From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Ecocentric Criterion and the Population Question
Date: 6 Nov 92 16:37:16 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

In article <1466601882@igc.apc.org> alanm@igc.apc.org (Alan McGowen) writes:

>Dietz writes:
>>What I really want to see is the reasoning that distinguishes
>>acceptable from unacceptable environmental degradation, and to learn
>>what the word "minimize" really means when we are told to minimize
>>environmental degradation.
>
>And once more, I'll tell you what distinguishes acceptable from 
>unacceptable. It's unacceptable to produce degradation on a scale 
>that pushes extinction rates thousands of times above average, as 
>if we were trying to be the most mindlessly destructive force in 
>the history of the planet. It's also unacceptable -- and this is 
>a point which seldom receives enough attention -- to reduce 
>speciation rates far below average, which is the other side of 
>what we are doing: speciation potential is also a product of 
>diversity (at all scales). 
>
>In short, it's unacceptable to act as if our goal were to shut down
>evolution.
>
>The acid test of ecocentrism is operational, not subjective: get
>extinction rates back down and speciation potentials back up to 
>average. Work backwards from that goal to see what has to be 
>done. 

I'd like to thank Alan for a definition of ecocentrism that is clear
and not exclusionary. Indeed, not only do I include myself without hesitation
under this definition, but I believe that this opinion could be sold
in a democratic context to most of the society. Indeed, it is easy to
maintain that opposition to this point of view is not really anthropocentric,
but merely short-sighted. 

Not that I agree with Alan on all things, but this position is one which
is not difficult to endorse.

>If you also want a high standard of living for humans, the price 
>is that there can't be as many humans as there could if a lower 
>standard of living were acceptable. [Part of standard of living 
>is also natural area per capita.]
>
>It's becoming fashionable (e.g. by NPG) to argue for a goal of 2 
>billion humans. Personally I'd rather have a very high standard 
>of living and only about half a billion people rather than what I 
>think we would get with 2 billion -- and I doubt very much that 
>the goal of getting speciation rates back up is compatible with 2 
>billion -- but 2 billion is a less scary-sounding goal, 
>apparantly, so my realo-green side prevails. Let's push for two 
>billion, at least for now. 

Unfortunately, I suspect these numbers are chosen arbitrarily and
intuitively. Steinn Sigurdson (I hope I spelled that correctly from
memory) has argued that the rate of increase of population should
carry more weight than the total population, which I find plausible.
I would like to know where these numbers come from. I proposed
trying to find what the limiting process would be at current
technology levels, but the discussion didn't take off. I reiterate
my question: if consumption is fixed at a current high standard of
living and technology is fixed at current levels and energy costs 
are fixed at current prices, what process limits human population
and to what level?

This is a nice interdisciplinary question. My suspicion is that land
use is the bottleneck, and that by the way domestic garbage disposal is not
a significant factor. Am I right? If so, what per capita economic land 
use (with current technologies) is required to support a lifestyle
that most would consider affluent? Is is possible to consider a world
in which there is little use of private long-distance vehicles as affluent?
(I suspect this would turn out to yield a spectacular increase in the
sustainable population. Am I right?)

mt