Re: [asa] A Sustainable Future and Exponential growth

My last post of the evening :)

David -- I concur with your first point--population
will likely not grow at the same rate in the future,
for a multitude of reasons. However, I disagree with
you that distribution of resources (and in your
previous posts, technological solutions) will
accommodate continued population growth.
Fundamentally, every living thing requires at least 2
inputs -- food & water...energy & matter, if you
will...theoretically speaking, there is only so much
energy & matter that exists on this planet...even if
we could find technology solutions to convert all the
available energy and matter into food & water sources
for us, you would still only be able to sustain on
that energy & matter a certain population level. The
only other way to change the equation would be to
reduce or eliminate our need for food & water, but
other than for us to become something other than
human, I don't see how this would happen.

So, from my point of view, the question isn't "is
there a carrying capacity for the existing ecosystem",
the question is rather, "what is the carrying
capacity", and then, how can we use technology and an
equitable distribution system to maximize this
carrying capacity--not just for humans, but for all of
God's creatures. I'm not sure that anyone has the
answer to this--certainly, technology and resource
distribution will change just as population will in
the future, so it's hard to predict. Nevertheless, a
couple of observations...first, its clear from human
poverty, environmental pollution, species extinction,
and climate change, that we are not at that optimal
point now. Second, we in the developed world are far
more wasteful and careless with our resources than we
ought to be, thus reducing the carrying capacity of
the ecosystem. Third, if already we are surpassing the
ecosystems' constraints, then certainly we will
overwhelm the system if everyone were to live as we do
now, which at present seems to be the goal for
transforming nations from "developing" into
"developed" (which, I might add, is a good goal, but
only to a certain degree).

So: how to achieve this sustainable population without
resorting to a China-type control strategy is a tough
question? Certainly, as Christians, we hear the
command to "be fruitful and multiply" and we don't
want the government to be telling us otherwise.
Reproduction is, if you will, the first "right" ever
given to God's creatures. Nevertheless, as with other
"rights", perhaps this "right" is not absolute in the
legal sense that we are free to reproduce as long as
it does not infringe on someone else's right to
reproduce. Perhaps this type of ethic, in which we
weigh, in a voluntary manner, our right to reproduce
versus the right of other's to reproduce and to have
for their children what we would want for our own, is
the key here. Do we consider that perhaps, as I
believe Rich said?, humanity has already fulfilled
God's command, and then some? Alas, voluntary
assessments that sometimes call for self-sacrifice for
the sake of others rarely work though. So, do we then
resort to government intervention?...do we let the
inevitable happen whenever resources become
scare--conflict and disease--to "naturally" reduce and
control our population size? Do we hope to avoid the
question through God's return and judgment? Do we seek
to postpone the question by colonizing space? I don't
think any of those represent good answers to the
question of population and sustainability.

Perhaps a better? approach (at least an alternative
approach) would be to use science to constrain, as
well as possible, what that carrying capacity is given
current and anticipated technology trends are, then to
use government and other institutional systems to
develop and implement a comprehensive program to help
us achieve that population target through plans that
could include the following components: 1) significant
resources and outreach devoted to promoting adoption
as an alternative to having children 2) significantly
expand efforts to combat unwanted pregnancies (which,
I'd concur with others, would exclude abortion) 3)
more research and resources aimed at correcting
resource distribution problems, market inefficiencies,
waste, etc. and 4) more radically, providing
incentives (financial or otherwise) to couples who
choose not to have children.

Gotta' go...will be interested in hearing what you
think :)

In Christ,
Christine (ASA member)

--- David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dave W. said: Remember that in this thread I am not
> postulating that we are
> at that limit now, you get to choose how many more
> doublings can be
> sustained.
>
> I respond: First, I don't accept the assumption the
> population will
> continue to grow at the same rate. If and as
> economic and political
> conditions improve around the world, population
> growth is likely to slow and
> then to decline. We don't need governments to
> enforce this; it will happen
> as a natural consequence of prosperity. See "World
> Population in 2300,"
> Proceedings on the United Nations Expert Meeting on
> World Population in
> 2300, available at
>
http://157.150.195.10/esa/population/publications/longrange2/2004worldpop2300reportfinalc.pdf
>
> Second, given a reasonable rate of population growth
> in the foreseeable
> future, I don't think the problem is one of the
> amount of available
> resources; it's primarily a problem of distribution.
> For example, right
> now, "[w]orld agriculture produces 17 percent more
> calories per person today
> than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent
> population increase. This is
> enough to provide everyone in the world with at
> least 2,720 kilocalories
> (kcal) per person per day. . . The principal problem
> is that many people in
> the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or
> income to purchase, enough
> food." World Hunger Education Service, World Hunger
> Facts 2008, available
> at
>
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Dave Wallace
> <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Randy Isaac wrote:
> >
> >> Dave Wallace wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> A few years back computer speed doubled roughly
> every 18 months. I
> >>> suspect that Intel and AMD strongly wish they
> could still continue with that
> >>> pattern. Sure they still double transistor
> gates every couple of years or
> >>> so, but heat problems seem to have killed the
> raw speed doubling or at least
> >>> have halted it for now.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Interestingly, performance is increasing at 82% a
> year (faster than a
> >> doubling every 18 months) and shows no sign of
> slowing down. (Full
> >> disclosure: I am not objective but am strongly
> biased in two ways: 1. vested
> >> interest in the winner of the last 7 rankings--my
> baby called Blue Gene; 2.
> >> having published claims that Moore's Law has
> slowed down:
> >>
> >> I tried not to go too deeply into some of the
> nuances, thats why I said
> > the number of gates is still increasing. This
> increase results in things
> > like multi core processors and the ability to
> interconnect many processor
> > chips to create things like Blue Gene. However,
> the regular increase in
> > raw single core performance that used to entice
> people to upgrade their PCs
> > every few years seems at least for now to have
> stopped or severly slowed
> > down. A 2 core processor provides some apparent
> performance improvement but
> > 4 core seems pretty marginal unless one is running
> something like SETI@home. Maybe some future version
> of Windows, MacOS... will figure out how to
> > effectively use the extra resources. I agree
> Blue Gene is a major
> > breakthrough. Maybe the compiler people will
> figure out how to
> > automatically create multi threading code that can
> utilize the multiple
> > cores.
> > And David O
> >
> > I'm getting old and cranky though, so I don't
> think the Lord will tarry a
> >> billion years.
> >>
> > Me neither but after all he has allowed the show
> to go on for roughly 13
> > billion years to date.
> >
> > What I can't agree with, however, is the notion
> that human over-population
> >> is the fundamental driver of these problems
> >>
> > I fail to understand how you justify this given
> limits on the amount of
> > food, water, air... that the biosphere can produce
> and the amount of waste
> > that it can absorb. Remember that in this thread
> I am not postulating that
> > we are at that limit now, you get to choose how
> many more doublings can be
> > sustained. It seems to me that we are getting
> close to fulfilling the
> > imperative to fill the earth.
> >
> > Dave W (ASA member)
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to
> majordomo@calvin.edu with
> > "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the
> message.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>

"For we walk by faith, not by sight" ~II Corinthians 5:7

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Received on Sat May 24 00:44:44 2008