Shortly before the end of the 18th
century, a British intellectual named Thomas Malthus made a prediction that
turned out to be wrong. He suggested
that because human population would grow geometrically and food production only
arithmetically, absent a dramatic drop in birth rates or a dramatic increase in
death rates (due to wars or illness), the world would no longer be able adequately
to feed itself. What Malthus didn’t
foresee was the tremendous technical advances in food production that would
follow the writing of his essay. Over the past 220 years, we have seen dramatic
improvements in agriculture, refrigeration, machines, you name it. This has enabled us to produce far more food
than Malthus could possibly have envisioned, and so now, the poor chap’s name has
come to be sullied with the label of doomsayer.
We take him no more seriously than we take Chicken Little.
And therein lies a problem. Our world has become dangerously
post-Mathusian. We live in an age where our
movers and shakers feel duty bound to ignore doomsayers like Malthus. Especially in our more entrepreneurial
classes, it has become an article of faith that the Chicken Littles should be
ignored. Now, every time a man of
letters preaches that the sky is falling, the barons of business simply laugh
it off. “You sound like that silly ol’ Malthus,” they
think to themselves. Or to be more
precise, even if we personally have never heard of Malthus himself, we’ve all
come to appreciate the existence of thinkers from yesteryear who’ve envisioned
all sorts of future horribles, only to have failed to take into account the
effects of human ingenuity as reflected in greater and greater technological prowess. This
is why in some circles, it has become almost a religious imperative never again
to bet against the ability of the human mind to solve what may appear on the
surface to be an intractable technical problem.
Personally, I saw this phenomenon play out when I
started my career as an attorney at the Federal Communications Commission in
1984. Back then, there was a real push
to improve communications technology – to usher in the kind of “information age”
that has come to characterize the 21st century. However, the Malthusians among us were
warning that if we shook up (deregulate) the telecom industry, we
may indeed bring greater prosperity to the rich but the poor may lose their
ability to enjoy basic telephone service.
That warning turned out to be
bunk – we went ahead with deregulation, and our telecom technology continued to
advance so dramatically that rich and poor alike were able to enjoy the fruits
of this advance without the need for regulation. Once again, we all learned a lesson: don’t
let the cluckings of Chicken Littles turn us into silly pessimists. Whenever we really need human technology to
come through for us, we can assume that it will advance by leaps and bounds and
stave off disaster.
But you know what happens when we “assume” – we make
an ass of u and me. And so it appears that our post-Malthusian assumptions are
leading us down a path of carbon-guzzling complacency. The barons of industry and the politicians
they fund are well aware of the ubiquity of scientists who make Mathusian
noises about the effects of climate change.
But they just don’t care. They
don’t want to hear about Chicken Little.
They are obsessed instead with Mighty Mouse (“Here I come to save the day!”). Surely,
they figure, we’ll be able to improve our technical ability to produce renewal
and non-dangerous sources of energy so as to minimize the effects of
human-induced climate change.
I don’t think so.
Even if we stipulate advancements in the harnessing of solar and other
renewal energy sources, that alone won’t solve the problem. For one thing, the demand for energy – and for
the creature comforts it produces – won’t go away. You see, demand for creature comforts, once
enjoyed, never seems to lessen, and the world’s population continues to rise
significantly. As for the supply of
energy, we are deeply addicted to the fuels that threaten our planet. Perhaps,
with a bit more political will we could do away with coal. But oil?
So many powerful and wealthy companies in so many powerful and wealthy countries
are thoroughly dependent on producing oil (as opposed to renewable sources of
energy) that it would take a true miracle to stop us from continuing to do so. Just consider how many people would stand to
lose their fortunes – or their jobs – if we attempt a rapid transition away
from oil. These individuals would fight
to continue to make their livelihood in the same fashion, politicians would
dare not stand up to such a powerful coalition, and demand would continue to surge
for their services. Expecting a dramatic
change under these circumstances is like expecting the Titanic to move rapidly
to evade the iceberg. Quite clearly, this
is a very different dynamic than the one faced by Malthus in the 1790s (where
farmers of all types welcomed improvements in agriculture) or the telecom
industry in the 1980s (where AT&T could easily enough transition from
old-style phones to improved telephone technology).
I realize that it’s no fun to sound like Malthus or
Chicken Little. It’s far more satisfying
either to deny climate change like our President does, or to sound like one of
those upbeat social reformers who talk as if we can still stop this freight
train as long as we put our collective minds to the task. I’ll give you this – I think we should try to
stem this horrendous tide. I think we
should listen to our scientists, restrict our personal demand for carbon,
support renewable energy sources, advocate international climate treaties and
domestic regulation on carbon, etc. But
Empathic Rationalism is a philosophy of honesty – both with others and with
ourselves. And I won’t lie to you: I see
dire consequences ahead. I believe we’ve
passed the point of no return. And while
I hope I’m as wrong as Malthus turned out to be, I’m no longer living in a
post-Mathusian age. The central “article
of faith” I’m following is simple logic.
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