New Society has published three new books telling us that we're doomed. Or are they? When you see that humanity is running up against a problem, and you write a book about it, are you actually a doomer?

Take Thomas Malthus, whose name has become synonymous with population overshoot. His contemporary, the Marquis de Condorcet, had written Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind, which described a world getting better, for example:

The cultivation of the sugar cane, which is now establishing itself in Africa, will put an end to the shameful robbery by which, for two centuries, that country has been depopulated and depraved.

Another contemporary, William Godwin, had written Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Manners, which argued that people would eventually find perfection and enlightenment in a philosophical anarchy. Neither of those things seem to have happened and we've largely forgotten both men.

However, Malthus responded with An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society with remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers, arguing that rather than growing in some utopian fashion, the human population would continue to be resource-limited in bad times, but self-limited in good times and that misery would result if these limits weren't effective. Since the global population has found ways to keep growing, technology optimists claim the Malthusian Catastrophe theory has been proven wrong. But Malthus didn't actually predict a major catastrophe:

On the whole, therefore, though our future prospects respecting the mitigation of the evils arising from the principle of population may not be so bright as we could wish, yet they are far from being entirely disheartening, and by no means preclude that gradual and progressive improvement in human satiety, which, before the late wild speculations on this subject, was the object of rational expectation. ... A strict inquiry into the principle of population obliges us to conclude that we shall never be able to throw down the ladder, by which we have risen to this eminence; but it by no means proves, that we may not rise higher by the same means. ... And although we cannot expect that the virtue and happiness of mankind will keep pace with the brilliant career of physical discovery; yet, if we are not wanting to ourselves, we may confidently indulge the hope that, to no unimportant extent, they will be influenced by its progress and will partake in its success.

But as Greer noted in Profligacies of Scale, it is dangerous to question our faith in Progress.


Reinventing Collapse, 2nd edition
Dmitry Orlov

I read Orlov's first edition in 2008, and reviewed it then:

The premise behind Reinventing Collapse is not new to me. With his disarmingly dry humor, Dmitry Orlov has been posting various articles relating his observations on Peak Oil sites, such as Life After the Oil Crash, for several years. Living between America and Russia, Orlov observed the collapse of the Soviet planned economy, as well as the creeping economic and social malaise that currently affects the US. He astutely draws useful comparisons between the rival superpowers, and offers dire predictions for those that blithely thought the US had simply prevailed on merit.

I question Orlov's assertion that Americans should emulate the political apathy of the Soviet proletariat as a strategy to survive energy collapse. It is true that the people of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) stoically survived a political and economic collapse, which to some extent was precipitated by a peak of national oil production. But during their rebound, Russia and the other FSU republics have had substantial resources of oil and natural gas remaining. Charts of FSU oil production show a production peaks in the 1980s, then a deep trough, then increasing production to another, though lesser peak forming right now. The FSU's oil exports actually increased after the trough, and in some circles they are considered a swing producer of oil.

At present, only certain third world nations have experienced the initial effects of the energy collapse that now confronts the world. It remains to be seen who will survive and whether any will prosper.

Update: Reading the article "Drunken Nation: Russia's Depopulation Bomb" in the Spring 2009 issue of World Affairs Journal has caused me to reject Orlov's premise that the Russian people successfully survived collapse. Despite their many millionaires and solid educational system, the average Russian's life expectancy, marriage rate and birth rate has plummeted to the level of a struggling third world nation.

BTW, Orlov does not describe himself as a doomer. He thinks we can maintain civilization if we reduce consumption.


The Wealth of Nature - Economics as If Survival Mattered
John Michael Greer

Orlov just reviewed Greer's book, and started by quoting Melville, in which Stubb asks the cook to lecture some sharks:

"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters. I don't blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swallar wid, but to bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help demselves."

"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity; go on."

"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scrougin' and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no use a-preaching to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can't hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber."

Guess who he's comparing to sharks.

Greer's book comes out at a time when the sharks are indeed ravenous: throughout the world zombie financial institutions, bloated with loans which have gone bad due to a dwindling resource base and a shrinking physical economy, are gorging themselves on free government money, while the governments cannot stop throwing bags of money into their gaping maws for fear of being eaten alive. They seem rather beyond redemption, and Greer acknowledges as much: “When the power of money faces off against the power of violence, money comes out a distant second.” [p. 213]

Books that attempt to look honestly at our contemporary condition often run amok when they attempt to show “the way forward.” What we ought to do is form political coalitions that lock out veto groups, curb the power of corporations, revise the tax code, bring back financial regulations from the 1950s and... so on. This would require reform. However, any reform of a complex system, such as our existing one, involves further investment in social complexity through a wide variety of costly initiatives. And here's the problem: there is no longer either the money or the energy for such initiatives. The default is to just let it collapse, but such an outlook, perfectly reasonable though it is, is generally not regarded as optimistic enough by the people who publish books (New Society Publishers is an exception). Some time ago (during the sustainability movement of the 1970s, which were Greer's formative time) optimistic, reform-minded expositions seemed useful; now they are starting to seem like compulsive anxiety coping behaviors: knock three times on wood, throw a pinch of salt over the left shoulder, mention sustainability and renewables.

The End of Growth
Richard Heinberg

Heinberg's book isn't quite out, but New Society includes this description:

Richard Heinberg's latest landmark work goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes. Written in an engaging, highly readable style, it shows why growth is being blocked by three factors:

    Resource depletion,
    Environmental impacts, and
    Crushing levels of debt.

These converging limits will force us to re-evaluate cherished economic theories and to reinvent money and commerce.

The End of Growth describes what policy makers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth's budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP.