Carrying Capacity,Globalization and theUnsustainable
Entanglement of Nations
Blue Planet Prize Commemorative Lecture
William E. Rees, PhD, FRSC
Professor Emeritus
University of British Columbia
School of Community and Regional Planning

Context: The Anomalous Unsustainable
Expansion of the Human Enterprise2012 Population:
7 billion

The serious use of fossil fuel beginning in
the 19th Century allowed the explosive
growth of the human enterpriseContinuous growth—population and economic—is an anomaly. The growth spurt that recent
generations take to be normal is the single most abnormal period of human history.

Starting premise: Humanity
has gone ‘rogue’y H. sapiens is the dominant species on Earth and themajor geological force changing the face of the planet.
y Human ecological dysfunction is destroying theecosystems that sustain civilization and undermining
vital life support functions. Consider for example:
y Climate change, ocean acidification, fisheries collapses,
land/soil degradation, desertification, tropicaldeforestation and biodiversity loss.
y The human enterprise has exceeded the long-term
carrying capacity of Earth; we are in ‘overshoot.’This is an old concern• To Malthus, humanity was caughtforever in the grip of the earth’s
limited carrying capacity.
• “…I say that the power of population
is indefinitely greater that the powerin the earth to produce subsistence forman.” (Rev.Thomas Malthus 1798).

Ecological View: Planet Earth is Like a Ship:

Carrying Capacity = Plimsoll MarkWe know enough not to load a ship beyond its cargo capacity as indicated by thePlimsoll mark/line. Why do we think we can get away with overloading the earth?

Why Modern Overshoot Mattersy The ecosphere and its subsystems are complex systems

with multiple possible equilibrium states not necessarily
favourable to human civilization.
y Human population growth and rising material
consumption; habitat transformation/fragmentation;energy production/consumption; and climate change allexceed in rate and magnitude the forces that wereapparently responsible for natural global-scale state shifts
in the geological past.
y Given the scale of human impacts, “another global-scalestate shift is highly plausible within decades to centuries,
if it has not already been initiated” (Barnosky et al. 2012)

Even in the simplest case,Societies in overshoot invite
catastrophic collapse
Overshoot represents humanity’s‘ecological deficit’

OnePlanet
LivingWhenever a population grows beyond carrying capacity, the environment is degraded.
Think: climate change, ozone depletion, sea level rise, deforestation, fisheries collapses,
land degradation, etc. This is uneconomic growth that makes us poorer, not richer.

Leadership in Denial?
y Despite the problems caused by excessive

economic scale and the threat of systems failure,
the Rio+20 Earth Summit final report, TheFuture We Want, requires no one to do anything
and actually equates sustainable developmentwith “sustained economic growth”.
y Some see this conference as “perhaps, thegreatest failure of collective leadership since thefirst world war” (Monbiot 2012).
y The Future We Want has also been called “thelongest suicide note in history” (Naidoo 2012).

The world subscribes to the myth of progress and infinite growth. According toLawrence Summers
then Chief Economist, World Bank (1991)• “There are no... limits to the carrying capacity ofthe earth that are likely to bind any time in theforeseeable future… The idea that we should putlimits on growth because of some natural limit, is a
profound error [with] staggering social costs.”• Theory: As the global economy expands, trade,technology and increased wealth will enablehumanity to compensate for the depletion ofnatural resources and the loss of life-support
services. In effect, humans can continuously
increase carrying capacity.

Mechanisms for Growth:
Globalization and Tradey Globalization = dissolution of national boundaries

and the horizontal integration of national
economies into one.
y Trade rules encourage countries to specialize in
those few economic products that they do best,(i.e., most efficiently) and in which they have a‘comparative advantage’.
y Countries are supposed to export these products toearn the foreign exchange required to import all
their other needs.

Conventional Trade Theory:
Everybody Wins!
y If each country specializes in products for which it has

a comparative advantage, the world can maximize
global production.
y Because goods are being produced efficiently and forthe largest possible market, prices will be lower anddemand higher. Producers’ incomes increase.
y Higher incomes and lower prices enable people tomaximize their consumption of goods from all over
the world. I.e.,y More liberal trade facilitates growth in gross world
product (production and consumption) and increases
carrying capacity at least cost.

Assumptions Implicit in
Growth-via-Globalizationy Higher income/consumption always increases

human well-being.
y There are no ecological impediments to continuous
economic growth.
y Incipient resource scarcity can be relieved byenhanced ‘factor productivity’ (efficiency) or factor
substitution.
y Ecological stability and geopolitical security areassured (i.e., there is no threat from climate change
or aggressive competition for resources)
All these assumptions are proving to be false.

Assessing the Biophysical Impact:
Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA)
EFA inverts the carrying capacity
ratio:• ‘Carrying capacity’(CC) asks how large
a population a given area could support
without damaging the ecosystem.
• ‘Eco-footprinting’ asks how large anarea of ecosystems is required tosupport a given human population.

The Ecological Footprinty The ‘ecological footprint’ of a specified

population is the area of land and water
ecosystems required, on a continuous
basis, to produce the resources that thepopulation consumes, and to assimilate
certain wastes that the population
produces, wherever on Earth the relevant
land/water may be located.
y NB: We are all competing for the world’s
limited biocapacity.

• Money and global markets
give the wealthy the advantage
in the global competition forbiocapacity.

The Bottom Line: Humanity in Overshooty By 2008, the aggregate human footprint had reached18.2 billion hectares.
y Total global bio-capacity was only 12 billion ha.
y This meant that the average person was alreadyconsuming the output of 2.8 gha.
y However, there are only 1.8 gha of productive
ecosystem per person on Earth. In short:y The human enterprise had over-shot carrying
capacity by 50%. This means:y It would take the ecosphere 1.5 years to regenerate
the renewable resources people consumed andassimilate the carbon dioxide they emitted in 2008.

A few
nations still
have ecosurpluses

5
Figure 3: Exporting the ‘surplus’ – exports as acrop prairie crop production
share of total CanadianFigure 4: Foreign eco-footprints on theCanadian prairies associated with agricultural
exports

Summary for Canadian Prairiesy On average from 1989 to 2007, 65% ofCanadian prairie cropland was effectively‘exported’.
y During this period, the total foreign ecofootprint on the prairies increased
significantly, reaching almost 34 million
hectares, an area equivalent to the area of theUnited Kingdom, the Netherlands andDenmark combined.

Figure 5: The Average Area of AgriculturalLand (1000s ha) in the Canadian Prairies
Devoted to Foreign Consumers, 1989-2007

Note the wide
geographic
distribution ofmutual‘entanglement’The flip-side: The US asgrowing importery Between 1995 and 2005, fruit,vegetables, meat and forest productimports to the US steadily increased‘appropriating’ an average of141,000,000 ha in other countries.
y Half of this area is forest followed bypasture and cropland.

Fig. 6: Total Agricultural . and Forest
Land ‘Imported’ by US Consumers(1995-2005)

Fig. 7: US Meat imports – Head of Livestockand Embodied Crop/Grazing Lands

Fig. 8: US Vegetable Imports – MetricTons and ‘Embodied’ Cropland

The US Footprint on ‘Elsewhere’
y US food and wood-fibre imports

represent an extra-territorial land area
equivalent to 18% of the lower fortyeight states.
y This is an area approximately the sizeof Germany, Italy, Spain, and theUnited Kingdom combined.

Globalization as Neo-Colonialismy Globalization enables rich countries

to use paper wealth to acquire the real
wealth of developing and resourcerich countries.
y Rich, powerful nations now achievethrough globalization and trade what
used to require territorial occupation.

The Increasing Entanglement ofNations: Security Implicationsy Specialization and trade makes every country

dependent on others for various essential goods andcommodities.
y Trade in bio-capacity stimulates material andpopulation growth, enabling all trading partners to
exceed their domestic carrying capacities even as
they draw down resource stocks elsewhere.
y This means:y Every trade-dependent region is increasingly vulnerable tosupply or price shocks.
y All nations eventually reach global carrying capacity at
the same time – and there is no surplus capacity or fallback position.

Such trends are unsustainable
y Globalization could be disastrous if key underlying

assumptions are violated. For example, consider theeffect on the national security of import-dependent
nations if growth-driven human-induced climatechange:y Undermines the productivity of exporting nations directly(e.g., long-term drought).
y Induces sea-level rise permanently flooding coastal plains(prime agricultural lands).
y Displaces millions leading to mass migration, local strife
and geopolitical chaosy These events seem virtually inevitable.

“The Age of Consequences”
Washington, Center for Strategic and International Studies (November 2007)

y “We predict an [inevitable] scenario in whichpeople and nations are threatened by massive foodand water shortages, devastating natural disasters
and deadly disease outbreaks” (John Podesta, contributingauthor).

y Rich countries could “go through a 30-year

process of kicking people away from the lifeboat”
as the world’s poorest face the worst
environmental consequences” (Leon Fuerth, contributingauthor).

Obvious Questions that Should Have
Been Asked as the World Globalizedy What are the economic, ecological and moral implications ofencouraging ever more dependent trade relationships that may
not be sustainable given global change and resource scarcity?
y Is it wise for any nation to commit its well-being and future
development to foreign production and vulnerable imports?
y What risks does a nation assume by committing substantial
portions of its limited land-base to extra-territorial consumers?
y How can trade rules be modified to inhibit the overexploitationof critical forms of natural capital?
y What strategies can already trade-dependent countries employ
to enhance security of supply?
y At what point do the benefits of self-reliance and enhanced
security balance the assumed gains from trade?

On the potentially positive sidey The sustainability of any region within the global

system is increasingly dependent on thesustainability of various other distant regions.
y For the first time in the evolutionary history of H.
sapiens, short-term individual and ‘tribal’ selfinterest has all but converged with humanity’slong-term collective interest.
y Mutual survival requires that short-term interestsand competitive relationships give way to longterm interests and international cooperation tosalvage what remains of essential natural capital.

Our mission, should we choose
to accept it…
• Global society must organize to abandon its
socially-constructed perpetual growth myth infavour of a more equitable ‘steady state’ economy
operating well within the means of nature.
• We must script a new cultural narrative that shifts
the values of society from competitive
individualism, greed, and narrow self-interest,
toward community, sharing, cooperation, and ourcollective interest in restoring the life-support
functions of the ecosphere.

The cost of failure
Failure to achieve ecological sustainability withsocial justice would be the failure to exercise thevery qualities that distinguish modern H. Sapiens
from all other species:y high intelligence (e.g., reasoning from theevidence);y the ability to plan ahead;y the capacity to exercise moral judgement;y Empathy/compassion for other people and otherspecies.

If we cannot rise to the challenge of being fully
human, what then would be the prospects for
global civilization?