{"id":36222,"date":"2018-07-26T17:52:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T22:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36222"},"modified":"2018-07-26T17:52:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T22:52:41","slug":"ted-nordhaus-is-wrong-we-are-exceeding-earths-carrying-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36222","title":{"rendered":"Ted Nordhaus Is Wrong: We Are Exceeding Earth\u2019s Carrying Capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ted Nordhaus Is Wrong: We Are Exceeding Earth\u2019s Carrying Capacity<\/a><\/h3>\n

The co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute has a cheery vision of the future. If only that vision were plausible.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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I<\/span>N HIS ARTICLE<\/span>, \u201cThe Earth\u2019s Carrying Capacity for Human Life is Not Fixed<\/a>,\u201d Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based energy and environment think tank, seeks to enlist readers in his optimistic vision of the future. It\u2019s a future in which there are many more people on the planet and each enjoys a high standard of living, while environmental impacts are reduced. It\u2019s a cheery vision.<\/p>\n

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The core of Nordhaus\u2019 case is that we are now living in a magical society that is immune to the ecological law of gravity. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

If only it were plausible.<\/p>\n

Nordhaus\u2019s argument hinges on dismissing the longstanding biological concept of \u201ccarrying capacity\u201d \u2014 the number of organisms an environment can support without becoming degraded. \u201cApplied to ecology, the concept [of carrying capacity] is problematic,\u201d Nordhaus writes, arguing in a nutshell that the planet\u2019s ability to support human civilization can be, one presumes, infinitely tweaked through a combination of social and physical engineering.<\/p>\n

Few actual ecologists, however, would agree. Indeed, the concept of carrying capacity is useful in instance after instance \u2014 including modeling the population dynamics of nonhuman species, and in gauging the health of virtually any ecosystem, be it ocean, river, prairie, desert, or forest. While exact population numbers are sometimes difficult to predict on the basis of the carrying capacity concept, it is nevertheless clear that, wherever habitat is degraded, creatures suffer and their numbers decline.<\/p>\n

The controversy deepens in applying the carrying capacity concept to humans. Nordhaus seems to think we are exceptions to the rules. Still, as archaeologists have affirmed, many past human societies consumed resources or polluted environments to the point of collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ted Nordhaus Is Wrong: We Are Exceeding Earth\u2019s Carrying Capacity The co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute has a cheery vision of the future. If only that vision were plausible. IN HIS ARTICLE, \u201cThe Earth\u2019s Carrying Capacity for Human Life is Not Fixed,\u201d Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based energy and environment think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[1499,606,1371,1081,21001,21000],"class_list":["post-36222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-carrying-capacity","tag-overpopulation","tag-population","tag-richard-heinberg","tag-ted-nordhaus","tag-undark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36223,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36222\/revisions\/36223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}