I. Introduction

Can America survive? The answer, quite simply, is no – not in its current form for very long, and perhaps not in any form at all for very long. This book describes why pending changes in energy availability, cultural changes brought about by recent massive immigration, the global population explosion, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, technology and materials will combine to bring an end to the United States as we currently know it – soon.

In the past four centuries, the world human population has skyrocketed, from about half a billion people to six billion at the present time. Population projections from various sources suggest that, barring a major change of some kind, the population will continue to soar, to nine billion or more by the year 2050. In the past half-century – less than a lifetime -- the population of the US has exploded from about 150 million to over 270 million. This explosive growth occurred despite the fact that fertility rates in the US dropped to low levels – it is the result of uncontrolled immigration.

The tremendous global population increase has been brought about by the development of technology to utilize the energy stored in fossil fuels, such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Petroleum and gas reserves will be exhausted, however, by about 2050, and coal reserves will not last much beyond that date if industrial development continues to expand worldwide.

Look around you. If you live in the US or other economically developed country, every man-made thing you see or see happening is a product of the expenditure of energy, and most of that energy is derived from fossil fuels. To establish and maintain our present lifestyle requires prodigious amounts of energy – an amount equivalent to about 8,000 kilograms of oil annually for each man, woman, and child living in the country. Pre-agricultural man lived “off the land,” consuming only the bounty of nature. Agricultural man could produce about 10 calories of energy with the expenditure of about one calorie of energy. Industrial man, it has been estimated, uses over ten calories of energy to produce a single calorie of food! The present system is not only exquisitely wasteful, but it is completely unsustainable. Most of what you see in the industrial world is a transitory illusion made possible by a one-time windfall supply of energy from fossil fuels that were accumulated over millions of years. When the fossil fuel reserves deplete in about 50 years, the modern world will simply disappear along with them.

Whatever age you are, if you were raised in a town or a small city, go back to where you lived as a child and observe what has happened to the nearest natural field you played in. Chances are it is now urban sprawl – pavement, concrete, and steel. For each immigrant admitted to the US – legal or illegal – about an acre of natural land is permanently destroyed, by roads, buildings, parking lots, houses, schools, and other structures that take the land out of production – both for wildlife and for agriculture. Last year the US admitted 1.2 million more immigrants. That represents the complete destruction of another .6 million acres of farmland, forest, and pastureland. Who cares? Certainly not the people in charge – they want more people because it makes more money, and they are not particularly concerned with the concomitant destruction of the environment!

Industrial activity at the massive scale of the present is causing substantial changes to Earth’s environment. By now, everyone knows that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other gases produced by industrial activity is increasing substantially every year, and that the planet’s climate and weather are controlled by these concentrations. Large-scale industrial activity is causing substantial changes to the planet’s environment – land, air, water, and ecology. In view of the established relationship of the planet’s climate and ecosystem to these concentrations, it is possible that man’s industrial activity could cause dramatic changes in the sea level, and trigger another ice age or create a lifeless “hothouse.” And for what good reason? What is the good purpose of burning all the planet’s fossil fuels as fast as possible, when it risks the destruction not only of mankind but of much other life on the planet as well? The answer is “None.” This activity cannot continue at current levels without risking dire consequences, even apart from the issue of depletion of fossil fuel reserves and other nonrenewable resources. To continue to do so is the height of folly.

This book describes the current situation and its predicted course. For the US – and any other overpopulated, multicultural, high-energy-use country -- the future is one of war, social fragmentation, and dramatic population reductions. Power will consolidate in a single dominant ethnic group; others will be eliminated or reduced to slavery or serfdom.

This book is not “just another book” on the human population “problem.” Thousands of books have been written on the problems of human population, energy and the environment. The real “problem” is that everyone is talking about the problem and no one is doing anything about it. Proposed solutions to date have either failed or been ignored. Environmentalists and ecologists continue to wring their hands while the planet croaks. This book identifies a radically new approach to the problem – one that offers the promise of reducing the risk of ecological destruction to a low level. It identifies an approach to population policy analysis and a course of action that will bring an end to the massive environmental destruction being caused by human industrial activity and significantly increase the likelihood of the survival of the human and other species.

The author of this book has a career that includes both military defense analysis and economic development. He worked for about fifteen years in defense applications and about fifteen years in social and economic applications. His work in military applications includes ballistic missile warfare, nuclear weapons effects, satellite ocean surveillance, naval general-purpose forces, tactical air warfare, air/land battle tactics, strategy, civil defense, military communications-electronics, and electronic warfare. His work in social and economic development applications includes tax policy analysis, agricultural policy analysis, trade policy analysis, health, human resource development, demography, development of systems for planning, monitoring and evaluation of social and economic programs, and educational management information systems. He has lived and worked in countries around the world. He holds a PhD degree in mathematical statistics and is an expert in mathematical game theory, statistics, operations research, and systems and software engineering. The analysis presented in this book is derived from years of experience related to, and years of analysis of, the population problem.

The organization of this book follows a logical progression, starting with a description of the current state of the planet and human population. Current trends in human population growth are identified. The relationship of human welfare to energy availability is described, and the future availability of energy is discussed. The role of economics to population growth is examined. Policies for determining what the human population size should be are identified. A new approach to population policy is introduced; it is called the “minimal-regret” approach. The likelihood of nuclear war is considered, and the damage that would result from a limited nuclear war is estimated. The impact of this war is assessed for the United States, Canada, and other countries. An assessment is made of the likelihood that the United States and various other countries will prevail after a nuclear war. The relationship of the minimal-regret approach to nuclear war strategies and the postattack environment is discussed in detail.

The main text of the book is generally nontechnical – as much as it can be for subjects (population growth, economics, energy, nuclear war) that are technical in nature. Technical discussions are presented in appendices. The appendices include graphs and tables in support of the arguments presented in the text.

The research underlying the population policy approach introduced in this book was conducted over a four-year period. During the course of doing the research, a large number of books and articles were reviewed and analyzed. The bibliography includes a list of about 600 books that were reviewed. To keep the message of this book as succinct as possible, little description is given of the content of these books. Instead, the most relevant publications are simply listed. Little space is allocated to describing the state of the environment or other population policies – just enough to provide a context for the new material presented.

II. The Current State of the World

This chapter summarizes the state of the world, from environmental, ecological, economic, and nuclear-warfare perspectives. There are many organizations involved in assessing the state of the world from these perspectives, and it is not the purpose of this book to present another assessment. Some of the leading publications in this area are listed below, and many others are listed in the bibliography:

1. State of the World, annual publication of Worldwatch Institute

2. Vital Signs, annual publication of Worldwatch Institute

3. World Resources, annual publication of World Resources

4. World Development Indicators, annual World Bank publication

5. World Development Report, annual World Bank publication

6. The True State of the Planet, by Ronald Bailey

7. The State of Humanity, The Ultimate Resource 2 , and The Resourceful Earth, by Julian Simon

8. Healing the Planet, by Paul and Anne Ehrlich

9. Only One World, by Gerard Piel

10. Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, by Norman Meyers

11. Rescue the Earth! by Farley Mowat

12. The Ends of the Earth, by Robert D. Kaplan

13. The Greenhouse Book of the Nuclear Age, by John May

14. Nuclear Madness, by Helen Caldicott

Recent magazine and journal articles that summarize the situation include:

1. “The Coming Anarchy,” by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994

2. “Must It Be the West against the Rest?” by Matthew Connelly and Paul Kennedy, The Atlantic Monthly, December 1994

3. “The Clash of Civilizations?” by Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 3, Summer (July-August) 1993, pp. 22-49.

Economic State of the World

The primary publications summarizing the economic state of the world are World Development Indicators and World Development Report, published annually by the World Bank. The data summarized in these publications is presented in a CD-ROM that gives access to over 1,000 data tables and 500 time-series indicators for 223 countries and regions. The World Development Report emphasizes selected economic development indicators, whereas the World Development Indicators report presents a more complete, integrated approach to measuring development progress. The World Development Report (WDR) publication provides a variety of indicators for 133 countries and a few basic indicators for 76 other countries (mostly having populations under one million). WDR divides countries into three categories: low-income excluding China and India, middle-income (which is further divided into lower-middle-income and upper-middle-income), and high-income economies.

For the 133 countries for which a variety of indicators is available, twenty-six countries are included in the high-income category. These countries include 902 million of the world’s six billion people. The gross national product (GNP) per capita for these countries ranges from $9,700 dollars (1995 figures) for the Republic of Korea to $40,630 for Switzerland. For the US and Canada the figures are $26,980 and $19,380, respectively. There are fifty-eight economies in the middle-income group, with GNP per capita ranging from $770 (Lesotho) to $8,210 (Greece). The population of these countries is 1,591 million. The low-income group includes 49 countries, with GNP per capita ranging from $80 (Mozambique) to $730 (Armenia). The population of these countries is 3,180 million.

In summary, a relatively small proportion of the world’s population – less than a sixth – enjoys a high economic standard of living. Billions of people live in poverty. Despite concerted efforts by developed countries and development agencies, the last half century has accomplished little more than increasing the number of very poor people from one billion to three billion.

Environmental and Ecological State of the World

The publications listed above paint a bleak picture of what industrialization is doing to the planet’s air, land, water, and biology. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are continuing to mount as forests are cleared and fossil fuels are burned. Chlorofluorocarbons and other industrial gasses continue to destroy the ozone layer protecting the planet’s plant and animal life. The average temperature at the Earth’s surface has increased by almost a degree (Celsius) in the last 150 years, and by almost half a degree in the last thirty years. While the size of these changes may seem small, they are sufficient to cause very large changes in the world’s weather, sea levels, and flora and fauna.

Over the last century the world has lost half its original forest area, and much so-called “reforestation” is simply replacing ecologically diverse forests with monoculture tree plantations. Each year, man destroys another 16 million hectares of ecologically diverse forest. In the article, “A Non-Fuzzy Earth Day,” in the May 3, 1999 issue of Time, Pranay Gupte (editor and publisher of The Earth Times) summarizes the situation. In the past 20 years, forests have disappeared in 25 countries, and over 95% of the forests have disappeared in 18 countries. There were an estimated 60 billion hectares of forest on the planet just before World War II; now, because of logging, cutting for firewood, and desertification, there are 3.6 billion. (Figures from the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development). The World Conservation Union estimates that this forest decline threatens 12.5% of the world’s 275,000 species of plants and 75% of its mammals.

The nonbiodegradable waste products of human industrial activity continue to grow unabated. Chemically toxic and radioactive industrial wastes poison more and more of our finite land resources every year.

The destruction to coastal wetlands and coastal fishing areas as a result of man-made pollution has been devastating. Because of the runoff of agricultural chemicals, thousands of square miles of coastal and estuarine areas have been killed.

With respect to biodiversity, tremendous changes are occurring. Two out of every three bird species in the world is declining. Eleven percent of all mammal species are threatened with “immediate” extinction, and another 14 percent are vulnerable to extinction. Eight percent of all reptile species, 10 percent of all amphibian species, and 13 percent of all fish species are in “immediate” danger of extinction. (All classifications and figures from State of the World 1998.)

The bleakest picture of all is painted by economist Julian Simon. He observes that, because of technological advances, the dollar cost of extracting resources from the natural environment falls year after year. As a result, the planet’s mineral, plant, and animal resources are plundered at an ever-increasing rate. It has been estimated a dead Bengal tiger’s parts now fetch a million dollars. Some time ago, it was speciously argued that if the price of animal products rose sufficiently, steps would be taken to preserve this valuable resource – it just made economic “sense” to do so. The falseness of this proposition has been demonstrated over and over again. So few tigers exist in the wild that they are now considered effectively extinct as a wild species. Similar exterminations of the black rhino, the musk deer, the panda, and other animals have been caused directly by human overpopulation.

While some of the rampant destruction of mammals is direct killing, much species loss is an inevitable consequence of destruction of wildlife habitat, such as forests and wetlands.

The planet is undergoing the greatest mass extinction since the time of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Although nobody knows for sure, it has been estimated (Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management) that we are losing between 50 and 100 species a day (mostly from habitat destruction) from the 5-30 million species thought to exist. Some scientists estimate the extinction rate at 150 species per day (W. V. Reid and K. R. Miller, Keeping Options Alive: The Scientific Basis for Conserving Biodiversity, World Resources Institute, 1989).

In 1970 there were 65,000 black rhinos in Africa; in 1993 there were just 2,000. The global population of tigers has dropped by 95% in this century, to about 5,000. As of 1994, only a few dozen remained in China. The Caspian, Balinese, and Javan tigers became extinct over a decade ago. The population of Sumatran tigers has dropped to 650, and the Siberian Amur has declined to 200. (See Time, March 28, 1994, “Tigers on the Brink.”)

The alarming fact is that the destruction of the Earth’s environment is increasing, not decreasing. The level of industrial activity is increasing, not decreasing, and the destruction of the environment is continuing apace.

The Nuclear-Warfare State of the World

During the Cold War, the two superpowers were deterred from using nuclear weapons by the strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction. Under this strategy, each side knew that if it attacked the other, it would surely be destroyed in a massive retaliatory attack. This policy evidently worked well, because for the several decades of the Cold War, nuclear war never occurred.

The situation is now quite different. The chance of a large-scale ballistic missile nuclear war may have lessened, but because of the lessening of control over nuclear weapons, technology, and materials (following the disintegration of the Soviet Union), the odds of a small-scale nuclear war would appear to have increased substantially. India and Pakistan recently conducted nuclear-bomb tests, and are now members of the nuclear “club.” Their relations are antagonistic. With the decreased level of control over nuclear weapons, technology, and materials, the chance that a “rogue nation” or terrorist group could bomb one or even many cities using small “suitcase-sized” nuclear bombs has probably increased substantially. In any event, the means and opportunity for a small nuclear attack are growing every year. The only consolation is that such an attack would probably not be large (like a full-fledged ballistic-missile attack).

The state of the world with respect to nuclear war was dangerous during the Cold War, and it remains so. While the odds of a large-scale ballistic-missile war may have decreased, the odds of a small-scale nuclear war have increased.

III. Human Population Growth

This chapter summarizes human population history and describes the current state of human population (size and growth rates).

The root cause of all of the environmental and ecological problems facing the planet is twofold: the very large human population, and the extraordinarily high levels of toxic waste produced by industrial activity. The planet can and has harbored a large number of human beings for very long periods in the past. It has been estimated that the human population has been approximately 2-20 million for the past hundred thousand years, while mankind existed in a hunting-gathering mode, increasing to about 200-300 million after the advent of the agricultural revolution (10,000 years ago).

Human population growth is often depicted in a famous curve called “Deevy’s curve,” after the man who first presented it (Edward S. Deevy, “The Human Population,” Scientific American, vol. 203, no. 9, September 1960, pp. 195-204). This curve is shown, for example, on p. 95 of Cohen’s How Many People Can the Earth Support, or p. 101 of Piel’s Only One World. It shows three main population surges: one when man invented weapons and tools (three million years ago); one when man developed agriculture (about 10,000 years ago); and one when the industrial revolution began, less than 500 year ago. The three levels of population for these “surges” are global populations of about 2-20 million human beings (preagricultural Stone Age), 200-300 million (preindustrial agriculture), and the present time. The population surge for the present time has not yet leveled off, but it will, very soon.

The total land area of Earth is 148.9 million square kilometers, of which 14.2 million is Antarctica and 11 million is desert. This leaves about 125 million square kilometers of habitable land. A total population size of say, 5 million, hence represents a density of about 4 people every 100 square kilometers. At that low level of population, with no industrial activity, mankind did not materially affect the balance of nature. (The term “balance of nature” refers to the fact that all of the waste products produced by one species are food for other species and the overall system is in a state of relative equilibrium (slow evolutionary change).) The net production of unreprocessed waste is effectively zero. The only significant ecological change attributed to mankind over the millions of years of his hunter-gatherer existence was the extinction of most large mammals (mammoths, mastodons, giant camels, and the like) at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, and there is even doubt that mankind accomplished that.

When mankind began to use agriculture, about 10,000 years ago, a lot of forest was cleared, and many local species were exterminated. The rise of civilization was responsible, for example, for the extermination of the black Atlas-mountain lion, and for the elimination of lions in general from the area occupied by the Roman Empire.

Agricultural man could produce about 10 calories of food energy for the expenditure of one calorie of food energy. This meant that a single man could produce enough food for his immediate family, and still have a surplus that could support a nonagricultural urban civilization. Conversion of much of the land area to agriculture allowed the human population to grow substantially, to the level of a few hundred million at the time of the Roman Empire.

Until about the year 1500, the size of the human population did not change much. Overall, agricultural yields were low – perhaps 1/10 of current yields. Another reason for lack of population growth was limited access to energy resources. About 1500, however, mankind started using coal instead of wood as a major source of energy. The difficulties in extracting coal led to technological advances such as the development of an efficient steam engine. These developments enabled man to utilize much larger amounts of energy. Technological development followed technological development, leading ultimately to man’s ability to produce much larger amounts of food. The human population explosion was on!

The population increased to about a billion in 1800, to two billion in 1925, three billion in 1960, four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, and to six billion today (1999). Human population is exploding at the rate of about 80 million a year, or a billion every twelve years.

As discussed at length in the references of the preceding chapter, mankind’s large population size and industrial activity are literally destroying the ecological environment on which he depends for his very existence.

Since the human population explosion threatens our existence, one would think that this topic would receive more attention than any other. Incredibly, this is not the case. Although a number of perceptive books have been written on the subject, they represent a miniscule proportion of all literature.

A number of people have commented on the incredible lack of interest in the population problem. Garrett Hardin has referred to this lack of interest as “discounting in time and space.” Any problem far away in time or distance is not given much attention. Whenever I happened to mention to someone that I was writing a book on population to someone, and that major population reductions might not occur for several decades, the response invariably was, “Oh, well, we probably won’t even be alive then anyway, so what does it matter?”

The first major work on human population was by the Rev. Thomas Malthus. He argued in 1798 that human population would eventually outstrip man’s ability to produce food. He did not anticipate the tremendous increases in agricultural productivity that were around the corner, however, and so he believed that this crisis would occur very soon, not in a couple of hundred years.

In recent times, it was conjectured that most countries would pass through a “demographic transition,” from high birth rates and high mortality rates to low birth rates and low mortality rates. Although there are some examples of this, the demographic transition is largely a myth. Birth rates in the US dropped to below-replacement levels many years ago, so that it would be expected that the population size would drop as well. The problem is that the US economy is committed to growth. The decrease in birth rate was more than offset by an increase in the immigration rate, with the result that the US growth rate is comparable to that of many “third world” countries. The US population policy is for continued population growth of about .5% per year, independent of birth rates. Last year, as noted, the US admitted over a million legal immigrants, with the objective of making them citizens. In addition, the US government repeatedly grants “amnesty” to thousands of illegal aliens, and “birthright” citizenship to any child born on US soil, even of an illegal-alien mother.

There are a number of interesting and insightful books on human population. Some of them are listed below (and many others in the bibliography):

1. How Many People Can the Earth Support? by Joel E. Cohen

2. Living within Limits by Garrett Hardin

3. Only One World by Gerard Piel

4. Population Matters by Julian L. Simon.

There are many Internet web sites dealing with human population, including:

World Population Awareness, http://www.overpopulation.org
NumbersUSA: http://www.numbersUSA.com
Negative Population Growth: http://www.npg.org
Zero Population Growth: http://www.zpg.org .

IV. Population Projections

Much of the discussion of human population involves projections of what the population size (of particular countries, groups of countries, or the world) will be in the future, under various assumptions about demographic “parameters” such as fertility rates, mortality rates and net immigration rates. These projections are usually not forecasts or predictions or estimates of future population, since they rarely take into account statistical or sociological factors such as uncertainty in the parameter values, politics, war, natural disasters, or disease. This chapter describes population projections.

There is a human “population problem” because the size of the human population is literally exploding, and explosions do not last for very long. The human population on Earth is now extremely large (six billion) and its industrial activity is wreaking havoc with the natural environment to the point of jeopardizing not only mankind’s existence but that of all other life on the planet.

As part of the analysis of the population problem, projections are often made of what size the human population will be if current demographic trends continue. The term “demographic trends” refers to the expected values of demographic parameters (fertility rates, mortality rates, and net immigration rates) in future years. Many people and organizations have made population projections. The most widely known global population projections are those of the United Nations and the World Bank. These projections show what the size of the human population will be over the next couple of centuries under various assumptions about the demographic parameters.

The UN and World Bank projections vary tremendously, depending mainly on what assumptions are made about future fertility rates. Fertility rates are declining in many, but by no means all, countries. The World Bank projections assume that fertility rates will fall in all countries to “replacement” levels over the next few decades, so that the world population will level off. (The “replacement” fertility level is the fertility level such that each woman has on average just the number of children in her lifetime to replace herself and her mate, allowing for infant and child mortality. It is about 2.1 children per woman in industrialized countries.) Using the World Bank’s fertility assumptions, the world population will be about 8-10 billion people in the year 2050, and about 10-13 billion in the year 2150.

The UN population projections allow for a greater range of variability than do the World Bank projections. The UN projections recognize the fact that fertility rates may not necessarily fall to replacement level for many countries. If this happens, the global population continues to grow. One UN projection even allows for the possibility that fertility rates would fall to below-replacement levels, resulting in a decrease in global human population. Under the UN assumptions about fertility, world population is projected to grow to between 8 and 12 billion in the year 2150, and to between 4 and 28 billion in the year 2150.

Appendix E presents additional information about the UN and World Bank population-projection methodology (including graphical presentations). Both the UN and World Bank projection models are extremely complicated, involving hundreds of parameters. In addition to describing the UN and World Bank models, Appendix E presents a much simpler projection model involving just two parameters.

Population projections are of interest since they show just how large the human population may grow, if nothing happens to change fertility or mortality levels and trends. Since many other factors are involved in determining population size (e.g., war, disease, famine), population projections are highly speculative. They are “conditional” on the specified values of the parameters, and cannot be regarded as reliable estimates of future population sizes.

So what is the inference to be gleaned from the various projections? The analysis presented in Appendix E shows that the population growth rate falls, on average, to about .5% (one half of one percent) for economically successful industrial nations. When fertility rates fall to below-replacement or near-replacement levels, these countries boost immigration, so that population growth continues. In view of this observation, it is reasonable to expect that the average population growth rate will not fall below the .5% level. Under this assumption, the world population will be about 8.5 billion in the year 2050 and about 13.5 billion in the year 2150. Over that period, the world population will continue to increase by about 68 million per year, or just a little less than the current annual increase (of about 80 million per year).

The point is that the behavior of economically successful nations indicates that, on average, population growth will not stop until one or more external factors come into play. For example, the population growth rate in Japan is about zero. It is a successful industrial nation, but its population density is now extremely high. Unlike other successful industrial nations such as the United States, Canada, and Australia that have population densities that are low relative to other countries, Japan is not allowing immigration to swell its population (or destroy its culture, but that is the subject of another chapter). Based on observed data, economically successful developed countries (on average) slow their population growth only when the population density has increased to intolerable levels.

In summary, in view of the population behavior of the world’s nations over many years, it is reasonable to expect human population to continue to grow in the future, by about the same amount each year as it has grown in the past. If current demographic trends continue, the global population will continue to soar, to about 9 billion by the middle of the next century and double its present size by the year 2125. Since the planet is already exhibiting great stress from just six billion human beings of which only a fraction are industrialized, it stretches the imagination to conceive our planet with twice as many people, with an even higher proportion of them industrialized. Environmentalists and ecologists warn of all sorts of impending disasters as mankind destroys much of nature and presses resource limits (e.g., fresh water, agricultural land, the seas) to the limit. Population projections from whatever source – the UN, the World Bank, or the two-parameter projection model presented in Appendix E – show very clearly that the “population problem” is worsening, and that we are headed for more trouble than we are already in.

V. Carrying Capacity Estimates

The population projections discussed in the preceding chapter are of rather limited value, since they do not address the crucial issue of what the future values of the model parameters are likely to be. They do not take into account resource constraints, such as the availability of agricultural land and fresh water, or the effects of pollution, that may curtail population growth long before it increases much more. This is true both for the exquisitely complex UN and World Bank models and for the simple two-parameter model of Appendix E. The projections show that if demographic trends continue the global population may reach nine billion or twelve billion or even twenty billion people by the end of the next century, but they do not address the issue of whether those levels of human population are reasonable, in light of the planet’s size and resources.

In view of the terrible problems mankind is causing with a population of six billion (of whom relatively few are industrialized), it is of course reasonable to address the issue of whether the planet can support nine or twelve or twenty billion people, or a higher level of industrialization. This brings us to the subject of “carrying capacity.” The (human) carrying capacity of Earth is an estimate of the maximum number of human beings the planet can continue to support indefinitely. Consideration may also be given to quality of life, in which the issue is how many people at what standard of living. This chapter discusses carrying capacity.

The Earth can support several million human beings at a hunter-gatherer level of existence for millions of years – that is known from history. (See Joel E. Cohen, How Many People Can the Earth Support for discussion of human population history.) Similarly, from history it is known that it could support a couple of hundred million human beings at a non-industrial agricultural level, for several thousand years. The environmental cost of that activity was, of course, high. Mankind may have destroyed a number of animal species even as a hunter-gatherer (i.e., possibly the large mammals at the end of the last ice age), and many local plant species may have been destroyed as forests were replaced by monocultural agricultural fields.

Species destruction is not a primary concern of carrying capacity estimates. It is already known that mankind has destroyed many species, and will continue to do so if it continues to occupy the planet in large numbers. The central issue of carrying capacity estimation is whether the human species will survive, and how large the human population can be, regardless of what happens to other species. For example, if it can be credibly demonstrated that the global warming caused by six billion human beings (of which a billion are industrialized) will ultimately destroy so many species that ecological collapse ensues, then the carrying capacity is less than this. If, on the other hand, it can be demonstrated that at this level of population a sufficient balance of nature can be retained to support agriculture, then the carrying capacity is at least this size, even though mankind may ultimately destroy virtually all large wild mammals and birds.

The key issues to address in carrying capacity estimates, then, are how many people may be supported indefinitely at what level of living? An incidental item of interest is, with what cost to nature (e.g., with the survival of other large mammals as well).

In addition to consideration of the maximal stress that human beings may place on the planet’s ecology without catastrophic results, carrying capacity estimation also address the issue of limitations on human population size imposed by planetary resource constraints, such as fresh water and energy.

Although population projections receive more attention than carrying capacity estimates, interest in the latter topic is growing. Some major organizations/ books/articles on the subject are:

1. Carrying Capacity Network, Washington, DC (see Internet web site http://www.carryingcapacity.org)

2. Joel E. Cohen, How Many People Can the Earth Support?

3. David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel, eds., Food, Energy, and Society

4. “Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population,” in Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 15, No. 5, May 1994, by David Pimentel, Rebecca Harman, Matthew Pacenza, Jason Pecarsky, and Marcia Pimentel.

5. Optimum Population Trust (OPT), David Willey, Pres., Manchester, England

6. Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2

In simple terms, the general approach to determining Earth’s human carrying capacity is to specify the resource requirements per person for a particular lifestyle, to estimate the total planetary availability of those resources, and then to calculate the maximum number of persons simply by dividing the per-person requirements into the total available resource. For example, it has been estimated that on average each hectare of land on the planet can support about two people, at a minimal level of food and energy consumption. Since the planet has about 12.5 billion hectares of habitable (nondesert, non-Antarctic) land, it may then be estimated that the Earth can support approximately 20 billion people. Of course, it is possible that using all of the planet’s land area for human use might be so destructive to the environment that this level would not be possible. Since no one really knows how severely the planet’s ecology can be stressed by human industrial activity without catastrophic results, this carrying capacity estimate is rather fanciful.

David and Marcia Pimentel and their colleagues have produced much useful research on the subject of human carrying capacity. Their book, Food, Energy, and Society, is a superb resource on this subject. A good summary of their work is presented in the paper, “Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population” (David Pimentel, Rebecca Harman, Matthew Pacenza, Jason, Pecarsky, and Marcia Pimentel, Population and Environment, Vol. 15, No. 5, May 1994). They estimate that Earth may be able to support about 10-15 billion people living in poverty and malnourishment, or about one to two billion people at a good standard of living, for quite some time.

David Willey of The Optimum Population Trust presents a good summary of carrying capacity estimates in his paper, “Optimum Population for Europe” (paper presented at the International Workshop on Population and Environment, Rome, October 28^th and 29^th, 1996). He discusses three capacity estimates: the minimum population, the maximum population, and the optimum population. The minimum population is the smallest number of human beings required to achieve a high standard of living for everyone. The maximum population is the same as the carrying capacity. The optimum population (or, in US English, the optimal population) is the maximum number of human beings that can be supported indefinitely at a high standard of living, taking into account a variety of other considerations about quality of life. The optimum population lies between the minimum and maximum populations, but is generally close to the minimum.

Willey’s estimate of the minimum population is about half a billion. His estimate for the maximum population is the same as Pimentel’s, i.e., 1-2 billion. Willey calculates the optimum population for a number of different countries, but not for the world.

Julian Simon and other economists argue that the world can easily support even more people than it currently does, at a good level of living. Their arguments are vacuous, in view of the fact that the number of desperately poor people in the world has risen dramatically in the past half-century, despite Herculean efforts by the World Bank, UN and other development agencies to accomplish otherwise.

Economist Lyndon LaRouche (candidate for the 1988 US presidential race) argued strongly for a substantially higher global human population than presently exists. In his book, There Are No Limits to Growth, he states that “our planet could sustain a population of tens of billions of persons, and at an average standard of living higher than that for the United States during the early 1970s.” In the article, “The World Needs 10 Billion People,” Steven Bardwell argued that “a nuclear-powered, high-technology human civilization that is capable of colonizing the solar system cannot function with fewer than 10 billion of us” (Fusion, September 1981). He observed that as population increases, the division of labor allows for more efficient use of human resources and hence greater productivity.

The fact that physical scientists estimate that the world is losing 50-150 species or more per day because of human activities such as deforestation, pollution, pesticides, and urbanization is of little or no concern to economists such as Simon and LaRouche. They routinely pooh-pooh such observations about human-caused destruction of the world environment and ecosystem as erroneous, unfounded, overblown, or of no consequence. That we may all be as crowded as the people of Japan, or Singapore, or Hong Kong, and live in a world devoid of tigers, pandas, eagles, and whales is of no significance, as long as economic productivity increases!

VI. Planetary Forecasts

The preceding chapters have described projections of global population if current trends continue, and estimation of the minimum and maximum populations that the planet may support at various standards of living. Although these projections and estimates provide an indication about what may happen or is potentially achievable, they are not forecasts about what the future size of the human population is likely to be. This chapter discusses forecasts (estimates, predictions) of the future size of the human population.

Forecasts are relevant to the population problem because they address the issue of what the future is likely to be. Population projections are simply unconditional extrapolations of what the population size will be, ignoring all other factors such as planetary resource constraints (land, water, energy). Carrying capacity estimates take resource constraints into account, but they do not address the issue of what population sizes are most likely. Projections and carrying capacity estimates are of interest, but they are of limited scope and value. Forecasts take into account both of these, and all other factors (e.g., political, religious, ethical, sociological, ecological) as well.

Demographers are reluctant to make forecasts about future population sizes because of the large number of variables that affect population size, and the tremendous uncertainty about their behavior. These variables include disease, natural catastrophe, famine, ecological collapse, and politics (including war). In view of the fact that the world’s political leaders pay attention to economists but not to ecologists, it is rather obvious that the human population will simply continue to increase, and that economic activity will increase to an even greater extent (as poor countries industrialize), until some sort of catastrophe imposes a halt. While it may be possible to make forecasts of demographic processes under stable political and economic conditions, it is very difficult to make forecasts involving “shock” type events, such as the outbreak of nuclear war or ecological collapse.

Virtually all “forecasts” about the future human population size are “conditional,” such as, “If mankind continues to destroy the environment, human population itself will collapse;” or “If mankind continues to flood the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the planet may warm and much life will be destroyed;” or “If mankind continues to destroy tropical rain forests, a substantial proportion of all species will be destroyed.” The chilling but apparent fact is, however, that virtually nothing of substance is being done to reduce economic activity on the planet to reduce the risk of this catastrophe. A few halfhearted actions have been taken to slow the destruction, but these actions merely delay the day of reckoning, they do not avoid it.

We are presently in the greatest mass species extinction since the time of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, and it is being caused by human economic activity. Yet where are the calls for reduced economic activity? All nations are committed, quite the opposite, to increased economic growth. The human species is racing headlong to disaster, just as lemmings to the sea, apparently totally unwilling or unable to do anything about it. It is drunk on the fruits of economic activity, and powerless to turn away from this disastrous course. The situation has worsened steadily and obviously for the past four hundred years, and the pace of environmental destruction is now “warp speed.”

The people who monitor the environment and ecology have good data supporting the assertion that massive industrial activity is making substantial changes to the planet, destroying many species, and jeopardizing our very existence. And the people who construct optimal population estimates have reasonable arguments that the planet may well be able to support one billion human beings at a reasonable standard of living. Despite both of these situations, the status quo is “full speed ahead” to the maximum population possible, regardless of the consequences.

There are reasons why the human population will continue until its growth is halted by external forces, and they will be discussed in later chapters.

I have a forecast, and it is not conditional. My prediction is that the human population will be on the order of a few tens of millions, and no more than a few hundred million, within just a few years. This book will explain why.

VII. The Relationship of Population and Quality of Life to Energy Consumption

The quality of life for human beings varies tremendously over the planet. There are rich countries where most of the population enjoy a high standard of living, and poor countries in which most of the population live in extreme poverty. In general, the standard of living of a country is directly related to the amount of energy used by the citizens. This chapter describes the relationship of human quality of life to energy consumption.

Human population increased dramatically, from 2-20 million to hundreds of millions, with the advent of agriculture. By about the year 1500, however, limited availability of wood for energy and construction material was imposing a definite constraint on additional population growth, particularly in Europe. As mentioned earlier, about this time mankind started making use of coal as a source of energy. Technical innovations such as the development of improved steam engines led to an increased ability both to access coal and to utilize it. The combination of technological development and availability of large amounts of coal as a source of energy enabled significant population growth to occur. Since about 1650, the global human population has exhibited consistent growth, with a recent growth rate of about 1.4% per year.

The current explosive growth in the human population has been made possible by the availability of a large amount of “cheap” energy. Some people mistakenly believe that the current large population and high standard of living (for some people) is due to technology. Technology without energy is useless. On the other hand, energy without technology is also useless (for industrial applications, not for natural biological processes). To use energy it is necessary to have an energy source (e.g., the sun, uranium) and the technology to harness it. The human population will continue to grow as long as cheap energy is abundantly available. When fossil fuels run out and cheap energy is no longer available, the human population will decline markedly. All the technology in the world is of no avail (for industrial activity) without a source of energy.

The availability of large amounts of energy is responsible not only for the explosive growth in the human population, but for virtually every material, social, and economic benefit of human society. Appendix F presents a number of graphs that show the relationship of a variety of social and economic indicators to commercial energy use. These graphs show that, on average, the citizens of a country enjoy a high quality of life (e.g., high life expectancy, low infant mortality, high literacy rates) when the per capita commercial energy consumption exceeds 2,500 kilograms of oil equivalent (koe). As the energy consumption falls below that level, the quality of life falls accordingly. The level 2,500 koe is the minimal energy level required for a country to be able to provide a good standard of living for its citizens.

The main implication of this observation is that the provision of a minimum of 2,500 koe per capita per annum to all human inhabitants of Earth will require either a dramatic increase in the amount of energy available, or a dramatic decrease in the human population size. The following paragraphs show some of the calculations underlying the situation.

The current commercial energy consumption of all countries in the world is about 8,000 megatons (million tons) of oil equivalent (International Energy Agency, Energy Statistics and Balances of Non-OECD Countries, 1993-1994, p. 61). This means that at current production levels, the average energy consumption per person worldwide is 6 billion people divided by 8 billion tons of oil equivalent, or about 1.333 tons of oil equivalent (toe) = 1,333 koe (the “official” figure for 1995 is 1,474 koe, according to World Development Report 1998/99). For each of the world’s current six billion people to have access to 2,500 kilograms (2.5 tons) of oil equivalent annually would require a total production of 15 gigatons (billion tons) of oil equivalent (6 billion people x 2.5 toe per person). That is about double current production. When the world population reaches nine or twelve billion, the amount required will be 22.5 gigatons or 30 gigatons, respectively, or three or four times current production.

When compared to the energy that will be available from current solar sources, the comparisons are even starker. Pimentel et al. estimate that a maximum of 200 quads (quadrillion BTU, where “quadrillion” means one million million) of energy might be available for human use from solar sources, or about five billion tons of oil equivalent (toe). This is about five gigatons of oil equivalent (Gtoe). (See Appendix B for factors for converting from BTUs to other energy units.) That is, the amount of energy that would be required to provide twelve billion people with 2.5 toe (i.e., 30 Gtoe) is about six times that available from solar energy (i.e., 5 Gtoe).

What does this mean? Well, China and India intend to raise the standard of living for their two billion people to a level comparable to the rest of the world. At a level of 2.5 tons of oil equivalent (toe) per person, that will require 5 billion toe of energy, or all of that available from solar energy. This means that, when the oil, gas and coal run out, China and India will require the entire solar energy budget for the planet, just for their people alone. This means either that there will be an awful lot of nuclear power being used, or the rest of us will just have to go!

And the problem is not just China and India. Figures 26-28 of Appendix F summarize the distribution of commercial energy use for the countries of the world. These figures show that the vast majority of countries (about 55%) have per capita commercial energy consumptions of 1,000 koe or less, and that only 25% have per capita energy consumptions of 2,500 koe or more. In other words, in the world of today, relatively few countries have per capita energy use levels that enable a high standard of living. Most of these countries have no access to nuclear power, and it is unlikely that they ever will. When oil, gas, and coal run out, there are going to be a lot of very unhappy people around.

VIII. Energy Sources

The previous chapter discussed the strong relationship of human welfare to energy consumption. This chapter describes sources of energy. It summarizes current sources and prospects for the future.

Fossil Fuels

The major source of energy for mankind at the present time is fossil fuel. Starting about 1500, mankind started using coal. In the 1800s, oil joined coal as a source of energy, and in the late twentieth century natural gas is also being used in large quantities.

The following table shows world commercial energy consumption and proven commercial energy reserves for various types of fuel, in petajoules, for 1991 (source: World Resources 1994-95, pp. 166-167; 1 petajoule = 10¹⁵ joules = 947.8 x 10⁹ BTU).

Fuel Type Production Consumption

Liquid 132,992 119,178

Gas 76,275 76,315

Solid 93,689 93,947

Nuclear 22,669 22,669

Hydro 9,311 9,311

Total 334,890 321,430

The following table (same data source) shows the proven commercial energy reserves for 1990, and ratio, R/P, of reserves to production, which is an estimate of the number of years of production remaining:

Fuel Type Reserves R/P

Hard Coal 19,891,141

Soft Coal 4,582,845

All Coal 24,473,986 209

Oil 5,639,794 45

Natural Gas 5,004,802 52

Total 34,578,702

These tables show that even at current rates of production, it is projected that oil and gas reserves will be exhausted in the next 50 years, and coal reserves within about 200 years. People argue about just exactly what the true size of the reserves is, but the point is that before very long industrialized man will have exhausted the fossil fuels. These projections are somewhat conjectural, since the burning of all of the oil, gas, and coal reserves, accompanied by the burning of much of the world’s forests, would add such a large amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that some sort of major climatic change would be expected to occur before exhaustion of the reserves.

The planet’s oil reserves are about half used up. The “bell-shaped” production curve of the planet’s coal and petroleum ages was made famous in 1960 by M. King Hubbert, principal fuels geologist of the US Geological Survey. (See Gerard Piel, Only One World, p. 176 for an illustration of Hubbert’s curves / Hubbert’s cycles.)

Although there is a considerable amount of coal on the planet, it is distributed very unevenly. The following table shows the reserves for the sixteen countries having the largest recoverable, according to the World Energy Council (WEC) and British Petroleum (BP) (source: The Wiley Encyclopedia of Energy and the Environment, vol. 1, p. 379; WEC figure shown unless otherwise indicated):

Country Total Recoverable Coal (million metric tons)

China 730,505 (WEC) – 166,125 (BP)

United States 240,920

USSR 239,020(BP) - 40,936(WEC)

Australia 90,916

Germany 80,047

India 62,531

South Africa 55,318

Poland 40,390

Yugoslavia (former) 16,565

Colombia 9,663

Turkey 6,102

Czechoslovakia (former) 5,369

Hungary 4,460

Bulgaria 3,729

Botswana 3,499

Indonesia 2,999

World 1,662,930

The top three countries possess almost 70% of the recoverable coal reserves (using the WEC figures).

The point to the preceding table is that, although there may be sufficient coal to last for about 200 years at current production rates, most of it is in just three countries. Much of the current oil and gas supply is in low-population countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that cannot possibly use all of the production for themselves. They are hence quite willing, indeed eager, to sell it to other countries. When oil and gas are gone, and only coal remains, and the few (large-population) countries that possess it need all of it for their own populations, it will be interesting to see how much is offered for sale to other countries.

Other Sources of Energy

There are a number of good sources on energy information and data. Two of the best are:

1. Food, Energy, and Society, by David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel, eds.

2. Energy for Tomorrow’s World, by the World Energy Council.

Pimentel et al. provide a summary of solar energy resources in the article, “Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population.”

Other useful sources of energy information and data include the following.

3. Survey of Energy Resources 1995, World Energy Council

4. International Energy Outlook 1998 with Projections Through 2020, Energy Information Administration

5. International Energy Annual 1996, Energy Information Administration

6. Annual Energy Review 1997, Energy Information Administration (historical statistics)

7. World Energy Outlook 1996 Edition, International Energy Agency (OECD)

8. Global Energy: The Changing Outlook, International Energy Agency

9. Energy Statistics of OECD Countries, 1993-94, OECD

10. Energy Balances of OECD Countries, 1993-1994, OECD

11. Energy Statistics and Balances of Non-OECD Countries, 1993-1994, OECD

12. Energy Statistics Yearbook 1994, UN

13. The Wiley Encyclopedia of Energy and the Environment, vols. 1 and 2, by Attilio Bisio and Sharon Boots

14. The Prize, by Daniel Yergin (also a PBS television series)

15. World Resources 1994-95, by World Resources Institute (has more tables on energy than later editions)

16. Cool Energy, by Michael Brower

17. Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security, by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins

Much energy data is available for free on the Internet at the Energy Information Administration’s web site, http://www.eia.doe.gov. The best Internet web site on energy, with much discussion of the relationship of human population size to the availability of fossil fuel, is Jay Hanson's web site, http://www.dieoff.com. That web site includes copies of many interesting articles, including those by David and Marcia Pimentel.

In the article, “Solar Energy and Other ‘Alternative’ Energy Sources,” in The Resourceful Earth by Julian Simon and Herman Kahn, eds., Petr Beckmann (author of A History of Pi) describes the difficulties in making use of solar energy. He notes that the total insolation (yes, the word is inSOLation) of the globe (solar energy reaching Earth) is 178,000 terawatts, or 4,500 times mankind’s present rate of energy consumption. The big problem is that the energy is very dilute – an average of about one kilowatt per square meter. When concentrated by nature, as in fossil fuels or wind or in rainfall (that feeds hydroelectric dams), solar energy is “high-grade.” Otherwise, it is a very inefficient source of energy, since tremendous losses are involved in transforming it to high-grade energy (such as electricity or liquid fuel).

The Energy Resources Advisory Board of the US Department of Energy (Biomass Energy 1981) estimates that only .1% of the total solar energy reaching the Earth can be harvested as biomass in temperate and tropical regions.

Taking into account nighttime and clouds, the power density figure of 1kW/m² drops to about 100 W/m² in moderate latitudes. The losses involved in converting this low-grade, dilute energy to high-grade concentrated energy range from .7 for heat collectors (e.g., solar hot-water heaters) to .00008 for biomass. The end result is that although the total amount of solar energy striking the planet is very great, after transforming to high-grade energy it can produce only a fraction of man’s current total energy consumption.

As noted by Pimentel et al., mankind is currently utilizing about half of all of the solar energy captured by plant photosynthesis, and even this is not sufficient to cover its food, forest products, and energy consumption. Worldwide, only about one-sixth of man’s total energy use is from solar sources (hydropower, biomass), and about five-sixths is from fossil fuels. As fossil fuels deplete over the next century, mankind will have to look to other sources of energy. The major alternative sources are nuclear power and solar power.

Renewable solar power includes a wide variety of technologies, including solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind, hydropower, and biomass. Pimentel et al. estimate that worldwide solar energy could be developed to produce about 200 quads (1 quad = 1 quadrillion BTUs) of energy per year on a sustainable basis. This is much less than the 369 quads of energy currently being consumed each year.

Not all forms of energy are equivalent, from the viewpoint of usefulness. Solar heat collected to heat residential water is “low-grade”, unconcentrated energy that is useless for running motors or powering electric arc welders. The electrical power generated from the water rushing through a large hydroelectric dam is “high-grade,” concentrated energy that can be used to generate high-voltage electricity to perform a wide range of industrial functions.

As noted, much solar energy is low-grade energy (e.g., heat, not electricity). Furthermore, many solar energy devices have an “energy yield” of less than one, i.e., they require more energy to produce than they ever generate. Moreover, they often produce only low-grade energy, while the energy required to produce them is high grade (e.g., a solar water heater). While it may make economic sense to produce such devices when fossil fuels are available at very low cost (e.g., to produce power for special applications such as solar-powered calculators or space satellites), they will never be used to generate power on a large scale since they generate less energy over their lifetimes than is used to make them. When was the last time you saw a factory totally powered by solar cells that was producing solar cells? Never. And you never will. Most solar energy devices, except for hydroelectric power, wind, and biomass, are economically feasible only when essentially “free” high-grade energy is available for their production, in the form of fossil fuels.

Clearly, when fossil fuels run out, mankind will be forced either to reduce its standard of living dramatically, or reduce its total population size dramatically, or turn to sources of energy other than solar.

It is also important to recognize that each time energy is converted from one form to another, energy is lost in the form of wasted heat. To get the most out of the sun’s energy, it is important to avoid energy conversions. For example, it is much more efficient to use a windmill directly to pump water (as in remote ranches in the western US) than to use the windmill to drive an electric generator to generate electricity that is then stored in an electric storage battery, and then used to drive an electric motor to pump the water. Or, it is much more efficient to use heat direct from the sun’s rays to heat water, than to harvest biomass, ferment it to produce alcohol, and then either burn the alcohol or use it to generate electricity which is in turn used to power electric heaters. The 200 quads of energy mentioned earlier is a “mix” of low-grade and high-grade energy (e.g., some from direct heating, some from biomass, some from hydroelectric, some from wind). It is not at all the equivalent of 200 quads of oil or 200 quads of electrical energy.

Nonsolar sources of renewable energy include tides (lunar energy), geothermal (from the internal heat of the Earth), and nuclear energy (from uranium). Tides and geothermal can produce only limited amounts of energy in a few locations. And that brings us to nuclear energy.

Nuclear Energy

There are two basic types of nuclear energy: fusion and fission. Today’s nuclear reactors are all fission reactors, i.e., they generate energy by splitting atoms. Fusion nuclear energy is generated by joining together, or fusing, hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. When this fusion takes place, some matter is converted to energy, in accordance with Einstein’s famous e=mc² equation. Fusion energy is the type of energy produced by the sun. The sun is, in effect, simply a large helium factory. The problem with fusion is that it is extremely difficult to start and maintain a fusion reaction. Although the technical feasibility of producing a fusion reaction has been established, the goal of maintaining a fusion reaction for a long time and developing a commercial fusion reactor has remained elusive. Despite the expenditure of billions of dollars and decades of time, it is not clear that a commercial fusion reactor will ever be developed.

Even if it is, fusion reactors are problematic. First, they are very inefficient. They consume a great deal of energy in order to produce just a little more than that consumed. They generate large amounts of heat, which is disposed into the aquatic environment. Finally, the fusion reaction eventually makes the entire fusion reactor radioactive, resulting in a massive and never-ending environmental problem of radioactive waste disposal.

In view of the extremely serious drawbacks of nuclear fusion, and the failure to develop it despite massive investment, it would be folly to count on nuclear fusion as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Unlike fusion, fission nuclear energy has been used commercially for decades to generate electricity. Fission nuclear energy, however, is also extremely problematic. First, it generates large amounts of radioactive waste. Fission reactors work by splitting uranium atoms into other atoms. Just as with fusion, some matter is converted to energy in this process, resulting in the production of large amounts of energy. Unfortunately, the atoms produced by the fission process are highly radioactive. No solution to the problem of disposing of the radioactive waste from nuclear fission has ever been found. There are now large amounts of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors stored in temporary storage facilities around the world. These waste products require extremely long times, e.g., tens of thousands of years, to deteriorate into harmless products.

Unless a solution is found to the problem of disposing of nuclear waste, continued use of fission is causing an environmental disaster of large proportions. In fact, because the cost of eliminating the radioactive waste (or storing it for thousands of years) is not known, it is not known whether nuclear fission has an energy yield of greater than one. It may well be the case that the current generation is imposing on future generations an energy cost (for storage of radioactive waste from nuclear fission) that far exceeds the amount of energy that we are obtaining from nuclear fission. Mankind’s current generation has clearly discounted the cost to future generations to essentially zero, or it would not use nuclear fission until a method was found for eliminating the radioactive waste.

Of course, this would not be the first time that a human generation has totally disregarded the welfare of future generations. The present generation of human beings is in the process of depleting all of the world’s natural gas and oil, and much of its coal. These fuels are obviously of high value and are irreplaceable – once they are gone they are gone forever. The present generation does not care a whit about the fact that it is denying them to all future generations, forever. The same is true of species that it exterminates. They are gone forever.

The current generation of human beings is in the process of making the planet totally uninhabitable for all future generations. The industrialized human species – economic man – is morally bankrupt. It is ravaging the planet, consuming all of its wealth as rapidly as it can, all in the interest of making a fast buck, regardless of the consequences to other species or even later generations of its own. It is a cancer on the planet, devouring its bounty and beauty, destroying an exquisite balance of nature that has lasted for eons, and leaving in its wake a ravaged planet infected with radioactive and toxic waste, polluted lakes, rivers, and seas, decimated forests, extinguished species, and a poisoned atmosphere.

Another problem associated with nuclear energy is that it produces prodigious amounts of waste heat, which is disposed of in our aquatic systems (rivers and lakes). It is estimated (Pimentel et al.) that a fifteen-fold increase in the number of nuclear power plants in the US would increase the temperature of our aquatic ecosystems by 10 degrees Celsius, with dire consequences for these systems.

The third major problem associated with fission nuclear power is that its long-term use produces large amounts of plutonium, which can be used for making nuclear bombs. This point warrants some discussion. (See The Control of Nuclear Power by David Collingridge for more details.) The two main types of fission reactors are the thermal, or “once-through” reactor, and the fast breeder reactor. We shall first describe the thermal reactor.

The thermal reactor derives its energy from fission of the U235 isotope of uranium. Natural (mined and extracted) uranium consists of .7% U235, which is fissionable, and 99.3% U238, which is not. For use in nuclear reactors, the uranium is “enriched,” i.e., it is processed (concentrated) so that it contains 2-3% U235 and 97-98% U238. When the reactor operates, the fissionable U235 decays into lighter atoms. Some of the neutrons produced by the decaying U235 are absorbed by other U235, causing them to split, thereby producing heat (to run steam electricity generators) and more neutrons (to continue the nuclear chain reaction). In addition, some of the neutrons are absorbed by the U238 to produce the Pu239 isotope of plutonium.

As the reactor operates, the U235 decays and forms other products that interfere with the nuclear reaction. It is hence necessary to stop operation of the reactor before all of the U235 is used up. The spent fuel may be removed and discarded (i.e., stored, since it is highly radioactive), or it may be reprocessed back to 2-3% concentration of U235. Whether the spent fuel is discarded (with some U235 still in it) or reprocessed is a matter of economics. For some reactors reprocessing has been economically worthwhile, whereas for others it has not.

The two main waste products of the thermal reactor are “depleted uranium,” U238, and plutonium Pu239. Since thermal reactors convert U235 to U238, after some time all of the available U235 is used up. With current extraction technology, the world’s reserves of uranium are sufficient to provide about 100 years of nuclear power using thermal reactors. Clearly, the thermal reactor is not the solution to the industrial world’s energy “problem.”

The process of enriching uranium produces very large amounts of depleted uranium (U238), and the thermal reaction produces a certain amount of plutonium Pu239. By themselves, these waste products are useless. There is a way, however, that they can be combined with U235 to produce massive amounts of energy. That process is called the fast breeder reactor.

The fast breeder reactor works as follows. First, it is noted that in the thermal reaction it is necessary to slow down the neutrons that are released from decaying U235, in order for them to be absorbed by other U235 atoms (and continue the reaction by causing them in turn to split). The fast neutrons are slowed down by material (such as water or graphite) in the reactor; this material is called a “moderator.” The fast breeder reactor does not need a moderator to slow down the neutrons produced by the decaying U235, hence the use of the descriptor “fast.” In the fast breeder reactor, some of the fast neutrons are absorbed by atoms of plutonium. This causes them to split, producing heat (for generation of electricity) and more neutrons (to continue the nuclear chain reaction). In addition, some of the neutrons are absorbed by the depleted uranium, U238, and it is converted to plutonium, Pu239. This created plutonium can in turn be used to fuel other reactors, hence the name “breeder” reactor. (Note that in order to use the created plutonium it is necessary to recycle the spent fuel and separate the plutonium.)

Hence by using fast breeder reactors the large amounts of depleted uranium produced by the enrichment process can be converted into plutonium. Using fast breeder reactors, there is sufficient uranium to produce power for hundreds of thousands of years. As David Collingridge noted, “the breeder is inevitable.” It is obvious from man’s behavior that he has no intention of living on a “solar energy budget” that can support only a small fraction of the world’s current population. As fossil fuels deplete in the next century, it is not imaginable that mankind will choose to use up the available U235 in “once-through” thermal reactors. Soon, mankind will begin to use breeder reactors, big time.

So what’s the hitch? The hitch is that whereas it is very difficult and costly to use the fuel of a thermal reactor to make a nuclear bomb, it is relatively easy to make a nuclear bomb from plutonium. To make a nuclear bomb from thermal reactor fuel requires that the fuel be reprocessed into highly enriched uranium (e.g., 20% U235), and the enrichment process is costly. The fuel of a breeder reactor – plutonium – can be used directly to make a nuclear bomb. And once the world moves to using fast breeder reactors on a large scale, there will be breeder reactors everywhere. That is, plutonium will be everywhere. And that means that everywhere there is power, there is a ready supply of plutonium for nuclear bombs.

Some Information about Nuclear Bombs

The publication, The Amount of Plutonium and Highly-Enriched Uranium Needed for Pure Fission Nuclear Weapons, by Thomas B. Cochran and Christopher E. Paine (Natural Resources Defense Council, 1995), provides a table showing the amount of plutonium required to make nuclear bombs of various yields (1-20 kilotons), under various levels of technology. At a low-technology level, from 3 to 6 kg of plutonium is required (3 kg for a 1 kt bomb, 4 kg for a 5 kt bomb, 5 kg for a 10 kt bomb, and 6 kg for a 20 kt bomb). Physically, these are very small quantities – about the size of a baseball.

It is noted that while plutonium is useful for breeder reactors (or nuclear weapons), it extremely radioactive and poisonous. Once breeder reactors are in widespread use, large quantities of plutonium will be produced and be distributed over the globe (at all breeder reactors and reprocessing plants), representing a serious health hazard.

As discussed above, plutonium can be used to make nuclear bombs. Some additional remarks will be made about the kind of nuclear bomb that can be made from a small amount of plutonium. Just as there are two types of nuclear reactors – fusion reactors and fission reactors – there are two types of nuclear bombs: fission bombs, which are often called atomic bombs or atom bombs or A-bombs; and fusion bombs, which are often called thermonuclear bombs, or hydrogen bombs, or H-bombs. Atomic bombs are “small.” They are the type of bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in the second world war; they produce an energy release on the order of 1-20 kilotons (thousand tons) of TNT. H-bombs, on the other hand, can produce massive amounts of energy, e.g., the equivalent of 50 or 100 megatons (million tons) of TNT.

While the construction of an H-bomb is a complex, difficult process, the construction of an atomic bomb is relatively simple. An atomic bomb works by taking two or more lumps of radioactive material and smashing them together into a larger lump whose size and density exceeds what is called a “critical mass.” The element continues to exist at densities below the critical mass, undergoing a slow process of “natural” radioactive decay. At densities above the critical mass, however, an “uncontrolled chain reaction” occurs. The products and energy released by some decaying atoms cause other nearby atoms also to decay, and those in turn cause others to decay. The result is the immediate destruction of a large number of atoms, and the release of a massive amount of energy. The release of this massive amount of energy instantly vaporizes the radioactive material, the bomb casing, and anything else nearby (e.g., earth, if the detonation is at or below the Earth’s surface), and the result is an “atomic explosion.”

Although the building of an atomic bomb was a tremendous feat in the early 1940s, it is no longer difficult technology. Any country or organization with access to properly trained engineers can build one. All it needs is some radioactive material. And there’s where breeder reactors become a problem. The fission products of a once-through reactor are not “weapons-grade” products. They cannot easily be used to make an atomic bomb, without reprocessing to “weapons-grade” or “highly-enriched” concentrations (of U235). On the other hand, an atomic bomb can easily be made with about five pounds of plutonium. Such a bomb would be sufficiently small to fit in a suitcase. Although this is a “small” atomic bomb, it is comparable to the ones used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and can certainly destroy a large city.

If the world turns to breeder reactors, it will in essence have hundreds or thousands of plutonium factories around the world. In view of the total inability of mankind to get along, it would just be a matter of time until one group or another assembled a few hundred or a few thousand suitcase bombs and proceeded to blow up all of the major cities of the world.

It has been estimated that the world has “lost track” of about 1,500 kg of plutonium. At 5 kg per bomb (to produce a bomb of the size that destroyed Hiroshima), 1500 kg of plutonium is sufficient to produce 300 low-tech nuclear bombs. And the world has hardly begun to use breeder reactors! (Just this month -- May 1999 -- it was revealed that the US has lost track of another 2,000 kg of plutonium.)

In view of the serious problems associated with nuclear fission, it is not regarded as a feasible long-term alternative to fossil fuels as a source of energy. In summary, it would appear that if mankind is going to survive, it is going to have to learn to live on the annual budget of current solar energy. The only feasible alternative – fission nuclear energy – is tantamount to nuclear annihilation.

In view of the fact that solar energy can produce only about 200 quads of energy a year, the carrying capacity of the planet at different standards of living may be readily calculated. Currently the average per capita consumption of energy in the US is equivalent to about 8,000 kilograms of oil. This is referred to as 8,000 kilograms of oil equivalent (koe) or eight (metric) tons of oil equivalent (toe). This is somewhat more than is used by other developed nations. Assuming the somewhat smaller figure of five toe as a reasonable level of an “industrial” standard of living, the number of people who can be supported by 200 quads of solar energy may be calculated. One quad is equivalent to 25.197 billion koe, and so 200 quads is equivalent to 5,039 billion koe. Dividing five thousand billion koe by 5,000 koe per person, we obtain one billion. So about a billion people can be supported on the Earth’s annual renewable solar energy resources at a high (industrialized-nation) standard of living, assuming that no other resource limit is reached.

In the very poor countries of the world, the per-capita energy consumption is about 200 koe. At that level, 200 quads of usable solar energy would support about 24 billion people in dire poverty, assuming no other resource limit is reached.

The population projections discussed earlier did not take into account energy constraints. In view of energy limitations, a projection to nine billion people at the middle of the next century implies either that most of them will be living in dire poverty, or much use will be made of nuclear energy.

Waste Considerations

Prior to the industrial revolution, the planet’s ecosystem, while changing somewhat in composition because of the agriculturalization of the world, was in balance. That is, all of the waste generated by each species was used as food by other species. That is no longer true today. Industrial activity produces many “synthetic” products that are not assimilable at all by living creatures. The 8,000 koe per year in energy used on average by each person in the US is used to produce a wide variety of toxic and nonbiodegradable products.

Having an adequate energy supply is just half of the problem. The other half of the problem is what to do about the waste. In the natural ecosystem, energy is obtained from the sun each day, and continuously converted by living creatures into waste that is completely consumed by other living creatures. Mankind, however, uses energy to produce waste that cannot be consumed by living creatures. For industrial man to continue to survive, i.e., to be sustainable, it is necessary (although not sufficient) for him to eliminate all of the waste that his industrial activity produces. Present day man does not do this. He simply dumps most of the waste – toxic, radioactive, or other – into the environment. In order for man to survive in the ecosystem as we know it, it must be the case that all of his waste is reprocessed. Otherwise there is no balance of nature. Biological creatures do not have to worry about reprocessing their waste; evolution and the balance of nature have taken care of that. Industrial creatures such as man must worry very much about this, or they will “soil their nest” and make it unlivable. For every joule of energy that is used by man, he must insure that the waste produced by it is reprocessed (completely).

In order for mankind to continue indefinitely with any level of industrial activity, its production of nonbiodegradable or nonrecyclable waste must stop. Either the production of nonbiodegradable items must cease, or energy must be expended to transform the industrial products into biodegradable ones. Virtually all industrial products end up as waste, within a few years. This includes all of our appliances, containers, clothes, furniture, cars, buildings, and infrastructure (roads, bridges, power lines, sewage treatment plants). Transforming nonbiodegradable substances into biodegradable ones requires energy, and usually lots of it. In some cases, nonbiodegradable items can be reprocessed and reused, e.g., used aluminum cans into new aluminum cans. In some cases, highly toxic materials must be burned at high temperatures to break them down. Radioactive materials cannot be destroyed (except in a nuclear reaction).

To date, the approach to industrial waste has largely been to ignore it, i.e., to “sweep it under the rug” by transporting to landfills, or by dumping in rivers, lakes, or oceans. This approach is not sustainable, and in fact cannot continue for very long at all at today’s high rates of industrial activity. At some point sufficient energy must be expended to convert all industrial waste into useful products or biodegradable products. Data are not readily available on how much energy will be required to do this. If it is (optimistically?) assumed that the same amount of energy is required to dispose of industrial products as was expended to create them in the first place, then the amount of energy required per capita doubles. In this case, the planet’s solar energy budget could not support one billion industrial human beings, but only 500 million.

It is quite possible that a significant population of industrial human beings can never be sustained on the planet. Prior to industrial man, all of the plant and animal waste production from the entire solar energy supply was 100% recycled – all of the waste from one species was food for another. Industrial mankind produces waste that is toxic to the ecology, and that is not recycled at all. By relying on energy sources other than solar (such as nuclear), man also generates much more waste than is possible under a “current solar energy budget.” At some industrial activity level, the planet’s ecosystem will simply be unable to reprocess the industrial waste generated by man on a long-term basis. It is quite conceivable that the planet’s ecosystem (as we currently know it) can survive in the long run only as a photosynthetic system on a “current solar energy budget,” without massive input of energy (and toxic waste) from other sources. If this is the case, there is no place for industrial man on the planet at all.

Summary

The message of this chapter is that the large increase in human population over the past 500 years has been made possible by tapping the energy in fossil fuels. When that source of energy disappears in the next century, the human population will either drop right back to the preindustrial levels supported by solar energy (e.g., a few hundred million), or other forms of energy must be found to substitute for fossil fuels. At the present time, fast breeder fission reactors are the only feasible alternative, and they have a serious drawback of producing plutonium, which can readily be used to make atomic bombs.

The basic approach to the energy problem (i.e., the depletion of fossil fuels in a few decades) by the world governments is to ignore it. There is much talk of alternatives to fossil fuels and fission nuclear energy, such as solar energy and fusion energy, but it is just talk. Despite much investment and research, alternative technologies have not been developed. They are in the realm of science fiction or “new age” literature. Isaac Asimov conceived a universe parallel to our own with which energy could be exchanged. Edgar Cayce describes crystal power plants in Atlantis that collected energy from the sun and other sources. Alan F. Alford (Gods of the New Millennium, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1996) describes pyramid-energy sources in the ancient world. These alternatives are not too promising, to say the least!

Clearly, mankind is facing some difficult decisions. Either reduce global population size to a level that is supportable by the annual budget of solar energy, or use nuclear fission to generate energy, thereby producing long-lasting radioactive waste and the material used to produce nuclear bombs. Since no steps are being taken by world governments to accomplish the former (i.e., a human population of size that can be supported by solar energy), it is pretty clear where we are headed: more people and more nuclear energy.

Human population will continue to expand, and mankind will continue to use nuclear energy and generate nuclear waste. Industrial man will not be denied energy, or he will cease to exist. The fact that nuclear reactors generate radioactive waste and waste heat will not deter mankind in the least from using them. But the fact that the most promising type of nuclear reactor – the fast breeder reactor – generates large amounts of plutonium will have a significant impact on man’s future. The availability of large amounts of plutonium significantly increases the likelihood of nuclear war.

IX. The Role of Economics

Previous chapters have alluded to the role of economics in affecting population-related decisions. This chapter discusses this role in further detail. This additional discussion of economics will serve as reference for later chapters.

The dictionary (Merriam Webster) definition of economics is “of, or relating to, or based on the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.” According to this definition, economic activity exists in every society, even the hunter-gatherer society, where decisions are made about who collects the food and how it is shared.

Economic activity became a significant aspect of man’s activity with the advent of agriculture. With agriculture, mankind developed the ability to produce a substantial food surplus, so that a portion of the population could reside in cities and pursue nonagricultural activities. These activities included development of commerce, law, the arts, medicine, science, and industry. The agricultural surplus enabled the support of large armies and thence to the creation of the world’s many civilizations.

A word of warning is noted here. The social and economic implications of depleted energy sources, unsustainable population growth, and nuclear threat may be, for some, uncomfortable to discuss. I will discuss topics like slavery, which has disappeared in today’s high-energy environment but will return in a low-energy environment. I will discuss these subjects frankly, unconstrained by today’s “political correctness.” I discuss them not because of a preconceived bias, but because history and reason point to them, and they are too important to ignore, soften, or lie about. Some readers may be offended by what I have to say, but please hear me out, and consider my arguments. What I am talking about could happen to you!

Economics and Slavery

The agricultural revolution led naturally to human slavery. In a hunter-gatherer mode, it is not practical to keep slaves. Defeated enemies are simply killed. In preindustrial agriculture, however, there is a large demand for slaves for labor, and the social organization exists to maintain slavery as a system. Compare the absence of slavery in the nomadic hunter-gatherer North American Indian tribes to the significant slavery of the agricultural Central and South American Indian tribes.

Slavery did not exist because our forefathers were less ethical or religious than we. On the contrary, they were far more religious than we are. Slavery existed because of a strong demand for energy, and it continued on a global scale until the development of technology and fossil fuels presented an alternative source of energy. Whether slavery exists has nothing to do with religion or ethics. Take away today’s access to energy, and human slavery will return as quickly as it was replaced. Whether slavery thrives is determined by economics, not ethics.

Because of the fascination of American sociologists with the topic, many books have been written about slavery. Some of them are the following:

1. Slavery: A World History, by Milton Meltzer, Da Capo Press, 1993

2. The Making of New World Slavery, by Robin Blackburn, Verso, 1997

3. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, Herbert S. Klein, Oxford University Press, 1986

These books discuss the economic motivation for slavery.

Economics and Population Growth

Economics is a main force underlying population growth. Because of man’s greed, he is constantly striving for more…more of everything. More material possessions, more power, more knowledge, more security, more comfort, better health, longer life, more variety, more freedom. As mentioned earlier, the standard measure of material well-being is the gross domestic product per capita. Recently, a number of other indicators of well-being have received attention, such as the UNDP’s Human Development Index, but these additional indicators are strictly “second string” measures of standard of living. The indicator that matters to the people in charge – politicians and industrialists – is the gross domestic product.

Many people have a serious misconception about the relationship of population size to economic well being. They assume that the finiteness of resources implies that, now that the world is populated everywhere, if the population increases then the standard of living must decrease. This conclusion must hold “in the limit,” since there is obviously some limit to the amount of industrial activity that the planet can support and still continue to function biologically. The fact is, however, that whenever a limitation has been reached on one resource, technological innovation has invariably found a way to overcome that limitation by means of a substitution of a limited resource for a less limited one. While this substitution of resources will not enable human population to grow without limit, it has certainly worked for a long time.

Julian Simon discusses this concept at length in many of his books on the subject (e.g., Population Matters, The Ultimate Resource 2, and The State of Humanity). If copper is in short supply, then fiber optics is invented. If oil runs out then breeder reactors will be used. If salmon are exterminated then bean curd can be used. If black rhinos are exterminated then white rhino horns can be used for Yemeni dagger handles. If white rhinos are exterminated then wood can be used. From an economic perspective, all that matters is market value, cost per unit, and economic output. When one resource is depleted or destroyed, just find a different way of doing things, or do something else. Everything is expendable, everything is replaceable. All that matters is economic output and economic efficiency. Economics über Alles.

Because of technical innovation, the standard of living has improved year after year for many people. There are more wealthy people on the planet than ever before. Many ordinary people in the developed world live in far greater comfort than the kings of previous times. On the other hand, there are now about four billion people on the planet who are living in direst poverty, but that is of little concern to economists. World wide, both the total gross domestic product (GDP) and the gross domestic product per capita continue to increase. (The gross domestic product is the total value of all goods and services produced – money changing hands – in a country in a year. The earnings of multinational operations are attributed to the country in which the goods and services are produced. The gross national product (GNP) was used rather than the GDP until 1991. For the GNP, the earnings of multinational firms are attributed to the country in which the firm is owned.)

The fact is, contrary to what many people believe, increasing the population size (up to a point) does not necessarily lead to a lower standard of living. Because of increased opportunities for specialization, it may actually lead (and often has led) to an increase in the standard of living, as measured by GDP (or GNP).

The people in charge – politicians and industrialists – want to increase both GDP and GDP per capita. A country with twice the economic output per capita as another country having the same population is twice as rich, and probably twice as powerful. A country with twice the population as another country having the same GDP per capita is probably twice as powerful in the world community, and probably has twice as many millionaires. If the US population doubles from 150 million to 300 million, Microsoft can sell twice as many copies of its Windows operating system, and reap twice the profits. If the GDP per capita of the US doubles, the number of households that can afford computers could easily double, and Microsoft sales would double as well. If the world population doubles from six to twelve billion, the world will need twice as many basic necessities such as pots, pans, fans, and air conditioners. This translates into twice as much economic activity, twice as many industrial jobs, twice as much earnings, twice as much profits.

Some time ago Malaysia announced the intention of quadrupling its population from twenty million to eighty million people. As the Bible says, “A large population is a king’s glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined.” (Prov. 14:28). The rationale for this desire is the perception that a Malaysia with four times as many people is four times as wealthy, four times as powerful.

Economics versus Ecology

So what is wrong with this picture? Who is against high standards of living? What is wrong is that the attention of the people in charge (politicians, industrialists) is centered on the promotion of economic growth irrespective of the damage to the planet’s ecology. Millions of species live in the world’s tropical forests. While it is not really known how many species are eliminated for each hectare that is burned, it is obvious that if all of the tropical forests are destroyed, then all of the resident species are gone forever. And that is exactly what is happening.

So long as human population grows and economic activity increases, the material wealth of those in charge will increase, both in absolute and per capita terms. Because of man’s greed, the planet’s political and industrial leaders will never promote a policy of lower population or lower economic activity. Both will continue to increase, and nature will continue to be destroyed. This fact is obvious from all of human history.

Why, one might ask, will the world’s leaders not put a stop, or at least discuss putting a stop, to economic growth, when there is the potential for disaster – not just the loss of many other species, but the very real possibility of the complete destruction of their own nations and the human race? It is not totally clear. One factor is the “discounting in time and space” mentioned earlier: the disaster will probably fall on the next generation, not on ours, and so we do not need to worry about it. I believe that this is an important factor, because of the almost universal response I have gotten from people when I told them the subject of this book. A laugh, and a remark similar to, “Oh, I probably won’t be alive then anyway.”

Another factor is that people are willing to kill for economic benefit, but not for environmental benefits. Countries will go to war, sacrificing the lives of millions, for the prospect of economic gain. And they will go to war to defend themselves from enslavement. Similarly, individuals and groups will commit murder for economic gain. But no one, it appears, it willing to kill to protect other species, or even the next generation of the human species.

General George S. Patton remarked that wars were not won because some poor bastard was willing to die for his country. Instead, he said that wars were won because some poor bastard was willing to make some other poor bastard die for his country! In other words, wars are not won by people being willing to lay down their lives; they must be willing to kill. The relevance of this observation with respect to environment or ecology is that no one is willing to kill to protect them. To be sure, a few brave souls, such as the early Greenpeace activists, were willing to lay their lives on the line to protect whales, by physically placing their rafts in front of whaling boats. And a few dedicated environmentalists have risked their lives attempting to protect giant redwood trees in California or lynx habitat in Colorado. These people are willing to sacrifice their lives for the environment, but not their mortal souls (by killing for the environment).

Why is no one nation or group or individual willing to kill to save the environment? That a nation is unwilling to do so is not unremarkable. First, nations are committed to growth; second, even if a particular nation were not, it would lose the war, since all other nations are committed to growth. But why is no organization or individual willing to kill to save nature? That they would probably be defeated is not the answer, because terrorist groups operate every day in support of other causes (namely, the economic development of a special-interest group), however futile. It’s not because no one believes that the environment is being damaged by human activity – many people do. Part of the answer is no doubt religious. Most people believe that killing another human being would place their mortal souls in jeopardy. They might do it in a fit of passion, or under orders (e.g., police, soldiers, executioners), or in a “holy war.” But few people are willing to do so for other reasons, even if they believe that their actions might save the lives of billions in the future. Killing one other person can sentence you to death and doom your soul to Hell for eternity; allowing all the billions of human beings and other creatures to die in a sweltering greenhouse Earth evidently carries no penalty.

Ultimately, the choice between saving the tigers and not saving the tigers is the choice whether a three-year-old Bangladeshi child lives or dies. And no one, it seems, is willing to sacrifice a single human life, or his own soul, for all of the tigers, all of the rhinos, all of the pandas, or all of the whales in the world.

Until recently, there was one section of Bangladesh that was not heavily overpopulated – the Chittagong Hill Tracts, near Burma. The rest of the country was settled by Bengalis. The Chittagong Hill Tracts were settled by other ethnic (tribal) groups (nonBengali peoples, related to Burmese tribes). So what did the Bangladesh government do? Did it take steps to keep the population density low in the one area that was lower? No way! Instead, it sent in half a million Bengali settlers into the Chittagong Hill Tracts, just as the Chinese did in Tibet. The population of Bangladesh is 120 million people, crammed into a country the size of Wisconsin. The population is growing by a couple of million a year. Did sending the half million Bengalis into the Chittagong Hill Tracts solve anything? No – a few months later the population in the rest of the country was just as high as it was before, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts are now ruined as well. All of this despite the presence of an “environmental impact” section in the country’s five-year development plan.

Mankind’s greed knows no limits; nothing is sacred. Mankind will sacrifice nature in a minute to make a profit. It is easy to understand why a desperately poor father will kill the last wild animal or cut down the last remaining rain forest, to feed his family. But greedy entrepreneurs will do this in a heartbeat, just to make a quick buck. In my previous home of North Carolina, for example, hog production has recently been introduced on a massive industrial scale. Where once were small farmers raising a few hogs, there are now gigantic hog factories, selling hogs to the world. Outside these hog factories are giant cesspools (euphemistically called “lagoons”) filled with hog excrement. Periodically, the lagoons rupture, killing all life in the streams that are choked with this rotting sewage. The stench near these industrial “farms” is overpowering.

Does America need these hog farms? Absolutely not. America’s demand for hogs could easily be filled by the previous low-intensity pig-raising methods. But with hog factories, it is possible to make big profits by selling hogs cheaply around the world. Economic efficiency dictates that since hogs can be raised more cheaply in industrial farms, that’s what should be done. The loss of nature and the stench are just “externalities” that are of no consequence. With industrial agricultural production methods such as these, it may be possible to support a population of one or two billion people in the US, not just a meager 272 million. The fact that the environment is being ruined by the industrial hog farms is of no consequence to the greedy men who will eagerly trade a pastoral North Carolina for stinking hog-excrement lagoons, just to make more money.

I recently returned from a business trip to Botswana. This land is a paradise of wildlife. Unfortunately, the human population is soaring – a population growth rate of 2.05% in 1996. At this rate, the current (1996) population of 1,480,000 will double in just 34 years. Botswana’s fragile ecology cannot take this massive increase in human population. So what is being done? Just as the US, Botswana is plundering its natural resources for export earnings. Its major export commodities are diamonds and beef. Every cow that is raised in Botswana displaces a similar wild creature, such as a kudu, bushbuck, zebra, giraffe, gemsbok, wildebeest, or buffalo. The cattle population is now 2.6 million; many are exported for money. A kudu in the wild is a magnificent sight; it is of no value, however, compared to the money earned by using its habitat to raise beef for export. Botswana, as many other countries, is in the process of selling off its natural assets – it is eating its “seed grain.” But what will happen when all of the diamonds are gone, and all of the coal is gone, and all of the kudus are gone?

Economics and Ethics

The late Ernst Friedrich (“Fritz”) Schumacher understood the nature of economics. He wrote three books, Small Is Beautiful, A Guide for the Perplexed, and Good Work. He pointed out that economics ignores man’s dependence on the natural world, and he described a system of social organization that promotes a humane and sustainable relationship of man to nature. This system, which he referred to as “technology with a human face” (or “economics as if people mattered”) involves the use of low-cost methods and equipment in small-scale systems. He believed that universal prosperity cannot be accepted as the foundation for peace, because, if it is achievable at all, is attainable only by cultivating greed and envy, which destroy happiness and peace. He observed that economies of scale have transformed the world’s beautiful pre-industrial cities into massive slums filled with human misery, crime, alienation, stress, and social breakdown. Increasing city size has led to enormous problems and human degradation.

Schumacher listed four main characteristics of modern industrial society:

1. Its vastly complicated nature

2. Its continuous stimulation of, and reliance on, the deadly sins of greed, envy, and avarice

3. Its destruction of the content and dignity of most forms of work

4. Its authoritarian character, owing to organization in excessively large units.

He criticized the ever-intensified idolatry of getting rich quickly. He cited the unsurpassable ugliness of industrial society – “the mother of the bomb.” He stressed the need to move toward “an harmonious cooperation with nature rather than a warfare against nature; towards the noiseless, low-energy, elegant, and economical solutions normally applied in nature rather than the noisy, high-energy, brutal, wasteful, and clumsy solutions of our present-day sciences.”

Schumacher quoted Ghandi, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed.” He noted that growth has become the keynote of economics all over the world. He quoted Professor Walter Heller, former Chairman of the U. S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers, “I cannot conceive of a successful economy without growth.”

Observing that civilized man has despoiled most of the lands he has occupied for long, he cited the quotation, “civilized man has marched across the face of the Earth and left a desert in his footprints.”

“How did civilized man despoil this favorable environment? He did it mainly by depleting or destroying the natural resources.

Table of Contents

Economics versus Ecology