Editor's note: We received this thoughtful missive from Dick Mills, who hailed us as "a full time cruising
sailor." 

He and his wife live full time aboard their sailing vessel
Tarwathie. 

Home port - South Burlington. 

Read Dick’s blog at
dickandlibby.blogspot.com. 

And as always, we welcome your comments.

I read with great interest the Spring 2009 issue of Vermont Commons.  It was the first time I encountered your publication and your organization.   Kudos to you all for expressing independent thought.   Allow me to express some independent thoughts of my own, that seem to disagree with those expressed by the other writers.   In a nutshell, my thought is that changes in human behavior can never be sufficient to achieve sustainability, only a drastic reduction in world population would be sufficient.

Let’s see how that contrasts with the themes in the Spring Vermont Commons.  Amy Shollenberger wrote, “How can we work toward a secure and independent food system?”  The editorial said, “We need to dare to redesign our own local and state systems, based on proven sustainable and democratic models.”  Ron Miller wrote, “Clearly, reconnecting with the wisdom to be found in local, traditional, indigenous, and communal ways of being is essential work if we are to come through the imminent collapse to achieve transformation to the other side.”  Carl Etnier wrote, “How quickly can Vermont create enough community resilience that we can weather economic turbulence, interruptions in energy supplies and other shocks, while maintaining what we value?”  Lisa Nash wrote, “Many have concluded that resilience is the key ingredient in not only surviving but also thriving through the challenging transition period that’s upon us.”   Annie MCCleary said, “…that we are just one species among many and we need to live in harmony and balance with all beings.”  Ben Falk outlines how people can “cultivate sustainability.”  Kilpatrick Sale wrote, “For it is now more than ever that this country needs to, has the chance to, chart itself a new course, built upon the idea of small, thriving local economics … That is the only way to escape the looming tragedies …”   Those thoughts may be independent from the main stream but they’re hardly independent from each other.   Those cited above are members of the chorus singing the same song --- Change behavior to save the world.

There is no evidence to suggest that changing behavior is sufficient to save anything.  My idea of sustainable living in harmony with nature, begins with keeping the number of people so small that they have no significant impact on the ecology.  Native Americans almost achieved that before arrival of the white man.   I know that scientists say that Native Americans began altering the environment almost as soon as the arrived from Asia.   However, they did avoid runaway human population growth.

What evidence is there that reduced population would reverse the negative effects on the environment?   Read the descriptions of the state of the American continents written by the first explorers, the mountains of dinner plate size oysters in the Chesakeape, millions of bison, virgin forests, and so on.   Is there any disagreement that such is the state of the planet that should be our goal?

Global warming is not an independent problem; it is a symptom of the overpopulation problem.   We are so many that we consume far too much of all kinds of resources.  Fish disappear from the sea because of over-fishing.  Why over-fish?  Because there are so many mouths to feed.  The rain forests are being cleared.  Why?  Because there are so many mouths to feed and so much demand for other resources.   Energy is not the only thing we are running out of, fresh water, food, habitat, and peace and quiet are all on the long list of depleting resources.   As soon as this recession is over, expect the prices of all basic commodities from copper, to wood, to grain, to pork bellies to soar once again because demand exceeds supply.  

Optimists say that if we just alter our behavior to consume a little less, then there will be enough.  Poppycock.  In the first place, human nature has never voluntarily changed so much at any point in history.   Secondly, and more important, we need to reduce world consumption to levels so low that they have not been seen for millennia.  No imaginable behavior change could make 6 or more billion people consume that little.

This world would be a paradise for a million people, no matter how wasteful or ill behaved they may be.   Note that I said a million.  We already have six billion!   Therein lies the problem.   Our error is not as recent as the development of fossil fuels.  We passed the level of sustainable population thousands of years ago.

I do not claim to know the actual maximum population number to achieve sustainability.   Any reasonable number, even one billion, is still a drastic reduction from today’s population level and therefore equally unimaginable.  Compared to population reduction, government policies, personal behavior, and even civilization collapses seem insignificant.

My disagreement with those other writers is not about their ambitions, it is about their claims.   Any and all attempts to solve global warming or any other resource-coupled problem are doomed to failure unless we reduce population first.   It is completely pointless to discuss any problem other than population.

Why don’t we hear more discussion about population?  Because the population problem is too inconvenient a truth to address.  Even slowing population growth is too politically incorrect to discuss.  A 2009 issue of Scientific American said that slowing growth runs afoul of letting women control their own bodies, so the 1970s movement to slow population growth has become politically unacceptable  and has mostly disappeared.  If that’s too hot, what about actually reducing population?  Almost nobody dares to mention it, or hardly to think it.   It is the taboo to end all taboos.

So what should we do?  We certainly can’t kill people nor can we advocate killing nor condone killing.  Killing is illegal as well as immoral.   If science could invent a genetically modified common cold virus that would sterilize everyone on the planet with effectiveness E (where 90% < E < 100%), then maybe, just maybe, someone would have the courage to release it in the atmosphere.   But that’s only a fantasy -- there is no such science.  In short, I can’t think of any legal and moral and practical method to actively reduce population.

Failing an active measure there is always the passive alternative -- wait for war, pestilence, and famine to precipitate a population collapse that is out of our control.  I intend no religious meaning in that.  It is just that the Bible nailed it when enumerating the catastrophes that cause population collapses -- war, pestilence, and famine cover the ground.   According to Scientific American, human population has experienced numerous cycles of rapid growth, punctuated by precipitous collapses.   The Black Death in medieval times was the most recent collapse, although it was only a 26% decline.  So, rather than fearing population collapse and thinking that we will have failed if we can’t prevent it, we should accept it as a necessary step in human evolution.

In the meantime, as we sit around waiting for the war, pestilence and famine, is there anything wrong with living simply and consuming less?   Nothing at all.   Therefore, I applaud the theme promoted by the Vermont Commons writers suggest.  I join them in my own way having already radically downsized my own life style.  I just wish they would stop claiming that they can achieve a solution to the big problems that way.