Some thoughts about Carrying Capacity

[GliderGuider]

Note to mods: my own work, copyright does not apply.



Carrying Capacity is a term that has an obvious intuitive meaning, but one that becomes more nebulous the closer you look at it – especially when we start talking about the planetary carrying capacity for humans

I think the confusion arises because we intuitively conflate two very different understandings of the phrase. I call them the “outside” view and the “inside” view.

The “outside” view of carrying capacity (I call it CCo) is the view of an observer who adopts a position outside the species in question. It’s the typical analytic/synthetic view of an ecologist looking at the reindeer on St. Matthew’s Island, or at the impact of humanity on other species and its own resource base. CCo is the view that is usually assumed by ecologists when they use the naked phrase “carrying capacity”, and it is an assessment that can only be arrived at through deductive reasoning. From this point of view humanity passed CCo a while ago. It probably happened between 1850 to 1950, depending on what factors you draw into your assessment, but certainly before 1975.

The “inside” view of carrying capacity (I call it CCi) comes from adopting the position of a participant within the species in question. Rather than arising from an analytical assessment of the overall situation, it is an instinctual, experiential judgement limited strictly to the population of one's own species. All that matters in this view is how many of my own species will be able to survive to reproduce. If that number is still rising, we have not yet passed CCi. All species, including humans, have this orientation. From this point of view humanity has not yet hit CCi, since our population is still growing.

In the case of humans it’s possible through education to move from the CCi to the CCo view, but for most people who are simply living their daily lives, the CCi view dominates their understanding. It’s the instinctual view, after all, and is therefore a primary driver of our behaviour that can be only weakly modified by reason.

When a species surpasses CCi the inside and outside views converge, as population decline begins. Humanity is now in the uncomfortable region between CCo and CCi where outside observers (we Martian ecologists) have detected overshoot, but the species population as a whole has not identified it yet. As we approach CCi more and more ordinary people are recognizing the problem as the symptoms become more obvious to casual observers. The problem is, of course, the fact that we've been in overshoot with respect to CCo for quite a while already.

When I say that humans have “expanded our carrying capacity” through technological innovation, I am using my "inside" voice. From the experiential, subjective, species point of view, we have indeed made it possible for the environment to support ever more people. This is the only view that matters at the biological, evolutionary level. In humans it is this perspective that encourages constant innovation in the face of scarcity.

The combination of our immense intellectual capacity for innovation and our biological inability to step outside our chauvinistic, anthropocentric perspective has made it impossible for us to avoid landing ourselves in our current insoluble global ecological predicament.

[kristopher]

1. See also

http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/Materialism.htm

Sections IV (emic/etic) and III for structure governing process of change.

[GliderGuider]

2. Yes, absolutely.

This is precisely the emic/etic distinction. Here's the context for it, my comment from a FB discussion yesterday of Craig Dilworth's new book "Too smart for our own good", in which I explicitly mention Infrastructural Determinism - drawn from that exact page. It was a subsequent objection to my overly casual reference to "raising the carrying capacity" that prompted the article in the OP.

?

John, you say "But what every species has evolved is a way of subsistence that prevents (overshoot) from becoming an ongoing thing." This is exactly the point that Dilworth makes - that we are in that way no different from other animals. We have such a mechanism too. It's the nature of our mechanism that sets us apart from animals. We employ innovation, specifically technological innovation, in the face of scarcity rather than simple behavioural adaptation. This obviously raises the local carrying capacity rather than fitting our numbers into the existing carrying capacity, but from a biological species-level point of view it amounts to the same thing,

Dilworth has, IMO successfully, spliced the ideas of Malthus and Esther Boserup: resource shortages cause species pressure (Malthus) that leads to technological innovation (Boserup) to release the pressure. The problem is, as Michael has pointed out, this isn't a fitness maximizing mechanism. As a result all the successive waves of innovative adaptation can do is kick the can further down the road, using up more and more resources in the process, raising our population and deepening the predicament. This is the closing of the vicious circle.

When I contemplate the possibility of a solution, it's obvious that more technological innovation is not the answer. We need to look elsewhere. Many people think that the answer lies in changing our cultural values about the environment and our relationship with nature. That possibility reminds me of the work of the anthropologist Marvin Harris.

In developing his system of "Cultural Materialism" Harris borrowed the concepts of "infrastructure, structure and superstructure" from Marx. "Infrastructure" is the physical environment (resources - including food supply, landscape, climate, demographics, technology etc.) "Structure" consists of our domestic and political economies and organizations. The "superstructure" is where our traditions, art, rituals, values and morals live.

In this context of cultural materialism Harris developed the principle of Infrastructural Determinism. According to this principle, the structure and superstructure of our culture flow from our infrastructure, not the other way around. What that means is that our values, morals and traditions are the result of our physical circumstances. The significant implication for our purpose is that it's very difficult to affect our infrastructural practices by starting at the top - by changing our values. In plain language, we can't change our environmental practices by changing our beliefs.

Obviously this isn't entirely true, but it's true enough to preclude triggering a general revolution in our relationship to nature by raising our consciousness or imposing a new set of cultural values. New values take hold mostly in response to perceived environmental changes.

So in the end our technological innovation hasn't circumvented our animal nature, but simply delayed the consequences of overshoot. And it's unlikely we will be able to prevent the inevitable by changing our values preemptively.

However, once the consequences of overshoot begin to gather steam, our infrastructure will have changed radically. This should open the door to an equally radical shift in our values, morals and traditions. Our task is to implant into as many *individuals* as possible (starting with ourselves) a value system that will be useful in our new, changed circumstances. I claim this is already happening, through such mechanisms as Via Campesina, Occupy, and the nameless meta-movement that Paul Hawken describes in his book "Blessed Unrest".

Daniel Quinn's idea of a "new story" is essential - not to forestall the inevitable, but to give "Life After the Bottleneck" the best possible chance we can.

Who knows if it will work. But what do we have to lose by trying?

ETA: kristopher, your insistence that I examine Harris' work added enormously to my ability to parse what's going on in human ecology.

[kristopher]

3. You left out the most significant contribution by Harris.

1. INFRASTRUCTURE
A. Mode of Production: the technology and the practices employed for expanding or limiting basic subsistence production, especially the production of food and other forms of energy.

B. Mode of reproduction: the technology and the practices employed for expanding, limiting and maintaining population size.

This makes Harris' analytic strategy worlds apart from what Marx worked with. You also seem to me to be emphasizing the primacy role of infrastructure a bit too much. In application Harris freely employs the idea of feedbacks throughout his analysis. Infrastructure is what it is due to it's limiting nature and shouldn't be used to ignore the potential for other components to be the nexus of change. The very reason the 'mode of reproduction' has such a profound implication to analysis is the way it serves to link our core cultural conditioning to structural change.

[GliderGuider]

4. The question of modes of reproduction is coming in a follow-on note.

In it I will consider the difference between the HG approach to population (to a first approximation applying limits through infanticide) and the modern approach of avoiding limits by raising the food supply through technological innovation.

My purpose in downplaying the feedback from superstructure to infrastructure is to emphasize my opinion that we can't stop the overshoot shitstorm at this point by changing our values.

You'd might be interested in Dilworth's book. It's flawed but quite insightful.

[kristopher]

5. ?

"My purpose in downplaying XXX is to emphasize my opinion..."

This is where you always go fundamentally astray.

[GliderGuider]

6. I'm more of a polemecist than a scientist.

I did qualify my statement in the direction you propose though. Perhaps you missed it.

In plain language, we can't change our environmental practices by changing our beliefs.

Obviously this isn't entirely true, but it's true enough to preclude triggering a general revolution in our relationship to nature by raising our consciousness or imposing a new set of cultural values. New values take hold mostly in response to perceived environmental changes.

[kristopher]

7. Polemics require you to deliberately ignore known data?

Who knew?

Wrapping that practice in the trappings of science carries with it a bit of a problem to many people.

[GliderGuider]

8. No, but they permit you to.

I'm trying to influence peoples' thinking in a certain direction regarding the course of global civilization. To back up my position I reference the scientific findings that have shaped my thinking. There is a lot of scientific data out there I can be accused of ignoring, in every field from physics and biology to evolutionary psych and cybernetics. My goal is not scientific, but some of the tools and data I use are. That is bound to upset people who want/need to see everything that has a "scientific flavour" actually be science.

If people have a problem with my approach, I invite them not to bother with me. Since I refuse to walk the straight and narrow path in fields that are of deep importance to you, I would extend you the same invitation. If the angst becomes too much, there's always the Ignore button.

[kristopher]

9. Of course you invite them not to bother with you.

What person who makes deliberate misrepresentations wouldn't?

[GliderGuider]

10. There really is no hope for our relationship is there, my dear?

And to think of the number of times I've gone out of my way to be nice to you.
Oh, those other times? Well, what goes around comes around I guess....

[kristopher]

11. So let me get this straight

You expect me (and people in general I suppose) to accept deliberately skewed arguments that you wish to wrap in the cloak of science to make them appear valid - because you are "nice"?

Nice people don't do that.

[GliderGuider]

12. Nope. I expect people to think about what I say if the topic interests them

and accept it only of it resonates for them.

If it doesn't resonate (and deciding that I have ignored or misrepresented something you feel is important is a very good reason to decide it doesn't), you can do two things. You can engage me on the topic or you can walk on by. If you try and change my thinking, and I do (as I did with Harris) all is well and good. If I don't, it's because I don't agree with you (which is my right) or I feel it's unimportant. If the issue I refuse to shift my thinking about is important to you, walk on by. Telling me three times that you think I'm wrong is about the limit. Badgering me about it beyond that point (especially in aggressive tones) is unlikely to be helpful to your cause. Walk on by.

The fact that I'm a nice guy has no bearing on this dynamic. It's involved only when I'm interacting personally with someone. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt long after they've stopped deserving it, mostly because I don't believe in writing people off. But there does come a point...

[kristopher]

13. I think the essence of this piece by Maddow covers this pretty well...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#47381091

[GliderGuider]

14. Catch you later, kristopher.

nt

[kristopher]

17. One final remark

Harris actually showed that cultural systems are incredibly adaptive. Look to the empowered role of women in the world, and the consequent shift in relative significance of political vs. domestic economy.

If you think about it and review the thread my view may come into better focus.

[FogerRox]

18. That would require Kris to want a relationship

No good deed goes unpunished.......

I just dont engage anymore, its a dead end.

All 3 of us have been around these parts for at least 6-7 yrs, or more. One would think we could at some level have respect and get along....

[pscot]

15. "we can't stop the overshoot shitstorm at this point by changing our values"

Is this new? For some time now you've been flirting with the notion of an epiphany or spiritual awakening that would pull the damned human race back from the brink. That quote suggests you have given up that idea, or at least substantially modified your thinking. Am I understanding you correctly?

[GliderGuider]

16. I probably haven't been clear on that view

I think that a spiritual awakening (by which I mean a deep comprehension of the reality of the essential interconnectedness of everything, and the role/responsibility we have in that web individually and collectively) is the only chance we have, but what remains unclear in that statement is what the chance is for, and who "we" refers to.

I think that awakening is useful to individuals no matter when it happens and who it happens to. However in species/civilization terms, a widespread awakening would only be useful after we go through the bottleneck. "Useful" in that sense means we could have a head start on creating the superstructure of values, traditions, rituals, morals - the new Story of Us - that will put us into better alignment with the radically different world that will exist then.

I see awakening as a chance to plant the seeds of the new story/stories in a lot of individuals, with the expectation that some of them will manage to either carry the story through the bottleneck themselves, or pass it on to others (friends, children etc.) who will. This is already happening, through organizations like Via Campesina, Occupy and the countless groups that make up Paul Hawken's "Blessed Unrest" meta-movement.

We are way too far along for this to make any difference to when and how we enter the bottleneck. That's already happening, and it's out of our hands entirely. The good comes later.

[FogerRox]

19. KnR, thanks for this important topic.

[GliderGuider]

20. You're welcome. It helps me to step back and look at the big picture from time to time.

It's easy to get caught up in the minutiae of energy and environment issues and lose sight of the bigger arena in which they are playing out.