Skip to content


Malthus redux

No wonder the Green Emperor appears more bare-assed than usual – he’s got the Environmental News Network to assist him in removing his renewable green threads. In a recent post, ENN informed its cheery readers that perhaps Malthus was wrong; that 9 billion Homo erectus asphaltus might not be that hard to feed after all.

The Neo-Green Revolution will not be televised. But it will be blogged to death.

And now, a word from our sponsors – who gives a rat’s ass if we can feed 9 billion iPod Monkeys? Is that the ecological touch down we’ve all been holding our breath for? Let’s hope not.

With a flair for the obvious, let’s repeat the mantra one more time – ecological health ain’t about numbers and calories. It’s about carrying capacity. And that includes a delicate dance between a theater full of diverse critters, some who don’t seem interested in the foibles of the Human Soap Opera one twit.

9 billion well-fed humanoids will continue to do what humanoids have always done (and are probably genetically programed to do) – stomp the shit out of the planet. Unless, of course, a Dictator and his armed robots decide otherwise. Not a rosy picture; and totally avoidable.

The Big Question is this – Once we feed the hordes, then what?

…. free condoms!

posted by Mudd

Posted in Uncategorized.

2 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Run the numbers, Mudd. It’s not about enough space. It’s about the wise management of the space we have. The entire population of the planet could survive in a landmass the size of Oregon. Could the people? Not by putting greed above need and me above Thee.

  2. stiles said

    Actually, running the numbers is a good idea. Assuming we’re talking about carrying capacity as a function of overall ecosystem integrity. In the long run, it ain’t about people.

Some HTML is OK

(required)

(required, but never shared)

or, reply to this post via trackback.