Abstract
Within just the last few centuries, science and technology have enlarged human capa- bilities and population size until humans now take, for their own use, nearly half of the Earth's net ter- restrial primary production. An ethical perspective suggests that potentials to alter, or further increase, humanity's use of global resources should be scrutinized through the lenses of self-inter- ested foresightedness and respect for non-human life. Without overtly invoking ethics, studies of the carrying capacity achieve just this objective. Carrying capacity is an ecological concept that expresses the relationship between a population and the natural environment on which it depends for ongoing sustenance. Carrying capacity assumes limits on the number of individuals that can be supported at a given level of consumption without degrading the environment and, therefore, reduc- ing future carrying capacity. That is, carrying capacity addresses long-term sustainability. World- views differ in the importance accorded to the carrying capacity concept. This paper addresses three world-views - ecological, romantic, and entrepreneurial - and explores the ethics and the policy implications of their contrasting perspectives.
Highlights
Environmental carrying capacity is a venerable, if hypothetical, ecological concept that has acquired fresh currency in light of the growing human population
Familiar to stock-growers – year in and year out, for example, it takes 30 acres to support a cow-calf unit on typical Wyoming range-land – the concept of carrying capacity in the modern context refers to the number of humans who can be supported without degrading the natural, cultural and social environment
The production quotas set by oil producing countries are not seen as sensible responses that have much to do with knowledge about the limited quantity of the underlying resource
Summary
Environmental carrying capacity is a venerable, if hypothetical, ecological concept that has acquired fresh currency in light of the growing human population. The production quotas set by oil producing countries are not seen as sensible responses that have much to do with knowledge about the limited quantity of the underlying resource. Mixed evidence often leads to rejecting the concept of carrying capacity, possibly because it is reassuring – inherently more pleasing - to believe that humanity has escaped from limits that constrain the growth of all other species. Ecologists, partisans in the ongoing debate, assert that limits to essential resources and the threat of both local and global pollution are apparent already, and warn of a threshold effect. They point out that a boundary condition can be encountered suddenly. When do problems start to be seen as intractable? When does the perceived cost of being wrong about unlimited technological potential outweigh the perceived cost of being wrong about limits where none, exist?
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