineering, electrical engineering, cybernetics, aerospace engineering, organizational studies, civil engineering and project management. Systems engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered and integrated into a whole.
Is change the purpose? Conflict? Environmentalists vs economists / developers / growthers. Exploitation; vulgarization. Biosphere destroyers / killers (genocide of many species, including human beings) vs. biosphere protectors, lifers. Treat symptom (overpopulation) if can’t treat the cause (human intelligence, breeding, ignorance, indifference).
Factors to consider
If it is accepted that the human species, civilization and a rich biosphere are worth saving, then it follows that effort should be made to save it. What preparations should be made? Much depends on whether one’s response to the environmental problem is proactive or reactive. Factors to consider in determining a response are:
1. Don’t know which nation or nations will survive.
2. Most likely, those who survive (if any) will be the prepared.
3. Things are happening fast. A multiplayer game. All rainforests will soon be destroyed, so nothing left to win. Global warming is upon us, and will move the Sixth Mass Extinction forward. There is tremendous incentive to strike sooner than later. Those who hesitate will lose. First strike offers tremendous advantage. The system is in crisis mode. Someone will soon strike. If that affects you, you had best prepare (or strike first).
4. The decline may be fast (collapse, not graceful decline). Tainter: slow decline only if neighboring states to avoid it.
5. Since this has never happened before, it is hard to predict very specifically how it might happen. It is probably a Black Swan.
6. We have the time and resources to make good plans.
7. The cost of preparation is very low (e.g., US Civil Defense, Finland, Switzerland). All that is required is the provision of caches useful to whoever survives, to enhance their survival and promote their hegemony over the rest of the planet.
8. Collapse of the current global civilization system (/model) seems certain. The rational response is to prepare for it, in the event that you are a survivor. (Per Kahn.) Why? Why not evolve to a nuclear-energy society. We could, but that is evidently not the choice. Our choice is to destroy the biosphere.
9. Should all nations work together on this? They are in denial that it is happening, or indifferent to it, and so this seems out of the question. It is contrary to their philosophy that economic development and growth are a solution to the problem, when in fact they are the cause of the problem. Modern nations are economic systems, and planning for a non-economic future is out of scope. It would represent an admission of failure of the state to protect both itself and its citizens.
Appendix J. Additional Comments on Mankind’s Purpose and Goals
Is humanity worth saving? Absolutely! Why? It yields a more interesting outcome / existence. Survival is its own reward. The universe evolves toward local complexity, (i.e., it is self-organizing, entropy notwithstanding), so that, from an empirical viewpoint, greater complexity may be taken as a purpose. Life is a temporary, localized reduction in entropy. Is something better than nothing? Is the survival of mankind and a rich biosphere for 100 million years better than suffering in an impoverished biosphere for 100 million years, or than extinction? Yes, but why? Even for the wealthy, having a complex, stressful society is better, more interesting, than having a boring existence. It’s got to be more than a value judgment!
The Universe evolves toward complexity, not chaos, and then evolves to uniform disorder and heat death (2nd Law of Thermodynamics – the entropy of a closed system always increases).
On mankind’s basic drives (per Russell: acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, love of power, love of excitement, hatred of boredom). The challenge of managing a planet to preserve biodiversity and achieve high-quality life for human beings adds challenge and stress to existence. Managing a planet having many city-states and cities is more challenging than managing a single reclusive defensive outpost. It keeps people busy with meaningful, purposeful work, and is satisfying. Human beings were designed to set goals, work, create, explore, build, to like diversity, change, chaos, challenge, and accomplishment. We have evolved to want and to have a sense of purpose. The activity of managing the planet relative to the just-stated goal can provide an exciting, purposeful, meaningful existence.
Without stress and uncertainty, mankind will atrophy / perish. A single fortress would never work. With little to do that is interesting and challenging, the people would go crazy.
For good ethics, we need skin in the game. For a high likelihood of success, we need antifragility (the ability to thrive on uncertainty / chaos). Thriving on chaos not only makes human society stronger, but life more challenging, and interesting.
If we are programmed to survive, then why are we courting extinction? For a thrill? Is the purpose of the global environmental crisis to provide us with the challenge to build a survivable system? We evolve to complexity, and to survive. Else, we would not be here. Why are we pleasure-seeking? Is this trait linked to survival? It would appear, however, that we work to maximize our pleasure / satisfaction more than we do to promote our survival. Why? Maximizing our pleasure minimizes the likelihood of long-term survival of the species. Sex: we are simply carriers of DNA.
Is it all over in 15 billion years? If so, in the long run, there is no purpose? Von Neumann (to Roosevelt): in the long run, we are all dead. We are programmed (genetically evolved) to work, to survive, to breed, to explore, to discover, to play, to take risks, to write, to fight, to make music. It really doesn’t matter whether there is a purpose or not, created or not, we simply enjoy the moment, and will continue to engage in human activities. These things become the goal! Because the universe dies in 15 billion years, there is no long-term goal. The journey, the experience, is the goal! In the long term, there are no ends, only means, that matter.
We evolution to complexity, affected by random genetic changes and environmental variations. The “random” genetic changes seem to be exogenously guided. Random variation doesn’t put a thumb on our foreheads. No one knows how physical and mental characteristics are carried by genes, or how consciousness works, or how small voltages from our sensors form a mental image.
On group selection…. We, the current generation, make the existential choice for all future generations. But we don’t care! We are almost totally focused on the short term, our own existence. We are closing doors for all potential future generations of mankind (and other species). The present generation of human beings has chosen not to leave the solution to our children, because we have chosen to destroy half of all species. We have made the choice and left them with fewer options to consider.
We are playing the game, now, and for the next several hundred million years. We have a chance to make a play, make a choice. What will it be? It will affect the entire history of humanity (and the biosphere).
Contrary to E. O. Wilson’s assertion about group selection, we seem to be programmed to survive as individuals but not as a species.
On the value of the future potential lives of billions of human beings over millions of years, and metrics…. A small, long-term-survivable, high-quality-of-life population of 10 million living in a biodiversity-rich environment: 10 million people x 100 million years = 1015 person-years. Compare to a large, soon-to-be-extinct population of 10 billion people, most of whom are living in poverty and misery: 10 billion people x 100 years = 1012 person-years. The number of person-years is not a sufficient indicator, since it reflects only quantity, not quality.
It is the Old Testament (Genesis) that promotes contempt for nature, subjugation of nature, exploitation of nature. In the New Testament, Jesus asserts: I am here that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.
If we accept Taleb’s characterization of survival ethics, that if something is ethical then it promotes survival, then it is better (“more ethical”) to survive in a good environment than a poor environment, and long-term survival is better than short-term survival. It follows that reducing the population is ethical. Some means, however, are preferred to others. At present, no nation or international organization is willing to do this – all opt for maximum wealth for today’s system controllers. So perhaps the only way to arrive at a good solution is an opportunistic approach: Wait for the present system to collapse for some reason, at which time a strong, prepared leader then establish a long-term-survivable population in a diversity-rich biosphere, like a Phoenix arising out of the “ashes” of the present system.
The stress of a growing population has been the mother of technology. For hundreds of thousands of years, global human population was about five million people. After 8,000 years of agriculture, it stood at about 300 million people. At the start of the Industrial Revolution, about 800 million people. The Great Plains are gone and the Great Temperate Forests are greatly reduced, a portion of their biodiversity gone, and nothing will bring that back. So, we may as well go with the 800 million, not the 5 million or the 300 million, as a feasible minimal-regret population size. How many people are required to support a technical world?
Here follows an extract from the Wikipedia article, “Small nuclear reactors”: Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a type of nuclear fission reactor which are smaller than conventional reactors. This allows them to be manufactured at a plant and brought to a site to be assembled. Modular reactors allow for less on-site construction, increased containment efficiency, and enhanced safety due to passive nuclear safety features. SMRs have been proposed as a way to bypass financial and safety barriers that have plagued conventional nuclear reactors.
Several designs exist for SMR, ranging from scaled down versions of existing nuclear reactor designs, to entirely new generation IV designs. Both thermal-neutron reactors and fast-neutron reactors have been proposed, as well as molten salt and gas cooled reactor models.
A main hindrance to the commercial application of SMRs as of 2015 is licensing, since current regulatory regimes are adapted to conventional nuclear power plants and have not been adapted to SMRs in terms of staffing, security etc. Time, cost and risk of the licensing process are critical elements for the construction of SMRs.
Advantages and potential uses
The main advantage of small modular reactors is that they could be manufactured and assembled at a central factory location. They can then be sent to their new location where smaller SMRs can be installed with little difficulty. However, SMR module transportation is critical and needs further studies.
Another advantage of the small reactor is that a user can install their first unit, instantly generating revenue and cash flows, then later add as many other smaller reactors as necessary — cutting back on financing times and saving on long, drawn out construction processes.
Some larger SMRs require more significant on-site construction, such as the 440 MWe 3-loop Rolls-Royce SMR, which targets a 500-day construction time.
SMRs are particularly useful in remote locations where there is usually a deficiency of trained workers and a higher cost of shipping. Containment is more efficient, and proliferation concerns could be lowered. SMRs are also more flexible in that they do not necessarily need to be hooked into a large power grid, and can generally be attached to other modules to provide increased power supplies if necessary.
The electricity needs in remote locations are usually small and highly variable. Large nuclear power plants are generally rather inflexible in their power generation capabilities. SMRs have a load-following design so that when electricity demands are low they will produce a lower amount of electricity.
Many SMRs are designed to use new fuel ideas that allow for higher burnup and longer fuel cycles. Longer refueling intervals can decrease proliferation risks and lower chances of radiation escaping containment. For reactors in remote areas, accessibility can be troublesome, so longer fuel life can be very helpful.
SMRs could be used to power significant users of energy, such as large vessels or production facilities (e.g. water treatment / purification, or mines). Remote locations often have difficulty finding economically efficient, reliable energy sources. Small nuclear reactors have been considered as solutions to many energy problems in these hard-to-reach places. Cogeneration options are also possible.
Because of the lack of trained personnel available in remote areas, SMRs have to be inherently safe. Many larger plants have active safety features that require "intelligent input", or human controls. Many of these SMRs are being made using passive or inherent safety features. Passive safety features are engineered, but do not require outside input to work. A pressure release valve may have a spring that can be pushed back when the pressure gets too high. Inherent safety features require no engineered moving parts to work. They only depend on physical laws.
Rolls-Royce aims to sell nuclear reactors for the production of synfuel for aircraft.
Economics
A key driver of SMRs are the alleged improved economies of scale, compared to larger reactors, that stem from the ability to prefabricate them in a manufacturing plant/factory. Yet, according to some studies, the capital cost of SMRs and larger reactors are practically equivalent. A key disadvantage is that the improved affordability can only be realised if the factory is built in the first place, and this is likely to require initial orders for 40–70 units, which some experts think unlikely.
Another economic advantage of SMR is that the initial cost of building a power plant using SMR is much less than that of constructing a much more complex, non-modular, large nuclear plant. This makes SMR a smaller-risk venture for power companies than other nuclear power plants. However, modularisation and modularity influence the economic competitiveness of SMRs. Financial and economic issues can hinder SMR construction.
However operational staffing costs per unit output increase as reactor size decreases, due to some staffing costs being fixed and lesser economies of scale. For example, a similar number of technical and security staff to a large reactor may be required. For small SMRs staff costs per unit output can be as much as 190% higher than the fixed operating cost of large reactors.
In 2017 an Energy Innovation Reform Project study of eight selected companies looked at reactor models with reactor capacity between 47.5 MWe and 1,648 MWe in development. The study found the advanced reactors had an average capital cost total of $3,782/kW, average operating cost total of $21/MWh and levelized cost of electricity of $60/MWh. However there is no standardized approach to evaluate the economic and financial performance of the latest reactors in development, so it’s difficult to make any comparisons between models and existing infrastructure.
Founder of The Energy Impact Center, Bret Kugelmass, believes thousands of SMRs could be built in parallel, "thus reducing costs associated with long borrowing times for prolonged construction schedules and reducing risk premiums currently linked to large projects." Executive Vice President at GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Jon Ball, agreed, saying the modular elements of SMRs will also help reduce costs associated with extended construction times.
[End of Wikipedia extract.]
From the Wikipedia article, “List of countries by electricity consumption,” it is seen that the average power per capita (watts per person) is about 1,000 watts per person, or about one kilowatt (kW), for many economically developed countries. To supply power to a city of 50,000 residents, this would imply that a reactor of generating capacity about 50,000 kWe (kilowatt electrical), or 50 MWe (megawatt electrical), would suffice. That capacity corresponds to a relatively small reactor.
The Wikipedia article, “List of small modular reactor designs” provides additional information about SMRs.
The US military is funding work on the design of mobile nuclear reactors. Here follows a report from Defense News, posted at Internet website https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/03/09/pentagon-to-award-mobile-nuclear-reactor-contracts-this-week/
Nuclear Arsenal: Pentagon awards contracts to design mobile nuclear reactor, by Aaron Mehta, March 9, 2020
Could nuclear power be coming to American military bases? The Department of Defense has launched a pair of efforts to see.
Updated 3/9/20 at 12:35 PM EST to reflect the announcement of the contract awards
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday issued three contracts to start design work on mobile, small nuclear reactors, as part of a two-step plan towards achieving nuclear power for American forces at home and abroad.
The department awarded contracts to BWX Technologies, Inc. of Virginia, for $13.5 million; Westinghouse Government Services of Washington, D.C. for $11.9 million; and X-energy, LLC of Maryland, for $14.3 million, to begin a two-year engineering design competition for a small nuclear microreactor designed to potentially be forward deployed with forces outside the continental United States.
The combined $39.7 million in contracts are from “Project Pele,” a project run through the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), located within the department’s research and engineering side. The prototype is looking at a 1-5 megawatt (MWe) power range. The Department of Energy has been supporting the project at its Idaho National Laboratory.
Pele “involves the development of a safe, mobile and advanced nuclear microreactor to support a variety of Department of Defense missions such as generating power for remote operating bases,” said Lt. Col. Robert Carver, a department spokesman. “After a two-year design-maturation period, one of the companies funded to begin design work may be selected to build and demonstrate a prototype.”
“The Pele Program’s uniqueness lies in the reactor’s mobility and safety,” said Jeff Waksman, Project Pele program manager, in a department statement. “We will leverage our industry partners to develop a system that can be safely and rapidly moved by road, rail, sea or air and for quick set up and shut down, with a design which is inherently safe.”
However, Pele is not the only attempt at introducing small nuclear reactors to the Pentagon’s inventory.
A second effort is being run through the office of the undersecretary of acquisition and sustainment. That effort, ordered in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, involves a pilot program aiming to demonstrate the efficacy of a small nuclear reactor, in the 2-10 MWe range, with initial testing at a Department of Energy site in roughly the 2023 timeframe.
If the testing goes well, a commercially developed, Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed reactor will be demonstrated on a “permanent domestic military installation by 2027,” according to DoD spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Andrews. “If the full demonstration proves to be a cost-effective energy resilience alternative, NRC-licensed [reactors] will provide an additional option for generating power provided to DoD through power purchase agreements.”
The best way to differentiate between the programs may be to think of the A&S effort as the domestic program, built off commercial technology, as part of an effort to get off of local power grids that are seen as weak targets, either via physical or cyber espionage. Pele is focused on the prototyping a new design, with forward operations in mind — and may never actually produce a reactor, if the prototype work proves too difficult.
According to an Oct. 2018 technical report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, 90 percent of military installations have “an average annual energy use that can be met by an installed capacity of nuclear power of 40 MWe or less.”
Replacing all local power with a nuclear reactor isn’t necessary for the department’s goals, but one or more reactors in the 2 to 10 MWe range, located on base, would ensure that if the local power grid goes down, critical functions will still be able to operate.
“The concern here is that, obviously, installations need energy, they need power,” Ellen Lord, the department’s acquisition head, explained last week at the annual McAleese conference. “Typically they are tied to the grid; what if the grid goes down, what if your generators don’t have fuel to work on for a while? So, what we’re doing is looking at small nuclear modular reactors.”
Commercial availability
This isn’t the first time the DoD has looked into small nuclear reactors. The 2010 NDAA directed the department to study the feasibility of nuclear power for military installations, but a study concluded that the reactors available at the time were simply too big.
However, new developments in the commercial sector are opening up more options.
According to Dr. Jonathan Cobb, a spokesman for the World Nuclear Association, small nuclear reactors come in three flavors. The first, small modular reactors, sit in the 20-300 MWe range and are approaching the point they will appear on market.
The second category sits from 10-100 megawatts, and have been used in transports such as icebreakers. According to Cobb, a pair of 32 MWe reactors, based on icebreaker technology, are being used aboard the Akademik Lomonosov, a Russian “floating power plant.”
The third category, covering what the Pentagon appears most interested in, is a category known as microreactors. The challenge, Cobb said, is that this group is the furthest behind technologically, with demonstrations of commercial systems targeted for “the second half of the 2020s,” putting them in the “ballpark” of what DoD is looking for with its A&S effort.
According to the NEI study, the reduced size and increased simplicity of microreactors mean a procurement and manufacturing cycle could take “between 3 and 5 years from the order of long lead materials to the delivery of the largest component, with a nominal target of 4 years. Most of the components will need to arrive on-site at least 6 months prior to startup in order to support the achievement of construction milestones.”
“How they then would be developed to commercial applications may depend not only on industry developments, but also on establishing an effective regulatory environment. Most likely though we would be looking at microreactors coming into a commercial basis in the 2030s,” Cobb explained.
“While more recent large-scale plants have made greater use of modular construction, for microreactors in particular we’d expect them to be produced as virtually finished factory-built units. There’s every possibility that as microreactors move towards commercialism the companies developing them may choose to collaborate with existing players in the nuclear industry.”
However, Edwin Lyman, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has concerns about the availability of fuel to power a proliferation of small nuclear reactors. He noted, "there are no clear plans for manufacturing the quantity of high-assay low enriched uranium, much less the production of high-quality TRISO [TRi-structural ISOtropic particle] fuel, that would be able to meet timelines this decade.”
American companies Westinghouse (0.2-5 MWe), NuScale (1-10 MWe), and UltraSafe Nuclear (5 MWe) are all developing reactors with less than 10 MWe output, while Sweden’s LeadCold (3-10 MW3) and a U.K. consortium led by Urenco (4 MWe) are also working on developing similar systems.
Lord, for her part, would not rule out working with foreign allies on the nuclear program in some way, saying “We always talk with our partners and allies about collaboration. We have many umbrella vehicles, if you will, to do that, particularly with [National Technology and Industrial Base] countries — U.K., Canada, Australia. We have a little bit of an easy button there for working back and forth with technical information.”
Safety concerns
As complicated as the A&S domestic effort may be, the idea of developing a mobile reactor for use abroad will likely be significantly more complex — and not just from a technological perspective.
Lyman believes that the department’s past efforts have “consistently underestimated” the “spectrum of mission risks posed by these microreactors," mostly around the technical challenges of keeping the radioactive fuel safe and operational in battlefield conditions.
“Fielding these reactors without commanders fully understanding the radiological consequences and developing robust response plans to cope with the aftermath could prove to be a disastrous miscalculation,” warned Lyman.
Security would remain a major factor as well, with the risk of nuclear material from a reactor falling into the hands of terrorist groups needing to be accounted for. While the nuclear material likely to be used in these reactors is “highly impractical” for a pure nuclear weapon, Lyman warned that an enemy could still seek the material and use it in some form of dirty bomb scenario which could deny American forces access to a specific area; additionally, security protocols would need to be put in place to deal with the transfer of the reactors.
However, Marc Nichol, NEI’s Senior Director of New Reactors, believes the refueling process should be fairly simple, with the non-mobile reactors sought by A&S likely having a 10-year lifespan in between refueling needs and the mobile reactors brought back whole to the U.S. when they need a refresher.
“The idea is these would be refueled back in the United States at a centralized facility designed and equipped to do this work. No one is envisioning that these would be refueled in the field,” Nichol said. "Because they would be in a specialized facility here in the United States, there would be safety and security protocols in place for that. We have a lot of experience handling used fuel for our commercial reactors.”
Finally, there may be political challenges involved in deploying such systems. Some partner nations may balk at the idea of hosting a nuclear reactor, no matter how small. For instance, it is easy to picture the U.S. seeking to put a system for potential deployment, or as a power backup on a local base, in Japan, a key location for America’s force posture to counter China; such a move would likely be met with strong hostility, if not from politicians than from local protesters.
“I think most of these issues — including who would have regulatory authority and where liability would reside — have yet to be resolved,” said Lyman." And even if the legal pathway were clear, there could be significant public opposition in certain host countries to deployment of these reactors if solely under U.S. authority."
Costs, meanwhile, should not be a major factor for a while, as the dollar value associated with both the early design contracts and a potential prototype should be fairly small. NEI estimates the program needs around $140m in FY21 funds to keep everything rolling smoothly. In addition, Nichol said, DoD should begin to prepare the Army to take over the project once SCO hands it off; NEI believes $12m in FY21 funds should cover those early needs.
About Aaron Mehta
Aaron Mehta is Deputy Editor and Senior Pentagon Correspondent for Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Department of Defense and its international partners.
This appendix presents definitions and descriptions of some of the ideological systems discussed in the main text. The definitions are excerpted from Wikipedia.
Unitary State. A unitary state is a state governed as a single entity in which the central government is ultimately supreme. Unitary states stand in contrast with federations, also known as federal states.
Federation. A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism).
Republic. A republic (Latin: res publica, meaning "public affair") is a form of government in which "power is held by the people and their elected representatives". In republics, the country is considered a "public matter", not the private concern or property of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are attained through democracy or a mix of democracy with oligarchy or autocracy rather than being unalterably occupied by any given family lineage or group.
Democracy. Democracy is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislators. The decisions on who is considered part of the people and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people have changed over time and at different speeds in different countries, but they have included more and more of the inhabitants of all countries. Cornerstones include freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.
Socialism. Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production. It includes the political theories and movements associated with such systems. Social ownership can be public, collective, cooperative, or of equity. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element.
Communism. Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal') is a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state.
Synarchism. Synarchism generally means "joint rule" or "harmonious rule".
Representative democracy. Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or representative government, is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected persons representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of representative democracy; for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a constitutional representative republic).
Direct democracy. Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which people decide on policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracies. The theory and practice of direct democracy and participation as its common characteristic was the core of work of many theorists, philosophers, politicians, and social critics, among whom the most important is Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and G.D.H. Cole
Social democracy. Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy within the philosophical tradition of socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal-democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented mixed economy. The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest and social-welfare provisions. Due to longstanding governance by social democratic parties during the post-war consensus and their influence on socioeconomic policy in Northern and Western Europe, social democracy became associated with Keynesianism, the Nordic model, the social liberal paradigm and welfare states within political circles in the late 20th century. It has been described as the most common form of Western or modern socialism as well as the reformist wing of democratic socialism.
Social democracy originated as a political ideology that advocated an evolutionary and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism using established political processes in contrast to the revolutionary approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism. In the early post-war era in Western Europe, social democratic parties rejected the Stalinist political and economic model then current in the Soviet Union, committing themselves either to an alternative path to socialism or to a compromise between capitalism and socialism. In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. As a result, social democracy became associated with Keynesian economics, state interventionism and the welfare state while placing less emphasis on the prior goal of replacing the capitalist system (factor markets, private property and wage labor) with a qualitatively different socialist economic system.
While retaining socialism as a long-term goal, social democracy seeks to humanize capitalism and create the conditions for it to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes. It is characterized by a commitment to policies aimed at curbing inequality, eliminating oppression of underprivileged groups and eradicating poverty as well as support for universally accessible public services like care for the elderly, child care, education, health care and workers' compensation. It often has strong connections with the labour movement and trade unions, being supportive of collective bargaining rights for workers and measures to extend decision-making beyond politics into the economic sphere in the form of co-determination, or even social ownership, for employees and stakeholders. The Third Way, which ostensibly aims to fuse liberal economics with social democratic welfare policies, is an ideology that developed in the 1990s and is sometimes associated with social democratic parties, but some analysts have instead characterized the Third Way as an effectively neoliberal movement.
Socialist democracy. (Not to be confused with Democratic socialism or Social democracy.) Socialist democracy is a form of democracy. It includes ideologies such as council communism, democratic socialism and social democracy as well as Marxist democracy like the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was embodied in the Soviet system (1917–1991).
Democratic socialism. Democratic socialism is a political philosophy supporting political democracy within a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy and workers' self-management within a market socialist economy or some form of a decentralised planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support either revolutionary or reformist politics as means to establish socialism. As a term, democratic socialism was popularised by social democrats and other socialists who were opposed to the authoritarian socialist development in Russia and elsewhere during the 20th century
Eco-socialism. Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, poverty, war and environmental degradation through globalization and imperialism, under the supervision of repressive states and transnational structures.
Eco-socialists advocate dismantling capitalism, focusing on common ownership of the means of production by freely associated producers, and restoring the commons.
Bioregionalism. Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and ecological system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local populations, knowledge, and solutions.
Bioregionalism asserts "that a bioregion's environmental components (geography, climate, plant life, animal life, etc.) directly influence ways for human communities to act and interact with each other which are, in turn, optimal for those communities to thrive in their environment. As such, those ways to thrive in their totality—be they economic, cultural, spiritual, or political—will be distinctive in some capacity as being a product of their bioregional environment."
Bioregionalism is a concept that goes beyond national boundaries—an example is the concept of Cascadia, a region that is sometimes considered to consist of most of Oregon and Washington, the Alaska Panhandle, the far north of California and the West Coast of Canada, sometimes also including some or all of Idaho and western Montana. Another example of a bioregion, which does not cross national boundaries, but does overlap state lines, is the Ozarks, a bioregion also referred to as the Ozarks Plateau, which consists of southern Missouri, northwest Arkansas, the northeast corner of Oklahoma, southeast corner of Kansas.
Bioregions are not synonymous with ecoregions as defined by bodies such as the World Wildlife Fund or the Commission for Environmental Cooperation; the later are scientifically based and focused on wildlife and vegetation. Bioregions, by contrast are human regions, informed by nature but with a social and political element. In this way bioregionalism is simply political localism with an ecological foundation.
Anarchy. Anarchy is the state of a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. Anarchy was first used in 1539, meaning "an absence of government". Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopted anarchy and anarchist in his 1840 treatise What Is Property? to refer to anarchism, a new political philosophy and social movement which advocates stateless societies based on free and voluntary associations. Anarchists seek a system based on the abolishment of all unjustified, coercive hierarchy and the creation of system of direct democracy and worker cooperatives.
Anarcho-syndicalism. Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in broader society. The end goal of syndicalism is to abolish the wage system, regarding it as wage slavery. Anarcho-syndicalist theory therefore generally focuses on the labour movement.
Anarcho-communism. Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought which advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wage labour, social hierarchies and private property (while retaining respect for personal property, along with collectively-owned items, goods and services) in favor of common ownership of the means of production and direct democracy as well as a horizontal network of workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Some forms of anarcho-communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are strongly influenced by egoism and radical individualism, believing anarcho-communism to be the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Most anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society.
Anarcho-primitivism. Anarcho-primitivism is a political ideology that advocates a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation and social stratification.
Many classical anarchists reject the critique of civilization while some such as Wolfi Landstreicher endorse the critique without considering themselves anarcho-primitivists. Anarcho-primitivists are distinguished by the focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state of being through "rewilding".
Rewilding (anarchism). Rewilding means to return to a more wild or natural state; it is the process of undoing domestication. The term emerged from green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism. The central argument is that the majority of humans have been "civilized" or "domesticated" by agrarianism and sedentary social stratification. Such a process is compared to how dogs have been domesticated from what was a common ancestor with wolves, resulting in a loss in health and vibrancy. Supporters of rewilding argue that through the process of domestication, human wildness has been altered by force.
Rewilding encourages the conscious undoing of human domestication and returning to the lifeways of hunter-gatherer cultures. Though often associated with primitive skills and learning knowledge of wild plants and animals, it emphasizes regenerative land management techniques employed by hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, as well as development of the senses and fostering deepening personal relationships with members of other species and the natural world. Rewilding intends to create permanently wild human cultures beyond domestication.
Rewilding is considered a holistic approach to living, as opposed to specific or separate skills, practices or knowledges.
Property income. Property income refers to profit or income received by virtue of owning property. The three forms of property income are rent, received from the ownership of natural resources; interest, received by virtue of owning financial assets; and profit, received from the ownership of capital equipment. As such, property income is a subset of unearned income and is often classified as passive income.
Unearned income. Unearned income is a term coined by Henry George to refer to income gained through ownership of land and other monopoly. Today the term often refers to income received by virtue of owning property (known as property income), inheritance, pensions and payments received from public welfare. The three major forms of unearned income based on property ownership are rent, received from the ownership of natural resources; interest, received by virtue of owning financial assets; and profit, received from the ownership of capital equipment. As such, unearned income is often categorized as "passive income".
Classless society. The term classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society. For the opposite see class society. Thus the concept posits not the absence of a social hierarchy but the uninheritability of class status.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (German: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. The principle refers to free access to and distribution of goods, capital and services. In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist system will be capable to produce; the idea is that, with the full development of socialism and unfettered productive forces, there will be enough to satisfy everyone's needs.
To each according to his contribution. "To each according to his contribution" is a principle of distribution considered to be one of the defining features of socialism. It refers to an arrangement whereby individual compensation is representative of one's contribution to the social product (total output of the economy) in terms of effort, labor and productivity. This is in contrast to the method of distribution and compensation in capitalism, an economic and political system in which property owners can receive unearned income by virtue of ownership irrespective of their contribution to the social product.
Use value. Use value (German: Gebrauchswert) or value in use is a concept in classical political economy and Marxian economics. It refers to the tangible features of a commodity (a tradeable object) which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, or which serves a useful purpose. In Karl Marx's critique of political economy, any product has a labor-value and a use-value, and if it is traded as a commodity in markets, it additionally has an exchange value, most often expressed as a money-price.
Marx acknowledges that commodities being traded also have a general utility, implied by the fact that people want them, but he argues that this by itself tells us nothing about the specific character of the economy in which they are produced and sold.
Exchange value. In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value (German: Tauschwert) refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market. The other three aspects are use value, economic value, and price. Thus, a commodity has:
a value, represented by the socially necessary labour time to produce it. (note the first link is to a non-Marxian definition of value);
a use value (or utility);
an exchange value, which is the proportion at which a commodity can be exchanged for other commodities;
a price (it could be an actual selling price or an imputed ideal price).
These four concepts have a very long history in human thought, from Aristotle to David Ricardo, becoming ever more clearly distinguished as the development of commercial trade progressed but have largely disappeared as four distinct concepts in modern economics. This entry focuses on Marx's summation of the results of economic thought about exchange-value.
The Environmental Crisis
Caldwell, Joseph George, Can America Survive? (1999 posted at the Foundation website at http://www.foundationwebsite.org/CanAmericaSurvive.htm ,
Hardin, Garrett, Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos (1993); The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia (1999); Filters against Folly: How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent (1985)
Tainter, Joseph A., The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988)
Catton, William R, Jr., Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (1980)
Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997); Collapse (2005)
Collins, Lynn, “World Population,” in International Encyclopedia of Population, Vol. 2, by John A. Ross, editor in chief (1982)
Cohen, Joel E., How Many People Can the Earth Support (1996)
Piel, Gerald, Only One World: Our own to Make and to Keep (1992)
Pimentel, David and Marcia Pimentel, editors, Food, Energy, and Society, Revised Edition (1996) (1st ed. 1979)
Commoner, Barry, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology (1970); Making Peace with the Planet (1975); The Poverty of Power: Energy and the Economic Crisis (1975)
Ehrlich, Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich, The Population Explosion (1990); Healing the Planet (1991)
Randers, Jorgen, 2052: Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (2012)
Donnella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (2004); Beyond the Limits (1992); with William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth (1972)
The End of the Petroleum Age
Hartmann, Thom, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (1998)
Heinberg, Richard, The Party’s Over (2003)
Deffeyes, Kenneth F., Hubbert’s Peak (2001)
Simmons, Matthew R., Twilight in the Desert (2005)
Roberts, Paul, The End of Oil (2004)
Yergin, Daniel, The Prize (1991)
Klare, Michael T., Resource Wars (2001)
Homer-Dixon, Thomas E., Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (1999)
Social Forecasts
Rescher, Nicholas, Prediction the Future: An Introduction to the Theory of Forecasting (1998)
Ayres, Robert U. Technological Forecasting and Long-Range Planning (1969)
Armstrong, J. Scott, Long-Range Forecasting from Crystal Ball to Computer (1978)
The Global 2000 Report to the President (1980)
Kahn, Herman and Anthony J. Wiener, The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years (1967)
Kahn, Herman The Coming Boom (1982)
The Next Ninety Years: Proceedings of a Conference Hel at the California Institute of Technology, March 1967
Friedman, George, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (2009)
Toffler, Alvin, Future Shock (1970); The Third Wave (1980); Powershift (1990); with Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War (1993); Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave (1994)
Naisbitt, John, Megatrends (1982); Global Paradox (1994); with Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2000 (1990)
Hoyle, Fred, October the First Is Too Late (1966)
Duncan, R. C. (1989). Evolution, technology, and the natural environment: A unified theory of human history. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, American Society of Engineering Educators: Science, Technology, & Society, 14B1-11 to 14B1-20.
Demography
Keyfitz, Nathan, Applied Mathematical Demography (1977), 2nd ed. (1985); 3rd ed. with Hal Caswell (2005)
Foot, David K. with Daniel Stoffman, Boom, Bust and Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift (1996)
Ethics
Leslie, John, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996)
Heilbroner, Robert, Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1995)
Spring, David and Eileen, editors, Ecology and Religion in History (1974)
Cobb, John B., Jr., Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, revised edition (1995)
Russell, Bertrand, Has Man a Future? (1961)
Nye, Joseph S., Jr., Nuclear Ethics (1986)
Kaplan, Robert D. Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (2002)
Taleb, Nicholas, Antifragile (2012)
Pugh, George Edgin, The Biological Origin of Human Values (1977)
The Purpose of Human Existence, Meaning of Life, Nature of Existence, Consciousness
Leslie, John and Robert Lawrence Kuhn, The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything at All? (2013)
Leslie, John, Universes (1989)
Kolakowski, Leszek, Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing? 23 Questions from Great Philosophers (2007)
Holt, Jim, Why Does the World Exist? (2012)
Krauss, Lawrence M., A Universe from Nothing: Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing? (2012)
Penrose, Roger, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (2004); The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics (1989); Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (1994)
Capra, Fritjof, The Tao of Physics (1975)
Deutsch, David, The Fabric of Reality (1997)
The Evolution of Planet Earth (How the World Evolved)
Ward., Peter D. and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (2000); The Life and Death of Planet Earth (2002)
Broeker, Wallace H., How to Build a Habitable Planet (1985)
Ecology
Leakey, Richard and Roger Lewin, The Sixth Extinction (1995)
Edward O. Wilson, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016); The Meaning of Human Existence (2014); The Social Conquest of Earth (2012); The Future of Life (2002); Sociobiology: The Abridged Edition (1975)
Capra, Fritjof, The Turning Point (1982); The Web of Life (1996); The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living (2002); with Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (2014)
McKibben, Bill, The End of Nature (1989)
Lovelock, J. E., Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979)
Environmentalism
Brown, Lester R, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (2009); and many others
Chomsky, Noam; with Robert Pollin and C. J. Polychroniou, Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal (2020); edited by Charles Derber, Suren Moodliar and Paul Shannon, Internationalism or Extinction (2020)
Rifkin, Jeremy, The Green New Deal (2019); The Third Revolution (2011); with Ted Howard, Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World (1980)
Mowat, Farley, Rescue the Earth: Conversations with the Green Crusaders (1990)
Asimov, Isaac and Frederick Pohl, Our Angry Earth (1991)
Henson, Robert, The Rough Guide to Climate Change (2008)
Hanson, James, Storms of my Grandchildren (2009)
Kaplan, Robert D., The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century (1996)
Economics
Schumacher, E. F., Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973); A Guide for the Perplexed (1977); with Peter N. Gillingham, Good Work (1979); with Leopold Kohr, A Pair of Cranks (2003)
Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971)
Daly, Herman E., Beyond Growth (1996); with John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (2nd ed., 1994)
Costanza, Robert, Olman Segura, and Juan Marinez-Alier, editors, Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics (1996)
Simon, Julian L., Population Matters: People, Resources, Environment, and Immigration (1990); The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996); The State of Humanity (1995)
Ferguson, Niall, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (2008)
Compound Interest and Debt
Brown, Ellen Hodgson, The Web of Debt (2007, revised and updated 2008)
Clason, George, The Richest Man in Babylon (the original version, restored and revised, 2007
Organization and Management
Simon, Herbert A., Administrative Behavior (4th ed., 1997, 1st ed. 1945)
Drucker, Peter E. The Practice of Management (1954); The Essential Drucker (2001)
Dalio, Ray, Principles (2017)
Politics and War
Plato, The Republic (c. 375 BCE)
Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince (1532); The Discourses (1531); The Art of War (1521)
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (5th century BCE)
Greene, Robert, The 48 Laws of Power (1998)
Liddell-Hart, B. H., Strategy, 2nd revised edition (1954, 1967)
Goldberg, Jonah, Liberal Fascism (2007)
Kahn, Herman, On Thermonuclear War (1960)
Ehrenreich, Barbara, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997)
Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996)
Chomsky, Noam, Who Rules the World (2016); edited by Anthony Arnove, The Essential Chomsky (2008); Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth and Power (2007); Understanding Power (2002); Deterring Democracy (1991, 1992); Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, 2nd edition (1991, 1997, 2002); How the World Works (contains What Uncle Sam Really Wants (1986-1992), The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (1993), Secrets, Lies and Democracy (1994l and The Common Good (1996-1998)) (1986-2011)
Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man (1992)
Orwell, George, Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel (1949)
Callenback, Ernest, Ecotopia (a novel), (1975)
Anarchy, Anti-Civilization and Primitivism
Chomsky, Noam, On Anarchism (2013)
Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002)
Manes, Christopher, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization (1990)
Zerzan, John, Future Primitive Revisited (2012); editor, Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (1998); A People’s History of Civilization (2016); Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization (2002)
Complexity Theory
Taleb, Nicholas, Antifragile (2012)
Assessment of Risk / Uncertainty
Taleb, Nicholas, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007); Fooled by Randomness (2004); Skin in the Game (2018)
Gladwell, Malcolm, The Tipping Point (2000)
Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
Thaler, Richard H., Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015)
Lewis, Michael, The Undoing Project (2017)
Systems Engineering
Hall, Arthur D., A Methodology for Systems Engineering (1962)
Sage, Andrew Patrick, Systems Engineering (1992)
Caldwell, Joseph George, The Value Added Tax: A New Tax System for America (posted at Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org/VAT.htm)
Quality Management
International Standards Organization ISO 9000 Family Quality Management Standards, posted at https://www.iso.org/iso-9001-quality-management.html
Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, The Capability Maturity Model: Guidelines for Improving the Software Process (1994)
The Design of Cities
Mumford, Lewis, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (1961)
Kunstler, James Howard, The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition (2001); The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (1993); Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century (1996)
Kotkin, Joel, The City: A Global History (2005)
Bioregionalism
Kohr, Leopold, The Breakdown of Nations (1957); Development without Aid (1973); The Overdeveloped Nations (1977)
Sale, Kirkpatrick, Human Scale (1980); Human Scale Revisited (2017); Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision (1985); After Eden: The Evolution of Human Domination (2006); The Collapse of 2020 (2020)
Heineken, Alfred Henry, The United States of Europe: A Eurotopia? (2nd ed. 1992)
Garreau, Joel, The Nine Nations of North America (1981); Edge City (1991)
History
Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States (1980-2003)
This article is dedicated to the many people who have been close to me, inspired me, encouraged me, and supported me over the years, and were responsible for many of the significant turning points and directions of my life.
Friends:
Dr. Martin A. (“Marty”) Diamond and Paula Wilk
Dr. Eric Weiss and Joyce Hospodar
Dr. Philip and Dr. Kathleen Silvers
Charles Wetzel and Jesse DeNike Wetzel
Dr. Gordon Fulcher and Daphne Fulcher
Dhirendra N. (“Dhiren”) Ghosh and Milly Ghosh
Family and Ancestors:
My mother and father, Joseph George Caldwell and Evelyn Phyllis Barter Caldwell
My paternal grandparents, Joseph George Caldwell and Coralie Cook Caldwell
My aunt Patricia Caldwell Jones Mitchell
My maternal grandparents, Leslie Barter and Emma Dow Barter
My great grandmother, Edna Mary Conant Caldwell
My great uncle, Thomas Conant
My great grandfathers, Roger “The Pilgrim” Conant, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his descendant, also Roger Conant, United Empire Loyalist, who moved from Massachusetts to Ontario at the time of the American Revolution
My sister Anita Lynn Caldwell Cathcart and her husband, Donald S. Cathcart
Ny brother Charles Randolph Caldwell
My first wife, Timothy Gale (“Timigale,” “Timi”) Tinsley Caldwell
My parents-in-law, Leon Hosea Tinsley and Sara Talulah Dendy Tinsley (from Timi’s birth certificate; Sarah Tallulah Dendy Tinsley on gravestone)
My children, Joseph George Caldwell, Christopher Scott Caldwell and Steven Lindsay Caldwell, and grandchildren Macy and Kai
My second wife, Jacquelyn (“Jackie”) Anne Reed Thomeczek Caldwell
My partner, Linda Joy Stixrud DeWitt
Teachers and Mentors:
Miss Markert, 9th grade algebra teacher (Newark High School, Newark, Delaware), whose enthusiasm and creativity sparked my interest in mathematics
Miss Groh, 9th grade English teacher, who admonished me, “You are not like them.”
Mr. Ernest Wilder, 9th grade band teacher, whose dedication and commitment to his work impressed me
Mr. Ernest Lee, 11th grade chemistry teacher (Spartanburg High School, Spartanburg, South Carolina), who suggested my applying to Carnegie Institute of Technology
Dr. Spencer M. Rice, principal, who emphasized the importance of never going to sleep at night after a disagreement, without making up with one’s spouse
Professor Dr. Raj Chandra Bose (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), my PhD dissertation advisor
Dr. Robert S. Titchen, who hired me at Research Triangle Institute and Lambda Corporation
Dr. Hugh Everett III, who introduced me to Generalized Lagrange Multipliers and resource-constrained games. President of Lambda Corporation; proposed the “many worlds” theory of quantum physics (“parallel universe” theory); developer of the theory of Generalized Lagrange Multipliers.
Institutions:
Frontenac Elementary School, 38 Cowdy Street, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (grades 1-5) (building now Katarokwi Learning Center)
Kingscourt Elementary School, Kingscourt Avenue, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (grades 6-7) (building no longer exists)
Lakeland Junior High School, 400 N. Florida Avenue, Lakeland, Florida (building now Lawton Chiles Middle Academy) (grade 7)
Calvert Elementary School, 79 Brick Meetinghouse Rd, Rising Sun, Maryland 21911 (grade 7)
Newark High School, Academy Street (formerly High Street), Newark, Delaware (building now Pearson Hall of the University of Delaware) (grades 8-9)
Newark High School, 750 East Delaware Avenue, Newark, Delaware (grade 10)
Spartanburg High School, 182 S Dean Street, Spartanburg, South Carolina (grads 11-12)
Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 (1958-1962)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1962-1966)
General Motors Corporation (GM), for a generous four-year scholarship to Carnegie Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for a generous full fellowship to the Statistics Department of the University of Chapel Hill
Countries, States and Cities: Canada and the United States of America; Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Lakeland, Florida; Newark, Delaware, and Spartanburg, South Carolina.
And many others.
FndID(250)
FndTitle(A New World Order: The Coming Transition from Fossil Fuels and Capitalism to Nuclear Energy and Eco-Socialism)
FndDescription(How to establish a long-term-survivable planetary management system on Earth.)
FndKeywords(new world order, world government, globalization, eco-socialism, democratic socialism, planetary management, environment, ecology, sustainability, population, overpopulation, biospheric destruction, destruction of the biosphere, species extinction, steady-state economics)