nmclaren Oct 29, 2007 7:08 am

Friends,

Someone in the list touched on this subject in the last week. Some of my colleagues view this as THE most critical and strategic action we can take. If anyone is interested in a "high-powered" discussion listserve on this subject, go to http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/downslope_strategies/join
A random example of the exchange below.

Nadia McLaren

EcoIntegrity Adelaide, Australia
http://www.ecointegrity.org/
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skype: nadia.mclaren

RE: there is a time to control... turn, turn, turn Phil says "Maybe we should think of finding some arbitrary way to set a limit to how much of nature we control" Yes indeed, but to work I think that logically still needs to add that the population remaining does not continually multiply the amount of nature they try to control. Jack's proposal that you shrink population in matching proportion to the multiplying rate they increase their control of nature doesn't seem to work since the amount controlled per person would still multiply leading to 'screwing up badly' anyway. The discussion about lowering the total number of humans, and leaving vast amounts of the real estate they had occupied to return to wilderness during the next couple of centuries involves a WAY TO LIMIT HOW MUCH OF NATURE WE CONTROL. Reducing population is definitely one option IF each individual's control of and burden on nature is constant. That combination seems to be what is needed, with neither half working without the other. I think I mentioned in a previous post that Alan Weisman's new and very popular book 'THE WORLD WITHOUT US' suggests ONE CHILD PER FAMILY (OCPF) and gives projections of what the population of the Earth would be in 50, 100 and 200 years if OCPF were adopted right now. Weisman's book is a great read and very informative, using the device of explaining how the multitude of ecosystems we're abusing would recover as a story telling device. I think, however, I've proven solidly on a number of occasions that One Child Per Family is hardly sufficient to correct the problem of our growing abuse of nature. The basic dilemma is that the impacts of human control of nature grow more or less in proportion to money, and money doubles every 20 years in the present system. Therefore you need to halve the population every 20 years, to keep pace... Q.E.D. OCPF is not enough. Even If you shortened lifetimes so the population halved every 20 years, if the remaining population doubled its control of nature every 20 years, they would still rapidly get to a point where they would 'screw up badly' with it getting too much for them to handle. What you need to do in addition to limiting population is to either stabilize or harm the growth system! It might be hard to explain how to stabilize it, and easy to explain how to harm it, but I don't think that is significant in determining which is the better choice.

Phil