1) There are real Malthusian crises, but these are the results of the combination of population increase and the structure of social organization. Jared Diamond gives good examples of these propositions in his book Collapse, e.g., the Rwandan disaster, the Mayan empire, several Polynesian societies. Very densely populated societies like Belgium can be very well off for almost everyone.
2) Malthus' idea, that population necessarily outruns food production, has been overwhelmingly refuted by the last 200 years with its vast increase in population and even vaster increase in agricultural productivity
3) It seems true that the carrying capacity of the earth ecologically speaking will not support a bourgeois Western lifestyle with two SUVs in every garage, suburban housing with cars, strip malls, individually owned everything, and consumption of energy at current levels. Even if we can generate enough power and do not run out of nonrenewable resources like oil, global warming is a real threat.
But this problem will not be solved by reducing population or reducing the rate of increase of population -- that might slow the effects but we are getting the problems right now. We need to change our expectations, not necessarily lower them, but change them. Use more public transit, rely on low-emission renewable resources, concentrate jobs near residences, promote communal use of tools like washers and dryers (people do this in cities as it stands).
The likelihood that any of what is needed will happen in time to avert collapse -- not revolutionary transformation, just collapse -- does bot seem very high. Or maybe I'm just being depressive.
--- ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
> At around 6/5/06 6:43 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
> > Marta Russell wrote:
> >
> >> Oh man, who said anything about "doing away with
> a few billion people"
> >> by "euthanizing" them..? I am really
> disappointed in this cheap
> >> shot. Here we go again - the typical LBO shit.
> >
> > No it's a serious point. The population of the
> earth is 6 billion, and
> > there's nothing we can do more quickly than a
> decade to get that down
> > even a bit. If you believe climate change is
> urgent, then something must
> > be done right now - which means cutting emissions
> drastically.
> > Population doesn't even enter the picture.
> >
> > Besides, some of the worst greenhouse offenders
> are the most thinly
> > populated - the US, Canada, Australia.
> >
>
> I heard on this radio programme on WBAI ;-) that
> China now consumes 3
> times as much oil as the US. I probably heard or
> remember wrong, but
> usage is changing, yes?
>
> But that's the least important part.
>
> Note that Marta only wrote:
>
> >
> > If one cannot see the need for population control
> after reading this,
> > well its hopeless LBOsters.
> >
>
> She didn't say population needs to be drastically
> reduced in the
> billions immediately. Or that it is the only cause
> of the problems that
> we see (I think she mentions climate change. You can
> add others like
> species extinction, etc).
>
> As leftists, especially in the West/North, we should
> be used to a bit of
> daydreaming (or more appropriately reaching for
> something), yes? I doubt
> we are going to achieve any drastic action to change
> things in the near
> future. Emission control, technological advance,
> consumption "reform",
> population control, are at best going to inch
> forward, if at all, in a
> positive direction.
>
> If you must rank them, sure, we can put emission
> control ahead. But that
> does not, it seems to me, negate Marta's point that
> human population is
> a serious problem.
>
> --ravi
>
> --
> Support something better than yourself: ;-)
> PeTA: http://www.peta.org/
> GreenPeace: http://www.greenpeace.org/
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