Re: [asa] A Sustainable Future and Exponential growth

David Opderbeck wrote:
>Ken, it seems to me that the Smail article just rehashes the Malthusian
fallacy that technology must remain static while population grows. For
example, Smail says this: /"Clearly, assertions that the Earth might be able
to support a population of 10 to 15 billion people for an indefinite period of
time at a standard of living superior to the present are not only cruelly
misleading but almost certainly false." / Why is this so clear and certain?
Smail doesn't say. (Rhetorically, whenever someone uses the words "clearly"
and "certainly" in the same sentence, it's likely that the actual evidence is
neither clear nor certain).
It's quite possible that agricultural biotechnology will indeed enable us to
feed 10 to 15 billion people indefinitely; it's also quite possible that
communications technology will facilitate a global economy in which that many
people; and it's also quite possible that new technology will substantially
change the "peak energy" curve. The market demand for all this will continue
to grow (with population growth), and market demand tends to drive
technological progress. At the very least, it seems impossible to say what is
"clear" or "certain" to be the case 50, 100 or 150 years from now
technologically. Moreover, technological progress and diffusion tends to
result in a reduction in average birth rates, as people move from traditional
agricultural societies into more advanced technological ones.<

REPLY: I have read a lot of technological optimism and other arguments that
essentially declare that we have nothing to worry about - just keep on keeping
on, by citing the Malthusian fallacy. However I would like to suggest that we
face a unique period in human history. It seems very likely to me that the old
Malthusian fallacy is true again:
1. All technology depends on some source of primary energy. Nearly 90% of
the world’s economy is powered by fossil fuels; almost 40% by oil, another 50%
by coal and natural gas. There is now significant evidence that the world’s
capacity to produce oil is near its peak, with no scalable substitute in sight
for liquid fuels (google ASPO or The Oil Drum).
2. A peak in liquid fuel production will also likely mean a peak in the
world’s ability to produce food, unless we can convert to a much more labor
intensive regionalized agricultural system before we encounter seriously
declining supplies of oil.
3. The human population with its current industrial culture is now large
enough that its waste products have the capacity to affect global systems
(consider stratospheric ozone and climate). At current growth rates we will add
50% more people than we currently have on the planet within 50 years. It seems
highly probable that a human population of this magnitude will almost certainly
will overwhelm many of the natural support systems upon which it depends.
4. Our current food and economic systems are being pushed to their limits
to provide adequate food materials for 6.5 billion people. Much needed economic
development in the world’s most populous nations adds a burden to food
production capacities as their diet shift more toward that practiced in the
developed nations of the world, a catch-22 that is not easy to evade.
5. Climate change is likely to impact overall food and water resources
negatively even as there is an ever-growing demand for such services
6. Imagine if just China were to achieve a standard of consumption equal
to that of the USA today. That would mean that the annual use of oil in China
would have to grow to 85 million bpd, equal to the entire current global output
of oil today. Is this even remotely likely?
7. The only renewable and primary energy resource that scales to the needs
of human culture is solar energy in its various manifestations. Ultimately
human society will need to transition to a solar energy base - the same energy
base that powered civilization prior the (brief) age of fossil fuels which gave
rise to the global industrial empire. But a solar energy system provides
electrical energy, not liquid fuels, another reason why we face a unique period
in human history.
8. None of us humans knows when Christ will return. Using the argument of
the imminent return of Christ as a justification to keep on doing what we are
doing, I regard as both bad theology and a shirking of our human responsibility
to be good stewards of creation.
9. Part of being good stewards of God’s creation means that we should
curtail human numbers at a level that allows life with dignity for all humans
and that preserves the possibility for the development of other creaturely life
forms in a healthy manner as well.
10. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are succeeding in neither of
these challenges to stewardly living today.

Ken Piers

"We are by nature creatures of faith, as perhaps all creatures are; we live by
counting on things that cannot be proved. As creatures of faith, we must choose
either to be religious or superstitious, to believe in things that cannot be
proved or to believe in things that can be disproved."
Wendell Berry

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Received on Sun May 18 14:44:22 2008