I. Introductions

Lara Strahan placed her tray on the cafeteria table, next to her lecture notes. She did not have time for a leisurely lunch across-campus in the staff cafeteria, and would just catch some ‘student fare’ today. Her class would meet in forty minutes. She had already reviewed her notes for today, and could spend time skimming through the campus newspaper.

“Hi,” a friendly voice greeted her. She looked up, and recognized a fellow professor, whose name and departmental affiliation she had forgotten. “I’m Steve Coventry. I’m in the systems engineering department here. I’m pretty sure we’ve met at one meeting or another. I’d like to ask you a question – do you mind if I join you?”

As the gentleman reached for the back of the chair on the opposite side of the table, she returned the greeting. “No, not at all. Be my guest.” It was well past the ‘rush’ lunch hour, and there were not a lot of students in the cafeteria at the time. The room was fairly quiet, and they could speak in normal voices. As Steve pulled the chair to the table and sat down, Lara asked him, “What’s on your mind?”

“Well,” he began, “I saw the notice on your talk last week, on the negative effects of globalization, and decided to sit in on it. I was quite impressed. You really laid it on the line about where we are headed. You probably don’t do much speaking to major multinationals!”

Lara laughed. “You’re right. My message isn’t warmly received in most quarters. I guess that’s why I enjoy being in academia. So, what’s your question?”

“Well, let me start first by saying that I’ve done some thinking of my own on the subject of the impact of industrialization on the biosphere, and I have reached the same conclusion as you have – that mankind’s large numbers and industrial activity are destroying the biosphere, are leading to the extinction of millions more species, and will eventually lead to the extinction of mankind itself. As the quality of the environment and quality of life degrades around the world, more and more people are finally admitting to this inescapable conclusion. I agree with your assertion that there has to be a substantial decrease in global industrial activity if we are to solve the problem. You plead a strong case in support of Herman Daly’s ‘steady-state economics.’ The question that I have is: How in the world do you think that that is possible? In other words, you seem to see where we need to go, but you don’t provide any information or insight on how to get there from here. So, that’s the question.”

“You come right to the point. Well, let me start by saying that the lecture wasn’t advertised as a solution – it was advertised as a diagnosis of the problem. Everyone admits that the problem is complicated, and does not have an easy solution. The point to my talk was that we have to move to a system of planetary management that is based on ‘steady-state,’ or ‘equilibrium’ economics, rather than on ‘growth-based’ economics, as we have today.”

“But people have been talking about the problem for a long time now. Granted, not many people until just the last few years. In fact, most of what you hear is still denial of the seriousness of the problem, and expressions of hope that ‘technology’ will help us find a way out of our predicament. So, will your next talk give us the answer?”

“No, not yet. My next talk addresses the issue that while ‘steady-state’ economics is necessary, it is not at all sufficient. My point will be that even if we stopped economic growth in its tracks right now, the present level of economic activity is vastly too large for the biosphere to support.”

“Well, hardly anyone is saying that! What are you proposing? A vast decrease in the human standard of living, or a vast decrease in the total human population, or both?”

“I just told you what my second talk is to be about, and you are already asking about the third!”

“I’m really curious. As I mentioned, I have thought a lot about the same problems that you’re talking about, and I wondered what your solution might be. On the lecture notice, you are described as a ‘political scientist.’ I thought that political scientists talked mostly about politics, and you’re talking mainly about economics and the environment.”

“Political science and economics used to be the same field – you can still get PhDs in ‘political economy’ in some countries, such as Canada. But the flyer was correct, I am a political scientist, not an economist, as people today generally understand and use those terms. This distinction reflects and underscores, in fact, my view on what the nature of the solution to the world’s environmental problem will be – the solution will be essentially political, not economic, in nature.”

“I hope that I’m not treading on dangerous water here, but politicians are generally held in lower esteem than economists, when it comes to protecting or saving the environment.”

“There are all sorts of political systems – you probably haven’t heard of the one I have in mind.”

“What is it?”

“I just told you that you’re two talks ahead of me. As a systems engineer, I’m pretty sure that you’ve never even heard of what I have in mind.”

“Try me. Some systems engineers can read!”

Lara had to laugh at this fellow. He was genuinely friendly – not up-tight as so many of her friends-in-academe. Should she let him know what she had in mind? Probably not a good idea. She hadn’t even decided whether she would give the third talk on what she had in mind.

“You’re stalling,” Steve remarked, breaking her brief reverie.

“It’s on synarchy,” she said, before she realized it. Oops! That was stupid. Oh, well, he seems harmless enough. But she still didn’t want to make a commitment of any sort to speaking on something that was still not clear in her own mind.

“Synarchy? Synarchy? You’re right – I’ve never heard of synarchy. Do you mean ‘synergy’?”

“No, you heard me right. The word is ‘synarchy,’ not ‘synergy.’ But, I really must tell you, I haven’t even really decided on the exact topic for my third talk. It probably won’t be about synarchy at all!”

“Now you’ve really piqued my curiosity. What is synarchy?”

Lara looked at her watch. “Oh, Steve, I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to go. I had lunch in the student cafeteria today because I didn’t have time for a real lunch. I enjoyed talking with you – we’ll talk again sometime,” she said, as she stood up, picking up her lecture notes.

“Wait, wait,” he pleaded. “I didn’t mean to pry so, but I really am very interested in the topic that you obviously spend a lot of time with, and I would like to talk further with you. Will you have dinner with me on Saturday night?”

Wow, Lara thought to herself, this guy’s a fast mover. But he seems very nice. Quite unlike many of her coworkers. But is he just wasting her time? Is he really interested in the world’s critical environmental problem? But he is a systems engineer. Maybe he would have some insights that she didn’t have. And she didn’t have any ‘attachments’ at all at the time. What the hey! All she had to lose was a lonely Saturday night.

“Aren’t you married, Steve?” she countered, not because she thought he was, but just to make him work a little bit.

“No, not at all! Not even a serious girlfriend. I’m serious – I really want to learn more about what your point of view. So how about it? What type of cuisine do you like? French? Italian? Greek? I’ll pick you up at your house at seven o’clock.”

“OK, how about French,” she responded, smiled, and gave him directions to her house.

II. A Meeting of the Minds

Steve was right on time. He had a nice, late-model sedan. It was large and comfortable – cloth seats.

“My dad always liked Lincolns,” she remarked, as they moved down the street away from her house.

“Can’t beat ‘em for power, smoothness, and quietness,” Steve added. “And you can’t beat a rear-wheel-drive car for acceleration.”

Lara thought for a moment about her dad. He had always liked big, powerful cars – sedans and station wagons. And his reasons were about the same as Steve’s. Power. Acceleration. Must be a ‘man’ thing. There really was a difference.

Steve must have noticed the silence, and the gap in the conversation. “Tell me about yourself, if you don’t mind,” he asked. “How long have you been at the University of Maryland? Where did you get your doctorate? Where are you from?”

Lara glanced over at him. He wasn’t bad looking, and he appeared to be in very good shape. Tan complexion, tall, lean, clean-cut, short hair, no beard, nice clothes. Sort of a prototype systems engineer, she imagined. “Well, your questions cover a lot of ground. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. I guess that I always wanted to go to Vanderbilt, and so I did. I did my undergraduate degree in mathematics. Not because I was particularly interested in math, but because it seemed to relate to so many other fields. I was interested in almost everything I studied, and I suppose that I thought that I would pick a different major in my sophomore or junior year. By the time I graduated, however, I had developed a pretty serious interest in economics and environmental science, but I had decided that political science was the field I was most interested in. There was no question that I wanted more education, and I decided to go to the University of Virginia for graduate work. I got my MS and PhD degrees from Virginia. I wrote my dissertation on alternative political systems, with particular reference to their concern for nature and the environment.”

“But if you were interested in economics and the environment, why did you pick political science for your field of graduate study?”

“The main question was whether I wanted to talk about something or do something about it. To me, political science seemed to be closer to ‘action’ than any of the hard sciences. And I had pretty much decided that economics was more a part of the problem than of the solution to the planet’s woes.”

“Wow, that’s a pretty strong view for someone with just a bachelor’s degree. Did something happen to persuade you?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Have you ever heard of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen?”

“No, who’s he?”

“Georgescu-Roegen was a Romanian who emigrated to the US in 1948. He was a mathematical statistician. He earned a doctoral degree from the Sorbonne, and did postdoctoral work under Karl Pearson. Most people think that he was an economist, since he did most of his work in economics. Sort of like John Maynard Keynes – a mathematician who most people think is an economist. He joined the faculty of Vanderbilt in 1949, and remained there until his death in 1994.”

“So what did Georgescu-Roegen do? Did he develop some new economic theory? Why did he impress you?”

“Georgescu wrote what is regarded by some as the most important treatise on economics since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. It is called, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process.”

“Entropy? Do you mean ‘entropy’ as a physicist uses the term? The second law of thermodynamics?”

“Yes, exactly. Most economists view that the environment is simply a subsystem of the economy. Georgescu argued forcefully that it is the economy that is a subsystem of the environment. And the key fact associated with that point of view is that, for the system to continue, the environment must reprocess every bit of the waste produced by the economic system.”

“Well from the viewpoint of physics, that’s pretty obvious. What was so fundamental about that?”

“Well, practically all of today’s economists refuse to acknowledge the fact. They view the economy as an ‘open system’ that simply accepts inputs and produces outputs. They refuse to acknowledge that the outputs are wastes that must be reprocessed by the environment for the system to go on. The environment is viewed simply an ‘externality.’”

“You’re kidding! The second law of thermodynamics has never been seen to fail. There has never been an exception to it. In a closed system, every process increases the entropy, or disorder, of the system. You have to continually add more energy to the system from an outside source to keep it going. In our case, the ‘closed system’ is Earth, and the outside source of energy is the Sun. How can anyone, economists included, deny that the ‘law of entropy’ doesn’t hold?”

“You got me! It’s bizarre, but true. You should have a talk someday with Herman Daly, on the Maryland staff. He wrote a book, Steady-State Economics, and another one, Beyond Growth, in which he discusses all of this. In fact, he includes a chapter summarizing Georgescu’s contributions in Beyond Growth. The situation in present-day economics is similar to that in Copernicus’ and Galileo’s time, when the Establishment – the Church – refused to entertain the idea that the Earth revolved around the Sun, instead of vice versa. Georgescu’s idea has been rejected just as Copernicus’ was. It is as fundamental a paradigm shift as switching from Newtonian physics to Einstein’s relativity and quantum physics, or from creationism to evolution. I guess big changes don’t come easy in any field. By the way, Georgescu wasn’t the first to view the essential role of entropy in economics. The Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Frederick Soddy was the first person to make a strong point of it – he’s the one who railed against economic systems that allow for compound interest, and fractional reserve banking. And the economist Kenneth Boulding, too. Daly discusses all of this, in Beyond Growth. I was introduced to it through Georgescu, who was at Vanderbilt.”

“So how did Georgescu make an impression on you? Was it the significance of what he was saying, or was it his personal charisma. And why didn’t you study economics, if Georgescu’s theories impressed you so?” Steve queried.

“Well, I told you that I studied a lot of different subjects as an undergraduate. Including economics. I attended a lecture of Georgescu’s once, and I was really impressed with what he had to say. But the most amazing thing that struck me was that his name did not appear in any of my economics textbooks, or in any of the standard references – even though The Entropy Law was published by Harvard in 1971. It was a stunning case of total denial. The entire field of economics, it seemed, simply was denying that he existed, and that there was any merit to what he said. There weren’t even any counter-arguments to his theories – since there could not be. So the entire field of economics, throughout his career, simply ignored him – at least for his work on entropy. Total denial. In 1994, he died, a bitter man, totally unrecognized for his fundamental contribution.”

“But you just said that Herman Daly talked about him in his book.”

“Yes, that’s true. Herman Daly is about the only prominent economist who recognizes that an economic system based on continued growth simply cannot go on. And he recognized the fundamental contributions of Soddy and Georgescu-Roegen. He used to be with the World Bank. They didn’t appreciate what he was saying – that’s probably why he left. He’s been at Maryland ever since. Our good fortune.”

“You didn’t answer my questions,” Steve interrupted. “How did Georgescu impress you, and why didn’t you study economics – from Georgescu’s viewpoint?”

“What impressed me was that what he was saying made perfect sense. I had studied physics as an undergraduate, and I knew about the laws of thermodynamics. It was very clear that the whole field of traditional, established economics was a sham. On the one hand, with stars in my eyes, I wanted to shout this to the world. But on the other, I saw what had happened to Georgescu-Roegen. The field of economics had crushed him, because he pointed out the terrible flaw in their system. I had no intention of joining a field that was so corrupt. When I went to graduate school at Virginia, I decided to major in political science. To be sure, I was still interested with economics – it runs the world – and I studied it further. But the more I studied it, the more disaffected I became with its denial of the role of entropy and the fact that the economic system must operate fully contained and harmoniously within the environmental system. I studied some more environmental science, too, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had come to realize that the solution to the environmental crisis facing the planet would not be solved by environmental science, and certainly not by economics. The solution would be political. And so I studied political science.”

“I can see why you didn’t go for a PhD in economics or environmental science, but why political science? Political science is an academic discipline, not a field of social action. You have asserted that the solution to the world’s environmental crisis will be political, but the solution will require action – politics, not political science. Political science is concerned with studying, analyzing and understanding political phenomena – politics is concerned with managing political systems, or changing them. The analogy is similar to studying ‘business’ in college and being an entrepreneur. The old saying: those who do, do; those who can’t, teach. Caesar and Genghis Khan and Napoleon and George Washington and Roosevelt weren’t political scientists – they were military men or politicians. Are you planning to go into politics? If so, you don’t need training in any particular field to do so – you can be movie star, or a bodybuilder.”

“What you’re saying is correct – a political scientist is not a politician. But you can’t be a practicing physicist, or chemist, or mathematician, or physician, or a competent practitioner in any field that involves a significant body of knowledge and technology, without studying these fields at university. I am convinced that the solution will be political, and I am preparing myself to be a part of that solution. The problem is very complex, and I need a lot of knowledge and understanding to help solve it. You’re right that today’s politicians may have any sorts of backgrounds. But look at the mess we’re in! I’m hoping for something better. I want to understand what’s going on, and figure out how to change it – and then change it! But I’m doing all the talking. What about you? Fair is fair. Tell me about yourself now.”

“We’re almost at the restaurant – let me wait till we’re inside. By the way, I hope that I don’t seem to be judgmental, or criticizing your decisions. I have faced some of the same issues that you have, and I am very interested in not only the decisions you made, but why you made them. And I just about ‘fell off my chair’ when you mentioned the word ‘entropy’ – I’ll tell you why inside.”

Steve parked the car, and they walked into the restaurant. He had made reservations for a booth, and they did not have to wait.

They ordered drinks and appetizers. “So what is your life history, Steve?” Lara asked, continuing the conversation from the car.

“I’m a ‘Southerner’ too – born and raised in Savannah. I got a BS in physics from Georgia Tech, and a PhD in systems engineering from MIT. Along the way I picked up a lot of background in mathematics, statistics, and operations research. Unlike you, I haven’t discovered any massive flaws in my fields of endeavor, but quite like you, I have become very concerned over the fact that none of the science and engineering that I have studied is helping to solve the world’s environmental crisis. We understand what the problem is, and are looking at it square in the face: too many people, too much industrial activity. But we – as a species – seem completely helpless to do anything about it.”

“You say,” Lara interjected, “that you are interested in the global environmental problem. But what have you done about it? Have you studied it in detail? Have you reached any conclusions?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. Have you ever heard of Professor Jay Forrester of MIT?”

“No.”

“Well, have you ever heard of Limits to Growth, or Beyond the Limits, by Donella Meadows?”

“Of course. Those books describe simulations that show that the world economy is doomed to collapse, no matter what.”

“Well, the system simulation models of the type described in the Limits books are based on ‘system dynamics,’ which was originally developed by Forrester. As his theories were applied, they collected fancier titles, such as Industrial Dynamics and World Dynamics, but in essence they are all the same basic system-simulation concept.”

“The Limits books have generated a lot of controversy. Most people don’t place much stock in them. The models are simple representations of reality that ‘collapse’ whenever a limit is reached on some critical resource. But in the real world, things don’t work that way. Whenever one resource is depleted, technology finds a way of substituting something else for it. Sort of like substituting glass fibers for copper wires, or nuclear energy for fossil fuel.”

“You’ve been reading too much Julian Simon – another famous Maryland faculty member, rest his soul.”

“Well, what I have been working on recently is system models that are concerned with energy, and entropy, and ‘throughput,’ rather than physical resource utilization and limits. In essence, I represent the global environment as a big, but closed, system for reprocessing industrial waste. The global economy is converting low-entropy (high-grade) energy and raw materials to high-entropy waste, and the global environment is reprocessing the industrial waste back into low-entropy products. The major source of energy to keep the process going at the present is oil. For the long term, however, the sole energy source is the Sun. That’s what keeps the system going.”

“So what have you found out?”

“What I’ve found out is that, as long as human numbers remain high, and as long as there is even a modest level of industrial activity, the system – the biosphere – always collapses. Under a solar-energy system, there simply isn’t enough energy to reprocess any appreciable amount of industrial waste. In the short run, while we have fossil fuels, the environmental system quickly becomes overloaded, and the system collapses catastrophically. Even if you assume the use of a non-solar long-term energy source, such as fast-breeder nuclear reactors, the biosphere still eventually collapses. The biosphere is in essence a solar-powered waste-processing factory that runs at a certain rate, determined by the solar radiation flux, and all it can handle is the amount of waste that a solar economy produces. That’s what it evolved to do, and that’s all it can handle. You can’t input a lot of ‘extra’ energy into the system without upsetting it.”

“So, according to your models, how many people can the Earth support, long-term?”

“The answer to that question depends on what level of living you assume for the human population. Historically, the planet has been seen to be capable of supporting from about five million to eighty million primitive people with very little impact on the biosphere, and up to a few hundred million with minimal impact – where by ‘minimal impact’ I mean a system that can continue for millions of years with very little change and very slow change to the species composition of the biosphere. But if you allow some of the people to use high technology, the numbers drop dramatically. A ‘technological’ or ‘industrial’ person uses about one hundred times as much energy as a primitive person. Very roughly, for every high-technology person on the planet, you have to reduce the primitive population by about 100, if the biosphere is to be able to reprocess the waste. If the high-tech person reprocesses some of his own waste – particularly the industrial waste, so that all that’s left is biodegradable – then the reprocessing burden imposed on the biosphere drops, but then he consumes even more energy. As an example, a high-tech population of five million uses about as much energy as a primitive population of five hundred million, if it reprocesses all of its waste. So if you want to run the planet on its natural solar-energy flux, all it can stand is a high-tech population of on the order of 2-5 million people.”

“Those numbers are really low! Let me make sure that I understand this correctly. The planet can support at most 2-5 million people, if a high-technology level of living is assumed?”

“Well, that’s not quite correct. In addition, you could still have some portion of the 5-80 million primitive people around. They impose little burden. In addition to a very small high-technology population, you could still have a primitive population of, say, five or ten million people, geographically distributed over the planet, without changing things very much. For example, the planet could probably support, indefinitely and with essentially no human-caused impact on the biodiversity of the biosphere, a population of five million high-tech people and a population of five million primitive people.”

“Wow, this is really interesting!” Lara was quite excited, and it was showing. She leaned over the table, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. “Have you discussed this with others?”

“Well, not really. I’m not the first to propose these numbers. They were proposed on the Foundation website several years ago, and got nothing but denial and rejection. Their line of reasoning was essentially the same as what I just told you. In other words, I already know what to expect if I announce my findings. I’m not about to blow my career on this, when I know what the certain reaction will be. It’s the same road that Georgescu-Roegen went down. The human population does not want to hear that the planet can support at most ten million people in the long term. It doesn’t matter what the arguments are. It’s really a case of all or nothing, and it looks as if human society is opting for nothing.”

“I know what you’re saying. But I’m still a little puzzled. Daly and a few others are talking more and more about long-term equilibria. Even the UN and World Bank are beginning to talk about the human population peaking at about nine billion in 2050 and then dropping to a long-term equilibrium of, say, three to six billion by 2100 or 2150.”

“Those numbers are totally absurd, from two points of view. First, the human population will never reach nine billion. It is patently obvious that the planet cannot support even six billion people, only a sixth of whom are highly industrialized, without destroying the biosphere. Second, China and India are now speaking of raising the standard of living of their populations to our levels. That will destroy it even faster. Finally, world petroleum production is about to peak – say by 2010. You know, Hubbert’s Curve – you’ve read Thom Hartmann’s The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, or Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s Over? As soon as it does, global famines and resource wars will begin. The world will never see a human population of even seven billion. And when it does fall, it will collapse catastrophically. The UN and World Bank visions of a global population slowly declining to an equilibrium, steady-state level are absurd. Have you read William Catton’s book, Overshoot? The human population long ago surpassed the carrying capacity of the planet. There is no way it can possibly ‘gracefully decline’ to a steady-state level.”

“Do your models show this? Or are you making this up – hypothesizing it?”

“No, they show it. Over and over. No matter how many different runs I make, the results are always the same. It is simply not possible for human population to reach the point where it is making a significant impact on the biosphere, or where it is using most of the planet’s solar energy, without causing a catastrophic collapse.”

“But no one who is talking about a steady-state human population is talking about five or ten million people globally. Those numbers are absurdly low. They always talk of a population of one-hundred to several-hundred million people – maybe even a billion – and all enjoying a high standard of living. And they always talk about a ‘managed’ or ‘controlled’ collapse. These are educated, responsible, ethical people. Are they deliberately deceiving, or terribly wrong?”

“A pipe dream at best, and a cruel deception at worst. But mostly the former. What you are seeing is denial. It’s the same as economists and Georgescu-Roegen. It doesn’t matter what the facts are, or how logical the arguments are. People will simply not accept the fact that the human population will soon plummet catastrophically. And they are so used to having billions of people around that they think that that is natural. It is not natural. Large human numbers have directly caused the extinction of millions of species, and massive drops in all large animal populations.”

“Steve, I’m having a hard time with this. I was convinced that the world would have to move away from ‘growth-based’ economics to ‘steady-state’ economics, and I didn’t believe that we could have a world of six billion industrialized people, since the world can’t even support six billion people of whom only a sixth are industrialized, without destroying the biosphere. But a steady-state population of only ten million! That is hard to believe. And your argument that catastrophic collapse is inevitable – that we will achieve a steady state only after global war and famine. Surely there is a way out.”

“A way out? Not an easy way out, to be sure. The near-term future is certain to be violent. There is no way around that. And there’s no real point to agonizing over that, or trying to do much about it. The overshoot has already occurred. It occurred several centuries ago, when the human population started to industrialize and to grow to one billion and beyond.”

“So what are you saying? The world is doomed?”

“Not at all. I’m too much of an optimist for that. What I am saying is that massive change will happen, and that the global population will soon drop tremendously. But what I’m also saying is that there are population mixes that can survive indefinitely. Such as five million high-tech people and five million primitive people. The challenge is to find out how to bring such populations about. And that is why I approached you in the cafeteria the other day. You’re the political scientist. I’m the systems engineer. I know what population sizes are feasible for long-term survival of the biosphere and the human population. But I don’t see how to bring them about politically. That is your area of expertise. That is your job. So what do you propose? What is this ‘synarchy’ stuff you were telling me about the other day.” Steve stared directly into her eyes.

Lara’s head was spinning. On the one hand, she was thrilled at meeting someone who was concerned about the same issues that she was. But on the other hand, the dire predictions he was making were shocking. Steve was not a Bible-belt student prophesying the end of the world. He was a respected scientist, and, if his models were correct, he was predicting the imminent end of the world as we know it. But what could she tell him? She was not just the political scientist she had represented. How much should she tell him? Could she trust him? She was, at the moment, completely off-guard. She needed time to think. She wasn’t ready to lay all her cards on the table. She hardly knew this man. He would have to wait.

“Steve,” she began, “you have told me a lot of things, some of which I believe and some which are quite difficult to believe – shocking, even. Before I discuss my ideas further, I need to know more about what you are doing. I need to see your models, your assumptions, and convince myself of their validity. Do you understand? I’m sorry, but my head is about ‘maxed out’ with all you’ve told me. I need time to digest it. Can we get together in your office or lab, and you show me more of what you are doing? Then, we can talk more. Also – and I’m being perhaps brutally frank here – I hardly know you. Before I discuss some of my ideas with you, we need to know each other more than we do. I hope that you understand what I’m saying.”

Steve smiled. He was so relaxed. The world was about to end, and he was leaning back in his seat, as if he were a teenager having a milkshake in a malt shop. “No problem,” he responded. “Let’s enjoy Saturday night out. Let’s order our entrées. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”

III. Dialogue

Lara and Steve met twice over the next couple of weeks. At the first meeting, Steve explained some of the work he was doing in modeling the world’s future. He explained some of the differences between his models and the standard Forrester system-dynamics models. Including explicit consideration of energy and entropy was just one of the differences. A big difference was including random variation – his models were highly stochastic, not deterministic, and they often included game-theoretic aspects.

“I use the system dynamics models just for simulation of the near-term future, not for the longer term,” Steve explained.

“Why is that?” Lara asked.

“Several reasons. First, any system representation of planetary dynamics that we might specify will soon be out of date. If you look at the recent history of the world, the process is not at all stationary – it is highly nonstationary – it’s evolutionary. In statistical terms, it is not even what is referred to as homogeneously nonstationary. In fact, at the present time it’s not just evolutionary, it’s explosive. Whatever model I might specify today will not apply for very long.”

“So what good are your models?”

“Well, they are fine for understanding the very near term – for shedding light on what might happen next, such as will it be oil or water or food that is the next big resource constraint, and what is likely to happen when that constraint starts to ‘kick in.’”

“Can you tell me what your models say about the maximum sustainable size of the human population – what the ‘steady state’ population level might be?”

“Here we go again!”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone is always asking what the maximum sustainable human population is. And that is exactly the wrong question to ask. The phrase ‘maximum sustainable human population’ is an oxymoron. The population – and the biosphere – can never be sustained if there is any attempt to maximize it, or even make it big. Besides, who says that having a large human population is good at all? It isn’t. The only people who need a large population are rulers and capitalists – a few very powerful or rich people controlling, exploiting and benefiting from a very large number of poor people – as Solomon once remarked, ‘A large population is a king’s glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined.’ A very large human population doesn’t serve any useful purpose. A large human population simply displaces and destroys much of the biosphere. It destroys much of the biosphere’s biodiversity. It makes the world a very much less interesting place to be. The best solution, in terms of a rich biosphere that not only ensures a very large number of future human beings, but, more importantly, produces maximal enjoyment for all time, is a very small human population. A minimal-sized human population, not a maximal-sized one. Species diversity is extremely important – both from ecological and an esthetic viewpoints – and any attempt to maximize human numbers destroys that diversity. The more people, the fewer other species.”

“But even people like Daly speak of maximizing the number of people over all time as a reasonable goal – a way of achieving sustainable development. In Beyond Growth he recognizes the drawback of trying to maximize the number of people alive today, and he suggests that the solution is to maximize the total number of lives over all future time. The only way that that can be done is if the present population is constrained to a level that leaves the biosphere in good shape, so that future generations continue to thrive. And if the goal is to maximize the number of human lives over all time, it seems rather obvious that it is necessary to maximize the number of people alive at each point in all time. Don’t your systems models show that? If you minimize the human population at any time, you end up with zero people!”

“I’m sorry, Lara, and with all due respect, but you’ve completely missed the point. Any attempt to maximize the total human population over all time is doomed. Besides, that is a nonsensical approach. What is the benefit of maximizing the number of people over all time? Of what possible benefit is that? The point is to minimize the likelihood, the probability, if you will, that the human race goes extinct, subject to having minimal impact on the biosphere. The number of human beings alive at any given time is irrelevant. All that matters is that the likelihood of extinction of the human race – from human causes – is kept as small as possible, and that the impact on the biosphere is as small is possible. Now, it isn’t possible to minimize both of these things, since they compete to some extent. There is always a tradeoff. Human activity will always cause some impact on the biosphere, since human beings compete with all other life forms for space and resources. The issue is whether the system remains rich in biodiversity, and changes very slowly. I am tempted to use the term ‘equilibrium,’ but it isn’t really appropriate since the biosphere is always gradually changing, evolving.”

“So what you’re saying is that there is an optimal number of people, if the goal is to minimize the likelihood of human extinction and preserve the biodiversity of the biosphere? So what is the correct size of the human population? The optimal size, that keeps the likelihood of human extinction low and planetary biodiversity high?”

“Well, you’re a little closer, but you’re still putting the emphasis on the size of the human population, when the focus should be on the likelihood of human extinction and destruction of the biosphere. The total size of the human population is, by itself, irrelevant. There isn’t any ‘correct’ size – we shouldn’t even be looking for ‘optimal,’ with respect to size. The size of the human population is not the key issue. If you focus on the two items I mentioned – the likelihood of human extinction and the destruction of the biosphere – then the number of people takes care of itself. If you focus on trying to have a lot of people on the planet, you end up losing, every time. You either end up with a ruined biosphere, or human extinction, or both. Aiming for a large human population is posing the wrong problem. Have you ever heard of John Nash?”

“The ‘Beautiful Mind’ John Nash? John Forbes Nash?”

“Yes.”

“Well? What’s he got to do with this?”

“Well, as you know, Nash pioneered the theory of nonzero-sum, or general-sum, games. In a zero-sum game, one player wins what the other player loses. Lots of games are zero-sum games. John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern developed the theory of zero-sum games, a long time ago – the famous ‘min-max’ solution. But the game of human existence on Planet Earth is very much not a zero-sum game. It is a nonzero-sum game, in which all species are competing for space, but if any one species gets it all, or even too much, then all life, or much life, becomes extinct, and they all lose. The correct solution – or, I should say, a good solution – was developed by Nash. It is called the Nash bargaining solution, or the Nash equilibrium. At the Nash equilibrium solution, everyone wins to some extent, and no one can improve his position without hurting someone else. You may recognize the concept as ‘Pareto optimality’ in economics.”

“So do your models include solutions to the nonzero-sum ‘game of life’?”

“Well, some do, but not the important, long-term ones. For the long term, the solution is even simpler.”

“Simpler? But the farther you go into the future, the more uncertain things are, and the harder it is to specify the problem, much less its solution.”

“You’re right. So what you do is look at the basics, or essentials, of the problem – those aspects that remain constant over all time.”

“And what are those?”

“Well, you look at the system in which human beings survived for millions of years, and you see that they survived by being a very small part of a very big system. All species did. Over time, a few new species come along, and a few go extinct. But as long as nothing happens that is ‘large’ with respect to the biosphere, diverse life goes on forever – or as long as the Sun shines! They key to survival is making sure that human population never gets so large that human activity is making a significant impact on the rest of the biosphere. This includes not only not generating more waste than the rest of the planet can reprocess, but also just not taking up much space. Human beings, a single species, now consume – utilize for human purposes – almost half of the solar energy reaching the planet. And that is why millions of other species are going extinct. The so-called ‘Sixth Extinction’ of the planet’s biosphere.”

“Are you leading up to something, or just pontificating?” Lara interjected.

Steve laughed. “Yes, I’m leading up to something. The point is that if you keep human numbers small and human existence simple, the chance of extinction or biospheric collapse from human causes is also small – essentially zero. As long as the human population operates within a rather small range, then the biosphere goes on essentially forever. Of course, an asteroid or volcanic eruption or pole shift may wipe everything out, but I’m not talking about that – I’m talking about extinctions from human causes – mass species extinction from human overcrowding and industrial activity, and greenhouse-gas death from global warming. And here’s the point. Once human population size reaches the level where it starts to ‘mess’ with the biosphere at a macroscopic level, the chance of a catastrophic human-caused event becomes non-negligible. Maybe it’s still very small, but that doesn’t matter. We’re talking about rare events, but over very long time periods. If the likelihood of global collapse is only one in a million per year, then global collapse is almost certain to occur within two million years. The point is that if you want to avoid extinction from human causes, the per-year extinction likelihood has to be essentially zero – not one in a thousand, not one in a million, but essentially zero. And there is only one known way of accomplishing that – to keep the human population – and human activity – as low as it was for the millions of years that the human race thrived before the present era. You don’t need fancy models at all! We already know the answer! We have, as Foundation referred to it, a feasible solution.”

“So that’s your solution? Keep the human population at a few tens of millions, for all time? But that’s not a solution at all! That may be a characteristic or a result of the solution, and it may actually be a way of achieving a solution, but the ‘solution’ should include a description of the process by which the result is achieved. Saying that nuclear power is a solution to the sixteenth century’s energy crisis is fine, but it is of no value whatsoever unless you show people in the sixteenth century how to refine uranium ore and build a nuclear reactor. Simply specifying some characteristics of the solution isn’t enough. That, as I recall, was one of the problems with John Nash’s theory – he described the characteristics of the solution, but didn’t tell how to find it!”

“You’re right, Nash provided an ‘existence’ proof, not a ‘constructive’ proof. And your comments are in order. But existence proofs arise all the time in mathematics. In information theory, for example, Claude Shannon proved the fundamental theory of information and coding in 1948, many years before the brilliant mathematical statistician R. C. Bose developed actual codes – the BCH codes – that Shannon proved were possible. Existence proofs are fine – they show what is possible, and what the characteristics of the ultimate solution are, even if they don’t show how to get there. In the case of the current planetary environmental crisis, I know what the characteristics of the solution are – a low human population, on the order of what existed for millions of years – and I am the first to confess that I don’t see how to get there. Every time you talk about population control, people start levying charges of murder and genocide and eugenics and such. But that’s where you come in. That’s why I was curious about the lecture you gave. I’m a physical scientist, and I know what works and what doesn’t, from a physical viewpoint. But I am not a sociologist or a psychologist. I do know the characteristics of the solution. I am absolutely convinced of that. I just don’t know how to achieve it – how to bring it about through human social or political action. And that’s where you come in. You’re the political scientist, the social scientist. Can you see a way to get there from here?”

Lara was nonplussed. A rush of thoughts raced through her mind. Steve was talking about changing the entire world. He was addressing head-on the very problem that was the focus of her life. And what he said made sense. She had looked at his models, and saw their strengths and limitations. She realized that what he was saying about the size of the human population was right on the mark. He accepted the solution, he was not in denial at all. But how to bring that about? Maybe it was time to tell him more. But what would he think? Some of his ideas were far out, but his feet were placed solidly on the ground. Everything that he had talked about was objective, rational, empirical – based in logic or experience. Her ideas were really far out. They weren’t physical science at all – they were spiritual science – metaphysics. They weren’t objective, they were subjective. She couldn’t prove them at all. Could she trust him? Would he laugh at her? She had not gotten to her current station in life by promoting any of her personal, secret, ideas. But that is exactly what was needed to answer Steve’s questions. No, she would wait. She would think things over. She would sleep on the matter, and discuss it the next time they got together. Maybe she should talk about her ideas out of the context of the world’s environmental crisis, and outside of her professional realm.

“Steve, you’ve got some really good ideas, and you just may be right. You have really ‘thrown down the gauntlet’ to me, in asking for a way of bringing about a solution. But I’ve got to reflect on what you’ve told me. I do have some ideas, but I’ve got to think about them in the context of what you’ve told me. Then, if I see that I can help, we’ll talk. But I need some time to think.”

Steve smiled, and they agreed to talk in greater detail at a subsequent meeting.

Over the next few days, Lara thought a lot about the next step. She couldn’t stall any longer. The more she thought about Steve’s ‘solution,’ the more she became convinced that he was right. Steve had indeed thrown down the gauntlet to her. It was time to fish or cut bait. But her solution approach was quite unlike Steve’s cold, rational, logical, objective approach. Her approach to problem solving was not based in logic at all. It was quintessentially subjective in nature. It was based on feelings and emotions and intuition and creative insights – on dreams and visions, not on logical proofs and mathematical models. She decided that, at their next meeting, she would initiate a discussion about her approach, but she would speak only in general terms, not in the specifics of the planetary crisis.

Their next meeting was at her house. Their first meetings had been in public places – a restaurant, Steve’s office at the university. They both liked each other’s company. Their relationship was becoming more than just the planetary crisis, and ways of dealing with it. She liked Steve, and she could tell that he liked her. Their relationship was easy, comfortable. It flowed. There were no awkward moments.

“Can I fix you something to drink?” Lara asked, as Steve walked into the main room.

“Yes, that would be great. How about a café latte?”

“Sure. Coming right up. Join me in the kitchen.” Lara and Steve moved to the kitchen, where Lara set about making the café latte. As she handed the mug to Steve, she said, “There are some nuts on the counter, too, if you wish.”

“Thanks, Lara. This really hits the spot.” They moved back to the living room. Steve chatted for a few minutes about some friends he had bumped into yesterday. After a few minutes, he broached the subject.

“I’m sure you’ve given some further thought to our recent discussion. Any thoughts, ideas?” Steve began.

“Well, maybe, but first I want to talk about some other things.”

“Sure, what about?” Steve responded, smiling. He always smiled. At times it seemed that he was too agreeable. Most men were a little pushy, a little aggressive, a little selfish – that was natural and expected. But Steve seemed different. He had his opinions, to be sure, and he was very convincing and assertive and enthusiastic about them. But he was not at all argumentative. Whenever she expressed an opinion, he seemed genuinely interested not just in the idea itself, but in why she thought what she did. Nonjudgmental. He let her explain her position. He asked questions, and often probed for more details, but he never tried to talk her out of her position. He seemed to just accept that as a given. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to want to waste time ‘pleading his own case.’ He presented his reasons for his beliefs, and let it pretty much go at that. He admitted that he did not have solid proofs for everything. He was very logical, but he didn’t seem to mind taking a few ‘leaps of faith’ when logic failed to provide all the answers.

“Steve, you and I have talked a lot about the environmental crisis, and we have talked some ‘small talk’ as well. I know a little about you, and you know a little about me. But I don’t know much about you, and you don’t know much about me. Do you know anything about mysticism?”

“Mysticism? That term covers a lot of ground. Do you mean spiritualism and the occult, or New Thought or New Age, or ‘psi’ advanced mental powers – parapsychology, the paranormal – metaphysics? Do you mean psychic phenomena, Wicca, or satanic worship, or a transcendent experience with Christ?”

“I suppose that I mean a little of all of those. What do you think about your mind, your sense of consciousness and identity, your spirit, what differentiates a dead person from a live one? What do you think of your existence, and how and why you came into being, and for what purpose? Where do ideas come from? What is the meaning of existence and life? What can we know?”

“Whoa! I’m just a simple Presbyterian! I am generally aware of all of those issues, but they are not the focus of my life. In fact, I thought a lot about some of them when I was in high school, and I soon reached the conclusion that, in this life, most people will never know the answers to life’s really important questions, like what am I, what created me, and for what purpose. Religious leaders and quantum physicists and philosophers and mystics have been trying for years to shed some light on those issues, without much success. I pretty much decided, early in life, that I wouldn’t get answers to those questions, and I should spend my time and efforts on working on questions that do have answers – on accomplishing and enjoying a fulfilling life experience, without worrying too much about the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of human existence. I know that Plato stated that the unexamined life is not worth living, but people have spent whole lifetimes dwelling on these issues and still never come up with any truly satisfactory answers. Actually, I did try to meditate once, but I never experienced anything unusual – that it’s a good way to relax is about the only revelation I experienced. So, my life is pretty much centered on action directed toward accomplishing whatever goals and objectives I set for myself. And that has worked pretty well. I accomplish most of the goals I set for myself, and I enjoy the satisfaction of the quest and of achieving the goal. I don’t have all the answers to life’s ‘big’ questions, but I do feel pretty good about myself. I enjoy my work and my hobbies. Life is good. Does that answer some of your questions? I really don’t have answers to all of those questions. I just live my life as I feel I should and as I feel I want to, and I don’t worry about the metaphysics of it. Some things I can control and influence, and some things I can’t. I work mainly at things that I think I can influence. I suppose it is a little presumptuous of me to think that I can help solve the planetary environmental dilemma, but lots of people are trying to do that, and it affects us all directly. It’s fair game – other people are trying to destroy it, so I have a perfect right to try to save it. It’s my world, too.” Steve looked at her, waiting for here reaction.

Lara didn’t respond directly to anything he said. Without comment or hesitation, she asked, “Have you ever had a paranormal experience?”

“No, not really. At least, no ecstatic trances or amazing visions or transcendental communion with God. A little synchronicity – that’s about all.”

“You’ve had some good ideas in your lifetime. Where do you suppose they came from?”

“They came from my brain, my mind – whatever that is! I saw a problem, I worked on it, I used logical reasoning, and I found a solution.”

“But in finding a solution, I am sure that some ideas ‘popped into your head.’ Logic isn’t sufficient to solve most problems. Some creative insight is absolutely necessary. Most scientists get an idea about what the solution might be, and then set out to prove or disprove it. They don’t just apply blind logic to every fact in the universe, and evolve logically to an answer. That’s not the nature of the creative process – or of winning chess matches, either. Insight and inspiration are absolutely necessary. Hard work is, too. But without the creative insight, nothing happens. The idea is vastly more important than the hard work to prove that it’s true. So where do ideas come from?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t really need to know. All I know is that they happen. If I am working on a hard problem, and I sleep on it, I often have a new idea in the morning. Sometimes I even wake up in the early morning with a new idea, or a hint about what to look at next. I accept that. I don’t know what my mind is, or how it generates ideas, and that doesn’t bother me a whole lot. But what are you getting at? Where are you leading?”

“Well, where I am leading is that I have very strong and very visual experiences. Whenever I have a problem, I don’t just sleep on it and get a hint in the morning. I go into a kind of trance, and see all sorts of images. I don’t see just a single solution to a problem, but I see a vast spectrum of visual images that relate to the problem, and that eventually, over time, guide me to a solution.”

“This is pretty heavy stuff. Do you talk to spirits?”

“Yes, I do, some of the time.” Lara answered. There was a rather pregnant pause. She had crossed over the line. Would he ridicule her? What was he thinking?

“What sort of visual images do you see? Are they other places? Are they other people? Are they inanimate objects? Are they disembodied spirits? Does this happen in present time?”

Just like Steve, Lara thought. No criticism, no rejection. Just an expression of a desire to know more.

“Have you ever heard of ‘astral projection’?” she asked.

“Why, yes, I have. With the New Age upon us, it is about impossible not to know something about those things. Are you a ‘channeler’?” Steve raised his eyebrows slightly, in a questioning glance.

“No, I’m not a channeler. I guess that I could be – I have conversed with many entities. But nothing ever takes control of me. I wouldn’t allow that. But you said that you knew what astral projection is. Well, that is perhaps the best description of what I experience.”

“So, where are we headed? This is pretty personal stuff. Why are you explaining these things to me?” Steve asked.

“Where we are headed is this. With your logical reasoning and subtle hints from ‘sleeping on a problem,’ you have been guided to a solution to the world’s environmental crisis. You are convinced that your solution is correct – logical reasoning helps you see that – but you have no idea about how to bring it about. What I can do is explore alternatives. I can follow future paths – many of them. I can explore where they are likely to lead. I have done this time and time again. It always works. I am convinced that, if your solution is correct, I can find a way to it.” Lara’s chest filled with a feeling of exhilaration. She was very surprised at herself. She had not meant to go this far. She just wanted to discuss her strange experiences in general, non-personal terms, not to describe them in detail, and certainly not, at today’s meeting, to propose them as a means of solution. She had really done it now! She had exposed herself totally. She had never done that before. She felt very vulnerable. What would Steve’s reaction be?

“Lara, do you have any objective proof that your method works? Have you used it to determine a solution to an objectively verifiable problem? You used the term, ‘astral projection,’ which implies that you are one entity observing or interacting with other entities. But maybe it’s all in your mind, and there is no interaction with anything else at all.”

“That doesn’t matter. Of course astral projection is subjective. And, for whatever reasons, it does not lend itself to objective validation. But that doesn’t matter at all. All that matters is that it works. And I have proved that to myself time and time again.”

“Proved to yourself. That’s the key phrase.”

“I was afraid this would happen. I can’t prove anything about what I can do. It is indeed totally subjective. I can’t empirically validate it at all. But I know that it works. You can’t explain why the universe exists, or how gravity works, or why you are alive, or how your heart beats, or how you can think, or where ideas come from, or what your mind is. You can’t prove that reality exists, and that this is not all part of a big dream. Does that invalidate all of those?”

“Point taken. But the scientific method, based on empirical reasoning – observations, logic, experimentation, and tests of validity – are what makes the world go ‘round. You may be right that I can’t explain where ideas come from, but I can subject them to objectively verifiable tests of validity.”

“I have no problem with that. Every vision I have I subject to critical evaluation by logical reasoning. What is exceptional about my projections is that they are incredibly varied, incredibly clear, and they always seem to include a right answer, or at least guidance to it. They are vastly more useful than the hints obtained from sleeping on a problem. They are creative insight magnified to the n-th degree. I know that I can explore many paths in detail. Many are dead ends, of little interest. Some are ‘off the wall.’ But some lead to fabulous conclusions. I can control them to a limited extent, such as deciding what I want to look at, but to a large extent they have lives of their own. Most of them are logically consistent and physically possible, and I recognize that they all need evaluation in the cold light of day. Each path I see can be subjected to objective evaluation – the same processes involved in your models. You might think of my projections as hypotheses. Indeed, they are. But, despite the fact that I can’t explain how they happen, they are testable. They are just as valid and useful as the hints that you get from sleeping on a problem, or that may pop into your head while daydreaming. And I know that you follow up every one of those!”

“Hmmm,” Steve mused, “you have a good point. What you say is interesting. I think that I am beginning to see why you are telling me all this. The next step is rather obvious. Can you use your ability to generate some candidate ‘paths’ for getting to the solution – to a long-term-sustainable, biospherically friendly solution to the planetary crisis?”

“Yes, I can,” she said, seriously and solemnly.

“Lara, you know that the Establishment has little use for metaphysics. It’s OK for an idea to pop into a mathematician’s head from out of nowhere, but it’s not OK to receive ideas as full-blown visions. People will only accept what they’re familiar with, even though they can’t explain how that works, for a moment. It would not be a good idea to discuss this with others. I am intrigued by what you have told me, and I would like to follow it up, but I have no intention of exposing my career – or yours – to the certain ridicule that would follow if people found out that we were using metaphysics to solve the world’s environmental crisis. Have you discussed this with anyone else? Who knows of your metaphysical adventures?”

“You are the first. I began having visions – astral projections – in my teens. This didn’t bother me too much, since the New Age literature is filled with this sort of thing. But it was very clear that mainstream academia had no respect for anything metaphysical. I simply kept things to myself. I have used my abilities to good effect – I can almost always get what I want, if it’s worthwhile – good for me and good for others. But, until today, there was never a reason to tell anyone. The only reason I am telling you is that it appears to me that neither you nor I can solve the crisis separately, but it may well be the case that we can, by combining our complementary skills, and working together. I do not have your analytical skills, and you do not possess my creative insight. Both are needed. Together, I believe that we can solve the problem.”

“Lara, I think you may have something. Your ‘woman’s intuition’ may be just what the doctor ordered.”

“You laugh at ‘woman’s intuition.’ That attitude is what got the planet into this fix in the first place!”

“What do you mean?”

“Things work well when there is a balance. Although the universe is unitary, most aspects of it can be viewed as dual in nature. Light and darkness, life and death, peace and war, matter and energy, male and female. The most pervasive aspect of human existence, of course, is the duality of male and female. The female nature is associated with feelings of nurturing, understanding, compassion, harmony, love, family, community, nature, and peace – strong on emotions and intuition. The male nature is associated with feelings of aggression, exploration, adventure, domination, hierarchy, machines and war – strong on logical reasoning and action. Of course, you always need both aspects of a duality – in fact, ‘need’ isn’t the right word – both aspects simply define different extremes of the same thing. Things work most smoothly when both aspects are in balance. But they are not always in balance. The pendulum swings, male and female aspects take turns, and a new equilibrium is achieved. Some time ago, the god of Earth – Gaia, if you will – was female in nature – a goddess. She nurtured Earth. The biosphere was in balance. Stability, diversity, dependability. But that’s a little boring. Every once in a while, the male aspect becomes predominant – violence, cataclysmic events, major change. Several thousand years ago, the male aspect began to rise to ascendancy again. The female goddesses were displaced by male gods – gods of wrath, of violence, of change, of civilization, war, and destruction of nature. The pendulum has swung from the tranquility of the Garden of Eden to the chaos of the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A shift from nature to civilization and economics. The male aspect has had its run, however, and times are about to change again.