Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population TaboosOxford University Press, 1993 M04 22 - 352 páginas "We fail to mandate economic sanity," writes Garrett Hardin, "because our brains are addled by...compassion." With such startling assertions, Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades, winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist, ecological philosopher, and keen student of human population control, Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date, with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earth's resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin's famous essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons," he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. "The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the 'population problem' would only ensure that it would never be solved." Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself. "The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable," Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe, and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book, one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have been afraid to consider. |
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... created, the Scottish economist Sir James Steuart, after attributing poverty to overpopulation, ended by confessing: “How to propose a remedy for this inconveniency, without laying some restraint upon marriage; how to lay a.
... created, the Scottish economist Sir James Steuart, after attributing poverty to overpopulation, ended by confessing: “How to propose a remedy for this inconveniency, without laying some restraint upon marriage; how to lay a.
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... created by a fastgrowing world population.” Instead of trying to curb population growth, said DeBlanc, we should welcome it and make plans to ship off the excess. Thus we could continue humanity's millenniaold tradition of moving to a ...
... created by a fastgrowing world population.” Instead of trying to curb population growth, said DeBlanc, we should welcome it and make plans to ship off the excess. Thus we could continue humanity's millenniaold tradition of moving to a ...
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... created the problem in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The “solution” selects for its own failure. This disproof of interstellar migration as a practical expedient was first published in the Journal of Heredity in ...
... created the problem in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The “solution” selects for its own failure. This disproof of interstellar migration as a practical expedient was first published in the Journal of Heredity in ...
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... creating new distress. Distress is the point at which equilibrium occurs—not happiness, as Godwin and Condorcet supposed. (Details of Malthus's argument are postponed to Chapter 11.) Godwin: The. Work. In 1793, while enthusiasm for what ...
... creating new distress. Distress is the point at which equilibrium occurs—not happiness, as Godwin and Condorcet supposed. (Details of Malthus's argument are postponed to Chapter 11.) Godwin: The. Work. In 1793, while enthusiasm for what ...
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... created new opportunities for all those who are in the business of selling material things. Extracting profits from the sale of ideas is more difficult. Condorcet was the supreme optimist. As mankind approached perfection there would be ...
... created new opportunities for all those who are in the business of selling material things. Extracting profits from the sale of ideas is more difficult. Condorcet was the supreme optimist. As mankind approached perfection there would be ...
Contenido
Making Sense of the World | |
The Ambivalent Triumph of Optimism | |
Cowboy Economics versus Spaceship Ecology | |
Real and Spurious | |
Discriminating Altruisms | |
The Double CDouble P Game | |
Birth Control versus Population Control | |
Natural versus Human | |
The Necessity of Immigration Control | |
Recapitulation and a Look Ahead | |
Notes and References | |
Index | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos Garrett Hardin Vista previa limitada - 1995 |
Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos Garrett Hardin Vista de fragmentos - 1993 |
Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos Garrett Hardin Vista de fragmentos - 1993 |
Términos y frases comunes
altruism American animals become behavior birth control called carrying capacity Chapter Charles Darwin Charles Galton Darwin common consequences conservation costs created Darwin death default position demographic demographic transition demostat diseconomies of scale earth ecologists ecology economics economists effect energy environment Essay exponential growth fact factors fertility Figure future Garrett Hardin global Godwin graph human population human species Hutterite idea immigration increase individual interest invention less limits living Malthus Malthus’s Malthusian matter means million nation natural selection never nuclear optimistic overpopulation percent perpetual pessimistic political poor population control population growth population problem possible predicted present produce progress question reason reproduction result revolution scientific scientists set point social society spaceship survival term theory things twentieth century United University usury wealth William Godwin word world population York