Earth’s life-support systems are degrading past carrying capacity

Evidence

We hear much talk about environmental sustainability, but few explanations of what it means and the changes required to realize it. The mounting toll on the environment indicates that the current population size and rate of consumption already have exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity. Even adoption of zero growth in population and per capita consumption would, at best, only stabilize the present level of unsustainability. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2917 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

A foreshortened perspective in a disastrous ecological course calls to mind the apocryphal story that Donald Collins (2007) tells about the person who jumps off the Empire State Building. As he passes the 68th floor, he thinks to himself, “So far, so good.” Rachel Carson dedicated Silent Spring (1962) to Albert Schweitzer and quoted the alarm he sounded over the grave consequences of an unremitting foreshortened perspective: “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2549 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nuclear-weapons dread turned the planet’s finite life span into urgent policy concern — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 296; Stabilizing population at carrying capacity is insufficient; humanity needs actual reduction — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2580; Current population and consumption already exceed Earth’s carrying capacity — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2917 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Current population and consumption already exceed Earth’s carrying capacity #corroborates (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2917
• Humans have lost the capacity to foresee and forestall damage #complicates (0.74) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2549