Re: environment

        Well, for one there is little correspondence with higher population
or population pressures with consumption scale. Consumption is a socially
organized phenomenon, instead of a direct expression of population pressure.
It may be a direct relationship for species like cows, where grazing
preserves a one-to-one correspondence with environmental degradation and
their populatoin scale. However, I rarely see people on all fours in large
numbers grazing like that. Humans typically store food, trade food, compile
food, and have different degrees of income for maintaining it. This sets us
apart from the rest of the species on the planet. 
        If environmental degradation was a direct expression of population,
then how can the United States, with only around 270 million people, be the
largest consumptive economy in the entire world. With a world trade regime
that we have, localizing, blocking off, and defining population 'scale' and
then looking at the 'associated' environment mileu entirely flies in the
face of noting that consumption is highly despatialized in the first place
or that the largest consumption economies have relatively the smallest
populations, and it is from these nodes that environmental degradation (with
large populations taking the 'blame' for a direct relationships, because of
a heritage from Malthus onward of seeking a direct correspondence with
population and , instead of asking questions about organizational structures
and distributionary processes.  Recent Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen showed
about twenty years ago that famines are an organizational phenomenon:
blaming famines on population or the absence of food flies in the face of
famine as a distributionary and organizational, and political issue. 

        Mathematized frameworks like the below individuate consumption as
something impinging on the environment at the level of population, at the
level of aggregated individuals. It is the legitimating influence for family
planning processes in many states, however tenuous or mistaken the relation
between consumption scale and population scale.  Actually environmental
degradation typically is caused by *states*, corporations, and the relateive
degree of distanciated (delocalized) consumption patterns of the very rich,
in comparison with the very poor, for instance. If you are concerned about
the destruction of the environment, bring the corporate population down
instead; or oppose miltarism regardless of the flavor of the week discourse
it uses.
        
        Until we drop on all fours and graze, and stop storing food or
trading foods--particularly when we have militarily defended monoculture
extraction economy regimes supporting environmental degradation's
expansion--I see little interest in mathematical expressions that treat us
as if we were cows. 

        Environmnetal degradation is less an expression of population.  It
is an expression of organizational frameworks of consumption that preference
despatialized monocultures and their associated institutions (corporations)
environmentally and politically in seting up puppet states to support such a
regime over the heads of the people there. 



Regards,


Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison



At 05:08 PM 5/29/00 -0700, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:
>On Mon, 29 May 2000, Roslyn Bologh wrote:
>
>> Does this formula I=PCT mean what I think it does: that the larger the
>> population, and the higher the consumption level, and the higher the 
>level
>> of technology the worse it is for the environment?  If so, this is a
>> dangerous, reactionary position.
>
>Yes, you seem to have got it right.  In one place (ie, parts of the
>periphery) P might be higher, but in another (ie, the core) C higher --
>the same amount of environmental impact can result from different
>quantities of multipliers.
>
>Of course T is a little more complicated, since application of certain
>types of technology can reduce pollution, such as emissions devices on
>autos and smokestacks, but unfortunately technological advance tends to
>increase energy consumption per capita as well as make possible cheaper
>products, which fuels increased C as well.
>
>How do you conclude that this is dangerous and reactionary?  I mentioned
>the biologist Paul Ehrlich, but biologist and socialist (and one-time 
>presidential candidate -- I voted for him in 1980) Barry Commoner has
>used this formula in his analysis as well.
>
>RH
>
>>   Using Ehrlich's formula I = PCT (environmental impact
>> >is equal to population X level of consumption X level of technology, the
>> >necessary changes will compute differently in different parts of the
>> >world, but radical change is required all the way around.
>> >
>> >RH
>
>