Loyola Econ Prof Walter E. Block Again Shows He's a Blockhead In WSJ Op-Ed

                                                                       

                                                                       Walter E. Block - Loyola Prof

In his  June 23rd letter in The Loyola Maroon   ('An Open Letter To Loyola Students Who Want Me Fired')    Economics professor Walter E. Block wrote:

"There are quite a few Loyola professors who, as I do, approve of economic freedom, private property rights and laissez faire capitalism, but none “who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them” to the extent that I do. I’m pretty rabid on these issues. So, you students who want me fired: if you really want to even understand your own positions on political economic philosophy, let alone defend them competently, you need me to continue my employment as Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair.."

That Wirth -endowed chair has enabled Block to spout no end of bollocks and twaddle in the name of economic freedom, including (in 2014) that restaurant owners today ought not be forced to serve a possible patron (whether white, black, red or brown) against their will.  Just as it is morally wrong to force someone to work for you against their will, so also- argues Block-  it is morally wrong to force someone to engage in a trade transaction against their will. And the latter, of course, includes being forced to serve customers a proprietor may not like. 

At the time Block's contentious codswallop first came out I wrote in an extended comment reply (to a Block defender), that even if Block isn't directly supporting slavery he was still upholding a subtle form of discrimination and giving a dubious justification.  As I wrote at the time (Jan. 31 post, 2014):  "The restaurateur or trader is afforded certain privileges (via licensing) to provide services such as food in the public domain. But this freedom to trade is governed by certain rules so they cannot do whatever they want, trade with whomever they want- while excluding other customers.  Hence, they can't exclude service unless a customers behavior is disorderly or drunk and in any case undesirable - and for which any person with common sense would concur. The trader doesn't have the latitude to refuse service on the basis of race, skin color or any other subjective basis."

The Loyola community - including other professors - correctly interpreted Block's arguments as a defense of racial bias, or preferential treatment - which is what it was.  The claim that a lunch counter owner has a "right" to choose his clientele is merely a smokescreen to hide the inherent prejudice. Just like the Colorado cake maker who refused to make wedding cakes for gays, the "right" only applies if one is operating solely in the private sphere.  A cake maker or food preparer can make as many delicacies as he wants - and exclude others -  so long as it's only a private hobby,  not a public operation for which a trade license has been issued. Once the latter exists all bets are off and your right to pick and choose your own customers is no more. 

Anyway, Block has now gone off on a new jeremiad in a WSJ op-ed, this time against one David M. Graber who he compares to "an uneducated drunk"   for writing a review of Bill McKibben's 'The End Of Nature'.   Therein, Graber questions the value of surplus human lives on this planet, and how so many excess billions are not only destroying the environment but making life degraded and unlivable.  In other words, human numbers need to be pared down if humanity is to survive.

This shouldn't be rocket science, but for Prof. Block-head, it evidently is since Graber is "eager for masses of human beings to drop dead."    Well, uh, no. Only to stop reproducing!

Why?  For starters, our little planet is not infinite so has a limited carrying capacity. 

Carrying capacity =

(usable land-water resource base providing water + food + fuel) / (individual food, fuel + water requirement)

If the numerator is » 11.4 x 10 ⁹  hectares of usable aggregate equivalent land-water resource base and if 6 hectares is the ideal "mean individual requirement" over a lifetime (e.g. meet all basic needs and have a few private luxuries) , that means:

CC = (11.4 x 10 ⁹   hectares) / 6 hectares/person » 2 billion

Obviously, this can be increased if the numerator can be increased or the denominator (each individual's ecological footprint) decreased. The problem is how to achieve it? (Especially if the total population continues to increase at 2-3% per year)    The point is we're rapidly approaching the threshold at which there will simply be too many people to feed given existing resources: water, arable soil, fertilizers etc.. The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The graphic below puts this into perspective; 

                                              

The interpretation of the graph (upward) is straightforward. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate.   This means that if planet Earth has an excess population - over carrying capacity - that will be hostage to the limited resources, and almost certain face mass destitution and death.

Block, despite these hard facts, writes (ibid.):

"This third rock from the Sun can now support seven plus billion people prosperously - or could if everyone would adopt the principle of free enterprise.  "

Which, of course, is a fairy tale because capitalist free enterprise depends on multiple bounties of  available resources to churn out products through which a "free" enterprise person can compete.  Since the resources (copper, palladium, silver etc.) are now waning then the creation of separate enterprises is a dead end, i.e. infeasible.   Unless perhaps we get to the closer asteroids and manage to do some asteroid mining, but does anyone want to bet the poorest current Africans or Brazilians will benefit from that bounty to start their own "enterprises"?

Minus asteroidal resources here are sobering facts for Block and his blockhead brigade:

-  Every day humans permanently remove 3.2 billion gallons more water from aquifers than nature can't replace. If  "human ingenuity" was as great as advertised it would be able to compensate for the losses nature is unable to. But it can't!  Just multiply world population by per capita consumption and - unlike the lazy Block - you can estimate levels of resource depletion and waste generation.

- U.S. consumption of energy grows every day despite half-hearted efforts to conserve it.  This is important because each energy use is accompanied by entropy or degradation in the quality of energy remaining  which also impacts our environment.

- To accommodate growth we pave over an area equal to the state of Delaware every year.

Common sense ought to inform one that this is unsustainable and can't go on indefinitely.

The Cornucopians get it wrong because they don't see population growth  as the toxin it is, and can't put 2 plus 2 together to see how it leads to the Malthusian nightmare.  A nightmare playing out now before their eyes if they'd only look!  Pick any country in the world suffering from a civil war, a famine, insufficient water or a massive die off from natural disaster - you will invariably find it to be one with excess fertility.  Hence, one which is already overpopulated. Check out the sample birthrates per woman in any of these countries, e.g. 6.8 for Somalia, 5.5. for Afghanistan, 6.2 for Burundi, 6.3 for the Congo, and 6.5 for Mali.  The same depressing story repeats over and over.  

All of this comes back to net energy which is that energy humans need to survive. If the oil taken from the ground, say by fracking, only has a ratio of 1:1 (for energy produced to energy consumed) then it is barely of use to extract it. The same amount of oil-energy you are using up to get it, is basically what it carries. There is no net gain.   

Block's failure to grasp the fundamental  limits to human growth - whether in population or the economy -  is  arguably tied to  his belief that proprietors can refuse dealing with any customers if they so choose.   In Block  World, just keep all those black, brown and red people out of the critical supply chains (whether for food or fuel)  by your own subjective choice of customer and watch how fast they disappear.  We see some of this even now as millions of the poor - mainly minorities - are forced to live in "food deserts".   All they can access are Burger Kings, McDonald's, Taco Bell, but no supermarkets stocking veggies.

By such limitation those inhabitants are prone to much higher obesity and then become fodder for Covid to take them down at disproportionate rates.  Does Block care? Clearly, from his arguments defending absolute proprietor preference of customers, he does not.  This does not mesh with Loyola's own humanist Christian tradition so yeah, Block ought to get the heave -ho.  Where to go? I am sure George Mason University in Virginia would love to have this guy, given we read in the school's Wikipedia entry:

"In 2018, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed that conservative donors, including the Charles Koch Foundation and Federalist Society, were given direct influence over faculty hiring decisions at the university's law and economics schools."

The Reasons For The "Millennial Baby Bust" Are Not Difficult To Grasp

A sign of the increasing population times: Traffic on I-25  near Denver. Colorado's population has doubled in the past 25 years. Most of the drivers shown here are Millennials.

True to form, and like a broken clock that's correct twice each day, the WSJ editorial writers did at least get  two things tagged correctly in their editorial ('America's  Millennial Baby Bust',  May 29, p. A14).  Which isn't saying a lot given they addressed about 7 items.  Before examining the major issues they flubbed, let's look at what they got right:

1)"Declining U.S. birth rates are the product of large cultural forces that the federal government can't buy off with subsidies and income transfers."

This is true because too many (upwards of 30 million) would have to be bought off. Facing a $22 trillion national debt such a buyoff simply would not be financially (or politically) feasible.

2) "The evidence from around the world  is that pro-natalist policies can't offset these cultural trends. Singapore's fertility rate has declined since the 1990s to about 1.2 even after decades of government payouts to encourage more children."

The editorial then cites similar stats  from Japan.

Where the editors slid off the rails is when they whined:

"The theory is that it's too expensive to raise children and thus government must subsidize families. The left wants universal child care, paid parental leave, a larger child tax credit.  A faction of the right supports much of that agenda and payments for women who exit the labor force to have children."

First, it IS too expensive for most middle class citizens - millennials or other - to have children. We are talking about $274,000 on average to raise one kid to college graduation stage.   Even to just high school graduation, $220,000 is a conservative estimate.  But the editors conflate two factors here: subsidizing children and parents as a moral decision of a government, and subsidizing baby making.

In a culture in which a never- ending war is fought over abortion it should not be necessary to point out that the "agenda" both of the left (and most of the right) ought to be a no -brainer. That is, only IF a government does do these things can one aver it is seriously interested in tending to the welfare of life AFTER BIRTH..  Then such policies could be seen as real and viable as opposed to the make believe farrago of BS trotted out by Naomi Schaefer Riley in her recent WSJ op-ed "Christians Are Pro-Life After Birth Too.".  Therein citing a few specialized examples of Christian care (i.e. in foster homes, adoptions) as if these constitute universal policies - say paid parental leave, and fully subsidized child care for working parents.

This is important because Rightist Christians, especially the Evangelicals, are among the most belligerent anti-abortion warriors - but among the most miserly in protecting and nurturing life after birth .  So if you as a Christian would have me believe you  are truly "pro life after birth" I want to see you go whole hog in for the higher taxes to support that agenda the WSJ rejects.  And again, this is a separate issue from millennials not having kids.

The biggest reasons for the latter are: 1) the crushing student loan debt, now over $1. 6 trillion and 2) the lack of decent paying jobs to cover (1) as well as afford housing.  In Denver now the median home price is $584,000 and a person (couple) that wants such a home would have to earn at least $90,000 a year to have enough left over - say to raise a kid, pay utilities, groceries, other bills.  In Colorado Springs, the median home price has now spiked to $490,000. Meanwhile, the average employee here in the Springs earns $20.50 an hour.  This isn't even enough to pay for most rents, now averaging just over $1,000 a month.

Now for a personal face on it: A young woman (Hannah Moore) featured in yesterday's Denver Post Business section (p. 1K, 3K) admits she's "worked continuously" since 2007 when she graduated college, and can't afford enough for a mortgage down payment. According to the story:

"About half her income, she calculates, is eaten up by rent, health insurance and student loan payments...of $850 a month."

And Ms. Moore is one of the lucky ones.  At least she can afford to pay off $850 a month in student loan debts. Many can't and either have to settle for a minimum, say $200 a month, or joining a new movement to deliberately default on their accumulated debt.  This will likely wreck their credit forever, or at least long enough to limit their job choice which - even if they get them - will see wages confiscated.

Meanwhile we are informed ('What The Student Loan Debt is Doing To The U.S. Economy'  (June 25, WaPo):

"Researchers need to account for the across the board wage stagnation that's happened since the 1970s."

I'd say it's fairly straightforward if people are willing to open their eyes to the 800 -pound "gorilla" sitting in the room.  That is the explosion in human population. Look, since 1972 the global population has doubled to 7.3 billion and change.  As I pointed out in a previous post (July 3rd), the U.S. population has itself increased by 45 million  since 2000.  Those are 45 million people - hitting age 19 now-   who will need jobs, homes, health care providers, resources - and most of which aren't there.  Colorado alone has doubled its population in 25 years turning our traffic into nightmares (see graphic) and making competition for jobs and homes downright brutal. This state isn't alone, either. Florida has doubled its population twice since 1972.

The results?  The added numbers of job seekers to Colorado represent a supply that can't be accommodated given the kinds of jobs they seek:  mainly IT, MJ specialists or related tech. And they will not take the jobs (especially after graduating with a B.Sc. or B.A.)  that are going begging. Like picking crops of  peaches, strawberries, watermelons or cleaning school gyms.  So, in effect, a large elite labor surplus has been created, from which the tech employers can pick and choose-  and dismiss. 

This upper tier labor surplus ensures corporate employers have zero pressure on them to offer higher wages.   In the words of Adam Gadomski of Aspen Advisers - quoted in one WSJ piece from two years ago-  explaining why so many corporate employers aren't hiring top talent with pay commensurate:

"When companies lament they can't find workers to fill key openings, that is code for: "I can find talent, I just don't want to pay them as much as they cost."


Why would they when they can always find a 'next in line'  (e.g. in the techie labor surplus)  who will accept lower pay, fewer benefits?    Thus the fierce competition for scarce, better quality jobs is ultimately driving many seekers away disheartened.  Because, of course, they can't indefinitely continue to work two jobs - say one at Arby's  and  driving for  Lyft evenings - while paying $1300- 1600 a month rent.

Now, seriously, do you think they can also afford to have kids in this milieu? Of course not.

The home building also isn't keeping pace with the population growth. According to the state demographer Elizabeth Garner, there are fewer new (rental) units than in the past despite the fact that housing construction hasn't picked up since the Great Recession.  According to Garner, quoted in the Denver Post:

"Even though people think we're doing a lot of building it's not as much as they think we are."

The lack of housing, creating a shortage of supply, has radically driven up costs even forcing many who've moved to Denver to now look for housing 67 miles away here in Colorado Springs. So now our housing prices are shooting up too. We regularly receive up to two notices a week from realtors begging to buy our place "on the spot, hard cash".  Of course, we just laugh and tear them up.  As our Springs housing fills up the Denver workers are even being chased as far south as Pueblo to try to find affordable homes . And as they put pressure on the market there with their demand (and again limited supply) the housing prices again shoot up.

Nor is this problem confined to the U.S. As we have recently learned (WSJ, 'Affordable Housing Grows as Global Issue', April 3, p. B5):

"Across 32 major cities around the world, real home prices on average grew 24 % over the past five years, while average real income grew by only 8 percent over the same period."

Too many people!  Add the costs of living (homes, rents, medical care) to the numbers competing for the same limited resources such as lumber (growing ever scarcer) and you have a nightmare, e.g.


Therein, the Earth overshoot (of consumption of planetary resources)  is the basic basis for the "Affordable home bust" as well as the  "Millennial Baby Bust".  And look, don't listen to the Pollyannas  (like Prof. Steven Pinker) because it isn't going to get better.  That much we know.  Barring a massive effort to control births worldwide (no more than 8 b people by 2050)  the resource depletion, crops depletion, wars and extreme inequality that incites them will just keep getting worse.  And the risk of a deadly pandemic like Spanish flu in 1918 culling human  numbers,  also increases.  Which is just a takeoff on Isaac Asimov's theme when he delivered a lecture in Barbados back in 1976,

 i.e. that "if humans can't control their numbers then nature will do it for us."

The formula is straightforward: More humans =   more crowding, more traffic, more CO2 pollution and greenhouse warming, more consumption of water, timber, fuel, and LESS space for other life forms, as well as quality living space to share.  Asimov's conclusion was that Earth's carrying capacity was 3 billion, and we have already surpassed that by 4.3 billion.

The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population.   With 2.5 billion more humans set to arrive by 2050 where will the added people go? Where will the affordable homes, or food or medical care - not to mention living space - come from ?  The jobs?  The water?  No one has a clue and that future is barely 30 years away, a literal blink.

Regarding  fresh, potable water, we learned in today's WSJ (p. A8):

"By 2030  demand for water in India will be double the country's supply."

And this is twenty years short of the additional half billion people India will likely have by 2050.

But what do the WSJ editors offer instead of hard analyses? Well, more codswallop and distractions, excuses that fit into their capitalism uber alles narrative.  Writing, for example (ibid.), as another "reason" for the Millennial baby bust:

"More women want to find fulfillment in professional work, a strong social force that won't be mitigated by a monthly check if they stay home."

While such fulfillment can't be summarily dismissed it still only accounts for about 30 percent of the failure to start families.  The much bigger reason-  according to the Fed's and other stats (e.g. from the Economy Policy Inst.)-  is not enough income to purchase an affordable home.  Which can then be traced inexorably to the stiff competition arising from ....you guessed it... too many people competing for the existing homes, jobs.

This leads us to ask why it is that excess population is not given more play in the media.   I offered an answer in my May 11 post from last year when I pointed out:

"The hedge funds and corporations that own the newspapers and run the boards of directors are in thrall to consumption and ever more debt.  If they spilled the beans about too many people already, they'd have to admit to their agenda of not only exploding population and exploding consumption but exploding debt. Already, consumer debt of all types (including student loan debt) in the U.S. has hit $15 trillion.   The increasing debt itself is a pronounced signal that things cannot go on as they are, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html

In an article appearing in `Physics Today' (July, 2004 issue): `Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie', Prof. Albert Bartlett (Univ. of Colorado-Boulder) pinpointed the failure to name human population growth as a major cause of our energy and resource problems.


Bartlett asserted that "their (scientists') general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population - at least in the U.S. Or perhaps scientists are uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise".

Bartlett himself, in one magnificent lecture, i.e.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

 Has perhaps given the best reason for this reticence of scientists to speak out: the realization that too few Americans understand the concept of exponential increase which lies at the heart of population increase.  The problem here is that if scientists, e.g. physicists, aren't willing to come forward and call out population growth as a key culprit in our wage stagnation,  planetary degradation and economic morass then few others will.  Interestingly, Bartlett echoes Asimov in his lecture - 17:20 mark on - in noting everything that makes the population problem better are things we are desperate to avoid, i.e. war, disease, famine, accidents, abortion etc.  And all the things that make the population problem worse (more people)  we are for.  (But as he notes, ultimately nature will decide from the former list to limit our numbers if we don't.)

Personally, I suspect another huge reason the Millennials aren't churning out babies is because they relate more intimately to the planetary disruption and damage our numbers have caused. In everything from destroying the oceans, e.g. via warmer temperatures and higher acidification, to the proliferation of plastics, e.g

 To polluting our limited fresh water rivers, lakes and atmosphere.  They know humans are the primary contributor to these and don't wish to add more contributing consumption units.

Bottom line: Millennials are leery of having kids because of the attendant expense. But this is directly a function of the paucity of high paying jobs needed to: a) purchase a house, and b) raise the kid(s).  That in turn is a function of population pressures in whichever locale the person (Millennial or other) chooses to live. Reduce the population pressure and you reduce the competition for high paying jobs which in turn will lead to more youngsters (graduates)  able to get them. That in turn will lead to a better chance to have kids  - at least afford one - and also afford rent or home ownership. In any case no one ought to be having more than one kid, the Earth simply can't afford it. Meaning those of us who share the Earth can't afford to have another intense resource consumer (and polluter)  added to the mix.

The "Population Bomb Is A Dud" ? Don't Believe It!

Once again, we behold that William McGurn of the WSJ still doesn't grasp basic mathematics and the role of over population in degrading the environment and destroying quality of life.

McGurn's latest babble ('The Population Bomb Was A Dud', May 1, p. A13)  misfires on the first count because he appears not to be aware that was not the author's own choice of title. It was actually, 'Population, Resources and the Environment' - much less sexy and eye-catching.   Of course, this is why the publisher insisted on the catchier title.  The second misfire is when McGurn latches onto a defective tract (book) by Julian Lincoln Simon entitled 'The Ultimate Resource' in which the author insists "we live in an epidemic of life" and it's all basically glorious bounty.  Well, I'd sure love this fool to try to prove that to the people clamoring for housing across the nation right now, and often having to spend down to get even a spare bedroom to rent in the metro Denver area,. (The median monthly rent in Denver is now $2100).

McGurn cites a bet that 'Population Bomb' author Paul Ehrlich made with Simon based on commodities and which Ehrlich ultimately lost. The bet was for $1,000 - not a mammoth sum but not unreasonable given the implicit uncertainties. The bet was that the inflation-adjusted prices of five metals (chromium, tin, copper tungsten,  and nickel would rise by 1990 (Ehrlich) or fall (Simon.) Simon ended up winning but that may only have been because of dumb luck in timing and choosing those particular commodities.  (Potable water and arable land would have been better choices given both are in precipitous decline.)

Ehrlich was right in one sense: the population continued to soar from 4.5 billion in 1980 to 5.3 billion in 1990. More importantly, a 2014  paper by David S, Jacks ('Front Boom to Bust:  A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run" ) disclosed Ehrlich would have won the bet had the time frame been extended. In summary, the Jacks' paper found that:"Cumulatively, the picture emerging from this exercise is a clear patter of real, rising commodity prices from at least 1950."

Even The Economist's "free exchange" blog  ca. 2014,  pointed out that while Simon may have won the specific bet, the Cornucopians haven't yet proven their position is correct. The blog pointed out:

"The  (Jacks) paper does suggest that while innovation, substitution and conservation can reduce the price impact of rising demand for fundamentally scarce resources, they can't necessarily eliminate it entirely ."

Further (ibid.):

"Of course, rising demand itself might come to an eventual end given new technologies - or to validate Mr. Ehrlich - the ultimate decline and stabilization of the global population. It may still be too early to tell whether humanity faces Malthusian limits or not."


I am inclined to concur with this - especially in terms of limits to fresh water access, already a problem in many countries. (Look for example at Capetown, S. Africa, narrowly avoiding "Day Zero" but at the cost of 40 percent of the country's water intensive crops.)  Without fresh water resources, the whole 'enchilada' goes south, from crops to public health.  It's a no brainer, given we are seeing the exhaustion of stores of fresh water globally..  One notable ‘State of the World’ report (2000, pp. 46-47), warned that the ever increasing water deficits will likely spark “water wars” by 2025.  Even now, 1 billion-plus  people live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies have dropped below 1,700 cubic meters per capita, a critical survival threshold. As observed (p. 47):

“When a country’s renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita (what some analysts call the water stress level) it becomes difficult for the country to mobilize enough water to satisfy all the food, household, and industrial needs of its population.”

Anyway, McGurn swallows Simon's codswallop hook, line and sinker that "human beings are more than just mouths to feed"  (Really? Tell that to the underfed billions in  sub-Sahara Africa, India).  He also insists - on the basis of Simon's garbage -- that  "Paul Ehrlich got it wrong because he never understood human potential", adding:

"Fifty years out, alas, Mr. Ehrlich remains as impervious to the evidence as ever. In an interview two months ago in the Guardian, Mr. Ehrlich decreed the collapse of civilization a 'near certainty' in the next few decades."

But in truth it is Neoliberal, market -worshipping Cornucopians like McGurn who are impervious to the evidence. That is, that a finite planet simply cannot support an ever expanding population that consumes more resources in one year than the planet is able to provide. McGurn, for example, questions that carrying capacity is "settled science".  In fact, it comes closest to a sensible form for quantifying the human imposition on planetary resources in terms of conserving them for future generations. It is defined:

Carrying capacity =

(usable land-water resource base providing water + food + fuel) / (individual food, fuel + water requirement)

If the numerator is » 11.4 x 10 ⁹  hectares of usable aggregate equivalent land-water resource base and if 6 hectares is the ideal "mean individual requirement" over a lifetime (e.g. meet all basic needs and have a few private luxuries) , that means:

CC = (11.4 x 10 ⁹   hectares) / 6 hectares/person » 2 billion

Obviously, this can be increased if the numerator can be increased or the denominator (each individual's ecological footprint) decreased. The problem is how to achieve it? (Especially if the total population continues to increase at 2-3% per year)

This is why McGurn and his ilk don't get it,  as when he asserts: 'It is rooted in an absurdity that when a calf is born a country's wealth increases, but when a baby is born it goes down." Well, because the calf is a net asset which adds to wealth via its usage (and temporary lifetime)  for providing nutrition etc. A baby on the other hand becomes a net consumer  - draining the planet's resources and imposing an ecological footprint of hectares- from the time it's born. (Unless humans descend to eating babies as in the dystopian scifi film, 'The Road')

The point is we're rapidly approaching the threshold at which there will simply be too many people to feed given existing resources: water, arable soil, fertilizers etc.. The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The graphic below puts this into perspective;                                               

The interpretation of the graph (upward) is straightforward. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate.

The most damning indictment of McGurn comes from his own pen, as when he writes  - in seeming delirium:

"It turns out hell isn't other people after all. To the contrary, human beings constantly find new and creative ways to take from the earth, increase the bounty for everyone and expand the seats at the table of plenty."

But this is precisely where he surrenders to a kind of "perpetual motion" machine delusion. Just as perpetual motion machines are impossible because entropy eventually has the final say, and energy -motion ultimately dwindles to near nothing, so also with "taking from the earth".  The reason is that each "taking" is accompanied by less and less useful energy or what we call net energy. In effect, we need more and more higher quality energy to keep extracting more coal, or oil, or natural gas or whatever - and have ever less left-  less environmental quality with each taking and less quality energy (e.g. higher energy return on energy invested, or EROEI)  to use for anything else.

McGurn also doesn't get that the ongoing loss of resources via his takings can be quantified. For example:

-  Every day humans permanently remove 3.2 billion gallons more water from aquifers than nature can replace. If McGurn's "human ingenuity" was as great as advertised it would be able to compensate for the losses nature is unable to. But it can't!

- U.S. consumption of energy grows every day despite efforts to conserve it.  This is important because each energy use is accompanied by entropy or degradation in the quality of energy remaining  which also impacts our environment.

- To accommodate growth we pave over an area equal to the state of Delaware every year.

Common sense ought to inform one that this is unsustainable and can't go on indefinitely.

The Cornucopians get it wrong because they don't see population growth for the toxin it is, and can't put 2 plus 2 together to see how it leads to the Malthusian nightmare.  All of this comes back to net energy which is that energy humans need to survive. If the oil taken from the ground, say by fracking, only has a ratio of 1:1 (for energy produced to energy consumed) then it is barely of use to extract it. The same amount of oil-energy you are using up to get it, is basically what it carries. There is no net gain.

To fix ideas, the net energy equation in the case of oil  (cf. Physics Today, Weisz, July 2004, p. 51) has been given as:

Q (net) = Q (PR) – [Q (op) + E/T]

In effect, for break-even oil one would find Q(net) = 0

Thus, there is no net gain in energy given the quantity that must be used to obtain it. For the last 700 billion barrels of available oil , i.e.from the original 3,000 billion - of which 1,500 b have been consumed:  Q(net) = negative quantity = -Q  (Currently we are working our way through 1,000 b barrels of "break even" oil)

It's crucial to note the rate of energy production (Q (PR) must be debited by the energy consumed for its operation Q(op), and the energy E invested during its “lifetime” Thus its Q(PR) will be small in relation to the bracketed quantity.Thus, the problem in a nutshell is not “running out of oil"  but running out of CHEAP oil.  When oil prices go up radically that's a sign of running out of break even oil.

It is the net gain that has allowed humans to reproduce and cover the globe. It is the reduction in net gain and eventually a negative energy (- Q (net)) balance that will eliminate a majority of  humans. THIS is what Ehrlich was referring to when he predicted the "collapse of civilization" within a few decades.If you need to envision what that will look like, well nothing too dramatic  - just picture a Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria where the electricity and water never come back on. And extend that picture globally.  There! Now you have it!  Does McGurn? I doubt he ever will as he's committed to Neoliberal ideology that markets will always solve the day combined with much touted human "ingenuity". (Which can't seem to take without replacing the same, and without entropic cost.)

Every current major societal, environmental problem:  from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs,  to over-crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time  born.  The more people generated the more CO2 produced as a result of their gobbling resources and assorted carbon footprints. While the latter are greatest in the West, because our societies are based on consumption, the lesser footprints also matter in the sense that wars, tribal unrest and religious wars can result in millions fleeing their home nations and disrupting the balance of life in those countries to which they flee .

The capitalist's favorite barometer, the GDP, needs to be replaced by the sustainability index of Herman Daly. Only in that way will be able to see how much real wealth we have left, and how much has been consumed by a reckless, wretched system designed to pillage the planet to enrich the very few.

Isaac Asimov in one of his early essays (in his anthology ‘The Stars in Their Courses’) on population and carrying capacity, put it bluntly:

“Humans have a simple choice: they can either decrease their numbers on their own to live within the Earth’s carrying capacity or they can let nature do it for them”.

It's past time Bill McGurn stopped deluding his readers with ecological fairy stories and for once told the truth about the actual, precarious position humans are in. That the way the reckless consumption of  resources is going,  there will be little or nothing left for future generations.

Human Overpopulation Contributing To Sixth Mass Extinction

In a blog post last year, I tied the mass migration to Europe and other nations directly to human overpopulation, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/08/of-dead-lions-and-swarming-migrants-why.html

As I wrote earlier, referring to a WSJ piece, 'Humans, Lions Struggle to Co-Exist', Aug. 8-9, p. A7:

"Africa's human population is the fastest growing in the world. In roughly the same period as the lion decline (42 percent over 21 years), the number of Africans has doubled to nearly 1.2 billion people. The population will double again to 2.5 billion by 2050 according to the United Nations."

Adding:

More people "has meant more forests being turned into pastures, more locals hunting lions' prey for their own meals - leading to starving lions- and more herders killing lions rather than risking cattle."

The process noted above is all too clear: exploding human numbers, especially in Africa and Asia, are not only contributing to human mass migration but also the  leveling of forests and decimation of  many species. In fact, a new study out of Stanford University by geoscientist Jonathan Payne points to a new mass extinction event (the 6th) of which we are right in the middle. Arguably, most people - including environmentalists-  aren't even aware it.

The Stanford -based study published in Science looked at 2,497 different marine animal groups at one taxonomic level above the level of species called genera. They found that increases in an organism's body size were linked to an increased risk of extinction in the present period. More puzzling, they found this was not the case in the Earth's distant past.

What was missing then, but is present now - to drive the current extinction?  Here's a prime clue: During the preceding 66 million years there was actually a not insignificant link between smaller body sizes and going extinct. In other words, the mass extinction of the current period is totally reversed from that.

According to Payne, hinting at the solution:

"Human hunting has been extensive for many thousands of years on land, whereas it's been extensive for a couple of hundred years in the oceans."

Conclusion: Humans already drove to extinction many land-based, large animal species (in the Late Quaternary Extinction Event) and are now driving other large animals - mainly in the oceans - to extinction   Interestingly, however, for the oceans the threats of extinction are not apportioned equally among all marine species. Instead, the largest ones - in terms of mass and body size- are the ones most threatened. Why?

Well, because these species: shark, tuna, whales ...afford the most profit in terms of human consumption or just predation (hunting -fishing).   As the authors of the recent Science paper put it: "From sharks to whales, giant clams, sea turtles and tuna, the disproportionate threat to large marine organisms reflected the unique human propensity to cull the largest members of a population."

No mystery then that many ecological researchers and other biologists (e.g. John Phillips of Barbados) predict that by the middle of this century the main form of marine life will be ....wait for it...Jellyfish!   This will be a result of all the remaining desirable marine species being extracted and consumed, in combination with enhanced ocean warming.

The extinction and displacement of land animals is already well under away, thanks to selective human hunting (including for sport) as well as the pernicious destruction of diverse ecosystems where humans build homes, set up farms, extend cities and erect massive wind power turbines or solar collectors. Moreover, as climate change worsens the biodiversity will crash even further, since too many species will compete for an ever decreasing resource 'pie', as well as desirable territory..

The above findings call into question the arguments by Cally Carswell in a recent article ('People and the Planet') appearing in Sierra magazine (Sept., p. 26). In it, Carswell argues against blaming increased human population for global warming - a claim which I vehemently took issue with, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-alert-biggest-problem-remains.html


She writes:

"While it's true in the long term fewer people will likely result in fewer carbon emissions ...the extent to which each new person contributes to the emissions problem varies dramatically according to where and how well they live."

This is true. The reality is that the bio-productive output in different nations is not equal, and using a map of the world, Richard Attenborough (in a 2014 BBC documentary), showed the divergences, with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average USA person is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair, equal apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. According to Attenborough's expert, by this reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people. This is the upper limit of carrying capacity given the finite resources the planet actually provides.

By contrast, the hectare average is about 0.5 for each Rwandan. But it is precisely this limited bio-productive output per person that drives the ravaging of extended surrounding resources including hunting game, and destroying existing forests for charcoal burning - for fuel. Carswell extends this to conditions in Niger, writing:

"At current rates it would take a person from Niger about 200 years to produce the carbon the average U.S. resident produces in one year."

Which is true, but she omits a critical aspect: That Niger person may not have a Chevy Grand Cherokee belching out 6 tons of CO2 a year but he or she is raiding forests (e.g. for wood to render charcoal for fuel) and thereby decimating the primary carbon "sink". All totaled, between 1990 and 2005 Niger lost 34.9% of its forest cover or around 679,000 hectares. Meanwhile, the total rate of habitat conversion for the same interval amounted to 25. 7 percent. The habitat loss means larger mammals, reptiles could be affected, and the forest reduction means not only animal habitat destroyed but also a key CO2 absorption sink..

Carswell's argument is that population control is better achieved via greater access to  higher education for women, in all nations. There is no argument with this position, but it can't be embraced while also reducing efforts to limit human numbers.  Also, I take issue with the contention, from a UC- Riverside prof (Jade Sasser),   she quotes to the effect that:

"To support justice for women means supporting their right to have children"

Well, only up to a point!  Up to replacement level say two kids per family- yes. Beyond that,  no. While I do not advocate draconian solutions such as have been applied in India (mass sterilization) and China (firm 1-child policy) there is room for removing any tax credit support - certainly in this high carbon nation. This is for anyone having more than 2 kids. They can have those extra kids, then, but receive no tax credits for them.

Time is growing short to stave off a sixth great mass extinction, but those like Carswell and Sasser seem not to grasp that means looking beyond the carbon deposition factor. It also means examining  how we are adversely affecting thousands of vulnerable species that share this planet with us.

Hey, Pope Frank! Child-Free Couples Are NOT "Greedy" and "Selfish"!

Isaac Asimov makes a crucial point  concerning overpopulation and carrying capacity at his Queen's Park Lecture in Barbados, on Feb. 6, 1976

Well, like Obama - it seems Pope Francis, or "Pope Frank" - as Bill Maher has referred to him, oscillates in the media between appalling (meriting virtual brickbats) and inspiring kudos and congrats. It seems the Pope's latest contribution to appalling - hence meriting brickbats - is calling out no kids couples for opprobrium. I mean, the pope actually called couples who choose not to have children “selfish” and part of a “greedy generation”.

Speaking on Wednesday, Francis said:

 “A society with a greedy generation that doesn’t want to surround itself with children, that considers them above all worrisome, a weight, a risk, is a depressed society. The choice to not have children is selfish. Life rejuvenates and acquires energy when it multiplies: It is enriched, not impoverished.”

Sorry, Il Papa, but on the contrary we are realists and also grasp the world is overburdened with a human plague as it is - contributing to everything from trashing the environment so nothing is left for future generations, to greenhouse warming (which will lead to the same end),  to mass extinction of other species, to ever scarcer and more costly resources - including food. You really want 1 billion deaths from starvation on your hands, Papa? I don't!

But the Pope, bless his heart, has an agenda - which is to populate the planet with as many Catholics as possible. That's why he denies them the use of artificial birth control - under the pain of committing "mortal sin" and going to "hell".  Well, for those of us no longer Catholic, let me offer clue one here: most of us left because we got tired of padres and popes sticking their noses into our bedrooms and lecturing us on reproduction. We took our own paths, and have no intent now other than to try to prevent the planet being trashed to smithereens by over breeders.

As for being "selfish", give me a break. We are actually people who are altruistic and volunteer and serve in many other ways. We just have to concede - most of us - that we'd make horrid parents because we're not wired for minding rug rats. We'd likely leave them locked up in a car while dashing oft to a meeting or conference, or we'd feed them the wrong foods (bratwursts instead of whatever else babies eat), neglect changing their nappies or worse, strike out at them physically in a moment of   impatience...because they're crying too loud and too long.

Thus, we regard ourselves as doing the world and society a favor by NOT having kids and we regard ourselves as morally superior to the yahoos who burble at babies before marriage, then have too many and can't support them. Or the turkeys who have two or three, then leave them in a car freezing while they run off for a tryst in a mountain cabin - like a woman did here in Colo. 3 years ago. Or, like the character in Georgia who left his kid locked in a hot car one sweltering day while he went to text online gfs.  Or the mom, again from Colo. - who helped hold her son down in a tub of boiling water while granny beat the "devil" out of him  Then there is the recent case of the woman from Provo. UT - reported in today's press- who admitted to killing 6 of her babies over 10 years. She said she couldn't afford even two more because of her meth habit.  NONE of these derelicts should have had offspring but they did. Does the Pope reckon any of these into his complaints? No, he doesn't!

But "Frank" is obviously railing at the recent trends, born out by statistics, that couples are having fewer kids or no kids. To fix ideas, in 1976 there were 1 in 10 childless couples - we actually call them child FREE - and now there are 1 in 5. The reasons are multifold but one of the main ones (apart from lacking a child-oriented temperament) is that it costs so damned much just to raise one kid to maturity - nearly $230,000.

That includes all the clothes you have to buy for them - and believe me they will demand the best brand names - not any old jeans or hand-me-downs, like we used to have. It also includes all the food you have to buy and it better be foods they like. Then we aren't even counting yet the costs of  all the electronic toys they will insist on including the latest and best smart phones, Ipods, Ipads or whatnot. Then there is their education through college and you can bet your sweet bippy it will have to be one of the "Ivies"  - State U. will not fit their inflated egos or designs. (And the "Ivies" means lots of moola spent on SAT prep lessons!) Lastly, even if they do graduate on time and all, you still aren't done with them because if they can't find jobs that pay enough with that fine arts or philosophy degree, they will want to park themselves right back home - and live rent free!

Thanks but no thanks! If you want kids, you have 'em, Frankie!  Oh yeah, you adhere to celibacy so it's easy to talk trash with zero experience. Including of making simple budgets as my folks had to do when we were growing up in the 50s, 60s - trying to keep 5 kids clothed and fed when one parent was often out of work.

So from all those POVs, kids are indeed a "weight, a risk" and a liability - at least to those of us who share this child-free temperament.

This is not to say all turn out that way. A perfect example is my great niece Shayle, now at UMASS, Amherst,  finishing her Masters degree in clinical psychology. She grew up in Barbados in the  90s, and so never had access to brand name clothing from hifalutin stores, or "cool ones" like J Crew. She basically wore the clothes her mom made her, or her great Aunt (my wife) passed on. She didn't suffer from problems and her peers didn't mock her or bully her for her clothing or her daily peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

When she graduated with honors, and a Barbados Scholarship - fully paid with money left - to Clark University - her mom and dad could rest assured she was on the right path.

But let's get real:  having a kid like Shayle is roughly the same odds as winning the Powerball. Maybe 175 million to one. To the realist with a diehard child -averse  temperament those odds aren't good enough to take the risk - say that you might get a serial killer, or druggie loser instead. (Think how the parents of James Eagen Holmes - the Aurora mass murderer - feel now as he faces trial).

What was always special about Shayle is that she was never swayed by external influences, be they her peer group or the media - which is always trying to peddle some useless crap to entice kids to get mommy and daddy to cough up $$$.(I still have the image in my head - shown on a.m. TV three days ago-  of the 4 yr. old brat lugging a giant 'Frozen' doll across the aisles and screaming at her pop to buy it or else.)

Thus, the choice not to have children in the end is rational and personal, not "selfish".  It is especially rational in a nation that pays lip service to children and "family values" but by its actions discloses it doesn't give two craps about them. If it did it would have free child care like many European nations so parents didn't have to hock their homes and cars to be able to go off to work!

And then there is the Reptile party which - despite the fact 15 million kids are already living in conditions of food insecurity - are prepping to cut food stamps once more from the SNAP benefits program, e.g.

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/12/the_callous_party_gop_poised_to_further_cut_food_stamps/

So why would any sane person bring kids into such a child-hostile political environment?

Lastly, the Pope is delusional when he asserts that:

"Life rejuvenates and acquires energy when it multiplies: It is enriched, not impoverished.”

No, not really. Too much "life", in terms of the human population, can overtake and overburden a fragile world which can barely provide for all the people living on it as it is.  On any given day nearly 1 billion are living on half or fewer calories than they need and it will only get worse with climate change ramping up. Not yet attended to is the scarcity of water.

In the ‘State of the World’ report (2000, pp. 46-47), it is noted that the ever increasing water deficits will likely spark “water wars” by 2025.As they note (p. 47):

Quote:

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“When a country’s renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita (what some analysts call the water stress level) it becomes difficult for the country to mobilize enough water to satisfy all the food, household, and industrial needs of its population.”

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The same 'State of the World’ report notes at present rates of decline and even without factoring in the worst global warming influences – the number of people living in water-stressed countries will rise from 470 million to 3 billion by 2025. More than a six-fold increase

One of the first to emphasize this planet has a limited "carrying capacity" was the science and science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov.  Asimov, as part of his Queen's Park Theater lecture in Barbados in February, 1976, touched on the specter of overpopulation and warned that humans had two choices: Decrease their population to the point of the carrying capacity (which he estimated at 3 billion) or nature will increase our species death rate - whether via violent climatic events we can't even foresee right now, or new virulent diseases,  or nuclear war. He also remarked:

"It is now the willingly childless woman who is the heroine of our planet. She is the one who now deserves all the kudos and praise, for helping to do what is necessary to spare humanity from the ravages of over-population"

We who are rationalists are far more likely to attend to the words of Asimov than to the Pope. We choose being child-free not only because additional humans pose an unsustainable burden on limited planetary resources but also because we are self-aware enough to realize we aren't cut out to be part of the faux child-centric cult that dominates this nation.  Pandering to the selfish whims of kids as "consumers" but nowhere to be found when actual child welfare is at stake.