This exchange prompts me to raise an issue which has been bothering me for a long time. We keep seeing postings on this list about the need to stop population growth, restrict economic growth, reach a steady state economy and so on, but there seems to be a shortage of practical solutions on how to do this. We need both to look at the causes of these problems and at realistic solutions, but first we need to see whether in fact we are setting possible goals.
We know some of the driving forces for the expansion of human impact. For example, poverty promotes population growth, since poor people (at least in rural communities) need lots of children to do work to support the family. Do we have any quick fixes for poverty? Improved medical care also contributes to population growth, but who is willing to oppose it? Butg it is also important to ask whether we can actually hope to stabilise our social system and achieve the steady state economy that Brian Czech promotes. During the past few decades there has been a growing realisation that not all systems have a stable equilibrium, and this realisation is perhaps Buzz Holling's most important contribution to ecology and to science in general. One of the earlier projects carried out by Holling's group was a study of the spruce budworm infestations in New Brunswick, which followed a pattern of sever infestation followed by collapse of the budworm population, recovery of the spruce, and eventual repetition of the cycle. A more familiar example is the cycle of forest fires which clear out combustible brush, followed by years of recovery, accumulation of dead wood and brush, and then another fire. We have seen that attempts to control this cycle and stabilise it without fire often prove disastrous. Human populations often follow a similar type of cycle. The population builds up to an excessive level, which leads to conflict, war, and high mortality. Rwanda was one of the most densely populated countries on earth when civil war broke out. Sudan is overpopulated, given its limited resources and drought. Population pressure is a factor in many if not most major conflicts in human history. So how are we going to break this cycle? We at least have to recognise that it exists. When the first report to the Club of Rome, "The Limits of Growth", came out I attended several seminars on it, and although some of the scenarios involved very high levels of population density, whenever I suggested that this could lead to armed conflict the idea was rejected with horror -- whatever might happen, war was out of the question. And of course 90 years ago we had the war to end all wars. Have we learned anything about human ecosystems in the past 90 years? Bill Silvert ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ashwani Vasishth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 9:57 PM Subject: Re: George Monbiot on Biofuels > At 05:34 PM +0000 4/1/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>Ashwani says (and ascribing to Ernie), "conservation alone would allow >>us to grow into the foreseeable future (say, 50 years), without ANY >>increase being needed in energy production." I disagree. By >>definition, conservation is not growth, but rather maintenance of >>natural capital stocks. >> > I agree. The term conservation probably better applies to the steady > state economy position than to what I have in mind--Holling's shifting > domains of equilibrium.
