Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable. By Dr. William Rees

What is the 'Human Ecology of Overshoot'

In his new essay, William Rees informs us, rather warns that “humanity has already exceeded the long-term human carrying capacity of the earth… and >100-fold expansion of real gross world product in the past two centuries are anomalies”. To a lay person, this form of civilization, call it a wild party, is over! It’s age of exuberance has ended a while back, regardless as human population crossed the 8 billion figure heading towards 9! In precise terms, the overall objective of Ree’s essay is to show that the “present trajectory, regardless of so-called renewable energy transitions, because of the sheer number of humans and scale of economic activity, are under-mining the functional integrity of the ecosphere and compromising essential life-support functions. Unaddressed, these trends may well precipitate both global economic contraction and a significant human population ‘correction’—i.e, civilizational collapse—later in this century”

“Functional Integrity” comes across as a missing keyword, when it comes to our own footprint as an individual or clan or the entire society. That integrity, which we MTI (Modern Techno Industrial) humans have always ignored and instead invested in endless growth. With population rising past 8 billion in 2022 from 1 billion in 1810, so has the human footprint on the planet, surpassing it’s needs, beyond 6 earth size planets! As our population overshot, consequently the population of birds, insects, fish, mammals etc went irreversibly down. Save the Panda, Save the Tiger, Save The Polar Bear etc adds up, but as ‘cosmetic intervention’ orchestrated by so many well meaning people. Yet there is no objective point in blaming the overpopulated nations and societies, as well as there is no way to ignore or overcome Overshoot!

For most of our evolutionary history, stretching for more than 150,000 years such “tendencies” were most often quelled by “negative feedback” says Rees. The obvious examples being disease, plague, food shortage, crop failure, natural calamities, war etc. The scientific revolution (from 1850s) plus the super-exuberant use of fossil fuels “reduced many forms of negative feedback, enabling us to realize our full potential for exponential growth”. Our capacity for growth as a species was reinforced by ludicrous visions of infinite growth (neoliberal economics, globalization etc). So “nurture complements nature”? Rees argues that the “human enterprise is a dissipative structure” yet always a “sub-system of the ecosphere”. In other words, we can grow and maintain our population, only by consuming and dissipating the available energy and resources (finite) extracted from the host system, the ecosphere. And as crucial to remember, that we are discharging all our waste back into the same host.

We as a species have abused the host (the earth) in every way possible, for a long while, and in ways unimaginable earlier, during the last two centuries. That trajectory has “…propelled modern techno-industrial society into a state of advanced overshoot”. This ‘sound’ conclusion makes sense to even a 12 year old, but it seems to be ignored by a majority of world leaders, policy makers, big institutions, economists, energy experts, mainstream media, corporate scientists, techno-fixers, the billionaires, environmental organizations etc etc. So why is nobody listening?

Rees makes a convincing argument, to explain this strange shortcoming of modern human beings. “As to why a huge majority of 8 billion people in light of the cascading hard evidence, it seems fair to ask why the mainstream media do not report on, and most ordinary people have never heard of, overshoot. Much of the reason may be simple denial, but part of the problem may well reside in cognitive incompetence. H. sapiens evolved in simpler, more slowly-changing times that posed relatively limited challenges to the evolving central nervous system. We operate with what are still essentially Paleolithic brains: modern humans are painfully short-sighted [26] and tend to think in terms of immediate cause−effect relationships and respond to problems in simplistic, reductionist ways (think ‘dematerialization’).”

Perhaps this party (civilization) was over (in it’s scope) a while ago. But the not-so-competitent and unreliable leaders, people in charge, were too high or too hungover or plain ignorant (Paleolithic brains and emotions) hooked on energy, visions of infinite growth, endless wonders of technology, power of economic strategy etc etc. In effect, all sorts of short term benefits with rapid wealth accumulation (power) above all. I was also convinced of all such vainglorious impossible futures, based on modernity and technology. It’s high time to reconsider our place on earth, as it becomes more and more obvious, that Modern Techno Industrial Humans are on their way ‘down’ in numbers and also in scope!

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable by William E. Rees READ / SHARE COMPLETE ESSAY (open source)

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