X-Message-Number: 5481
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Happy New Year?
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 17:43:51 +1100 (EST)
I found the following in talk.environment. I'm curious about how
people here feel about it. If Hanson is right to think of "global systems
collapse" occurring around 2020-2030, perhaps we should pay more
attention to where and how to ride out the storm? Or are there good reasons
to think that nanotech will flower before this? Is 2020-2030 too pessimistic?
Opinions?
--
>From: (Jay Hanson)
>Newsgroups: talk.environment
>Subject: Re: Population growth.
>Date: 13 Dec 1995 03:41:52 GMT
[...]
I don't think there is any way to avoid die-off and possibly
even die-out. I have three different sources -- using three
different methods and data sets -- that point to worldwide
systems collapse around the year 2020 or 2030:
_
#1 Meadows, et al. project a "business as usual" scenario that
see our major systems failing around year 2020 [p. 133].
Remember, these are worldwide systems -- there is no escape.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is interesting to note the latest ozone depletion and
global warming data was not available to the models. Perhaps
the models would project collapse even quicker?
Meadows, et al., 1992: BEYOND THE LIMITS -- Chelsea Green
Publishing Company, Lebanon, NH; 800-639-4099,
603-448-0317, Fax 603-448-2576
_
#2 My second reference is from Worldwatch and concerns that
fact that there will simply not be enough food on the planet
to feed humanity by year 2030. Starving humans will follow
starving deer and devour their own life-support system.
See: WHO WILL FEED CHINA?, Worldwatch Institute
1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202/452-1999 Fax: 202/296-7365
Also see FULL HOUSE by Worldwatch and
DWELLERS IN THE LAND, by Kirkpatrick Sale, 1991,
New Society Pub. 800-253-3605 ISBN 0-86571-225-5
OVERSHOOT by Catton, 1982, University of Illinois Press,
800-545-4703, Fax 217-244-8082
BEYOND OIL, by Gever, et al., 1991,
University Press of Colorado, 800-268-6044 or 303-530-5337
#3 My third reference posits approximately the same time frame
"before destroying the functional integrity of the
ecosphere". In this case, I think that the underlying
studies here were scientific analyses of the global carbon
cycle (I may be wrong, I am not an ecologist). And remember
folks, when the ecosphere goes, everything goes.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Investing in Natural Capital:
The Ecological Approach to Sustainability"
from the International Society for Ecological Economics
http://kabir.umd.edu/ISEE/ISEEhome.html
HOW CLOSE TO PRACTICAL LIMITS?
"There is accumulating evidence that humanity my soon have to
confront the real carrying capacity constraints. For
example, nearly 40% of terrestrial net primary productivity
(photosynthesis) is already being used ("appropriated") by
humans, one species among millions, and this fraction is
steadily increasing (Vitousek et al. 1986). If we take
this percentage as an index of the human carrying capacity
of the earth and assume that a growing economy could come
to appropriate 80% of photosynthetic production before
destroying the functional integrity of the ecosphere, the
earth will effectively go from half to completely full
within the next doubling period -- currently about 35 years
(Daly 1991).
"The significance of this unprecedented convergence of economic
scale with that of the ecosphere is not generally
appreciated in the current debate on sustainable
development. Because the human impact on critical functions
of the ecosphere is not uniform "effective fullness" may
actually occur may actually occur well before the next
doubling of human activity. (Liebig's law reminds us that
is takes only a single critical limiting factor to constrain
the entire system.) Indeed, data presented in this chapter
suggests that long-term human carrying capacity may already
have been at less than the present 40% preemption of
photosynthesis. If so, even current consumption (throughput)
cannot be sustained indefinitely, and further material
growth can be purchased only with accelerated depletion of
remaining natural capital stocks.
"This conundrum can be illustrated another way by extrapolation
from our ecological footprint data. If the entire world
population of 5.6 billion were to use productive land at
the rate of our Vancouver/Lower Fraser Valley example, the
total requirement would be 28.5 billion ha. In fact, the
total land area of Earth is only just over 13 billion ha, of
which only 8.8 billion ha is productive cropland, pasture,
or forest. The immediate implications are two-fold: first,
as already stressed, the citizens of wealthy industrial
countries unconsciously appropriate far more than their
share of global carrying capacity; second, we would
require an additional "two Earths," assuming present
technology and efficiency levels, to provide for the present
world population at Canadian's ecological standard of
living. In short, there may simply not be enough natural
capital around to satisfy current development assumptions.
The difference between the anticipated ecological footprint
of the human enterprise and the available land/natural
capital base is a measure "sustainability gap" confronting
humankind." [p. 383]
A CAUTIONARY NOTE
"We admittedly make no allowance for potentially large
efficiency gains or technological advances. Even at
carrying capacity, further economic growth is possible (but
not necessarily desirable) if resource consumption and
waste production continue to decline per unit GDP (Jacobs
1991). We should not, however, rely exclusively on this
conventional rationale. New technologies require decades to
achieve the market penetration needed to significantly
influence negative ecological trends. Moreover,there is no
assurance that savings will not simply be directed into
alternative forms of consumption. Efficiency improvements
may actually increase rather than decrease resource
consumption (Saunders 1992). We are already at the limit in
a world of rising material expectations in which the human
population is increasing by 94 million people per year. The
minimal food-land requirements alone each year for this
number of new people is 18,800,000 ha (at 5 people/ha, the
current average productivity of world agriculture) -- the
equivalent of all cropland in France." [p. 386]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE QUOTED TEXT IS TAKEN FROM A BOOK TITLED:
"Investing in Natural Capital:
The Ecological Approach to Sustainability"
PUBLISHED BY:
The International Society for Ecological Economics
http://kabir.umd.edu/ISEE/ISEEhome.html and
Island Press -- 1994 http://www.islandpress.com
1-800-828-1302 or 1-707-983-6432 Fax 1-707-983-6164
EDITED BY:
AnnMari Jansson, Monica Hammer,
Carl Folke, and Robert Costanza
The quoted text was taken from chapter # 20 which was by:
William E. Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
The University of British Columbia
School of Community and Regional Planning
6333 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2
REFERENCES:
Daly, H. 1986. Comments on "Population Growth and Economic
Development." Population and Development
Review 12: 583-585
------- 1990. Sustainable development: from concept and
theory towards operational principles.
Population and Development Review (special
issue 1990) (Also published in Daly, H. 1991.
Steady State Economics. 2d, ed. Washington,
DC: Island Press)
--------1991. From empty world economics to full world
economics: recognizing an historic turning
point in economic development. In
Environmentally Sustainable Development:
Building on Brundtland, eds. R. Goodland, H.
Daly, and S. El Serafy. Washington DC: The
World Bank
--------1991. Steady State Economics. 2d, ed. Washington,
DC: Island Press
Vitousek, P., P. Ehrlich, A. Ehrlich, and P. Matson, 1986.
Human appropriation of the products of
photosynthesis. BioScience 36: 368-74
See also: http://newciv.org/worldtrans/whole/warning.html
--
Happy New Year?
Peter Merel.
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