It's Nature's Way of Deceiving You

Technoutopian Greenocrats of the Thomas Friedman variety have this astonishing idea that if you just create a different model of growth, then you can hybridize consumption and conservation. Well, okay, sure. And my adorable little dog loves to eat her own poop.



So. Let us consult the ghost of elementary-school science class. In any system with finite resources, there are limits on growth, even where the resources are replaceable. Herbivores that overgraze will see their populations decline from unsustainable peaks even though the grass grows back. Predators that overhunt will see their populations decline despite the fact that the herd persists and has more calves. These are simple examples but illustrative of the regulatory mechanisms of natural equilibrium. Sometimes growth exceeds resources and there's dieback. Sometimes you get a few good rainy seasons and a glut of good grassland and the population rebounds quickly. Etc. and so forth.

But no system in which there are finite resources supports indefinite growth. The problem with this sort of Aspen-Institute vision of a world of Priuses and Whole-Foods-brand back-yard rainwater cisterns is that it works on the government model of increase: it calls projected future declines in growth cuts. Oh, if only we can slow the increase of . . . With increase, of course, remaining the operative word.

Now I think it may yet be possible for Brazil to find a way to economic prosperity without slashing and burning the rainforests for soy fields. But here is where 3rd-grade science fails. There's more than one vector here, and if Brazil uses less of this, it will use more of that . . . meanwhile, the fucking population continues to explode. To once again harp on a familiar theme, the problem we have is not that there are seven billion people consuming too much, but that there are seven billion people, and counting. I haven't got any proposed solution, but I'll tell you this: solar panels are not. Gonna. Fucking. Do it.