William R. Catton

Should be required reading for all human beings.

Catton systematically gores every holy ox of modern civilization. We did not get to where we are because of our opposable thumbs and big brains, we got here because of our ability to "take over" or "draw down" energy sources.

Nor have we learned much from it. Nearly forty years after its publication, it is still a stretch to find a politician or business leader who doesn't think endless growth is anything but a good to be pursued.

If you have show more friends you would like to influence to lead simpler, more sustainable lives, see that they read this book. show less

This is an enormously difficult book. The language and concepts are not very difficult. But how to assess their value and our proper response? Aye, there's the rub!

I have lived with these challenges a good long time. I remember enthusiastically participating, as a high school student, in the 1970 Earth Day. I read M. King Hubbert's Senate Report in 1976, learning about peak oil from the source. This sort of ancient history... that is one of the most gnarly troubles with this book. The show more copyright is 1980, and indeed no mention is made of Ronald Reagan. This book is an impassioned environmental statement and plea, right before the great turning. I wonder if Obama's re-election will be seen as a similar turning, something of a rejection of Reaganism. But I fear that we have not returned to Carter's environmental vision. Not that Carter was so terribly profound, but he had the courage to put some of the core issues on the table.

Catton's book should have been enough to put any thoughtful person into something of a panic, back in 1980. Now, thirty two years later, years in which we have continued to drill, drill, drill unabated, doesn't that panic seem misplaced?

How can we assess with any objectivity the condition of the global ecological system today, compared to 1980? I think the populations of eagles and wolves and probably buffalo are in much better shape now. I'm sure that one could list any number of species and systems that have declined, such as coral and rain forests. How properly to total up the positive changes and the negative changes? One can easily enough decide ahead of time what result one would prefer, and then build up a convincing enough argument to support that conclusion. One bottom line would be the human population, which has hardly crashed. These days I see the epithet "Neo-Malthusian" tossed about by anti-environmentalists, apparently taking their stand on that absence of a crash. My understanding is that Darwin was thoroughly Malthusian and that modern biologists are thoroughly Darwinian, so I don't see why folks like Catton can't simply be Malthusians too. No doubt Malthus created something of a panic himself, a hundred and however many years ago. If Catton's panic seems a bit misplaced, surely that Malthusian panic was totally out of place. Or?

Despite my long term familiarity and sympathy with the general ecological world view, I learned quite a bit from Catton's book. I think what I am having the hardest time assimilating is the connection between Liebig's Law of the Minimum with localization. Global trade removes the limits that would otherwise restrict growth or large population levels. Relocalization will put those limits back in place. Each locality will have its own particular limits, but with restricted trade, each locality will feel those constraints much more directly. It is not hard to see a tight chain of consequences from a collapse in global finance to a collapse in global trade to a collapse in global population.

My career was largely in the semiconductor industry, which is ruled by Moore's Law, the exponential advancement in microelectronic technology. Moore's Law held for decades, perhaps from 1960 to 2010. Anyone could see that Moore's Law could not possibly hold indefinitely - surely there can be no such thing as a subatomic transistor! But to forecast the end of Moore's Law, just when the technology would slow down - there were many years of failed attempts.

I don't recall seeing any mention in Catton's book to the Limits to Growth book of Meadows et al. Meadows does not appear in the name index. Limits to Growth still seems like as good a forecast as we have of the timing of the collapse. These phenomena unfold in decades and centuries. Unfortunately very little of our planning and very few of our goals are in play at that time scale. Even a single decade ahead seems a future too distant to think about.

Catton was not very optimistic about our ability to think on such scales, nor to act. The intervening decades have confirmed his pessimism in spades. How can we steer ourselves toward a better future? A future better than most other possible futures, that is how that eternal quest must be understood. A future better than today? May we develop the wisdom to understand the best ways to make such comparisons! show less

This is my first ecology book. I had no idea things were so bad. I guess i was a believer in limitless progress. It's fascinating to me that until recently i could ignore all the information about the limits of the earth and the climate crisis. I believed there were lots of smart people working on solutions and everything is under control or will be shortly. I believed that top managers of our civilization are not avoiding the most important issues. But now i have doubts.
Avoidance is show more abundant. Is it because people in their mass are so greedy and shortsighted that we cannot sacrifice anything for the future? Or is the main problem that if one person sacrifices and another doesn't then the second one will just take over the sacrifice of the first and there will be no point in the sacrifice after all. Something like a game theory problem.
Perhaps there is a solution to this in a new belief system that values the act of sacrifice even if there are greedy bastards exploiting it. Current belief system emphasises personal gain and limitless consumption. Advertising tells us we should spend more and want more. Employers tell us we should increase the profits of the companies no matter what and that there is no greater value than increasing profits. Friends and family tell us we should strive to increase our income so we are more safe. Therapists tell us we should not avoid our needs and wants because it is unhealthy to limit yourself.
You only live once. Let go and enjoy yourself. If you don't look after yourself nobody will. You deserve more. You have a right to a comfortable life. You earned it. You've suffered enough, now treat yourself. Other people are adults and can take care of themselves. People are not all bad, they are both good and bad, so don't think about their actions too much, do your own thing. It is not healthy to worry about the fate of the Earth and civilization. A person must think first about his own life and then about others. Protect your family. Creating a new life is a miracle and the highest goal everyone should strive for. Living in comfort is normal, living ascetically means something is wrong with you. If you can't fight them, join them. You can't solve the world's problems, solve your own. To sustain youself you have to compromise and work for the companies that only think about profit, there is no benefit to avoiding participating in the economy. You are just a worker, not the owner of the business so you have no moral responsibility for what the company does. You can't bear the moral burden of the society just on your shoulders - it is madness. It is the job of presidents and scientists to solve our societal and ecological problems. Are you willing to devote your whole life to environmentalism? Is it really your calling? Perhaps you better do something you really enjoy in the short span of your lifetime.
There is a barrage of pressure and convincing arguments against doing anything about the global problems. Perhaps most of those who show signs of avoidance of global issues were ones open to them but felt the immense pressure against doing anything and were left with painful helplessness, so they had to resort to a defense mechanism - avoidance. Are we doomed to change only after a catastrophic collapse? show less

This is a very sober, straightforward assessment of human society in it's ecological context throughout history. There are not many books out there like this one, which is depressing given how extremely unlikely it is that the human population is anywhere near the carrying capacity of a world without fossil fuels. If you want to reproduce after reading this, you probably have a learning disability.