It surprises me that people still sheepishly ask us, “But won’t this (health aid) lead to overpopulation?” Women will naturally have fewer children if they know their kids have a greater chance of survival. Knowing that is really key.

Melinda Gates in The Tools to Save Lives, Newsweek, Nov 9, 2009

Gates is a roman catholic mother of three

Can homo sapiens – self-styled – have the wisdom to learn to manage fertility

for the common good? It is a unique experiment. We have examples of

other species being too successful in isolated situations such as islands,

impoverishing the environment and eventually diminishing in numbers

through starvation. We have similar examples in the human experience, but

we have no such experience for the species as a whole, spanning oceans

and historically warring cultures. I cannot imagine social regulation – except

in an Orwellian state – becoming so perfect that the human race actually

reaches an optimum level and stays there, but a future of population

fluctuations around a moving optimum level would be much better than we

now have.

The point of this paper is that that level is indeed moving – downward.

Human activity is already degrading the environment and its resources.

There are now too many of us to live decently on the impoverished resource

base toward which we are moving. It is not enough to hope that “something

will turn up.” That view betrays a vitalistic view of history. Nothing is likely to

turn up by itself.

Lindsey Grant: VALEDICTORY: The Age of Overshoot  2009

A global free market was a project that was destined to fail. In this, as in much else, it resembles that other twentieth century experiment in utopian social engineering, Marxian socialism. Each was convinced that human progress must have a single civilization as its goal. Each denied that a modern economy can come in many varieties. Each was ready to exact a large price in suffering from humanity in order to impose its single vision on the world. Each has run aground on vital human needs.

If we take history as our guide, we must expect that the global free market will shortly belong to an irrecoverable past. Like other twentieth-century utopias, global laissez-faire –together with its casualties – will be swallowed in to the memory hope of history.

John Gray in False Dawn, 1998

In the argumentation of this book, according to “The Law of sliding Connections”, we may see a coming adaptation to the unavoidable; a further proof for the ability of man of seeing something positive even in the absurdity. Yet I prefer to join H. G. Wells: We were created by the will to life and will die in a struggle for life.

That will not change our sure knowledge of this struggle being lost. Man will lose the struggle just because of he is a ruthless warrior. Otherwise expressed: Man is too clever to survive on this global ball. The avalanches released by man is rolling down and burying life. They are not to stop; we may just quarrel about their velocity.

On our shortened timescale, this means: When thousand years equalled a night duty, then the long midsummer day of man, in which the cultures prospering the last two and a half millennium, are now gone. The electrical lights ignited an hour ago in the beginning twilight are still glowing clearly into space. (My remark: Picture on the binding). But soon after darkness comes the midnight  - and the lights will be extinguished. We do not know what will happen during the rest of the night and how soon. But the glorious day of man was created by himself – unconsciously – so designed that there will be no more dawn. The European Culture, allowing no more escalation – as stated not beyond the Greek, the grandiose and killing Supertechnology excepted – is the last of this planet. We have just passed its top, so that we are able to look at this fantastic show, which has run on our lonely planet for billions of years, and now is ending as a tragedy.

Herbert Gruhl in Himmelfahrt ins Nichts (Escalation into nothing) (1992)

The fossil fuel bubble was a durable one, and unlike soap bubbles, it will collapse slowly. That gives the world some time to make the one real accommodation that will provide a smooth transition to the leaner times ahead: a deliberate policy of negative population growth.

I do not mean to understate the difficulties, nation by nation, of learning to manage population size to maximize human welfare, or the potential for conflict as different nations move at different rates toward sustainable populations levels, or the tensions created as crowded nations eye other nations’ land, water or resources. I would not bet that the human race can manage this most difficult of transitions – this retreat from overshoot – without turmoil. But we have an opportunity to try.

Lindsey Grant in The Collapsing Bubble, 2005

Will man, in his perceived role of steward responsible for nature, succeed in achieving a level of human population compatible with his responsibility – in other words, a level which allows the natural environment to survive? Or will man fail and leave it to nature to restore an appropriate balance, as she has done so often in the past when population booms have been followed by population crashes?....

Sir James Goldsmith in The Trap, 1993

It would be foolish to propose a complete renunciation of the industrial comfort of the exosomatic evolution. Mankind will not return to the cave or, rather, to the tree. But there are a few points that may be included in a minimal bioeconomic program.

First, the production of all instruments of war, not only of war itself, should be prohibited completely. It is utterly absurd (and also hypocritical) to continue growing tobacco if, avowedly, no one intends to smoke. The nations which are so developed as to be the main producers of armaments should be able to reach a consensus over this prohibition without any difficulty if, as they claim, they also possess the wisdom to lead mankind. Discontinuing the production of all instruments of war will not only do away at least with the mass killings by ingenious weapons but will also release some tremendous productive forces for international aid without lowering the standard of living in the corresponding countries.

Second, through the use of these productive forces as well as by additional well-planned and sincerely intended measures, the underdeveloped nations must be aided to arrive as quickly as possible at a good (not luxurious) life. Both ends of the spectrum must effectively participate in the efforts required by this transformation and accept the necessity of a radical change in their polarized outlooks on life.

Third, mankind should gradually lower its population to a level that could be adequately fed only by organic agriculture. Naturally, the nations now experiencing a very high demographic growth will have to strive hard for the most rapid possible results in that direction.

Fourth, until either the direct use of solar energy becomes a general convenience or controlled fusion is achieved, all waste of energy – by overheating, overcooling, overspeeding, overlighting, et cetera – should be carefully avoided, and if necessary, strictly regulated.

Fifth, we must cure ourselves of the morbid craving for extravagant gadgetry, splendidly illustrated by such a contradictory item as the golf cart, and for such mammoth splendors as two-garage cars. Once we do so, manufacturers will have to stop manufacturing such "commodities".

Sixth, we must also get rid of fashion, of "that disease of the human mind", as Abbot Fernando Galliani characterized it in his celebrated Della Moneta (1750). It is indeed a disease of the mind to throw away a coat or a piece of furniture while it can still perform its specific service. To get a "new" car every year and to refashion the house every other is a bioeconomic crime. Other writers have already proposed that goods be manufactured in such a way as to be more durable. But it is even more important that consumers should reeducate themselves to despise fashion. Manufacturers will then have to focus on durability.

Seventh, and closely related to the preceding point, is the necessity that durable goods be made still more durable by being designed so as to be repairable. (To put it in a plastic analogy, in many cases nowadays, we have to throw away a pair of shoes merely because one lace has broken.)

Eighth, in a compelling harmony with all the above thoughts we should cure ourselves of what I have been calling "the circumdrome of the shaving machine", which is to shave oneself faster so as to have more time to work on a machine that shaves faster so as to have more time to work on a machine that shaves still faster, and so on ad infinitum. This change will call for a great deal of recanting on the part of all those professions which have lured man into this empty infinite regress. We must come to realize that an important prerequisite for a good life is a substantial amount of leisure spent in an intelligent manner.

Considered on paper, in the abstract, the foregoing recommendations would on the whole seem reasonable to anyone willing to examine the logic on which they rest. But one thought has persisted in my mind ever since I became interested in the entropic nature of the economic process. Will mankind listen to any program that implies a constriction of its addiction to exosomatic comfort? Perhaps the destiny of man is to have a short but fiery, exciting, and extravagant life rather than a long, uneventful, and vegetative existence. Let other species – the amoebas, for example – which have no spiritual ambitions inherit an earth still bathed in plenty of sunshine.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen: Energy and Economic Myths, in Southern Economic Journal 41, No 3, January 1975 

We don’t need to be millionaires to eat well, sleep soundly, and get to know our neighbors. Without any doubt, we do need to consume less, because we’re running out of affordable resources as well as tolerable places to dump our wastes. But the core issue of this book goes beyond consuming less to wanting less, and needing less. From Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous we can progress to the more rewarding Lifestyles of the Content and Healthy.

Think about all the money we spend to fight various diseases, many of which (like allergies, cancer, diabetes, and stroke) are caused or aggravated by affluent lifestyles. Then remember that affluenza is one lifestyle that we can cure by spending less money, not more.

.

The bottom line is this: When your time comes and your whole life flashes before you, will it hold your interest? How much of the story will be about moments of clarity, kindness and caring? Will the main character – you – appear as large and noble as life itself, or as tiny and absurd as a cartoon figure, darting frantically among mountains of stuff? It is up to you, and indeed, it’s up to all of us!

John de Graaf et al: Affluenza, The All-Consuming Epidemic, 2001

Perhaps a metaphor will make an appropriate finish for this little essay. Imagine that you're on an ocean liner that's headed straight for a well marked shoal of rocks. Half the crew is dead drunk, and the other half has already responded to your attempts to alert them by telling you that you obviously don't know the first thing about navigation, and everything will be all right. At a certain point, you know, the ship will be so close to the rocks that its momentum will carry it onto them no matter what evasive actions the helmsman tries to make. You're not sure, but it looks as though that point is already well past.

What do you do? You can keep on pounding on the door to the bridge, trying to convince the crew of the approaching danger. You can join the prayer group down in the galley; they're convinced that if they pray fervently enough, God will save them from shipwreck. You can decide that everyone's doomed and go get roaring drunk. Or you can go around quietly to the other passengers, and encourage those people who have noticed the situation (or are willing to notice it) to break out the life jackets, assemble near the lifeboats, take care of people who need help, and otherwise deal with the approaching wreck in a way that will salvage as much as possible.

Me, I suggest the latter. Life jackets, anyone? 

            John Michael Greer: The Coming of Deindustrial Society, Discover Magazine August 2004 (Essay)

Whether it's health care, emergency preparedness or natural resources, devolution adds complexity, and therefore vulnerability, to the very systems and institutions we need to be making simpler and stronger to survive a low-energy, more chaotic and globally disconnected world.

       Rudyard Griffiths: "Managing" Environmental Collapse, Toronto Star, February 11, 2007.