Physical Attraction30 Sep 2017

TEOTWAWKI 6: Malthus' Revenge

The human population has been growing exponentially for a long time. It's been continuously growing since the Black Death in the 1300s – and although wars, famines, and plagues cause occasional blips in the growth since, it's been pretty close to exponential since the Industrial Revolution kicked off. Now Malthus was not the only one to notice this, before I get letters, but he is indisputably the one who has his name most closely associated with the concept. Malthus, among others, saw this in the 1790s and said "Oh, boy." He was afraid that human population would overshoot the availability of resources: and then things would really hit the fan:

"Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world."

Could a Malthusian catastrophe hit us today?
Can our society adapt to the continued demand for exponential growth?
What would it look like, in the modern world?

Find out in this week's TEOTWAWKI

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(247)

Climate 201: Climate Doomism (II)

In the last episode, we briefly introduced "climate change doomers" and some of their misleading claims. In this episode, I talk about despair, and why we cannot give in to it.

9 Mar 202240min

Climate 201: Climate Doomism (I)

We're going there. In this episode, I discuss why civilization is not going to imminently collapse due to climate change, explain why doomism is a new form of denialism, and debunk some of its most mi...

21 Feb 202249min

UNLOCKED: Book Club: Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants

A new episode released from behind the Patreon paywall. This episode, we'll review and discuss some of the issues raised by Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants, a book that details the history of the adv...

8 Feb 202236min

Climate 201 NETS XI: Direct Air Capture, p2 and NETS conclusion

In this episode, we will continue our analysis of Direct Air Capture and conclude the series on negative emissions - crucial component of decarbonisation, or a techno-utopian distraction from the real...

24 Jan 202241min

Climate 201 NETS X: Direct Air Capture, part 1

Direct Air Capture - machines that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Could this be the solution to a scaleable negative emissions industry? We'll discuss the pros and cons of the technology i...

10 Jan 202237min

BONUS: Black Mirror IRL pilot - Be Right Back

Hi all! This is a slightly special bonus episode. Some years ago I had plans for another series "Black Mirror IRL", which was going to be a series of episodes looking into the technologies mentioned ...

28 Des 202140min

Climate 201: NETS VII: Ecosystem Restoration and Mangroves

What are "nature-based solutions" to climate change? Can we restore the ecosystems that we've destroyed? And how can restoring mangroves help us to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere?

19 Des 202142min

Climate 201, NETS IX: Ocean Iron Fertilization

"Give me a tanker full of iron, and I'll give you a new Ice Age." It might sound like something Hank Scorpio would say, but this episode will deal with the very real idea of stimulating plankton bloom...

29 Nov 202130min