The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited. Smail, J. K. Social Contract, 27(5):3–13, 2017. 00000![The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited [pdf]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/pdf.svg "pdf")
Paper abstract bibtex In this essay I call attention to the growing disconnect between reasonably accurate demographic projections of future global population growth (to more than 9 billion by mid-twenty-first century) versus prudent scientific estimates of the Earth’s likely long-term sustainable human carrying capacity (perhaps no more than 2 billion at a modest first-world standard of living). In addition to identifying the recent emergence of several other critical global challenges, I speculate about the nature of the profound evolutionary, ecological, and sociocultural consequences that could well appear during the twenty-first century. In essence, I argue that an important emergent phenomenon has become increasingly likely: namely, the growing potential for a global “synchronous failure,” a cascading political, economic, social, environmental, and demographic breakdown (or generalized collapse) stimulated by the mutually reinforcing convergence of multiple “inconvenient truths. ; This poses a fundamental existential question. Unless significant mitigating steps are soon undertaken, could the future of modern agricultural/industrial/technological civilization, as well as the lives of several billion human beings, be at considerable risk?
@article{smail_malthusian_2017,
title = {The ‘{Malthusian} {Dilemma}’{Revisited}},
volume = {27},
url = {http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/twentyseven-four/tsc_27_4_smail.pdf},
abstract = {In this essay I call attention to the growing disconnect between reasonably accurate demographic projections of future global population growth (to more than 9 billion by mid-twenty-first century) versus prudent scientific estimates of the Earth’s likely long-term sustainable human carrying capacity (perhaps no more than 2 billion at a modest first-world standard of living). In addition to identifying the recent emergence of several other critical global challenges, I speculate about the nature of the profound evolutionary, ecological, and sociocultural consequences that could well appear during the twenty-first century. In essence, I argue that an important emergent phenomenon has become increasingly likely: namely, the growing potential for a global “synchronous failure,” a cascading political, economic, social, environmental, and demographic breakdown (or generalized collapse) stimulated by the mutually reinforcing convergence of multiple “inconvenient truths. ; This poses a fundamental existential question. Unless significant mitigating steps are soon undertaken, could the future of modern agricultural/industrial/technological civilization, as well as the lives of several billion human beings, be at considerable risk?},
number = {5},
urldate = {2017-09-12},
journal = {Social Contract},
author = {Smail, J. Kenneth},
year = {2017},
note = {00000},
keywords = {collapse, philosophy},
pages = {3--13},
file = {Smail - 2017 - The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited.pdf:C\:\\Users\\rsrs\\Documents\\Zotero Database\\storage\\88N8RVXJ\\Smail - 2017 - The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited.pdf:application/pdf}
}
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