Population 7 billion a sign of success, say authors
Photo: Flickr user Patrick Haney
Global warming is prompting some environmentalists to reframe their approach on how to help stabilize Earth’s climate.
Ted Nordhaus is co-author of the book, Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. He disagrees with the idea that humans have fallen from nature, that humans’ efforts to control nature are the source of our problems.
Ted Nordhaus: And we suggest that this is just an unscientific view of humanity and nature. We are as natural as anything else on the planet. We are a species, that in fact, has thrived. There are now seven billion of us living on the planet. And more of us than ever live healthy, free lives.
He added that seven billion people on Earth today are a sign of ecological success and not a failure.
Ted Nordhaus: What we mean is that it’s a sign of a very successful species that has succeeded in propagating itself all over the planet in large numbers. There are more than enough resources to go around. There’s more than enough energy to go around if we invent and we innovate and we make the kinds of big, long-term social investments that we need to make, not only here in America but at a global level.
Tell us what you think about human population in the 21st century in the comment section below.
Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility
Two Environmentalists Anger Their Brethren Wired Magazine
Are the greens going astray?
Los Angeles Times
Eco-Rebels
Time Magazine
Stop your sobbing
Salon Magazine
Our thanks to:
Ted Nordhaus
Chairman
Breakthrough Institute
Managing Partner
American Environics
The Breakthrough Institute
Washington, DC
I don’t thing anyone ever said that 7 billion humans meant we as a species were unsuccessful… and I’m sure there are enough resources to go around, but that doesn’t mean we can use them forever or that by using them we won’t damage other aspects of the environment. In nature, it has been seen time and time again that those species who manage to overload their environment inevitably begin falling in numbers in response to the new lack in resources. I think that Nordhaus is merely stating the obvious, anyone who doesn’t think 7 billion humans is a sign of being successful doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a good thing in the long-run.
Malthusian Calvanism plants the fear of a dominating and unnatural species incapable of controlling its own destiny. I think Nordhaus has boldly challenged this consciousness. The last century has given ample evidence of the inertia that a few of the priveleged can bring to bear on species-saving behaviour. Policy is not built to create a viable population of 7 billion but rather to favor a small fraction of the species. Nordhaus may inspire a revolution against the conservative environmentalists but, like Lenin, he may discover how misguided he was.
Dear Zeph and Paul Burn,
I agree with both of you. For the moment, the human species is an astounding success in the way we have been able to dominate the Earth and subjugate its workings to our desires.
However, for Dr. Shellenberger and Dr. Nordhaus to so adamantly express that this endless growth of human consumption, production and propagation activities worldwide can go on much longer, much less forever represents a woefully inadequate and dangerously unrealistic way of viewing the “workings” of the relatively small, evidently frangible, finite world God blesses us to inhabit.
The idea that environmentalists will either “change or die” could be borne of incredible hubris and needs to be examined carefully. At least to me, their words speak to a widely shared and consensually validated, preternatural belief in the power of technology.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
Dear Friends,
Sometimes it looks to me as if some of my brothers and sisters in the current generation of elders are so singlemindedly focused on the accumulation of wealth and power, in feathering their own gigantic nests, frequenting exclusive clubs, flying private jets, sailing yachts and visiting exotic hideaways, that they have forgotten how human life depends upon Earth’s limited resources and frangible ecosystem services for its very existence.
The “powers that be” have evidently failed to understand what it means when we say that the Earth is round, finite and has biophysical limits. One consequence of this pernicious denial of the requirements of practical reality is that the scale and rate of per capita consumption is dissipating natural resources faster than the Earth can restore them for human benefit. So great is per human overconsumption by a minority of people in our time that biodiversity is being extirpated and the environment degraded.
Is the fulfillment of the insatiable wishes of unrestrained consumers a result of unbridled big business interests relentlessly pursuing a course of endless economic expansion, based upon the feckless consumption of the very resources needed for the survival of life as we know it?
When my generation has completed its ‘mission’ of literally consuming a lion’s share of the resources of Earth, I fear our children will look back at us in anger and utter disbelief for so much that we have done and failed to do.
Consider the probability that we elders are leading our children down a primrose path toward the destruction of human civilization or Earth’s ecology or both.
Always,
Steve
“I’m sure there are enough resources to go around, but that doesn’t mean we can use them forever or that by using them we won’t damage other aspects of the environment.”
“When my generation has completed its ‘mission’ of literally consuming a lion’s share of the resources of Earth, I fear our children will look back at us in anger and utter disbelief for so much that we have done and failed to do.”
I offer two simple facts for your consideration in evaluating the claims that mankind is on a path of “unsustainable” development:
1)If the entire population of the earth were moved to the state of Texas in the United States, the resulting population density per square mile would be less than HALF the current population density of the city of Paris, France. Does it seem likely, then, that we are on the verge of running out of living space any time soon?
2)The deepest mines in the world are the TauTona (Western Deep Levels) and Savuka gold mines in the Witwatersrand region of South Africa, which are currently working at depths just over 2 miles. The overwhelming majority of the earth’s mines are less than 1 mile deep. Yet the radius of the earth, i.e. the deepest we can physically mine, is nearly 4000 miles! We have, quite literally, barely scratched the earth’s surface in terms of using its physical resources.
Remember these facts when you hear the prophets of doom urging us to cut back on the production of all the material values needed to sustain human life beyond the level of desperate poverty and privation.
1) Paris is not a field grown with corn. A rural area is needed to feed Paris.
2) 4000 miles. Maybe there is enough gold there. But I doubt if there is enough coal buried at such depth.
Michael Smith:
You’re correct in that the population density would be smaller than that of Paris, but I don’t really think living space is in question, it’s quality of life and resources. We can hold a heck of a lot more people than we already have on this earth, but that doesn’t mean we can feed them, shelter them or give them a decent productive life. That also doesn’t mean it’s good for the environment. And whether you like it or not, when the environment starts to go down hill, we’re in trouble. Also, in regards to your #2, for one I like to say that gold isn’t exactly a vital resource, people can live without it (though I’m sure this society would have a hard time with that) And secondly, I’m pretty sure that oil, coal and other such substances that we’re currently addicted to can only be found within a certain distance of earth’s surface. We may have a huge planet, but resources aren’t found within the whole thing. Really, I think environmentalists are trying to get people to understand that we’re going to run out of resources (and we WILL if we don’t do something) now, before we start heading downhill. Wouldn’t it be nice to cut our dependence on oil while we still have oil to use? Why wait until we run out to figure out something new and implement it? I just don’t see why becoming more sustainable has to be such an issue, don’t you value the finite resources of earth? I’m willing to bet you do, since you’re using a computer right now. Why not try to figure out a way to make those resources last longer?
If, as your story suggests, nearly 7 billion humans from 2 in a century is a sign of ‘success,’ I wonder if the population fall that typically follows non-sustainable growth of a species will simply be an objective ‘failure’ with fresh water shortages, resource wars, disease, starvation, climate change and oil/gas depletion being proximate causes? As my Stanford University Prof. Paul Ehrlich says, the human population problem will be solved, either by humane birth control or inhumane death control. Your story denying consequences suggests inhumanity and the latter as a choice. Is this the editorial policy of Earth & Sky too?
Dear Dr. Bauer,
Please know that I appreciate what you are saying and agree with you and Dr. Ehrlich. Be assured that no one I know on the Earth & Sky staff is consciously advocating “inhumane death control.” Speaking as a member of the E&S community, I believe there is no way such conscious advocacy is or will be occurring.
I suppose the E & S community is beginning to notice in many places that ominously looming global challenges array themselves before humanity in the offing. Because these challenges appear to be derived for certain overgrowth activities of the human species, perhaps leaders of the human community are called upon to propose and adopt changes in theirs and our behavior, according to the practical requirements of biophysical reality. Please consider NINE TENTATIVE PROPOSALS as a Summary for a Plan of Action:
1. Free, immediate and universal access to contraception;
2. Open and readily available access to family and health planning education for everyone; and
3. Economic and social empowerment of women.
4. As a means of accelerating the present downward movement in birth rates in some countries, a VOLUNTARY policy of one child per family would be initiated worldwide.
5. The many people who are suffering the unhealthy effects of obesity will share their overly-abundant resources with many too many people who are starving.
6. Every good idea to conserve energy and scarce material resources will be implemented.
7. Substantial economic incentives are necessary for the development of safe energy resources as alternatives to fossil fuels.
8. Overhaul national tax systems so that conspicuous per human over-consumption of resources is eschewed and seemingly endless, soon to become unsustainable production/pollution activities of big business are transformed into Earth-friendly, sustainable enterprises.
9. Humanity needs a modified economic system, one that is sufficiently subordinated to democratic principles and practices, one that more adequately meets the basic needs of a majority of humanity who could choose to live better, simpler lives with less resources than the rich, powerful and famous among us consume now.
Overall, what is to be accomplished is a fair, less complicated, more equitable, and evolutionarily sustainable distribution of the world’s tangible (e.g., food) and intangible (e.g., education) resources, as soon as possible.
Thanks for your consideration.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
With all due respect to Dr. Nordhaus, his optimistic interpretation of population growth,reminds me of Dr.Pangloss,“this is the best of all possible worlds”.Resources are only part of the problem, waste disposal and pollution represent a tremendous threat as millions more are added to the human population.
To see the proposals listed by Steven Earl Salmony carried out would be very encouraging, but it will require the conquest of complacency and political expediency.
Dear Joe James,
It is kind and courageous of you to reply so resolutely to the work of Dr. Shellenberger and Dr. Nordhaus. At least from my humble view, they are somehow off base and not quite right.
As an alternative, let me suggest another point of view. This perspective is adequately represented by Al Gore, who appears to be an exemplar of the kind of great political leader the human community requires in Century XXI.
Rajendra Pachauri and the 2000 scientists of the IPCC are also great because they are following in the footsteps of Galileo.
Now, if only other political leaders like Al will speak out loudly and clearly in support of the splendid work of Rajendra and the IPCC scientists.
All we need is several thousand brave political leaders and valiant scientists among us to join humanity’s newest Nobel Peace Prize Laureates.
Then the world will surely change.
Then the environment will not be irreversibly degraded; limited resources not recklessly dissipated; and the integrity of Earth will be preserved for generations to come.
Then a good enough future for children and future generations can be assured.
With every good wish,
Steve
We live in a world where today the air pollution from China spreads as far as the U.S. A world where we’re told to go ahead and eat the fish, but not too much lest the ill effects of the toxins they’ve accumulated outweigh the health benefits of eating fish. A world where the topsoil on the average farm is a fraction of the depth of topsoil half a century ago. Shall I mention deforestation? Declining fisheries? Species extinction? Upcoming disasters of climate change?
It’s hard to imagine anyone would consider this a success, other than perhaps a few who profit from this destruction and allow their greed to overcome their humanity. A success for them, but not for their grandchildren.
The denial evidenced by Nordhaus’ statements above is one of the more interesting topics I’m investigating in the documentary I’m producing.
Dave Gardner
Producer/Director/Writer
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
www.growthbusters.com
Dear Dave Gardner,
Thanks for the great work you are doing.
If it pleases you and E&S community, please consider that we need new approaches to the global challenges before humanity. Perhaps young people can help those in my generation of elders establish SUSTAINABLE LIVING CONDITIONS for themselves and coming generations.
A “top-down” approach to making necessary behavior changes that could lead us to a sustainable way of living in the world is not working, at least not yet. If the top-down approach was going to work, we would see more evidence of change by this time. Even though the challenges before us are formidable and undeniable, many too many of our leaders have found effective ways of either consciously overlooking or otherwise avoiding them.
As an example, “The AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population” has been in existence since 2001. In that time, the point of all its activities has been to gain the attention of the rich, powerful and famous at the top of the global political economy. The strategy has not accomplished much, except that someleaders now “see” the human predicament, even though they have resolutely refused to speak openly and honestly about it. Everywhere I have gone — from the Earth Summit in Jo’burg, World Water Week Conference, “This Tiny Planet” workshop, United Nations meetings, State of the Planet Conference, Annual Meeting of the Club of Rome to local town council meetings where I managed to get a global warming resolution passed — no action is taken by anyone with power. The people holding most of the world’s wealth and, therefore, most of the political power evidently like the world just the way it is now. Change seems to be anathema to them. They have made this single point crystal clear through their deafening silence, which so many of them have ubiquitously adopted as way of dealing with humanity’s distinctly human-forced predicament.
A “bottom-up” approach appears to be necessary with regard to adopting SUSTAINABLE human behavior changes in our time.
What you may find somewhat surprising is that a new approach to resolving human problems is needed within the scientific community. By that I mean we need for more scientists to examine “big picture” problems. Now, they mostly investigate little things. Scientists prefer skillful examinations of “trees” to careful investigations in which the scope of observation is “the forest.” Please see my brief letter on this topic,
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1280359
If only we understood better what it is that serves as an adequate catalyst for large scale, dramatic social change. That would be a giant step forward. The intelligence and energy of youth is what we need, I believe.
Personally, I am counting on young people to help move us recalcitrant old folks toward a new and SUSTAINABLE WORLD ORDER by accessing the extraordinary, tsunami-like powers to be found in the grassroots, in the billions of young people who are among the most able members of the human community. We have 3 billion people under the age of thirty in our planetary home. From all I have been able to learn about the human predicament we are witnessing, only grassroots power is sufficient to overcome the power reposited in the colossal, artificially-designed political economy, the soon to become PATENTLY UNSUSTAINABLE HUMAN CONSTRUCTION organized and managed now by a remarkably small number of masters of the universe, children of men….....all heirs of Ozymandias.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHealth/
Are too many of our current leaders stuck in the denial of reality?
Some of our leaders appear to be running away from real global challenges looming before humanity, as if they had seen a calamity in the making. Other leaders are promising pie-in-the-sky, “techno-fix” solutions for threats to human wellbeing and environmental health. Still others have apparently adopted the posture of an ostrich by placing their heads in the sand. Last but not least, we have a group of commanders of others who pose as hysterically deaf or blind and have become electively mute.
These various means of denying what could be called “more of the stark reality of the world we inhabit” are not helpful to anyone, I suppose, except themselves and their minions. They keep their wealth, power and privileges by maintaining the status quo, regardless of the potential for catastrophic circumstances in the offing, circumstances already dimly visible on the far horizon. Many too many, soon to be erstwhile leaders of the human community have allowed unbridled self-interests to literally separate themselves from a meaningful regard for humanity, for life as we know it, for a future of children and coming generations, and for the maintenance of the integrity of Earth and its ecosphere.
Thankfully, the human community is blessed with still other leaders, intellectually honest and courageous leaders, like UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, Al Gore, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Professor Al Bartlett, IPCC Vice Chair Mohan Munasinghe, Dr. Ernst von Weizsaecker, John Guillebaud, US Senator Bernie Sanders, Paul Chefurka, David Wasdell, Jean Krasno, Joseph Baker, Dame Jane Goodall, Jeffrey McNeely, Seti Sastrapradja, Vivian Ponniah, Peter Salonius, Hazel Henderson, Peter Nobel, Mickey Glantz, Margaret Swedish, Emily Spence, Susan B. Adamo, John C. Feeney, Lester Brown, Gretchen Daily, Bill Rees, Richard Duncan, Pentti Malaska, Deborah Byrd, Jean Gilbertson, Scott Walker, Alex de Sherbinin, Anne Ehrlich, Ashok Khosla, Paul Hawken, Werner Fornos, Jean Francois Rischard, Jan Janssens, Raoul Weiler, Mathis Wackernagel, Emily Spence, David Blockstein, Dave Roberts, Joe Romm and no less than 2000 IPCC scientists. Who knows, these and emerging leaders among our youth could be ready to “square up” to the global challenges soon be confronted by humankind, perhaps in these early years of Century XXI.
from the Atlanta Journal Constitution….........
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/11/14/watered_1115.html
Are too many of our current leaders hiding the truth?
Too many of our politicians, economists, big-business execs and the talking heads in the mass media are all “whistling the same tune.” What is even worse is the way they entice appointees and surrogates to whistle that same tune, too. After all, who can resist offerings of great wealth, power and privileges that accrue to those who go along with what is political convenient, economically expedient, religiously tolerated and socially agreeable.
Not only are too many leaders hiding the truth, they are also actively poisoning the well of public discourse in the process. And for what? Evermore power, wealth and privileges for themselves and their minions so they can carefreely play out the “conspicuous consumption fantasies” of their “Me Generation” by living long, living large and living unsustainably, come what may, having forgotten how human life depends upon Earth’s limited resources and frangible ecosystem services for its very existence.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
There is only one reason to give airtime to views like Ted Nordhaus’s and that is to refute them — even lampoon them for their utter silliness. I’ve spent the last year investigating sustainability issues and population growth to better understand those topics and determine for myself which of the many positions taken are well motivated and soundly thoughtout. As a professional engineer I approached the task with optimism since science and engineering have solved so many hard problems in the past. I’m sadden to report everything I’ve studied leads me to one conclusion: the environmental alarmists are correct. We have every reason to be deeply worried about what’s happening.
The most positive things I’ve found are some of the movements to make more people aware of the seriousness of the situation in order to provide politicians with the support they need to take corrective action at the national level (large scale change is needed ASAP). Dave and Steve (see comments above) are two of the people leading the way. So is John Feeney.
News from Georgia, USA
Valuable work, thanks to colleagues at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
FIRST ARTICLE:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/11/14/watered_1115.html
Ecologically, perpetual growth is impossible thing
By RUSSELL ENGLAND
Published on: 11/15/07
It is time to look at Georgia’s current drought from an ecological standpoint, not just an economic one, as has already been done quite thoroughly. This is important because our economy is just a small component of the ecosystem that sustains us; it is not the other way around…....
SECOND ARTICLE:
http://www.atlantajournal-constitution.com/
http://tinyurl.com/3dd7mb
GEORGIA’S WATER CRISIS: THE POWER OF WATER
Drought could put us in dark: Electric utilities are the biggest users of Georgia’s freshwater, but their role has been largely ignored.
By Ken Foskett, Margaret Newkirk, Stacy Shelton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
November 18, 2007
Historic drought worsens and the tri-state water battle escalates, Georgia policymakers are all but ignoring the region’s biggest water guzzler.
Electric utilities are the single largest users of the region’s freshwater. A family of four can use three times more water to power their home than they use to drink, bathe and water their lawn.
In Georgia, electric utilities use 68 percent of all surface water, the single largest user in the state, according to 2000 data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest year available…..
Yet the link between power generation and water use has been virtually ignored in the debate over how to fairly allocate the region’s water resources and plan for growth.
Neither of the region’s principal blueprints for water use —- the state water plan and the North Georgia metro water plan —- include strategies for managing water demand by the power industry…......
Where does water come up? In the state’s official energy plan. It quotes research that makes the connection: The public “may indirectly consume as much water turning on the lights and running appliances as they directly use taking showers and watering lawns.”
Carol Couch, director of the state Environmental Protection Division, declined an interview request to explain why the state water strategy doesn’t include conservation by the biggest water user. Kevin Chambers, an EPD spokesman, said utility water use would be discussed in the next round of planning, examining the specific water requirements in the state’s 14 water basins…...
Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D, M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
With the establishment of the scientific consensus on climate change, is it reasonable and sensible to ask of government officials who remain obstructive and in denial of this overwhelming evidence if they are perfidiously engaged in a violation of public trust and, therefore, malfeasant in office?
There are “rear guard” actions occurring now in an concerted attempt by many big-business benefactors as well as their bought-and-paid-for politicians and minions in the mass media to suppress, distort and debunk the established scientific evidence of climate change.
All the stops are being pulled out by the “powers that be” with the hope of delaying and obstructing much-needed changes to their relentless efforts to endlessly expand the patently unsustainable global economy. Many politicians and economic powerbrokers are fighting tooth and nail not to acknowledge, much less address, the emerging requirements for sustainable big-business practices because such changes from “what is patently unsustainable” to “what is ecologically sustainable” will likely threaten their current level of control over the world’s wealth as well as over the sources of political and military power that they purchase with gigantic sums of accumulated riches.
THREE QUESTIONS with a fourth question as a response.
1)What is happening? 2)Why do we keep doing what we are doing now, with the understanding that we will keep getting what we are getting now? 3)When will we change our way of life from “what is patently unsustainable” to “what is ecologically sustainable”?
4)Are we witnessing something odd and unfortunate: an unforeseen loss of courage in the family of humanity that is reflected in both the absence of a sense of urgency by our leaders and the lack of an insistent expression of outrage by the public regarding the potentially dangerous, human-forced predicament in which we find ourselves in these early years of Century XXI?
Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
In message # 11 above, Mr. Joe James mentioned that things in the work of Dr. Ted Nordhaus reminded him of Pangloss. In another posting by Dr. Michael Schellenberger and Dr. Nordhaus, the suggestion was made by them that the thinking of environmentalists about climate change needed to be “reframed.”
If you would be so kind, please click on the link below and consider how the example of Pangloss and the “need to reframe” are brought together in a remarkable article by a colleague-in-psychology of mine.
http://www.energybulletin.net/37091.html
Thanks,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
Dear Friends,
There is something new concerning me about the global challenge potentially posed by the huge scale and fully anticipated rapid growth rate of the global economy that I would like to understand better. Would someone with an adequate background in economics kindly comment on the research of the economist, Clive L. Spash?
Perhaps this good doctor of the economy is one of those rare economists who is actually ecologically-minded rather than religiously growth-oriented.
The following link will provide an introduction to his work.
http://www.euroecolecon.org/pdf/Spash_on_Stern
Thanks,
Steve
I have never heard such balderdash that pretends to be science. Just because we have been able to overpopulate does not mean we are successful, it means we are self-centered arrogant fools….when we see huge segments of the population starving and living in substandard condtions, how can we call ourselves successful…we would be successful is we all lived in decent conditions with adequate food and water.
Certainly we in the west are living good, but what about Africa and Asia?? Tell Nordhaus, who thinks we are such a success to move to Sub-Saharan Africa and live there…
It is thinking like this that will hasten our demise…the planet can handle 1/10th of our species comfortably and the present
number is not sustainable. If we wish to see our progeny survive, we must adopt a birth control system that will work efficiently and quickly.
We have no right to think that we are so special that we can do what we want without consequences.
Dear David Fagelson,
Thanks for speaking out.
Let me share something with you and the members of the Earth & Sky community that serves to dramatize one of the really difficult challenges presented to the family of humanity in our time by unbridled activities bound up in soon to become patently unsustainable economic globalization.
By clicking on the link below, you could choose to consider one relatively small example of a growing number of “house of cards” schemes driving the seemingly endless, rampant expansion of the global economy.
http://break.com/index/how-we-got-into-the-subprime-mess.html
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001