A Parable for Our Times?

[Murray Foote]

What Action?

While I generally agree about your analysis, I am afraid that the implementation is little more than wishful thinking. Am I allowed to exercise extremely bad taste and be sarcastic? If yes, I'll just take your first example:

We need Population Policies to determine what populations our environment can support and what infrastructure this requires

(Remember: sarcasm) Obviously, it will not be useful to say that a particular area can only support so many people and then let the inhabitants multiply like rabbits. So, who are we going to kill first?
The interested readers may wish to refer themselves to their favorite historical encyclopedia. Or book a travel to China.

Fair enough. In trying to simplify things I'm not being clear on what I have in mind.

Sustainable Development requires that we curb excess resource use and restrain population growth to a level the environment can sustain.

The first requirement for constraining usage of resources we are in danger of exhausting is availability of independent information. That is why I suggest we need independent scientific bodies set up for this purpose to analyse and provide recommendations. How implementation would work would vary from country to country and in part be supranational. Implementation will require Government action because although businesses and individuals may act positively, we can't rely on the public interest always overcoming narrowly conceived selfishness. It will also not be sufficient that individual countries conserve their own resources, they must also ensure they are not destroying the resource base of other countries through their international corporations or trade.

And then there's population. I wasn't trying to suggest we adopt the ways of Pol Pot or Sanjay Ghandi, rather that we rely on the Demographic Transition. In trying to be brief, I had omitted above the passage on Malthusian Cycles and the Demographic Transition that I have in the Blog.

Malthus and the Demographic Transition

Malthus in 1798 wrote that all societies were doomed to a perpetual cycle of growth and prosperity alternating with overpopulation and famine. In this he was opposing the eighteenth century ideal of perpetual progress. There was no ecological factor to his thinking, so he did not consider that the period of overpopulated desperation might deplete the resource base in ways that would never see recovery.

Our society usually claims to have escaped Malthusian cycles by technological progress. Developed countries also seem to escape overpopulation through the demographic transition. Put very quickly, an “underdeveloped” society may have high birth rates and high death rates and exist in a Malthusian equilibrium; a “developed” country may have low birth rates and low death rates and maintain zero population growth; “developing” countries may still have high birth rates but improvements in conditions (health, farming, technology, education) lead to escalating increases in population. So you’d think the solution would be to get all societies to be “developed”. Trouble is, that doesn’t take into account resource usage and “developed” countries use disproportionate amounts of scarce and finite resources.

These days, most developed countries are relatively close to Zero Population Growth unless they have significant migration. In Australia, for example, there is still widespread support for the idea that we need immigration to have a large population and be an "important" country but there is a disturbingly low level of awareness of how fragile the ecology is, particularly for soil quality, water availability and salinity.

So if a developed country manages to achieve sustainable resource use, it won't be able to maintain it if it allows unrestricted migration. Policies to artificially encourage natural population increase probably won't be appropriate either.

But that's developed countries we are talking about here. It's not going to be so easy for developing countries who are in the wrong part of the demographic transition. They're also going to need to conserve their forests in the interests of global warming. That's why I suggest developed countries should allocate 5% of their gross national income for bringing about sustainable development in poor countries. How this comes about will not be easy either and may vary a lot from region to region. It would have to involve a whole range of incentives for poor countries who control probably first their population growth and then their resource usage, together with advice and assistance as to how to do this.

I also recognise that programs don't necessarily do what they're set out to do, so this requires care as well. For example, the World Bank and the IMF are supposed to operate in the interests of poor countries but it seems to me that they are often parasitical bodies operating in the interests of developed countries and their banking systems.

So where does that leave us in terms of a quick summary. How about:

What Action?

• Sustainable Development
  
  ==> We need Population Policies to determine what populations our environment can support and what infrastructure this requires​
  + Developed countries should be able to maintain low or zero population growth rates due to the Demographic Transition.​
  + Unrestricted or perhaps even significant migration to developed countries may not be appropriate. This increases the requirement for substantial support to developing countries.​
  ==> We need independent scientific organisations, well-funded and specifically set up to identify what resources we are in danger of exhausting and to recommend policies​
  + Widely available accurate information is the first step. Positive actions will follow from some corporations and individuals. Governments will need to enact appropriate regulations.​
  + This is also relevant for determining the desirable level of population.​
• Global Warming
  
  ==> We need effective policies to ensure that world climate remains amenable to human life. This has started but there is much to be done. There can be long time lags for measures to bite.​
  + Part of this will be providing incentives for developing countries to retain their forests.​
• Preserving the Ecology of Poor Countries
  
  ==> This may be hard to achieve politically, especially if countries become more and more immersed in their own problems, but if we do not help to solve the ecological problems of poor countries, they will also become ours. Developed countries should move towards providing 5% of their gross national income to assist poor countries towards sustainable development​
  + In the longer term, this is more important than disaster relief because it will help to prevent disasters. There of course needs to be safeguards against corruption and against siphoning off to first world salaries.​

It is clear we need to find a solution. So I think the thought process is to first assume humans have survived and are in good shape after say 200 years. The question then is "What did it take to get there?".

Is that starting to sound a bit more coherent?

 

[Jerome Marot]

It certainly is coherent, but I am afraid it is also naive. Do you have an idea how many countries are in a state of war as of today (including civil wars)? How many of these wars arose because of overpopulation, ecological degradation of the environment and subsequent collapse of agricultural production or developed countries securing access to resources?

Let me give you a small summary:
-basically, the whole of the muslim world (north Africa, middle east, Afghanistan, Pakistan)
-basically, the whole central and eastern part of Africa (Somalia, Rwanda, Kenya, Madagascar, Congo, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia)
-large patches of Western Africa (Ivory coast)
-basically the whole western south border of Russia in Asia
-the Himalayas (Tibet, Pakistan, India, Myanmar)
-North Korea
-basically, the whole of central America (Peru, Mexico, Haiti)

 

[Murray Foote]

Yes, I do. I’m quite well aware of the areas around the world that are in a state of war.

I wouldn’t include many of the countries in your list because to my mind it does not equate to a state of war if they are unsafe for Westerners to travel in, they may be unstable or there may be conflicts in particular regions. Conversely, there are many areas of severe ecological degradation around the world that are not currently in a state of war, including the Aral and Caspian seas and many industrial areas in the former Soviet block.

It makes no difference. I didn’t say it would be easy.

Our first task is to mobilise public opinion to facilitate positive change, especially in the developed countries. Awareness is probably relatively high in Europe, Canada and New Zealand but in the US and Australia there are currently a disturbingly high number of people who think there is no problem and are not prepare to sacrifice a cent for a problem they can’t see.

Action on global warming is under way and if successful it will avert a climate tipping event. In that case, the developed countries will probably achieve sustainable development sooner or later. The later that is, the more reduced the resource base will be to operate from (and perhaps, the more like Easter Island).

I still maintain that it will not be possible for developed countries, even if they can attain sustainable development internally, to wall themselves off from the rest of the world. Therefore we must consider how we can solve ecological problems all around the world.

It is true that success in this can only be partial but whatever regions we can turn around will be to our benefit as well as theirs. Let’s consider how that could happen.

Third World Sustainability programs could be administered by individual developed countries or by a United Nations body. There would have to be suitability criteria including political stability and willingness to restrict population growth. There could be some very thorny issues hidden in there. Then approved regions could be assisted with resource usage and population control (eg low family programs, contraception, public awareness campaigns). The spending would need to be targeted and effective.

I remain to be convinced that my suggestions are naïve.

 

[Asher Kelman]

This thread is one of the most significant, extraordinary & beautiful I've seen here or anywhere. Everyone should devote time and attention to read it.

Kudos Murray!

Asher

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Enjoying reading this, not that I agree with all the conclusions but reading the culmination of deep thinking from intelligent people on these matters is always an education.

 

[Murray Foote]

This thread is one of the most significant, extraordinary & beautiful I've seen here or anywhere. Everyone should devote time and attention to read it.
Kudos Murray!
Asher

Thanks very much, Asher!

 

[Alain Briot]

Murray,

This is a very interesting comparison between Easter Island culture and our culture.

There remains one aspect you have not covered and that is the statues. What do you compare them to in our culture?

 

[Jerome Marot]

There remains one aspect you have not covered and that is the statues. What do you compare them to in our culture?

Symbols of power, modern Moais.​

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jerome,

One picture, so succinct!

Asher