The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited. Smail, J. K. Social Contract, 27(5):3–13, 2017. 00000Paper 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}
}
Downloads: 0
{"_id":"yZYABAYw83afwPy78","bibbaseid":"smail-themalthusiandilemmarevisited-2017","authorIDs":[],"author_short":["Smail, J. K."],"bibdata":{"bibtype":"article","type":"article","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":[{"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Smail"],"firstnames":["J.","Kenneth"],"suffixes":[]}],"year":"2017","note":"00000","keywords":"collapse, philosophy","pages":"3–13","file":"Smail - 2017 - The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited.pdf:C\\:\\\\Users\\s̊rs\\\\Documents\\\\Zotero Database\\\\storage\\\\88N8RVXJ\\\\Smail - 2017 - The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited.pdf:application/pdf","bibtex":"@article{smail_malthusian_2017,\n\ttitle = {The ‘{Malthusian} {Dilemma}’{Revisited}},\n\tvolume = {27},\n\turl = {http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/twentyseven-four/tsc_27_4_smail.pdf},\n\tabstract = {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?},\n\tnumber = {5},\n\turldate = {2017-09-12},\n\tjournal = {Social Contract},\n\tauthor = {Smail, J. Kenneth},\n\tyear = {2017},\n\tnote = {00000},\n\tkeywords = {collapse, philosophy},\n\tpages = {3--13},\n\tfile = {Smail - 2017 - The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited.pdf:C\\:\\\\Users\\\\rsrs\\\\Documents\\\\Zotero Database\\\\storage\\\\88N8RVXJ\\\\Smail - 2017 - The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited.pdf:application/pdf}\n}\n\n","author_short":["Smail, J. K."],"key":"smail_malthusian_2017","id":"smail_malthusian_2017","bibbaseid":"smail-themalthusiandilemmarevisited-2017","role":"author","urls":{"Paper":"http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/twentyseven-four/tsc_27_4_smail.pdf"},"keyword":["collapse","philosophy"],"downloads":0,"html":""},"bibtype":"article","biburl":"http://www.collapsologie.fr/bib.bib","creationDate":"2019-06-13T15:56:08.659Z","downloads":0,"keywords":["collapse","philosophy"],"search_terms":["malthusian","dilemma","revisited","smail"],"title":"The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’Revisited","year":2017,"dataSources":["97shAbFSxL7A7SHoh"]}