Environment & Energy

We know what positive forces stabilize human populations -- among those are the economic empowerment of women, easy availability of birth control, realistic sex education, and a certain basic level of affluence, the sort of affluence that affords indoor plumbing, modern sewage treatment systems, healthy foods, and comfortable shelter. We also know that the people with the smallest environmental footprints generally live in cities, don't own cars, and have mostly vegetarian diets.

Unfortunately, what we now call economic productivity is almost a direct measure of the damage we are doing to the earth's natural environment and our own human spirit, largely because this false productivity is powered by fossil fuels and wage slavery, or in some cases, outright slavery.

It's simply not ethical to propose limits to economic growth in a world suffering great disparities of wealth, a world where affluent people are burning through resources at a tremendous rate and others are dying because they lack adequate shelter and are exposed to deadly communicable diseases in places lacking modern sanitation systems.

We can solve the disparity-of-wealth problem with progressive taxes. We can create the infrastructure required to support 8 billion people in comfort using nuclear power instead of dangerous fossil fuels.

Or we can wait around and let nature take its usual course.

We won't be the first or the last species to experience exponential population growth followed by collapse. We could be the first species to actually think our way out of this death trap.

Maybe we can achieve a Star Trek future of abundance without the wars and apocalyptic dark ages.