Someone asked to read more about population growth/sustainability. Below
is another excerpt from Emeritus Prof. Al Bartlett's invited talk at the
AAPT Summer meeting in August. You probably have examples to add to his; if
so, please share them. You can download his complete talk on the web;
however, I'm at home now and don't have the address. Will someone please
post it?
Al has given much time and effort for at least 3 decades to the problem of
sustainability. I find him to be a wise, intelligent, and deeply caring
person, with a great love for our planet. That's what motivates him - and
me.
cheers,
Jane Jackson
[Somewhere in the middle of his talk, Al Bartlett discussed how science and
technology are largely responsible for the world's population problems and
hence for all the problems that we are facing. This is due to the facts
that medical sciences have reduced death rates from disease and accidents,
and technology makes it possible for more people to live in areas that
earlier supported only small populations.] Then he said:
We individually are the beneficiaries of the wonderful advances made in
medicine. By themselves, these benefits result in population growth. Yet we
have taken these benefits and have ignored the responsibility that goes
with the benefits; that is, humans have an obligation to lower fertility so
that there would be a stable population. If we had a stable population, a
larger fraction of the world's people could experience the benefits of the
better life that comes with technology.
[Next Al discusses 2 primitive cultures where the people understood the
concept of "carrying capacity" but lost the concept when they became
"educated" and their cultures were modernized.] But look around today.
Look at our colleagues in physics. How many physicists today are even
bothering to look at the problems of the high rates of consumption of
non-renewable resources?
Our education system has failed to educate us about the most important
facts that we need to know in order to have a sustainable society. We have
textbooks on environmental science that give good treatments of all manner
of minutiae, but omit serious discussion of population growth as the most
important environmental problem.
Even worse than these failures, scientists and technologists have given
people the belief that science and technology can solve all of our resource
problems, forever. To some degree this is understandable. After all, in
physics and engineering, much of the emphasis of our courses is on the
solving of problems. This belief that science and technology can solve all
of our problems gives rise to the non-scientists such as Julian Simon
[Prof. of Economics at the U of Maryland and a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science - AAAS] who recently wrote:
"Technology exists now to produce in virtually inexhaustible quantities
just about all of the products made by nature -- foodstuffs, oil, even
pearls and diamonds... " "We have in our hands now - actually in our
libraries - the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an
ever-growing population of the next 7 billion years." "Even if no new
knowledge were ever gained...we would be able to go on increasing our
population forever."
This quotation is not from scribblings on a restroom wall; this is the
front page story in the official publication of one of the most influential
high-level think tanks in Washington, D.C.! People in Washington love to
hear this sort of thing: they don't want to worry about the real problems
of population. They welcome a Ph.D. 'scholar' who says that there is no
need to worry. With regard to experts, it is important that we and our
students remember a fundamental law: FOR EVERY PH.D. THERE IS AN EQUAL AND
OPPOSITE PH.D....
Somehow, critical thinking about everyday things has disappeared from
American ecucation. We have an obligation to help restore critical
thinking to American education....
Jane Jackson, Prof. of Physics, Scottsdale Comm.College (on leave)
Box 871504, Dept. of Physics, Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ 85287-1504.
phone:(602) 965-8438 fax: 965-7331 e-mail: jane.jackson@asu.edu
Modeling Workshop Project: http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling.html