"The World Situationhttp://world.std.com/~awolpert/gtr487.html
Many global attitudes and programs seem to be based on accepting future growth in population as preordained and as the basis for action. But, if we make provision for rising population, population responds by rising. What is to stop the exponential growth? This book describes the circular processes of our social systems in which there is no unidirectional cause and effect. Instead, a ring of actions and consequences close back on themselves. One can say, incompletely, that population will grow and that cities, space, and food must be provided. But one can likewise say, also incompletely, that the provision of cities, space, and food will cause population to grow. Population generates the pressure to support growth of population. But supporting the growth leads to more population. Growth will stop only in the face of enough pressure to suppress the internal dynamic forces of expansion."Many programs - for example the development of more productive grains and agricultural methods - are spoken of as 'buying time' until population control becomes effective. But the process of buying time reduces the pressure that force population control.
"Any proposed program for the future must deal with both the quality of life and the factors affecting population. 'Raising the quality of life' means releasing stress, reducing crowding, reducing pollution, alleviating hunger, and treating ill health. But these pressures are exactly the sources of concern and actions that will control total population to keep it within the bounds of the fixed world within which we live. If the pressures are relaxed, so is the concern about how we impinge on the environment. Population will then rise further until the pressures reappear with an intensity that can no longer be relieved. Trying to raise quality of life without intentionally creating compensating pressures to prevent a rise in population density will be self-defeating. Efforts to improve quality of life will fail until effective means have been implemented for limiting both population and industrialization.
"Without effective legal and psychological control, population grows until stresses rise far enough, which is to say that the quality of life falls far enough, to stop further increase. Everything we do to reduce those pressures causes the population to rise farther and faster and hastens the day when expediences will no longer suffice. People are in the position of a wild animal running from its pursuers. We still have some space, natural resources, and agricultural land left. We can avoid the question of rising population as long as we can flee into this bountiful reservoir that nature provided. But the reservoir is limited. Exponential growth cannot continue. The wild animal flees until he is cornered, until he has no more space. Then he turns to fight, but he no longer has room to maneuver. He is less able to forestall disaster than if he had fought in the open while there was still room to yield and to dodge. The world is running away from its long-term threats by trying to relieve social pressures as they arise. But, if we persist in treating only the symptoms and not the causes, the result will be to increase the magnitude of the ultimate threat and reduce our capability to respond when we no longer have more space and resources to invade.
"What does this mean? Instead of automatically attempting to cope with population growth, national and international efforts to relieve the pressures of excess growth must be reexamined. Many such humanitarian impulses seem to be making matters worse in the long run. Rising pressures are necessary to hasten the day when population is stabilized. Pressures can be increased by reducing food production, reducing health services, and reducing industrialization. Such reductions seem to have only slight effect on quality of life in the long run. The principal effect will be in squeezing down and stopping the runaway growth.
"Social Values
Impending changes in the world system threaten modern social values and goals. The industrial societies have become geared to a philosophy of growth and rising standard of living for everyone. This cannot continue indefinitely. New human purposes must be defined to replace the quest for economic advancement. Nature must be helped rather than conquered. Civilization must be restrained rather than expanded. Social pressures probably must increase rather than decline, until those pressures can be transformed into a change in social values that take satisfaction from an equilibrium society."The underdeveloped countries face equally traumatic changes in goals. They now aspire to reach the level of industrialization of the advanced countries. But they may already be in better balance with the environment than countries they try to emulate.
"Both the developed and underdeveloped countries face the common problem of sharing the natural resources and the pollution-dissipation capacity of the earth. Without effective arbitration, only war and violence can settle the competition for limited earth.
"The long-term future of the earth must be faced soon as a guide for present action. Goals of nations and societies must be altered to become compatible with that future, otherwise man remains out of balance with his environment. Man can do vast damage first, but eventually he will yield to the mounting forces of the environment. Can the traditions of civilization be altered to become compatible with global equilibrium?"
March 31,2003