I haven't yelled in outrage. That's because of psychic numbing, I'm sure. I haven't been hit all at once, as I was the first time I saw the birth rate graph. Exponential growth of population and physical capital, exponential depletion of resources and degradation of the environment are not necessary to the human condition. But collectively we have been behaving as if they were.
Growth is still the pattern of the human system.
As yet no corrective processes have been strong enough to stop it. But there are signs of such processes. The good news is that some are coming from human ingenuity and restraint. The bad news is that some are coming from environmental breakdown. I've grown impatient with the kind of debate we used to have about whether optimists or the pessimists are right.