What you think, given what you read, is limit of human population on earth? Actually love to hear what’s your take on Joel Cohen’s book for example. I look forward to another book you will bring up to recommend.
I would love to see a modern followup by the writer of this article. Americans exported their love of excess and indulgence that has made the owner of Louis Vuitton among, if not, the richest men in the world. The world now is a better place for humanity than it was the time the article was written. A billion and a half Chinese rose above the poverty line with China's middle class exceeding our countrys population. Southeast asian nations has become regional economic powerhouses with ambitions for a top 20 standing in the near future. Turkey and brazil have a young and bright population capable of top tier status though their star has faced challenges in recent years. Globalization has exacerbated "imperialist exploitation" through ravenous resource consumption but it was also undeniably beneficial for lifting tides across the world, so good that Americans didn't seem too bothered by a dollar weakening as long as they got their telecom, teevees and toys on the cheap. Remember the 80s where large boxy computers ranged from 2-5k dollars at the time? Newer ones always came at the higher unreachable range. With globalization, we expect more performance and features at a comparable lower set price. Newer phone models reaching 1K was a big deal until you factored inflation and the ludicrous affordability of mid tier models that havent increased by price. Plenty of salient points remain in that article because we never really answered the fundamental flaws in our consumerist culture. So it's a bit ironic that what made neoliberal free trade exceedingly successful (re-allocation of factories to cheap labor, tightly coupled supply chain with continuous drive for efficiencies, reduction of redundant systems and storage, focus/specialization of local strengths) are now points of stress exacerbated by extreme climate change (with war/political instability always looming as well). A poor harvest/famine directly threatens agricultural importing nations elsewhere. A flood or eathquake in a region can create a supply shock for a critical component or resource. Is it because there are more mouths to feed that these nations are in trouble, or is it inevitable with poor governance and endemic corruption? Americans are consuming and wasting more than ever, all while our collective outlook has shifted from a mindset of plenty into a mindset of scarcity. Is it because we're consuming more media telling us of impending doom? Despite all the promised doom elsewhere, we're still blessed with untapped resources, water sources, trade routes and friendly neighbors. I doubt the Great Financial Crisis had anything to do with climate change. It was financial engineering to profit off of greed, fraud, and willful negligence. That caused more globalized misery than a few local famines during that period. So there's plenty to think about in terms of our priorities and our personal decisions/principles regarding environmental stewardship. We never seriously calculated a value of nature or the perks it brings. Buying offsets with an imaginary plot of land 3,000 miles away remained our best answer for well intentioned people. It took decades for industry and political experts to take Amory Lovins concept of an ultra efficient hypercar seriously, and with full electric, you could argue we're going the other way by reinventing an entirely new supply chain with uncalculated cradle to grave impacts, nacient inefficiencies in production and design, let alone a much heavier product. None of that should get in the way of adding rigor and scrutiny into the new chemicals we engineer and release into the air, but that's a separate issue from the topic.
Sagoff reworked the essay in 2007 for the second edition of The Economy of the Earth, which is well worth getting (I see a clean used copy on amazon for $1.35!! terrific bargain). That anthology of his essays would serve well as an overall followup. Don't know anything more recent off the top of my head though.
new book reviewed Conservatives on Climate Change https://lawliberty.org/book-review/conservatives-on-climate-change/ excerpt: A recent collection of essays edited by Jonathan Adler seeks to answer the question of whether “classical-liberal principles” can provide a distinctive perspective on climate change. After reading Climate Liberalism, I think the answer is no, they cannot. Insofar as government is going to respond to climate change, this book shows that the classical liberal or even libertarian response will look a lot like the modern liberal response. Yet the book is a success at demonstrating, first, how contemporary responses to climate change can be fit into a classically liberal perspective, and, second, how much the free-market response to environmental problems in general has come to inform modern liberals’ response, including their response to climate change. If classical liberals are going to wrestle with this issue, this book should make them comfortable that they can do so in their own tradition and without falling into anti-capitalist extremes. The book makes a wise decision to separate the question of the science of climate change from the political question of what to do about it. Since there is no “classical liberal science” just as there is no “socialist science,” this book does not try to contribute to that debate. But, as several authors note, even if one thinks the scientific consensus on climate is open to question, and even if one brings an appropriate humility to our ability to imagine the future, that provides little reason to pretend there could not be any costs to climate change, or at least that there could not be some risk to it. *** Insofar as there is a single message in this book, it is the simple but powerful reminder that a classically liberal perspective demands humility—humility about how well policymakers can understand humanity’s well-being and also about the ability of government to improve that well-being. But the book also reminds us that humility does not mean indolence. Just as classical liberals or libertarians cannot punt on the issues of national defense or public safety and merely gesture to the free market, despite some heroic attempts at trying, they also cannot pretend any attempt at addressing climate change is beyond the ideological pale. Climate change will remain a political issue, which means it will involve weighing evidence, trying to align public and private incentives, and coming to a political agreement on complex and almost unknowable issues. The best tradition of classical liberalism has done that in other spheres, and it can do it here. more at the link
The classical liberal approach - "if it doesn't help with quarterly profits, then it's not a issue worth solving".
additional commentary from Adler Judge Glock on "Climate Liberalism" A review of Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property & Pollution at Law & Liberty. https://reason.com/volokh/2023/07/19/judge-glock-on-climate-liberalism/
Phoenix, where 100 is a relief during the daytime. And 80 is a relief during the nightime. Make it 20 days in a row of temp above 110. It's forecasted to remain above 110 for the next 10 days. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/jul/19/phoenix-breaks-its-old-record-for-110-degree-days/ On Tuesday, Phoenix reached a miserable milestone: It was the first time the city had measured 19 days in a row of 110-degree or higher temperatures, breaking a record set in 1974. The forecast called for a high of 117 degrees. ... With Tuesday's low of 94 degrees, the city has had nine straight days of temperatures that didn't go below 90 at night, breaking another record there, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Salerno, who called it "pretty miserable when you don't have any recovery overnight." On Monday, the city also set a record for the hottest overnight low temperature: 95 degrees. During the day, the heat built up so early that the city hit the 110-degree mark a couple of minutes before noon. The last time Phoenix didn't reach 110 degrees was June 29, when it hit 108.
Define “environment”….. it seems reasonable to conclude we are talking about the environment, ecosystems, biomes, etc meant to sustain human life. The universe doesn’t really care if humans inhabit it, but we do…. This is just a bunch of double talk.
All this to say that humans acting like humans is hurt the earth? You can look at ancient civilizations from Meso America to the Mediterranean to see how humans take more than the earth can provide which causes (among other things) vast supply chains to collapse. Capitalism/neoliberalism is dumb like water.... it just takes the path of least resistance..... So it's not like it incapable of protecting the environment, you just have to price it in. Being "blessed" and "being lucky" are pretty similar, just one requires divine intervention.
...... these types sure have a look..... old and white haired. LOLOLOLOL "climate has changed". So profound and the new anti climate playbook.
And yet conservatives aren't really proposing anything to do about mitigation.... It's like mental health and gun violence..... Just pay it lip service but do nothing. Just more empty talk by conservatives meant to do nothing.
Nah, the main theme of that article is to challenge assumptions made by people who think we either over consume too much or are over populated. It's a hefty 50min read though I listened to it with tts. The people cited have thought long and hard about the problem and it's not a simple matter. The world has been stuck since that article despite flowery declarations and non-binding agreements. So it's not "simple" or a matter of "just this". I'll admit your frustration is similar to what I had 2 decades ago... In software development, engineers are better served when asking the why and what purpose behind changes or features business or products want. It's not a matter of do, this make money. Do that, save world. China implemented their one child policy with a similar mindset. Now they're on a downward population trajectory with a prolonged demographic crunch. Maybe that's a net positive for the world, but it will suck to be a Chinese person living in an aging and declining husk until a rock bottom is hit. It sounds glib when you simplify complex problems to the extreme How do you price it in? With anthropomorphicly dumb capitalism as dumb as anthropomorphicly dumb water? With imaginary infinite socialist money? How do you define value? Cuteness and tourist revenue for pandas? No one really cares about ugly bugs even if they're keystone species in a desert. Do you prioritize desert folk over city slickers with a larger eco footprint? Folks have been trying to derive market externalities of the commons way before you were born. If you can figure it out with the system we have, you'll be filthy rich and a Nobel Prize winner. We've tried Superfund. In some places, we have carbon credits though it's become a farce and scam, esp in Europe where they traded geostability and personal integrity with Russian gas. Euros don't have to pay for offsets for Putin's leaky ill maintained energy pipelines. I'm not saying it's hard then give up. It's hard, and we all need to physically engage further. Naive dismissiveness. Be happy for the last 25 years. Maybe read deeper into the history of the issue you're championing. Frankly, I have worried a lot after the GFC, but it's hard to deny results. People were concerned about entirely different environmental problems in the 70s. There were fears of a resource crunch...for materials like copper, cobalt, and timber. Rare Earths and miniaturization removed those mineral shortages while polymers, better tree management, and a shift away from paper reduced timber shortages. We were so spooked by the oil embargo that there public believed in Peak Oil well into Bush's second term. None of that is luck. None of that was made possible from belief in Jeebus? It took proper motivation, an open mind and a healthy dose of imagination with a mindset towards positive creativity. None of that happens when nuance dies and healthy questioning is shut down because of perceived urgency or authoritative dogma.
Not the first article or person to talk about or imply a future of abundance..... Not sure why you would presume I haven't heard or considered this? Aluminum used to be one of the most valuable metals and within a little over a century we throw it away like it was nothing. Why needlessly complicate things on a basketball forum? To be clear, I'm not proposing some sort of grand plan to address this issue or saying "x-ism" is a better than "y-ism" because really I am a pragmatist who believes the answer is generally a basket of solutions. Either way, through authoritarian climate change dictators or global neoliberal ESG corporate boards you would need to define value..... nothing groundbreaking there. And further groundbreaking.... it will be very difficult for a committee to actually agree and decides on these things. And you haven't mentioned the geopolitical power jockeying in the chaos of a physically changing world where lines are currently being draw in the sand over access to critical minerals. And what is the issue that I am championing? Man's ability to effect the environment at varying scales? Well of course, humankind has entered a new era where it can effect things on greater and greater scales. To the bolded, "past success doesn't guarantee future performance". Our supply chains are far more brittle in the 2020s than the 70s and to prevent a resource crunch we will simply need to extract them from the earth at a far greater scale than before... because there are quite a few more people than the 70s. You understand you will be using a great deal more of copper, cobalt, and timber in 2025 than 1975? You are certainly human and you are certainly talking about yourself as much as your "opposition". For example... you thought I had never considered humans using their opposable thumbs and bring brains to think of a solution to environmental issues. Not very nuanced or creative of you......
And this is really what happened to solve the resource crunch, we just dug up and processed more in places where they cared less about the effects. We are certainly better than ever at it, but it is still highly dependent on lower environmental/QOL standards. China Wrestles with the Toxic Aftermath of Rare Earth Mining https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic-aftermath-of-rare-earth-mining
