Thanks to Cheryl Haugen for this article.  See: http://culturechange.org/issue9/kirkpatricksale.html

An Interview with Kirkpatrick Sale
Rebel Against the Future

by David Kupfer

Kirkpatrick Sale has written a book on the Luddites titled Rebels Against the Future, released in paper-back in 1996 by Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., U.S. $13; 320 pp.

DK: From where was your desire to write this historical interpretation of the Luddites born?

KS: If you locate the problem as being the industrial system, it’s simple to say: “Well, let’s go back to the industrial revolution, the big industrial revolution.”

And after you make that identification, the next one is to say: “Well, did anybody ever object to this?” And you find the Luddites there.

At the beginning of the industrial revolution (about 1785), they rose up in resistance. They made a brave effort that, although it failed, was so powerful that it embedded their dream in the language.

So I decided to study the Luddites in a positive light, which had almost never been done before. The two other books on the Luddites, written in England, essentially were saying these were foolish and misguided people.

Do you think the Luddites are misunderstood today?

Of course. Everyone assumes they were bad people who were against all technology and were fools to resist it. In general the Luddite image today is negative. People will say, “Well you don’t want to use a computer, then you must be a Luddite,” meaning a social outcast. Or they’ll say, “Well I’m no Luddite, but I can’t reset the clock in my VCR,” meaning “I don’t want to be thought of against technology, mind you…”

The connotation of Luddism is “taking us back,” while it is human nature to progress, to build on and go forth.

To believe that what has happened to humankind in the last 200 years is “progress” is to fall into an industrialist trap of: “Anything new is better and everything is better tomorrow than it is today because we have more material advantages and more ease and speed in our life and this is good.”

To read the full article, please click here: http://culturechange.org/issue9/kirkpatricksale.html

From the UN Population Division.

The United Nations Population Division is pleased to announce the publication of World Fertility Report 2009.

Since the 1970s the world has experienced profound changes in fertility, union formation and contraceptive demand. Fertility has declined throughout the world, early childbearing and marriage are less common and the percentage of women and men using contraception, especially modern methods, has risen. Nevertheless, the level and pace of change in fertility and the proximate determinants of marriage and contraceptive use have varied markedly among countries such that major differences in fertility levels persist across countries and regions of the world.

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If you attend worship services, does your service ever include a discussion like this?  Thanks to Dave Paxson for this sermon: Being Fruitful without Multiplying.  To read it, visit: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5F-idWfw7TeNzdhOWQ4ZmQtOTliZC00NmU1LThjM2YtNDA1ZjMwMTExMWE1&hl=en_US

Thanks to Joel Pett for this cartoon, which won this year’s Global Media Award in the cartoon category from the Population Institute.

Many thanks to Roger Martin of Population Matters for this paper he delivered at the African Population Conference in Ougadougou, organized by the Union for African Population Studies (UAPS).

UAPS 2011

Item 11.3: Population, Environment and Conflict

Abstract

The paper traces historic competition and conflict over scarce resources throughout evolution, and among early agricultural and industrial societies. It describes how population growth increases pressure on the natural environment and on farmland soils and water supplies, becoming both the spur for and means of provoking violent conflict with neighbouring communities, states and empires. It outlines several contemporary sources of tension over food, water, energy and other natural resources, in the context of the approaching ‘perfect storm’ of population growth, climate change and peak oil. It cites examples of the strange omission of any reference to the population driver, and thus to the consequent need for well-funded programmes of family planning and women’s empowerment, in many current reports on global issues where they are clearly relevant, ascribing this to an irrational taboo. It contrasts the importance of this issue with the ‘derisory’ aid for family planning; and makes some recommendations.

Item 11.3: Population, Environment and Conflict

I come to the population issue from my two careers, first as a diplomat, then as an environmentalist. But I came to Africa in 1959 as a first-year VSO volunteer in the then Northern Rhodesia. The population at that time was 4 million; Zambia’s today is 13.3 million, more than triple, and rising at 2.4% per year.

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Thanks to Eric Rimmer for these three important and interesting essays.

Three Short Pieces on Fertility

The first of the three pieces is by J. Kenneth Smail, Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus), and the second two by Eric Rimmer and Andrew Ferguson.  They should appear in the OPT Journal sometime, but the subject matter is somewhat topical, with the announcement of the world population passing seven billion, and a projection by the UK Office of National Statistics that in fifteen years time the UK population will be about 70 million.  Both signify overpopulation of a similar degree.  Moreover the reason that population is growing rapidly in the USA has similar causes to the UK, which hopefully will make the pieces of wide interest.

Acknowledgements: Eric Rimmer and Andrew Ferguson would like to thank Simon Ross and Harry Cripps of Population Matters for their valuable comments on our drafts.

ACKNOWLEDGING AND CONFRONTING THE INEVITABLE:  A SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN GLOBAL HUMAN NUMBERS AND OTHER INCONVENIENT TRUTHS

by J. Kenneth Smail, (Ph.D. Yale, 1976), Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus) of Kenyon College Gambier, Ohio 43022, (excerpts by Andrew Ferguson, with approval of the author, from a May 5, 2008 online article published on the Culture Change website maintained by Jan Lundberg)

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Thanks to Charles Hall for this announcement of the International Conference on DeGrowth in Montréal May 2012.

We are pleased to invite proposals for workshops, panels, papers, posters, artistic presentations, symposia and special sessions for the Montreal International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas from May 13-19, 2012.

Please note that the deadline for submissions has been extended:

*   Artistic proposals:
*   January 31st, 2012
*   Symposia, workshops, roundtables and special sessions:
*   January 31st, 2012
*   Paper presentations:
*   January 31st, 2012
*   Posters:
*   February 28th, 2012
*   Abstracts for individual symposia, workshop and roundtable presentations:
*   February 28th, 2012

A voice is rising among those who are deeply concerned with global environmental degradation and escalating poverty and inequality. A root of the problem lies in an unrelenting priority given to economic growth. Degrowth is a new social and economic paradigm that challenges the growth-driven economic model on which existing policies are based. To build on the emergent international discussion on degrowth, the Montreal International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas will articulate the needs and aspirations of the Americas for a post-growth, more equitable and better world.

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Thanks to Sheila Babbie for this article.  See http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/we-have-enough-humans-thanks/Content?oid=5061768

We Have Enough Humans, Thanks.

Why Some Twentysomethings Are Redefining the Family and Nixing the Kids

by Sarah Mirk

HANNA BROOKS OLSEN first tried to get her tubes tied when she was 19.

“Every year, since I was 19, I’ve gone to the same Planned Parenthood clinic. And every year, I’ve asked if I can qualify for a tubal ligation. At 19, the doctor told me I needed to be 21. When I was 21, she told me 25. The last time I went in, she told me I had to wait until I’m 30,” says Olsen, who is now 24 and working as a writer and editor in Seattle.

“Birth control is crappy and expensive and at any time it could be voted out from under me. I want to be responsible with my health,” says Olsen. “I’m happy with the idea of a life that doesn’t involve me ever having children.”

Last week, the global population hit seven billion, highlighting the high stakes of reproducing ourselves. Clearly, there is no longer a biological need to pop out children to ensure the survival of the race-but young adults who opt against children face a serious stigma.

Humans have bickered over the morals of not having children ever since 1500 BC, when God killed Onan for spilling his seed during coitus interruptus. Since then, we’ve progressed a surprisingly short distance-while even the pope no longer considers contraception grounds for smiting, the image of a normal family is one that includes children.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/we-have-enough-humans-thanks/Content?oid=5061768

Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article.  The last two paragraphs point out the need to stop population growth.  See http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/the-myth-of-renewable-energy.

The myth of renewable energy

By Dawn Stover 22 November 2011

“Clean.” “Green.” What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about “clean energy,” some people think of “clean coal” and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout “green jobs,” they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace. “Clean” and “green” are wide open to interpretation and misappropriation; that’s why they’re so often mentioned in quotation marks. Not so for renewable energy, however.

Somehow, people across the entire enviro-political spectrum seem to have reached a tacit, near-unanimous agreement about what renewable means: It’s an energy category that includes solar, wind, water, biomass, and geothermal power. As the US Energy Department explains it to kids: “Renewable energy comes from things that won’t run out — wind, water, sunlight, plants, and more. These are things we can reuse over and over again. … Non-renewable energy comes from things that will run out one day — oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium.”

Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there’s one big problem: Unless you’re planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy. You need raw materials, real estate, and other things that will run out one day. You need stuff that has to be mined, drilled, transported, and bulldozed — not simply harvested or farmed. You need non-renewable resources:

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/the-myth-of-renewable-energy

Thanks to Mark O’Connor of Australia for this fascinating analysis.

Debates about Malthus: the two-card and three-card trick

There has been a view, much put about by rightwing pro-business think-tanks,  that Malthus was a gloomy pessimist from whose story we should learn not to listen to “pessimists”. This view is  is now looking very shaky as famine stalks more and more countries. Journalistic articles are beginning to appear that use as their opening “peg” the remark that Malthus may not have been such a false prophet as we all assume.

In fact scholars and reputable encyclopedias never did so assume — that claim was wishful thinking by those with their own reasons for wanting to believe population growth is not a problem.

Just lately  there has been much  interest in the researcher Alison Bashford’s study of Malthus. She emphasises the importance of 10 chapters that have traditionally been omitted from reprints of his 1803 Essay on the Principle of Population, and claims the missing chapters show his thinking in a new light. See http://www.abc.net.au/rn/hindsight/stories/2011/3349279.htm

I’m not getting too excited about this argument, since the Essay, even  in its traditionally abbreviated form, was (for its day) an impressive piece of work. And scholarly information is of limited value in dealing with the propagandists of the growth lobby. When they talk of Malthus, they are not interested in scholarly precision, and not fond of reading his works closely. They have two simple (and quite invalid) arguments that they use; and anyone debating with them needs equally brief refutations to these.

I call their two arguments the two-card trick and the three-card trick.

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