Obscured By Clouds

         

This week I shall examine an article by Joel Cohen, revisiting the debate on Carrying Capacity itself. Some of the figures and facts are outdated by 20 years, but the ideas remain unnervingly relevant. We already understand that our population is bound by both environmental determinism (natural constraints/limits) and our own choices (economics, culture/politics, environment, and demography).

For century’s contention over the planet’s limits have always been an excuse for fear, desperation, and war. In this age where technology and global connectedness it would be rational to assume we could form a planet-wide cooperative system to ensure adequate ways of life for all to flourish. However, the “scientific uncertainty about whether and how Earth will support its projected human population has led to public controversy: will humankind live amid scarcity or abundance or a mixture of both?" Is it fear of not having enough however, or the end result of neoliberal capitalism of wealth concentration at last impacting billions of people?

The technological optimists conform to the neoliberal structure by arguing that technology has saved us historically at each major junction, and will forever be our Panacea. This school of thought does not critique the core-issue of neo-liberal thinking, as Daly provides a suitable analogy “The growth advocates are left with one basic argument: resource and environmental limits have not halted growth in the past and therefore will not do so in the future. But such logic proves too much, namely, that nothing new can ever happen. A famous general survived a hundred battles without a scratch, and that was still true when he was blown up” (1996: 35), the same logic applies to technological advances providing a solution for every problem in our past. However, to admit finite-ism, would refute capitalist belief so completely, that none dare admit to the Earth’s natural limits. 

Nolan’s sci-fi epic shows a paradoxical issue of technology failing to save the planet, but being used to find another one suitable for colonisation. So perhaps it can act as a fall-back, but on a moral level why ruin this just right planet when we can still save it?