Well Said #3
I just finished reading Collapse:How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. I highly recommend it. This quote on pages 515-516 seemed to summarize major theme of the book:
First ask some ivory-tower academic ecologist, who knows a lot about the environment but never reads a newspaper and has no interest in politics, to name the overseas countries facing some of the worst problems of environmental stress, overpopulation, or both. The ecologist would answer: “That’s a no-brainer, it’s obvious. Your list of environmentally stressed or overpopulated countries should surely include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, and Somalia, plus others.”
Then go ask a First World politician, who knows nothing and cares less about the environment and population problems, to name the world’s worst trouble spots: countries where state government has already been overwhelmed and has collapsed, or is now at risk of collapsing, or has been wracked by recent civil wars; and countries that, as a result of those problems of their own, are also creating problems for us rich First World countries, which may end up having to provide foreign aid for them, or may face illegal immigrants from them, or may decide to provide them with military assistance to deal with rebellions and terrorists, or may even have to send in our own troops. The politician would answer, “That’s a no-brainer, it’s obvious. Your list of political trouble spots should surely include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, and Somalia, plus others.”
…Today, just as in the past, countries that are environmentally stressed, overpopulated, or both become at risk of getting politically stressed, and of their governments collapsing. When people are desperate, undernourished, and without hope, they blame their governments, which they see as responsible for or unable to solve their problems. They try to emigrate at any cost. They fight each other over land. They kill each other. They start civil wars. They figure that they have nothing to lose, so they become terrorists, or they support or tolerate terrorism.
The thesis of the book seemed to be that the world is fucked if we don’t change how we care for the environment.
Diamond rightly warns of alarming trends in biodiversity, soil loss, freshwater limits (China is depleting its aquifers at a breakneck rate), overfishing (much of the developing world relies on the oceans for protein) and climate change (there is a strong scientific consensus that future warming could be dangerous). These and other trends may lead to a global crash: ”Our world society is presently on a nonsustainable course.” The West, especially, is in peril: ”The prosperity that the First World enjoys at present is based on spending down its environmental capital.” Calamity could come quickly: ”A society’s steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth and power.”
I definitely agree with the Diamond’s main thesis. My reading of this book happened to coincide with the recent WWF’s Living Planet Report.
“The world is currently struggling with the consequences of over-valuing its financial assets, but a more fundamental crisis looms ahead – an ecological credit crunch caused by under-valuing the environmental assets that are the basis of all life and prosperity,” said WWF International Director-General James Leape, in the foreword to the new report. “Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing – and increasingly overdrawing – on the ecological capital of other parts of the world,” Leape said. (Source)
I hope Obama can grasp the importance of environmental sustainability just a BIT more than Bush does (he doesn’t at all).
No doubt overpopulation is THE critical issue in environmental degradation. But I’m afraid the only thing that gets people’s attention is issues that impact their wallets and savings accounts. If they understood that overpopulation has already degraded their net worth, they might get more excited!
Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. I’m not talking just about the obvious problems that we see in the news – growing dependence on foreign oil, carbon emissions, soaring commodity prices, environmental degradation, etc. I’m talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.
I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management. Our policies that encourage high rates of population growth are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight other countries – India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China – as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050. The U.S. is the only developed country still experiencing third world-like population growth.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit my web site at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)
Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph. I just don’t know how else to inject this new perspective into the overpopulation debate without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
I highly recommend reading ‘Collapse’ too. This book has transformed myslef into a firm environmentalist and now I am an advisor to Mongolian Green Movement.
I also have translated the book into my language- Mongolian and willing to invite professor Jared Diamond to Mongolia at his convenience. ‘Collapse’s Mongolian translation is to be published pretty soon. Anyway, you could get in touch with professor Jared Diamond please convey my best regards and my invitation to Mongolia at his convenience. I have tried a few time to get in touch with him, but failed most probably because of spam-monitor.
Regards,
Ochiro
Yansanjav Ochirsukh
(former Finance Minister)
Economic Advisor
Mongolian Green Movement
http://www.mongolia-greens.blogspot.com
Peace Avenue
Ulaanbaatar-44/753
Mongolia
I must thank you two for your comments. It’s good to know that what I am writing is reaching out to people (even in Mongolia). Yansanjav, I’m not sure I would have any better luck reaching out to Mr. Diamond than yourself. It seems you are doing your nation a great service and I wish you luck.
Pete, I have purchased your book and look forward to reading it. You’ll definitely be able to find my thoughts on it sometime in the future. Overpopulation is definitely one of the most important issues so I look forward to reading what you suggest.