The limits of growth

Yeah, but what I'd like to see is a longer term extrapolation taking into account what many demographers are calling a looming population implosion. Forget Europe and Japan, which are already in free fall; even the usually fertile third-worlders are reproducing less rapidly (although still far and away ahead of Western societies).

Could it be that yes, short-term we have a real problem, but longer-term not so much?

Contrary to the reports cited, the Malthusian panic of the present is exactly like the one of the 70's. Same arguments that "this time it's different". Same old, same old.

I was there and I remember.

The irony is that if we pull back on being such rampant consumerists, we'd acutally be a happier bunch of folks. BUT because our economy is built of consumerism, if we stop all this collecting of gadgets and gizmos the economy will tank and we'll all be out of jobs.

I'm doing my part. I try to keep out of shopping centers as much as possible. I'm not a total Luddite, though; I just bought a new car. (It gets better mpg than the old one. Does that count for anything?)

While I don't agree that we're all having way too many kids, I will say that adoption needs to be a more viable option for families. People percieve that adoption is difficult, not true, and expensive, true. We're adopting and it is very expensive. (About $20K for us, but can be up to $45K.) Much of the cost is government fees- homestudy, fingerprinting, DHS inspections, visas etc. etc. If more people could adopt more easily and affordably, I'll bet that more families would do it. It is a beautiful way to make a difference in a child's life.

There's an easy solution to the problem of rising commodity prices. However, as Rod has been pointing out, many do not want to change the ways in which they live.

Several things can be very easily done - although I can hear the 4th amendment yelps about "takings." The article pointed out that the real scarcity is in arable land and potable water. Fine - let's make the most use of the resources we *do* have in the US - most of which are going down the literal tubes and do not produce anything useful.

First, by state law, invalidate all residential covenant agreements which forbid the agricultural use of land in housing developments. This means that a residential covenant agreement could no longer forbid the use of front (or sometimes even back and side) yards for gardening. We spend enormous amounts of money and fertilizer on lawns in this country. Let's put the land to *real* use.

Second, get rid of local ordinances which forbid the raising of livestock - chickens, rabbits, etc. on an arbitrary basis. Set some reasonable acreage restriction for hogs, goats, etc. But there's no reason that a 75x100 square foot suburban lot couldn't be put to use for chickens or rabbits.

Third, get rid of zoning restrictions on the trapping and use of grey water (i.e. dishwater, shower water etc.)

Fourth, put a moratorium on the conversion of farmland to subdivision.

I'm with Stefanie. I'd also like to abolish the restrictions on clothes-lines and rainwater collection. I do think that automotive work in the front yard should probably still be restricted because folks are too likely to just pour the old oil down the stormwater drain.

I have a question about housing in the US. Is it really true that all the new subdivisions are needed because 'people have to live somewhere'? Or is it just that we'd like to live somewhere else? Yes, there are homeless people, and certainly there is a shortage of affordable housing, but is there truly a housing shortage period? If not, we should be able to easily stop building all the many ugly new neighborhoods and turn our attention to renovating existing housing (see the series about apartment buildings in DC that recently ran on the front page of the Washington Post).

You don't have to believe that we're pushing the limits of the planet's resources to understand that increased demand can lead to higher prices and temporary shortages.

One thing that's driven up corn prices is the push for more ethanol, which is a total dead end. (Ethanol isn't a very good fuel, and we can't make enough of it to matter much.) For a while, it seemed like there was an ethanol plant "coming soon" on every corner here in the Midwest. Farmers here are planting even more corn than before, now that the price is high enough to make a profit (without subsidies) for the first time in 30 years. If the ethanol bubble pops, there's going to be an awful lot of extra corn.

We're also seeing food prices catching up on 30 years of stagnation. When I was young, one year a tornado knocked down most of the corn in the field in front of our house. We all went out after harvest and picked up the downed ears and sold the corn for $3/bushel, and made enough to buy a nice pool table. Since then, corn has rarely gotten over that price, sometimes dropping below $2, and farmers have continued to plant it only because the government price supports make it worthwhile. Pork prices have rarely been as good as when I sold my 4-H hogs in 1987. Had farm-gate prices kept pace with inflation all that time, they'd be much higher than we're fearing now.

From a crunchy point of view, I don't see how it can be a bad thing for food to become a bigger part of the family budget. If it encourages backyard gardens, more home cooking from scratch, and less eating out, so much the better.

Some thoughts:

1. Food: I don't see the US running out of food anytime soon. And political reality means we'll condemn current (foreign) consumers of our food exports to starvation rather than endure food riots or rationing here at home. We'd probably should, however, stop burning food (i.e., "using biofuels"), however, unless we continually-rising gas prices spurring continually-rising food prices.

2. Water: Irrigation & power plants account for 60% of US water usage. So we can use drip irrigation & hydroponics to cut farms' water consumption, and retrofit our power plants with closed-cycle cooling or dry cooling. And we generally copycat Israeli water-conservation techniques (e.g., water recycling). And by all means, stop subsidizing water consumption.

3. Energy: We might run short of oil - despite tar sands & oil shale - but there's still plenty of nuclear, wind, & solar. Plus PHEVs, better-insulated homes, cogeneration, heat pumps, LEDs, etc., to help out on the conservation front.

That's a good start at defining the situation, MI. Please forgive me for using it as a springboard to the ur-category: planning.

As in: we never seem to do it if it doesn't have as the first line item (increases in) profits. History teaches that we will not find your ideas useful until after the fit hits the shan. The reader will please note that I am not defining what that might be, only expecting it to happen. With a jaundiced eye to the sub-prime market fiasco, did anyone ever notice that dangerous intersection are left be despite a long list of near misses, but seem to get much attention after someone (often a scion of a local politico) gets killed?

If an ounce of prevention costs 10 ounces of profit, one may readily expect 5 of those ounces to be spent hiring lobbyists to stop the prevention.

"What happened, Rod? Usually you're haranguing us to go and outbreed those dirty subhuman Muslims."

Rod doesn't refer to Muslims as "dirty" and "subhuman". And the alternative to outbreeding Muslims is not letting them immigrate. Then it will be possible for us to keep to an eco-friendly population. The Muslims can breed as much as they like in their own countries.

I don't see ANY evidence that we're running out of food anytime soon. Every starvation point around the world is not a matter of food production, but a matter of politics. Usually a government using starvation as a political tool. Maybe just a paramilitary force using it, but that's no real difference.

The US pays farmers HUGE sums of money to NOT grow food. I live at the edge of one of the US "breadbasket" regions, and in the last 20 years, a good 1/2 of our land has been taken out of production. We've paid farmers to plant trees and grass on farmland.

Frankly, environmentalists are to blame for ANY shortage of food that truly may come to exist. They have been fighting for years to stamp out food production in the US and other nations.

My friend and employee owns 15 acres. His SPARE ground (about 12 acres) planted in wheat this year will provide wheat for around 1500 typical third world consumers.

When you realize that we have many millions of acres of good productive land in "paid to not produce" status, you realize that not only are not not actually stressing food production, we've stifled it beyond belief.

Multiply this by the vast areas of other nations which are not productive for various reasons, and I see no reason to think that there's even a vague reason to worry.

Well, except unless liberal politics prevail, which could kill us all... to their applause.

Rod doesn't refer to Muslims as "dirty" and "subhuman".

Don't anybody answer the troll "Winston Smith," which is what the demented and needy Kim Margosein is calling himself nowadays. I unpublish his stuff as soon as I see it. Please don't feed him.

And just so you know that the blogging software doesn't discriminate, I had to go fetch this post of mine out of the junked comment bucket. And this is my blog!

Let me ask you all this: Theoretically, some of you claim to want to decrease "consumption". Consumption of what ? Medical care ? Movies ? Cars/transportation ? Bread ? Kewpie dolls ? This is one area where details matter.

Next, how do we want to decrease "consumption" ? Does anyone here want to have another bureaucracy or bureaucracies imposing new rules on what people can/cannot do with their resources ? I wasn't aware that we had a bunch of big-government types out in Our Studio Audience; thank you for revealing yourselves now.

It seems to me that a good place to start (meaning a beginning-place that might actually produce results, rather than resentment) might be by actions that allow people to know the real costs and benefits of their actions, instead of distorting them or leaving them in the dark entirely. The "health care crisis" that so many political types love to discuss is largely the product of a system that encourages people to over-"consume" health care through artificially lowering the direct costs of doctor visits/drugs/whatever. This problem has been with us ever since States started playing around with tax and regulatory codes to alter incentives for this and for that.

The question then becomes figuring out what distorts incentives for "consumption", what keeps those distortions in place, and what can be done to get rid of them. On a gross level, one could make the case that the advertising/public-relations "industries" are responsible for much unnecessary "consumption", as are the entertainment and media "industries". They are subsidized rather heavily by the State, through tax preferences and low/non-existent regulations on how they do what they do. The solution in this area would be simple: remove any and all tax preferences for advertising of ANY sort (from TV and radio to classified ads in newspapers and the signs in front of stores), if not placing an actual tax on such things. Also, the political leadership could direct the relevant agency heads and public prosecutors to strictly enforce the current laws against deceptive or misleading advertising.

While we're at it, we could also change the tax code to discourage debt accumulation (maybe even go back to the 1913 system based on gross income) and correct the bankruptcy laws so as to make getting out of debt far harder than we already do.

As a very wise man once said: the best way to help a man breathe is to take your hands off his throat.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Rod--do you have an unbiased source for that claim that 10 pounds of grain = 1 pound of pork? I thought pigs were actually pretty efficient converters.

Theoretically, some of you claim to want to decrease "consumption". Consumption of what? [...] how do we want to decrease "consumption"? Does anyone here want to have another bureaucracy or bureaucracies imposing new rules on what people can/cannot do with their resources?

Lord Karth - I agree that the free market is capable of solving problems of resource production & allocation in an efficient manner. The problem, however, is that markets cannot always be relied upon to accurately price the negative externalities associated with certain economic actions.

Consider energy policy: one negative externality associated with our current patterns of energy consumption is our dependence upon imported energy sources (e.g., oil, natural gas). Such dependence renders us vulnerable to politically-motivated supply cutbacks; it also renders costly overseas interventions in the affairs of oil producers seemingly necessary to US national security. I am sure we are all aware of the price of such interventions, in blood & treasure & distortions to US grand strategy.

Given this, a prudent course of action would be to gradually eliminate this negative externality. My preferred policy instrument would be the imposition of protective tariffs on all imported energy sources. Note that this doesn't require any bureaucracy beyond that already existing, i.e., the US customs service.

Presented with high prices for imported oil, natural gas, etc., I think the market can be relied upon to arrive at an efficient balance between increased domestic energy production and reduced energy consumption. No need for costly regulations or subsidies or bureaucracy. The resultant process of adjustment might employ some or all of the means mentioned in my 1:49 post; it could also rely upon some cheaper & more efficient (but unforeseen) innovation, or changes in the American lifestyle (e.g., migration from suburbia, more use of mass transit). I'm not picky.

[A similar analysis can be applied to the problems of peak oil or global warming, BTW.]

That being said, I fear I must also agree with Franklin Evans' 2:41 post. We may have the technical ability to solve many of these problems; but planning is also necessary, and unfortunately in short supply.

M_David - welcome back. Thanks for the kind words. If that oil price forecast is correct, we may not need my tariffs.

Sally and Stephanie - I'm with you. But it will take more than you have suggested. Allow me to follow through to the logical conclusion what needs to be done. To ease the water shortage, we'll use the part of capitalism that does work, and take away subsidies for water (ie, artificially lowering the cost to deliver water). That does mean that people will be forced to conserve and not do stupid things with what water they have. The southwest will complain. Sorry, Arizona, no outdoor water park in the middle of the desert for you. No more green golf courses for you southwesterners, either. Water will be in too much of a premium for it to be used for such trivial endeavors.

The other part of the problem is that we americans have this bass-ackward mentality that says we will never run out of room, so we should extend the suburbs and move out of the city. Gotta have that ranch-style house in the 'burbs, doncha know. What we really need to be doing is setting up (you might call it investing in) infrastructure in the cities. We need to stop growing out, and start growing up.

On the subject of energy conservation (home energy), and consumerism, I see concerns written about wasting energy in the process of trying to save it. We are encouraged through marketing to buy "energy-saving" products such as replacement windows and even siding for older homes. But I've seen a couple of studies showing very little payback for these practices -no one seems to check into the worst-case-scenarios used by the industry to justify their windows/siding/Tyvek. When the emodied energy of the "improvement" is considered, combined with the short life-span of the improvement, the energy-saving effort is only good for the manufacturer. Has anyone been hearing of this?

Hear, hear. Julie has been trying to get rid of junk cluttering up the house (and we live in a small house).

Sarah, you're right on.

We see it in little ways as well as big (big, as in pile of junk in my basement!!).

My 23 year old daughter (finally!!) moved out last week. I too moved out of my mother's house when I was 21 (to get married). My young husband and I together did not have half the junk our daughter had to move on similar occasion. (We both had graduated from Stanford, not the lower socio-economic layer exactly.)

What's in all my kid's boxes exactly? Well, "junk" is probably a good word, but there's sure a lot of it, and most of it cost a lot of money new. Does she need all this stuff? She doesn't even know what most of it is.

Could we all do without 85% of this? We'd be better off.

One point on the matter of overconsumption of health care: Where is the proof that Americans are running off to have an appendectomy or an x-ray that they don't need? I don't know anyone who goes to the doctor unless they have chronic, serious long-term medical conditions. For the rest of us, the ever-escalating copayments are enough to make us think twice about going at all. The moral hazard argument seems a bit exaggerated, at best.

I don't remember the source, but I read a study within the past year or two that basically indicated that 10 percent or less of the population was responsible for much of the health care spending in this country, not because they are "over consuming" but because they are medically needy, i.e. afflicted with catastrophic illness.

So who wants to be the first to tell those with life-threatening illnesses like diabetes, congestive heart failure or cancer that they are "over consuming." Not I.

My apologies for double posting, but I wanted to expand on Andrea's comments re: health care.

We have an aging population. We could all starve ourselves down a size or two tomorrow, but that won't entirely eradicate the consequences of aging. Even apparently healthy, skinny 75 year olds are still going to experience significant decline in their 80s, for instance. And the biggest expenditures will come in for end-of-life care, where the final illness can cost more than what the person has cost the system in the past 20 years before it.

We have a population that has significantly poor infant mortality and morbidity statistics (compared to European and some Asian countries like Japan.) Here Andrea's point equally applies - a relatively small percentage of the "million dollar babies" are using the lions' share of health care dollars.

We have a population which significantly uses emergency rooms for both serious situations *and* for illnesses that might be treated better by a primary care doctor. But it took a federal law to get hospitals to not turn those patients away, at least not until they were stabilized (or until the baby was born.)

So what do we not do? Refuse to treat the morbidities of age; just "let them die?" Do likewise with the baby born 12 weeks premature to a drug-addicted mother? Turn sick people away from emergency rooms?

The system isn't being "broken" by those seeing a doctor for a cold or other virus that will likely resolve on its own in a week. It's being broken by our complete failure to systematically deal with aging, catastrophic illness, infant morbidity, and chronic illness with anything but "shame and blame" and platitudes to 'not consume so much health care.'

Karth asks the $64 million question: ...how do you get people to decrease their "too much of everything" voluntarily?

From your further context, Karth, I believe you'll understand my answer through the veneer of cynicism it has: in our free society, we tell them that their consumption behavior will cause, sooner or later -- and barring some Clarkean magical technology advance -- a collapse of their lifestyles. They will be forced into consumption patterns which, perhaps not as bad, match those during the Depression of the 1930s.

Then, we sit back and wait.

We are looking at a cultural change. Any observer of history will see that without the intervention of some great force -- like a war or natural catastrophe -- cultural change is measured over decades and centuries.

We may quibble over predicted details, Karth, but I must sadly agree with your assessment. Another lesson of history is that cultures refuse to change in the face of mounting evidence for the need to change, right up to and often through the very catastrophe they were warned was coming. How many levels of construction are there at Pompeii? How many submerged storeys are there under the buildings in Venice? The mind, it doth boggle...

Lord Karth is M_David, right? Where do the Russian/Chinese man-pig soldiers figure into the upcoming apocalypse?

What might really save our economy is the realization that most of us already OWN most of what we need, or can get it very cheaply or gratis from other people who already own it.

Which is to say, most of what is in our homes goes from consumer goods to stuff to garbage in roughly five-year cycles. At each of those stages, it costs somebody money--to buy, to store/maintain, and to dispose of. If we made more efficient use of this personal property, we wouldn't need to produce so much, or find the space to landfill it, or work so hard to purchase it.

My husband used to work with a Vietnamese woman who had spent her childhood in various refugee camps. She could not remember ever having a toy. "Even a rag to use as a doll?" my husband asked her. "If it wasn't falling apart to the point of not being useable, it was being used--for clothing, covering, or cleaning material," she explained. Now THAT'S efficient use of resources.

Yes, there is a market of sorts in resale clothing and appliances and furniture. But it is a tiny proportion of the total purchases of American consumers. We are not willing to take the trouble to cart our discards to Amvets or whoever, and shopping at such places makes us feel "poor," which is unpleasant.

Yes, I even have friends who trawl the alleys in search of high-class discards, and find them quite regularly. But most of us would be embarrassed to do such things, and even more bashful about telling our friends about it. That would make us LOOK poor.

When I was a member of a political collective, one year we held a group "garage sale." It mostly resulted in swapping discards with each other. I still have some of the things I got there. Some neighborhoods have group yard sales with roughly the same result. Our churches and synagogues and mosques and neighborhood clubs should be encouraging and sponsoring such events, as well as maintaining resale shops and helping people bring discards into the shops (which is often the hardest part of the process.) And if we are going to buy clothing made by exploited labor in foreign countries (or even by sweatshop labor in the US) the least we can do it use it efficiently.