THREE MEDITATIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

THREE MEDITATIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
(1) “The explosive growth of the human population is the most significant terrestrial event of the past million millennia. . . . Whatever your cause, it’s a lost cause without population control.” — Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich, Population Resources Environment
(2) “It was as if a family whose members were living far beyond their current income should urge the head of the household to solve their problem of overspending by increasing his proficiency in filling out withdrawal slips at the bank. . . . Without ten new earths, it followed that man’s exuberant way of life would be cut back drastically sometime in the future, or else that there would someday be many fewer people.” – William R. Catton, Jr., Overshoot
(3) “Even when grappling with the idea of economic disintegration, Americans attempt to cast it in terms of technological or economic progress: eco-villages, sustainable development, energy efficiency and so on. Under the circumstances, such compulsive techno-optimism seems maladaptive. . . . Why do people seem incapable of doing the simplest things without making them into projects, preferably ones that involve some element of new technology?” — Dimitry Orlov, “Our Village”