The best way to introduce this book is to quote the first sentence of the blurb: “Techno-Fix challenges the pervasive belief that technological innovation will save us from the dire consequences of the 300-year fossil-fuelled binge known as modern industrial civilization“. Stinging, provocative, and radical, Techno-Fix puts its fingers on many a sore spot with its searing critique.

Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, written by Michael Huesemann and Joyce Huesemann, published by New Society Publishers in September 2011 (paperback, 435 pages)

You might ask why, in 2021, I would bother reviewing a book published ten years ago. Both for the prosaic reason that I have had this book for some years without reading it, and because I am working on a little something that I cannot divulge yet. Plus, as it turns out, because this book is still relevant despite having been published in 2011.

The Huesemanns, Michael a biotechnologist with an interest in sustainability, Joyce an academic and activist, pull no punches in Techno-Fix. Our technology has brought us tremendous affluence and a world population growth spurt, but it also has unintended consequences that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. Some examples discussed here are climate change resulting from the generation of energy, the unknown effects of most synthetic chemicals, the pollution accompanying industrial activities, or the way the introduction of the car reshaped the world.

Even more outspoken is their statement that most technology is exploitative, abusing ecosystems, animals, and other humans. The industrial and globalised nature of much technology blunts us to this by creating distance in either space or time between exploiter and exploited. Do you know where your stuff comes from and who made it? Do you have a care for the planet your grandchildren will inherit? With the same fury that would later characterise Abundant Earth, the authors speak of the human domination of nature and the brainwashing by television and other mass media. The frequent references to TV might seem outdated given how online social media has ballooned in the last decade, but it has arguably not changed the beast much. And where free-market trade does not get us the needed resources, “high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.

“”high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.”

Surely, new technology can fix the problems old technology created? To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies such as geo-engineering schemes are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences. Furthermore, they write, efficiency gains (e.g. dematerialisation) have their limits and are often followed by increased consumption, a phenomenon known as the Jevons paradox. Ironically, despite increased affluence in the developed world, psychological research shows that happiness and well-being have not increased. Instead, we are stuck on a hedonic treadmill, furiously desiring ever more. The profit motive behind most technological developments results in solutions that benefit corporations and their shareholders, not the public at large.

Since these drawbacks are known, why does the belief in technological progress persist? The authors draw parallels between religious faith and techno-optimism, with the latter rising as the former waned. Furthermore, seemingly objective practices such as risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses are skewed towards continued technological development, downplaying or neglecting externalized costs. Finally, they take serious issue with the uncritical acceptance of new technologies due to the widespread belief that progress is inevitable and that technology is value-neutral, i.e. just a tool that can be used for good or evil.

Up to this point, much of what they write resonates with me, but I found their proposed solutions a mixed bag, strongly disagreeing with some of it. Since we cannot hex our way out of our problems with more technology, we need, I agree, a paradigm shift. They draw an interesting parallel with Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Just as scientific dogmas disappear not because minds are changed but because the old guard dies, future generations will change the way we live. Current generations will, by and large, be too set in their ways, too unwilling to give up their affluence. Plus, expect pushback from industries and corporations that stand to lose the most.

“To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies […] are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences.”

I think it should be stressed at this point that the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly. To avoid stepping off the Seneca Cliff into wholesale collapse, they envision a transition to a steady-state economy that acknowledges planetary boundaries (some Planetary Accounting might help) and practises long-term sustainability.

The latter would require three things. First, 100% renewable energy generation. This, they admit, brings its own share of problems, one of which they remarkably do not even mention: the need for a vast infrastructure constructed from non-renewable materials. Speaking of which, second, we need to use renewable resources exclusively and phase out non-renewable resources, or fully recycle them where this is not possible. Other than the difficulties—if not impossibility—of finding replacements for most non-renewable resources (including basic ones such as all metals), they pass over the fact that materials cannot be endlessly recycled, requiring a constant input of virgin material. Third, waste can only be discharged at rates than can be assimilated by ecosystems, and those that cannot be biodegraded (read: most synthetic chemicals) should be discontinued. They acknowledge that, clearly, this would require a sea change in our attitudes: a society that embraces self-limitation rather than unfettered abundance. All of this is necessary, I agree, but it also seems almost unimaginable. If the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed one thing, it is how willingly people will relinquish liberties and accept restrictions imposed upon them.

There were a further three issues raised here that I mildly to strongly disagree with. First, they are justifiedly very critical of the corruption of medicine by the so-called medico-industrial complex, specifically pharmaceutical companies. Rather, we should focus on prevention and lifestyle changes (sure), accept the inevitability of death (agreed), and embrace holistic medicine (hmmm). Once they start talking of the power of placebo effects and the body’s innate ability to heal itself I become a bit uneasy. There is a kernel of truth in there but, in my opinion, you are at the top of the slide that reads “pseudoscience this way”. Second, they appear to contradict themselves by stressing the importance of efficiency in saving precious resources but also wanting things to go small-scale and local again, holding up organic agriculture as a shining example (something of which I am sceptical). You cannot have it both ways, we scale up production processes for more than just profitability. Third, they surprisingly really have it in for genetic engineering. Other than completely ignoring the pervasiveness of horizontal gene transfer (one could say nature invented genetic modification billions of years before we did), they are unwilling to acknowledge it will be one of the necessary tools to keep feeding the world, deal with the impact of climate change on crops, or that we can take the best of both approaches.

“the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly.”

The Huesemanns acknowledge human overpopulation at several points: “More people generally translate into more problems” (p. 44) and unless “the size of the human population [is] stabilized and reduced, and the materialistic consumer lifestyle largely abandoned, there is little chance that our environmental problems will be solved” (p. 83). This is more than most authors do. Shame, then, that they do not dedicate a chapter to the thorny questions of whether we should control world population, what population size is optimal for the planet, and how many children to have (if any).

Instead, their last chapter felt to me like barking up the wrong tree. It calls for “critical science” (sensu Ravetz), which would stand in opposition to current scientific practice. Scientists need to take responsibility for their work, refuse dubious research financed by corporations, and abandon the excuse that they are not responsible for the end-uses. These are some really good points, but to put the onus almost completely on scientists struck me as, frankly, ridiculous. Some of their claims here really irked me. People choose this profession because of the relatively good income? Or the claim on page 329 that scientists and engineers do not really mind that problems are not solved as it guarantees their long-term employment? I normally hear a related version of that argument from climate-change deniers. I do not know what planet the authors live on, but my personal experience in academia showed me a world where you routinely work 60 to 80 hours a week on grant money or (if you are really lucky) a 40-hour contract while chasing short-term projects (known as PhD and postdoc positions) well into your forties before having a shot at a permanent position. When conditions are this exploitative it is no wonder many choose the job security and decent income offered by companies. If you want to keep scientists out of the clutches of well-paid corporate jobs and have them act as whistle-blowers you will have to properly reward and protect them, something only briefly acknowledged here.

In light of my criticism, would I recommend Techno-Fix? Yes, there is much I thoroughly agree with here. I applaud the authors for tabling controversial ideas and challenging readers with probing questions and assignments in an appendix. Furthermore, the book is thoroughly researched and annotated, very readable (including regular, useful summaries), and still relevant.

Techno-Fix

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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The legendary British broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough needs almost no introduction. Since his first appearance on our television screens in 1954, he has gone on to a long and distinguished career presenting and narrating groundbreaking nature documentaries. And he shows no sign of slowing down. His voice and style have become so iconic that he has been dubbed the voice of nature. Over the years, he has increasingly expressed concern over the state of the natural world, and in A Life on Our Planet Attenborough fully engages with this topic. However, when you turn to the title page you will notice the name of a co-author, Jonnie Hughes, who directed the Netflix documentary tied in with this book. As Attenborough explains in his acknowledgements, Hughes has been particularly instrumental in the writing of the third part of the book, together with substantial assistance from the Science Team at WWF. This is Attenborough’s witness statement, yes, but whose vision of the future is it?

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future, written by Sir David Attenborough with Jonnie Hughes, published by Witness Books (an imprint of Ebury Press) in October 2020 (hardback, 282 pages)

A Life on Our Planet is divided into three parts, the first of which features highlights from Attenborough’s filmmaking career. Interwoven with vignettes that you might recognize from his autobiography are short episodes in the history of life on our planet and the rise of human civilization—this is Attenborough writing at his finest. Overlaid is his increasing concern for the changes he has witnessed. Each chapter heading ominously lists the human world population, the atmospheric carbon level, and the estimated percentage of wilderness remaining in a certain year.

The brief second part, “What Lies Ahead”, serves as a bridge to the third part and introduces several important concepts. One is the Great Acceleration, the period following the 1950s in which our activity and impact on the environment ramped up tremendously. The other is the Planetary Boundaries model drawn up by Johan Rockström and colleagues, which I brought up in my previous review of Planetary Accounting. This Earth systems science framework demarcates a “safe operating space for humanity” by identifying nine planetary processes and systems with their boundary values, several of which we have exceeded with our actions. In just ten pages, the book then looks ahead to some likely environmental tipping points in our near future, such as forest dieback and permafrost melting. I was expecting a longer section along the lines of Lynas’s Our Final Warning and Wallace-Well’s The Uninhabitable Earth, but clearly, this book has no interest in dwelling on the catastrophes ahead.

“Interwoven with autobiographical vignettes are short episodes in the history of life on our planet and the rise of human civilization—this is Attenborough writing at his finest.”

This brings us to the vision for the future, which is where the question of authorship becomes increasingly blurred. At times I was not sure whether I was reading Attenborough’s voice or a WWF policy brief. The book takes the planetary boundaries model with its ecological ceiling and Kate Raworth’s modification known as the Doughnut model, which adds a social foundation to it, i.e. the minimum requirements for human well-being. It then outlines some of the changes required to significantly reduce our impact on the planet, leaning towards “green” and nature-based solutions aimed primarily at restoring biodiversity. The overall tone here is hopeful and the book hits many relevant points, though I have some criticism.

Let’s start with what I appreciated. First, and this feels like Attenborough speaking, it gets its philosophy right, tackling anthropocentrism: “We moved from being a part of nature to being apart from nature […] we need to reverse that transition” (p. 125). It also acknowledges the shifting baseline syndrome in the context of fisheries and beyond: how each generation takes an increasingly impoverished environment as the new normal. Right out of the gate it tackles the need to move beyond the paradigm of perpetual growth and abandon Gross Domestic Product as our prime measure of welfare. Agriculture will have to rely on far less land through solutions that are high-tech (e.g. hydroponic greenhouses run on renewable energy), or low-tech (e.g. a shift away from monocultures to something more approaching functional ecosystems via regenerative farming and the growing of mixed crops). Most important would be a change from a meat- to a plant-based diet. Attenborough again: “When I was young […] meat was a rare treat” (p. 169). We should want less stuff and require our things to be repairable and recyclable, moving ultimately towards a circular economy. This all ties in nicely, although it is not spelt out here, with an ethos of self-limitation that we need to reclaim.

“This brings us to the vision for the future, which is where the question of authorship becomes increasingly blurred. At times I was not sure whether I was reading Attenborough’s voice or a WWF policy brief.”

Carbon capture will have to be achieved not by high-tech solutions, but by both reforestation on land and the farming of kelp forests in the sea (Ruth Kassinger already made the point in Slime that algae might just save the world). Both these solutions will help the massive rewilding efforts this book envisions: Marine Protected Areas will help fish populations to recover, resulting in sustainable fisheries, while on land more habitat will become available for wild animals. And, finally and importantly, the book tackles human population numbers, aiming for the humane solution of stabilising the world population as quickly as possible at 9–11 billion people by lifting people out of poverty and empowering women.

The holistic package proposed here, underpinned with examples of success stories from around the globe, almost makes it sound like we can have it all. Can we? The authors acknowledge that many of these transitions will not come easily and will require everyone to come together and cooperate (in itself a tall order). Where achievability is concerned, the devil is in the details, and I do feel that these are sometimes glossed over and that taboo subjects are avoided.

Take agriculture—there is no mention of the tremendous potential of genetically modified organisms. Similarly unmentioned regarding renewable energy is the concept of energy density and our reliance on increasingly energy-dense fuels as civilization progressed. There is no consideration of the tremendous amount of resources needed to build and maintain the necessary infrastructure. A combined solution of renewable and nuclear energy (admittedly a non-renewable) is considered a no-no. And though a circular economy is a step up from our linear system of produce-use-discard, you cannot endlessly recycle: a constant influx of virgin material is required. Not all metals can be economically recovered, nor all the compound materials we make unmade. Ever tried unfrying an egg? Entropy does not run that way.

“The holistic package proposed here […] almost makes it sound like we can have it all. Can we? […] these transitions will not come easily and […] the devil is in the details.”

The word “overpopulation” is studiously avoided, which is remarkable as Attenborough has been outspoken on the subject elsewhere (see this short explainer or the 2011 RSA President’s Lecture). The closest he gets to it here is when he writes that “we have overrun the Earth” (p. 100). Later, the possibility of a demographic transition to a declining world population is mentioned, but not the suggestion put forward by some that a lower world population of, say, 2–3 billion might be more sustainable. And though Attenborough points out increased longevity as a contributing factor, there is no examination of our relationship with death. Should we really direct all our efforts to maximising life span? At what cost, both environmental and quality-of-life-wise? And, lastly, the now-dominant narrative of female empowerment is only half the story and puts the onus squarely on their shoulders. Making contraception and abortion available to women is needed, but better still would be to prevent pregnancies by starting with male education. Condom, gentlemen?

Admittedly, I am arguing details here. Though they need serious consideration in my opinion, much of what is proposed here is sensible. A Life on Our Planet is very accessible and admirably concise. Its central message, that things cannot continue as they are, stands. If there is anyone who can communicate this to a wide audience, it is Sir David Attenborough. Some of the writing here will stick with you long after you have closed the book: “We often talk of saving the planet, but the truth is that we must do these things to save ourselves.” (p. 218). Here speaks a wise elder who, even at 94, indefatigably defends our environment.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

A Life on Our Planet

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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What I am about to write is probably going to upset many people, but… I am growing frustrated with the narrative of much of the environmental movement. Taking to the streets to protest and demand change, to “do something!”, is all fine and dandy, but it is also a bit hypocritical. It fosters a narrative in which the onus is always on others and it begs the counter-question: “what are you willing to give up?”. That is the hard question.

There, I said it. You have the option to stop reading now.

In all seriousness, if we want to avert dangerous climate change or allow forests to recover from deforestation, how much change is enough? How much are we allowed to consume? Planetary Accounting will not offer you final prescriptive answers, but it is an important first step in quantifying per capita quota for what each of us can consume and pollute without it costing the planet.

Planetary Accounting: Quantifying How to Live Within Planetary Limits at Different Scales of Human Activity, written by Kate Meyer and Peter Newman, published by Springer in March 2020 (hardback, 290 pages)

This book follows on perfectly from Kallis’s Limits that I just reviewed, which urged for a culture of self-limitation. The immediate follow-up question then is: how much? In Planetary Accounting, sustainability scientists Kate Meyer and Peter Newman take the planetary boundaries framework as their starting point and translate it into planetary quotas. If the former can be likened to a patient’s diagnosis, the latter can be interpreted as the doctor’s prescriptions: here is the amount and direction of change needed.

In case you are not yet familiar with it, the planetary boundaries framework was developed by Johan Rockström and colleagues and presented in a 2009 Nature paper, followed by a book for a general audience in 2014, and further refinements proposed in a 2015 Science paper. It is an Earth systems science framework that demarcates a “safe operating space for humanity” by identifying nine planetary processes and systems with their boundary values. Think climate change, biodiversity loss, or ozone depletion. For several of these, we have crossed the limit and are collectively pushing our environment towards a new state that is likely to be a lot less friendly to human life. A case is even being made that we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

You might ask why it matters that we emit more nitrogen and phosphorus into our environment than we should, or are seeing species extinction rates far above background values. Surely, our world always changes and is not a museum piece. Consider the following, I think very interesting, argument. Some authors propose that it took the stable climatic conditions of the Holocene for civilization to take off. Not because climate drove civilization—humanity was rearing to go—but because we needed a stable window of opportunity. Meyer & Newman mention Cook’s A Brief History of the Human Race, but I came across this same argument in Dartnell’s Origins where he suggested that there may have been earlier attempts at migrating out of Africa or developing agricultural civilizations, that simply fizzled out before taking off because environmental conditions were unfavourable. Rockström and colleagues argue that the state of the planet during the Holocene is the only one we know of in which settled societies can thrive. Whether we can in other environmental states is unknown, nor do we know what new balance the Anthropocene will reach. So, how lucky, really, are we feeling?

“it took the stable climatic conditions of the Holocene for civilization to take off. […] Whether we can [thrive] in other environmental states is unknown […] So, how lucky, really, are we feeling?”

This introduction is accompanied by a very capable routing of the arguments of climate change denialists and a brief exploration of other environmental impact assessment frameworks before Meyer & Newman turn to the limits of the planetary boundaries framework. One issue is that it describes the problem, but does not prescribe solutions. Some translation is needed and to that end, Meyer & Newman here propose the planetary accounting framework.

The bulk of the book describes this framework and develops quotas for each of the nine planetary boundaries, though it should be noted that readers might have to turn to supporting publications, including Meyer’s PhD thesis, for more details. What this exercise reveals is interesting. Four planetary boundaries have been exceeded, three not yet, and for two we lack information. The planetary quotas calculated here show we exceed seven, are at the limit of one and lack information for the last. If that seems confusing, remember that boundaries describe the state of the planet and quotas our annual impact. Some boundaries will be breached soon if we maintain current rates.

To illustrate this with an example. For climate change, one planetary boundary is an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 350 ppm (parts per million), which has been exceeded. The corresponding quota is based on CO₂ emissions, expressed in gigatonnes. To meet the target of the IPCC climate change scenario that the authors have selected (limit global warming to +1.5 °C by 2100) we should change our emissions from the current +36 to -12 GtCO₂/year. This is an example where we should not just reverse direction (i.e. emit less), we should be actively removing atmospheric CO₂. Deriving quotas for all boundaries is not necessarily straightforward and Meyer & Newman have drawn on the knowledge of a large body of specialists when developing the planetary accounting framework, with caveats, justifications, and assumptions described here.

“[The planetary boundaries framework] describes the problem, but does not prescribe solutions. Some translation is needed and to that end, Meyer & Newman here propose the planetary accounting framework.”

Each chapter also gives suggestions on how these quotas can be achieved at different levels (from individuals to nations) and in different sectors (communities, governments, and businesses). They call their approach poly-scalar. Although this is a first step in translating planetary boundaries to something more actionable, you will notice that this is still several steps away from usable advice. The authors acknowledge that more work is needed, that there are different ways to achieve these quotas, that the quotas are moving targets subject to revision, and that there will be a lot of political and ethical horse-trading when it comes to deciding who has to sacrifice what (especially in the developed vs. developing world). In short, they have laid out the total amount of change needed but how we are going to achieve this is yet to be decided.

I have two points of criticism. First, with the book itself. Though accessibly written, it suffers noticeably from typos and spelling errors that should have been picked out in the editorial stage. Furthermore, seeing the importance of the subject matter, the book is exorbitantly priced, probably putting it out of reach for many readers. I recommend you also have a good look at the website of The Planetary Accounting Network, the non-profit that Kate Meyer founded after completing her PhD.

My second point of criticism is with the planetary accounting framework, which has its limitations. There is no mention here of non-renewable resources: all the ores and other minerals we extract from the planet’s crust, many of which, such as rare metals, are vital to the technological solutions we envision will help us address environmental problems. Whether their framework can be expanded and adjusted to account for these is questionable, seeing such resources are finite. Furthermore, Meyer & Newman are conspicuously silent about overpopulation, although occasionally mentioning that quota sizes will depend on future population growth. I know that I am starting to sound like a stuck record, but should there be a population quota? Depending on living standards plugged into your equations, some authors have tentatively concluded that 3 billion is a more sustainable limit and that we cannot justify having more than one child.

Of course, it would be unreasonable of me to expect their framework to be a cure-all—they acknowledge it is not “one supersystem to solve everything”. Keeping that in mind, Planetary Accounting is a first step in translating the planetary boundaries to something more actionable, and Meyer & Newman provide a valuable roadmap that I expect will be widely welcomed.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Planetary Accounting

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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Despite its purposefully provocative title, Limits is not a pro-growth book that panders to the illusion of endless economic growth. Starting with a thought-provoking re-reading of Malthus, ecological economist and political ecologist Giorgos Kallis examines how his ideas have influenced economics and have been misinterpreted by environmentalists, before ending with a call to collective self-limitation. Along the way, there is a healthy dollop of reflection and pre-emptive defence of his arguments. Though I have some points of criticism, Limits by and large concisely formulates ideas that I have found myself gravitating towards more and more lately.

Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care, written by Giorgos Kallis, published by Stanford University Press in August 2019 (paperback, 168 pages)

Despite having reviewed both the 1803 edition of Malthus’s essay and Mayhew’s biography, Kallis’s take on his work was an eye-opener for me. I can see at least three reasons why we continue to disagree over how best to interpret classical authors such as Malthus: concepts, aims, and language.

Malthus is best remembered for his argument that, if left unchecked, population growth would outstrip food supply. What he is not remembered for is his pro-growth attitude. He believed that food production could expand without limit. What hat he pulled that absurd assumption out of is another question, but the point that Kallis makes is that the concept of economic growth we think of today did not exist in Malthus’s time.

On the other side, neo-Malthusians have drawn on his work to argue for birth control, and to warn of resource exploitation and population overshoot. But birth control was something he never advocated, seeing it as one of the “species of misery or vice”. Malthus had different aims. Writes Kallis: “Remember, Malthus was not a demographer; he was a priest and a philosopher arguing for the impossibility of a classless society” (p. 23), and “Malthus was not an advocate of limits, but someone who invoked the specter of limit to justify inequality and call for growth” (p. 16).

Add Malthus’s flowery and verbose prose that is often ambiguous, and you can see why we still argue over his words. For example, a popular critique of Malthus today is that he did not foresee technical and scientific developments that led to e.g. the Green Revolution. But, Kenneth Binnmore’s contribution to the Yale reprint of the essay also points out that upon careful reading you find that he made allowance for future technological developments.

“Malthus is best remembered for his argument that, if left unchecked, population growth would outstrip food supply. What he is not remembered for is his pro-growth attitude.”

Both economists and environmentalists get Malthus wrong, claims Kallis here. In his opinion, Malthus was wrong because he could not or did not want to entertain the idea that we could voluntarily limit our numbers and still be happy. Or, to put it more explicitly, that recreational sex is an option.

There is another principle that has gone almost unremarked in discussions of his work, writes Kallis. By observing that population had the potential to grow much faster than food supply, Malthus introduced the concept of scarcity. And without realising it, many environmentalists have embodied this concept. For them, limits are external, our environment is precious and scarce. Calls for limits to growth seem driven more by a desire to stave off collapse than a desire to change how we behave. Bar radical fringes, mainstream environmentalism is still framed in terms of growth; think of self-contradictory concepts such as “green growth” or “sustainable development”. Environmentalists seem to think that if only we do this right, we can keep this show on the road. Rarely do they have the timefulness and deep time reckoning to extrapolate their forecasts beyond the immediate future and ask “sure, but for how long?”

Kallis puts his finger on a sore spot when writing that: “Our world is limited because our wants are unlimited” (p. 35). As he clarifies, the aim of this book is not to continue the debate over the when and how of growth and collapse, but to question the debate’s framing. Yes, Kallis acknowledges, there are hard limits out there, but many are a matter of choice (take for instance the widely adopted aim to limit the rise in global warming to 1.5°C). This might seem mere semantics, but, as highlighted in Abundant Earth, language powerfully shapes our perception. By talking of nature as being limited we conveniently side-step discussing how we should change our behaviour: nature is the problem, not us. He then proceeds to give five very good reasons why this narrative is dangerous and counterproductive. The remainder of Limits is a call for practising and reclaiming a culture of self-limitation, taking the Ancient Greeks as an example of a culture that did so, as well as some pre-emptive responses to criticism of his argument.

“By talking of nature as being limited we conveniently side-step discussing how we should change our behaviour: nature is the problem, not us.”

Especially the second half of Limits articulates ideas I have found myself gravitating towards more and more. My problem with much environmentalist discourse is the clamour to “do something” without ever going a step further and taking responsibility for our problems by asking “what are we willing to sacrifice?” Or, seeing I just said that language shapes our perception, maybe we should think of them as adjustments. In that sense, I disagree with Kallis’s criticism of the ecological footprint and planetary boundary concepts. He writes that they perpetuate the idea of external limits being the problem. That may be. But I think they are helpful to quantify the necessary behavioural adjustments and make explicit what a culture of self-limitation would actually look like. Planetary Accounting, which I review next, explores this idea much further. My hope is that quantification will bring about more meaningful action. My fear is that we will not like what we hear and rebel. But, as Kallis pleads in defence of self-limitation: “the truth or ethical value of an argument does not rest on whether it is politically correct or viable” (p. 101).

Although I was impressed overall with the thought-provoking arguments put forward in Limits, I am going to call Kallis out on a few things. How radically do we have to reimagine our way of living to make this self-limitation possible and what would the consequences be? Probably there was not the space to explore this here and I should turn to his other books about degrowth. But the bigger miss, especially in a book that discusses Malthus, is to not bring up overpopulation. If we are talking about practising self-limitation, the questions of whether we should control world population, what population size is optimal for the planet, and how many children to have (if any) are the big ones.

Whether you are interested in Malthus, growth and its limits, or issues of sustainability, I recommend Limits as a pleasantly concise and thought-provoking book that is sure to stimulate discussion.

Limits

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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How many people can planet Earth support? That is the thorny question that economist Partha Dasgupta tackles in Time and the Generations. Or, as he asks: “How should we evaluate the ethics of procreation, especially the environmental consequences of reproductive decisions on future generations, in a resource-constrained world?” Given that I have previously called overpopulation the elephant in the room that few wish to address, my interest was immediately piqued.

Time and the Generations: Population Ethics for a Diminishing Planet, written by Partha Dasgupta, published by Columbia University Press in June 2019 (hardback, 320 pages)

Intuitively, the answer to this question to me has always seemed: it depends. The IPAT equation formulated in the 1970s by Barry Commoner, Paul R. Ehrlich, and John Holdren is pretty clear about it, Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology. There is not going to be a single number, it depends on what we consider a good life. The more affluent we want our lifestyle to be, the fewer of us there can be before we require more natural resources than our planet can supply. This is the essence behind concepts such as Earth Overshoot Day and humanity’s global ecological footprint. These consider renewable natural resources such as timber, clean water, and fertile soil (but, it should be pointed out, ignore resources such as fossil fuels and ores that are essentially non-renewable).

So, superficially, this question does not seem like rocket science. But Dasgupta here turns it into something very much akin to rocket science. If your idea of stimulating dinnertime conversation includes the ideas of philosophers and economists such as Henry Sidgwick, John Rawls, Derek Parfit, or Frank Ramsey, with a healthy dollop of normative ethics, utilitarianism, and axiology, then this book will go down well. If the above means nothing to you, then, like me, you might struggle with this book. Dasgupta writes for an audience of fellow philosophers and economists here and takes as a given a certain level of background knowledge and familiarity with the vocabulary. Below I will try to demystify some of this and hopefully not butcher it too much in the process.

“Given that our planet has resource constraints, what level of economic activity can it support long term? And can we deduce an optimum population size from this?”

This book is part of the Kenneth J. Arrow Lecture Series, which honours the intellectual legacy of this economist. Dasgupta has revised and expanded on material from this and other lectures and turned it into a large essay, the Arrow Lecture, that sits at the heart of this book. It is driven by two questions. Given that our planet has resource constraints, what level of economic activity can it support long term? And can we deduce an optimum population size from this? To answer these questions, Dasgupta engages in a formal mathematical modelling exercise in both normative and population ethics. Normative ethics studies ethical action: how should one act, morally speaking? Population ethics studies the ethical problems that arise when our actions affect who and how many of us are born in the future.

As his starting point, Dasgupta takes Henry Sidgwick’s version of utilitarian thought. As an ethical theory, utilitarianism says that we should act to maximize happiness and well-being for individuals involved. When applied in the context of population ethics, I think this means asking how we can maximize well-being for humanity as a whole. Dasgupta starts with a model of a timeless world in which goods are produced and consumed and asks what level of population maximizes well-being (so-called total utilitarianism). He then modifies this theory to construct what he calls generation-relative utilitarianism. He adds a component of time in the form of existing people choosing how many children to have and asks how we can maximize well-being in that scenario. The aim of this whole exercise? A model that offers potential parents a normative theory of, and ethical guidance on, reproductive decisions.

The Arrow Lecture is accompanied by other material that, fortunately, is quite enlightening. I would even go so far as to recommend you read it first to get a better handle on the book’s outline. There is a foreword by economist Robert M. Solow, some emails from Kenneth J. Arrow to Dasgupta on the Lecture, three commentaries from economists Scott Barrett, Eric Maskin, and Joseph Stiglitz – with a response by Dasgupta, an epilogue, and a reprint of a closely-allied paper co-authored with his daughter Aisha Dasgupta. To make it self-contained, the last part of the Lecture actually borrows heavily from this paper, so there is a fair bit of overlap here.

“[Dasgupta’s] model [gives] some very rough numbers for optimal population size, with most estimates falling somewhere between 1.5 to 3.5 billion people.”

Where the modelling exercise was rather abstruse to me, the second half is where things get really interesting. He first offers the briefest of reviews of humanity’s impact on the planet, stressing repeatedly just how insanely fast, just mere decades, we have increased our standard of living and, with it, extraction of natural resources. Then he applies his model to get some very rough numbers for optimal population size, with most estimates falling somewhere between 1.5 to 3.5 billion people. This agrees with earlier work by Paul Ehrlich and co-authors, as well as the recent limit of 3 billion championed by Christopher Tucker.

Dasgupta is frank about the model simplifications made up to this point and the crudeness of some the estimates of our impact on the biosphere. But, as he points out, “What matters […] is not the exact figure but whether the footprint exceeds 1. On that there should be little question” (p. 105). Indeed, and for a fuller picture I refer readers to Vaclav Smil’s Harvesting the Biosphere, the recent Humans versus Nature, and my review of Cataclysms. The same hockey stick patternhockey stick shape that characterises the graph of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration against time shows up in a broad class of other geochemical signatures. This is why stratigraphers are trying to get the term Anthropocene formally recognized. This pressure on the biosphere is also feeding into what is now widely called the sixth mass extinction (notably, Dasgupta was co-editor on Biological Extinction, published in the same year as this book).

There are three other things that Dasgupta writes worth mentioning here. First is his invocation of the economic concept of externalities. These are positive or negative consequences that our actions have for others that are not accounted for. An example of a negative externality is global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. We, its consumers, are not paying the cost of global warming which is instead inflicted on both existing and future people. Dasgupta argues this applies just as much for reproduction: adding another human being to an already overburdened planet has costs for all future people. For most, life is so sacrosanct that nobody wants to discuss this, and applying this kind of cold calculus is still taboo. High time somebody broached that topic.

“[…] the Sustainable Development Goals laid out by the United Nations […] are silent on population and the burden increased affluence will have on the planet.”

Second is that the Sustainable Development Goals laid out by the United Nations, which aim for example to reduce global wealth inequality, are silent on population and the burden increased affluence will have on the planet. One more reason why this conversation is so terribly overdue. Third – there is good news too – preferences for the number of children people wish to have is, what Dasgupta calls, socially embedded. It is subject to both people’s desire to compete with one another and to conform to a majority. Changing such preferences might be less costly than it first appears, though it will be none the easier for it.

One thing Dasgupta, by his own admission, stops short of is formulating policies as to how we could achieve optimum global population. Luckily, others are starting to be willing to discuss this. Equally important will be the tough discussion on how we can change our behaviour so as to live lighter on our environment, something I cover in my review of Planetary Accounting.

Time and the Generations takes no prisoners where its level is concerned, being primarily written for an audience versed in economics and philosophy. Though I struggled to get to grips with parts of the book, I found it refreshing and uplifting to see an economist champion something else than endless growth.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Time and the Generations hardback or ebook

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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“Should We Control World Population?“, written by Diana Coole, published by Polity Press in July 2018 (paperback, 138 pages)

Divided into three parts, Diana Coole first asks whether there actually is a problem, as plenty of people will disavow overpopulation as being a problem to begin with. Covering developmental, environmental, existential, and economical arguments, she concludes that there are good reasons to try and control human population numbers. An example of a developmental argument is that overpopulation is not in the interest of poor countries. An example of an existential argument is whether a world completely dedicated to supporting a huge human population is in the interest of our well-being. Economical arguments on the other hand often end up pro-growth, given the costs of a large, ageing population.

Out of these four, especially the environmental argument is one that is rapidly becoming impossible to ignore, and I happen to think that overpopulation is the mother-of-all-problems where environmental degradation is concerned. As I argued in my review of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise and is also recognized in this book, a large human population multiplies the impact of our lifestyle. No matter what lifestyle this might be, you always have an impact. I get the impression this is often lost on advocates of sustainable development and green alternatives such as renewable energy. Coole touches on the framework of planetary boundaries developed by Johan Rockström and colleagues. In my opinion, it is important to realise environmental concerns go well beyond the extinction of some cute, furry animals. This is affecting the very fabric of our planetary ecosystem that we as humans also depend on. Ecologists describe this under the umbrella term of ecosystem services (there is a large literature on this, the Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services is but one of many starting points).

The other two chapters deal with the ethics and the means by which we could actually control population numbers. Coole argues that there are some clear ethical boundaries that cannot be crossed, especially where women’s rights and bodily integrity and autonomy are concerned. It stands to reason that we think forcing an abortion on a woman violates basic human rights. But the other side of the coin, that forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy by making abortion illegal, is equally problematic, but far less widely accepted. She discusses access to reproductive health services such as family planning and birth control, and whether it is ethical to yield these as tools to steer decision making by couples. Finally, there is the question of the ethics of family size. I found the argument put forth by Sarah Conly’s book One Child: Do We Have a Right to More? very relevant.

“[…] environmental concerns go well beyond the extinction of some cute, furry animals”

Last but not least, how do we actually go about influencing population numbers? Coole makes a strong argument that in democratic societies we already have a system of mild coercion through laws, taxes etc. to influence people’s behaviour. And often such tools have already been used to influence people’s reproductive decision making through tax reliefs, childcare support, housing schemes etc. used either to encourage or discourage population growth and family size. If we see no problem in governments manipulating consumer behaviour to mitigate environmental degradation, cold logic says we should apply this to human population numbers as well. A tiny problem that Coole also highlights is that many countries where the problem most urgently needs addressing are not democratic countries, but authoritarian regimes or failed states.

It is only all too easy to fall into extremes when trying to discuss this topic. My own views could safely be called controversial. It is widely documented that increased economic development and education of women reduces family size and is, in the long-term, predicted to lead to global population stabilisation if we could realise this globally. However, I am seriously concerned that it will be too little, much too late, which logically would force our hand to more drastic measures. On a bit of a tangent, I never cease to be amazed that couples wishing to adopt have to go through many hoops to show that they will be reliable parents, but that literally any nitwit can have children the old-fashioned biological way. Isn’t it time we introduced compulsory certification for prospective parents, thereby capping population growth? (I will immediately admit that this is far from a well-developed argument, and I can see it being problematic to implement – who judges the judges?)

Obviously, my ideas will be way too extreme for most, and this book has forced me to think about more widely applicable and realistic measures. Though the reading might sometimes be a bit heavy on theoretical ethics, Coole immediately convinces that we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. This slim volume does not provide all the answers, but it is an opening salvo for a much-needed, broader discussion.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Should We Control World Population? paperback, hardback or ebook

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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