It’s the End of the World as We Know It…

A specter is haunting global civilization: the specter of “carrying capacity.” In one forum after another, the idea that we are nearing Malthusian limits in terms of the development of highly organized societies and human habitation of earth is making itself heard. Scientists and sociologists point to different specific phenomena: species extinction and habitat destruction, over-population, global warming, peak oil, falling water tables, the proliferation of super-viruses, and so on, but the theme of most of these analyses is simple: things cannot, and will not, go on as they are much longer. Some of the thinking associated with this idea is rather timid and narrow, some of it is lyrical and reasoned, some of it is flat-out apocalyptic. Sometimes the same author exhibits more than one of these characteristics in the same article or book. Some of the proposed prescriptions for our plight are just about as frightening as the worst-case scenario themselves.

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