WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: Was Malthus right about carrying capacity? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.920 Hi, everybody, Chuck here, Good morning or good afternoon. Wherever 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.920 this finds you on your Saturday. I hope you're enjoying yourself, 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:10.080 and I have a nice selection for you. From July 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:14.000 two th eleven for this Saturday select was Malthis right 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.079 about carrying capacity? What is what is that all about? 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.920 You say, what am I talking about? Who is this? Malthis? Well, 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.079 all the answers are right here. It's a really interesting one. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.360 And uh and here's what I say. If you don't 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.880 know what any of those words mean aside firm was 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:34.000 right and about, then listen right now because you're about 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.000 to learn something cool. July nine eleven was Malthis right 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:45.600 about carrying capacity. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:54.400 House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.960 I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.880 Chuck Bryant sitting across from me. Um, and that makes 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.440 the stuff you should know the podcast. There you go. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.679 The only incarnation thus far is is there somebody fast 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:14.000 forwarding through this part right now? Huh? Yes? So Chuck? Right? 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.360 It is Chuck? Yes. Still have you noticed how often 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:23.000 I say right, yeah, it's mind numbing. Plus someone will 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.240 right in and say, do you know usually write all 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.880 the time? Um, it sounds like I'm eating hard candy 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.160 all the time. I know that's not the case. You've 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.240 never eaten anything in here. I can attest to that. Uh. Yeah, 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:40.440 I'm overly celebratory. Okay, yes, chuck. Uh. As you know, 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.360 I was a student of anthropology, still consider myself sure 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.559 such um And I first came upon this term called 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.440 carrying capacity when I was I took this life changing 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.040 anthropology class all right, uh, and I don't remember the 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.360 teacher's name anymore, but he was awesome. He introduced me 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.000 to probably my favorite article or essay of all time. Uh, 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.360 the worst mistake in the history of the human race, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.080 right by Jared Diamond. Awesome stuff. Um any dustin Diamond 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.840 by Mike Diamond, Okay, by Jared Diamond, the guy who 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.280 wrote Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel and stuff. Um, 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.400 that's required reading in my opinion. I just think you 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.320 should that that essay not necessarily as books. Um. But 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.520 this I was also introduced to carrying capacity. And this 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.079 there's this really cool video he showed us to get 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:31.960 the point across. And it's just a map of the 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.000 world right, and it's um it's there's red dots. It 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.320 shows population growth and each red dot equals I think 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.200 a million people. And so it starts out in Africa, 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.800 in uh Ethiopia, I believe, the cradle of humanity, and 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.760 it starts there and all, you know, very slowly, there's 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.360 like a it's time elapse obviously, so the years go 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.959 by like that, and um uh, like the red dots 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.959 start appearing very slowly, start moving out of Africa, spread 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.000 in the Asia, to Europe, all that, and then um 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.799 it starts to to pop up around North America and 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.600 South America, and then all of a sudden you get 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.919 to the I think like the sixteenth century, maybe a 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.400 little later the Industrial Revolution, and all of a sudden, 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.640 this map just goes red and it's really jarring. It 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.440 really gets to point across it like how quickly population 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.760 has grown in the world and the impacts of it. 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.440 You know, That's why he coupled this with caring capacity, 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.079 because it's like, well, yeah, population and growth, who cares. 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.200 Then you say, oh, well, there's a limit to the 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:42.080 amount of resources we have. Um. And that limit is 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.920 called the carrying capacity of Earth, meaning how much Earth 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.640 can sustain human life, and there's supposedly a point to it, right, Yeah, 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.119 I got some stats. There's my intro. Take it from here. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.360 Here's a couple of stats, Josh, the United Nations population 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:04.640 Division estimates, because five babies are born every second, and 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:09.480 then you go like crying all that poop, the world 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:11.760 is going to have seven billion people by years in 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.360 they think seven billion. Yeah, we're at six point nine 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.880 two and change right now. Yeah, so I mean we're close. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.320 And um to to illustrate your point there about the 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.080 red dots spreading like a disease, that is humans, um, 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.440 fewer than a billion people in eighteen hundred, Yeah, it 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.240 was like eight hundred million, eight hundred dude. That mean 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.440 it seems like ancient history, but it ain't that long ago. 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.640 Three billion people in nineteen sixty and only six billion 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.000 people as recently as nine Between nineteen fifty, chuck in, 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.080 the global population doubled from two point five billion to 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.760 five billion. That is crasas and behind this, that's what 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.279 they call exponential growth. It's not just adding like a 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.000 million people a year, slow and study you're adding a 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.839 fixed number. It's you're adding you know, populations, doubling in 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.520 forty years. That's exponential growth. And that is the basis 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:13.640 of what a guy named Thomas Robert Malthus uh in 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:19.200 an eighteenth century English clergyman, predicted in his essay UM, 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.960 an essay on the principle of population, basically saying human 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.680 growth is exponential. We have a big problem because the 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.760 growth of food is not. It's linear. It's right, and 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.240 we're in trouble eventually. And he was fairly controversial at 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.159 the time. He was debated by a lot of people, 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.600 one of which was this dude named William Godwin, and 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.280 he had a theory called the perfectibility of society, which 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.279 is basically, no did we we're humans and we no 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.920 matter how much we grow, we will be able to 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.960 counter that with advances in technology to allow us to grow. 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.400 So they debated like crazy. Godwin subsequently was one of 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:04.919 the first proponents of anarchism, and Malthus talked about eugenics 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.520 way back then before it was eugenics. He said, I 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:09.520 could see something like this being possible, but he said 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.599 it is probably not something we should do. And he 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:17.280 also incidentally was the one of the first people to 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.960 uh to support or popularize the theory, the economic theory 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.400 of rent. Really yeah, well he was just all over 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.359 the place, wouldn't he. Well, but all kind of ties 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.120 into population because eugenics tied into it because he was 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:35.479 talking about controlling population and rent he theorized was only 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:40.320 possible with a surplus of resources, um, which allows you 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.800 to own a second place and rent it, I guess, 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.279 or rent a tool or you know whatever people rented 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.080 back then. So what Mouths is talking about is generally 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:54.920 classified as economics, yeah right, but it's also it stretches 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.080 into all sorts of dirty, nasty little areas like greed 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:04.480 um at college, population control, So eugenics, um, family planning, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:09.640 abortion and fanticide, all sorts of stuff um. That has 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.800 a lot of implications, far reaching implications, right, And so 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:15.840 I didn't realize that there was somebody who was a 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.280 contemporary of him that argued, like, no, humans will use 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.960 technology to outstrip, to outpace this math Mathusian curse is 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.680 what it's called. Right, Yeah, there was more than God 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.520 when there was a few people too. I didn't realize 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.560 that it was at the time, but I know that 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.320 over the centuries people have been like Mouths. That was 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.960 a great idea. But you really missed the mark, and 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.880 we're going to use you as an example of how 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:42.120 badly somebody can can get it wrong, right, Because it 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.280 wasn't just technology. There's another aspect of it called the 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:50.440 demographic transition, which is basically as um, as we get 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.560 better with this technology. Uh, one of the things we 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.160 come up with this birth control um and while we're 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.480 while our mortality rates are are lowering, so to our 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.320 fertility rates. Right, and we eventually come to this thing 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.440 called the replacement rate, which is two point one children 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:15.440 per household leads to zero population growth, right, and I 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.840 think they set in Western Europe the number was one 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.920 point four in the late nineties. Like, some people are 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.360 afraid that that Mauthis was correct at this point, and 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.240 other people say that like in Europe and Asia they 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:31.960 worry about the opposite because you know, they have the 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.400 problem over there that they're not enough young people to 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.080 take care of the retirees one day. Exactly, it's negative 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.920 population growth. So who's right they do estimate? Um, who's 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.640 who they is? I don't know, but it just said 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.040 researchers estimate that population is not gonna level off until 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.160 mid century, at about nine billion. Well that's at best 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:53.760 if that's if we do level off, we could continue 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.160 to keep going the rate we're at now, the replacement 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.520 rate at least to zero population growth, which is two 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.160 point one. Right now, we're at a two point six 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.199 worldwide and with Africa, UM skewing us the other way. 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.880 SUBSI in Africa has about a five point one fertility rate, 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.480 which means for every household there's five point one children born. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.320 Does that point one child? He always feels so bad 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.560 for him. It's a knee down, you know, on one leg. Um. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.760 But the uh, if we can get to zero population 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.400 growth and we're not going to really have to deal 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.840 with the Malthusian curse possibly ever, but we're not, then 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.280 that's that's But that's one thing that's um that Mouths 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.520 didn't account for is things like as society has become 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.960 more educated, fertility rates tend to drop dramatically. So that's 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.200 that's another way to put it off too. So he 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:44.079 was scoffed at, Like you said, there's a lot of 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.520 people out there who think he was he missed the mark. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.959 But UM people have been doing a little bit of 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:54.440 math lately and have figured out that UM it's entirely 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.080 possible that he's right, that somewhere down the line he's right. Yeah, 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.880 And at the basis we should say, of mouths, this 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.839 whole thing is a lack of food and water really, 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:07.960 and we need air, food, water, shelter and all that stuff. 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.480 But what he was mainly centered on was eventually the 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.680 food growth will not match up with the population growth. 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.400 And a billion people go hungry every day already. So 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:25.120 so I might argue that that's already the case. So 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.640 let's talk about caring capacity. Chuck, Yeah, this is cool. Um. 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.559 If we had not transitioned, which we have, which kind 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:43.120 of proves the um positive positivists camp um that we 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.400 can be technological. If we hadn't transitioned from hunter gatherer 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.320 to agriculture UM, the caring capacity of Earth would have 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.480 been reached out about a hundred million people a long 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.760 time ago. Yes, because there's just so many animals running 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:58.840 around that we can kill. There's only so many berries 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.440 that are going to occur in actually on the on 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:06.960 the vine, right. But we did transition to agriculture UM 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.439 before we hit the hundred million mark, possibly maybe not 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.920 um farming, and we we began to use technology which 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.640 is growing crops to feed ourselves. And then we reached 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.640 another point, right um, where we hit what was called 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:30.199 the green revolution, remember that, Yeah, normal barolog um where 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.079 there was a lot of people who are saying about 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.000 a billion people are going to die because we are 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.040 no longer We're not going to be able to provide 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.439 food for all the people here. Um, we've we've come 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.080 up with great vaccines and all this other technology that's 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.120 lowering the mortality rate, but that just means people are 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.559 living longer and they need food longer over the over 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.760 their lifespan. Right, so what are we gonna do? Norman 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:55.960 Borlog comes along and says, you know what we're gonna 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:01.200 doing exactly, tapioca pudding for everybody, for the elderly, and 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.920 a care bear in every garage. Now they'll go ahead 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:05.400 with it with what he said because he was a genius. 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.079 He said, we're gonna maximize the yield that we get 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.679 out of arable land. We're not just gonna plant some 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.200 seeds and be like, hope you grow. We're going to 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.080 apply tons of pesticide, tons of fertilizer, and we're going 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:21.120 to squeeze corn the size of your torso out of 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:26.000 every every plant. Right, Yeah, he wasn't some like awful 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.640 mad That sound makes him sound like some awful mad scientists, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.600 though in the eyes of a lot of environmental let's 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.360 he he well, I mean think about all the runoff, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.760 all the soil depletion. Also, didn't he also win a 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.520 Nobel Prize? Sure? Yeah, he's credited with saving that billion 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.080 people that were predicted to starve because he came in 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.640 just in time because the Earth would have reached this 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.080 carring capacity for agriculture. So we've had at least two 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.960 different events where we were able to leap forward through 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.760 technology and avoid the Malthusian curse. Right, yes, So there 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.600 are people out there who say, well, you know, we're 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.640 we're we're going to avoid it again, but what will 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.000 that be? Sure and come up with another one? So 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.400 I'm sorry, Chuck, we would have hit the carring capacity 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.360 a hundred million where we hunter gatherers, right man, what 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.560 are the predictions now? Well, they say, and this is 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.160 where what I think is really interesting and completely sad, 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.920 is that we have a potential carring capacity of two 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.560 billion to forty billion. Were clearly past the two So 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.000 one might ask how can it be that big of 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.320 a range. And the answer is lifestyle. And here's a 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.040 very sad statu. If the entire earth live like middle 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.560 class Americans, not the super rich, who you know, probably 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.640 consume more energy and the like than your average human 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.200 just regular middle class American folks consume about three point 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:51.080 three times the subsistence level of food and two hundred 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.600 and fifty times the subsistence level of water clean water. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.400 And that means the Earth, if we ever everyone was 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.280 like us, the Earth could only support about two billion people. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.000 So what's going on is of the Earth is consuming 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.199 I don't have the percentage, but the other seventy of 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.400 the earth is left with what's left, which is really 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:16.560 really it's just a it's a uh disparity in the 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.760 allocation of resources and what's consumed. So that's why it 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:21.960 can be a range of two billion to forty billion 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.880 because of the different lifestyles. If if everyone lives like 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.600 there would be plenty for everyone and no one would 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.720 be starving. No, if everybody lived like we would all 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:37.040 we would be like sorry, well the um Yeah, that's 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.280 that's where the forty billion number comes in. I've seen 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.080 thirty and i've seen forty on the high end for 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.840 the carrying capacity, and that's where every square inch of 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.400 arable land is being cultivated to its maximum yield. And 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.720 all people live in high rises that are as high 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.680 as we can build them right now, right um. And 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:58.800 we're mining UM asteroids for h for UM minerals and 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.040 all that we're we're no longer going, we're no longer 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:06.440 going to the Earth. We're going into outer space. Possibly. 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.040 I don't think that that shouldn't have started about fifty 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.360 years ago, right um. But the that forty billion prediction 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.119 is um based on the absolute minimum requirements, and everybody, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.800 forty billion people living on the planet UM, all using 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.320 the minimum amount, which is four liters of water a 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:30.200 year and about three ms of food a year, mostly grains. 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.320 And you can basically kiss meat goodbye because we need 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.480 that land to grow our grains rather than grow grains 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.920 to feed cows, which is another way that the West 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:44.280 consumes resources more than more than its fair share, through 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.480 a meat rich diet, which is you're not only eating 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.720 the meat, you're eating the grains that the meat eight. Right, 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:58.080 So Chuck, let me ask you something. If you had 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.800 if you went home and turned on your tap and 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.240 there was hot water and it was flowing, and it 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.600 was as much as you liked, right, Would you care 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.200 how you were getting that? What do you mean how 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.400 it was being delivered through my faucet? Yes? Uh, this 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.760 is trick question. No it's not. Let me rephrase. If 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.000 you went home and I answering it wrong and turned 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:21.960 on your hot water and there was as much hot 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.960 water as you wanted and it was you knew it 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.920 was coming from a sustainable source, would you care if 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.240 it was sustainable? I guess not, But I'm kind of 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.880 like a water saver, So your water saver. What if 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.760 you knew you didn't really have to save water because 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.720 it was so sustainable, you wouldn't care. No one cares, 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.720 as long as we have the luxuries that were afforded. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.400 You point it doesn't. You don't care if it came 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:52.040 from burning bananappeals, No one cares. The problem is that 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.560 the problem with the course that we're on apparently right now, 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.960 is that we are UM using technology g not to 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.920 get more from less, but to get more from more 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.240 more cheaply. Right. Yeah, it's um. It's a uniquely human 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:11.879 thing they call it in the article, which is pretty 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.520 much true. But technological advancement is in many ways leading 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:21.280 to our habitat destruction. Ideally, at this point everyone would 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.399 be on solar and the massive companies would be solar 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:27.679 powered and all that kind of thing. And that's another 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.840 great point is you know, you don't care where your 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.120 electricity comes from. Do you care if it comes from 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.480 a solar panel or wind? No, of course you don't. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.720 You just want your electricity. So if we had invested, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:45.440 or if we could invest our technological advances into um 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:50.160 getting what we have now from less from solar radiation 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.920 or wind power, then we would be that that's true 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.679 cutting edge technology, rather than you know, figuring out ways 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.120 to deplete things faster, more cheaply, which is the way 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.600 we're going. Yeah, like thinking of let's say, a more 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:10.359 efficient oil driller or a more efficient way of getting 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.600 coal from a mountain, i e. Mountaintop removal. So they're 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.320 using technology, but they're using in ways that are also 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.800 destroying the habitat. And sustainability is all about finding the 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.080 right balance in your habitat. So here's here's the conclusion 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:26.880 I came through from reading this, right, the the argument 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:31.240 from the positivists camp. I don't even think I'm using 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.480 that word correctly. But um, the people who are the 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:39.760 Optimists camp, sure duh right are Um they're saying no 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.680 mouths was incorrect because he failed to account for human 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.240 ingenuity and as population grows, so to do the number 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:55.400 of geniuses, and that's where innovation comes from. Right. Um. 0:18:55.520 --> 0:19:00.639 The I think the the Optimists are missing a point 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.399 in their model, and that is greed. You can't really 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:13.280 sway greed to to benefit human ecology, can you know? 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.359 And you can't convince an entire population of people to 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:18.920 change their lifestyles, which is what it would take. That's 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.560 what I'm saying you you can't because they don't care. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.879 But if you could deliver them that same amount of 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.800 hot water, that same electricity and it was coming from 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.440 a sustainable source, no one's going to fight that, right 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.280 right right. It's having to get them to fight that 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.040 fight to get the people who are controlling it to 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.040 change over. They're not going to do that. So there's 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.600 that fatal flaw in that model that the gloom and 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.520 Doom camp has over the um Optimist camp, and that 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.959 there they don't account for for greed, have you ever 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.160 seen who killed the electric car? No, I never did. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.240 I encourage people to see that. That's pretty scary. The 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.280 e V one was, I mean, I don't know if 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.800 you remember, but the e V one was. It was 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.239 ready to go. There were TV commercials you can look 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.159 up EV one commercial on YouTube and they were running 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:11.200 them on television. Electric electric cars are here, They're not coming, 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:15.640 they are here, and boom, it was gone. Yeah, I'll 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.080 check it out and I'll give you a few guesses 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.720 as to why it left so quickly. And not only 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.400 were they gone, dude, they literally gathered them all up 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.720 and crushed them really like so many et Atari game 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:34.920 cartridges exactly. Yeah, sad, but go go rented. It's cool. Yeah, 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:40.840 that's why skame a little bit that you should know why. 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:59.480 But J Clark and um powerful lobbies out there. What 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:01.879 else you got? I got nothing, man, This is this 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:03.240 is a good one to chew on for people. I 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.520 think I think so too. We just encourage people like 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.440 we always do, just to you know, we're not saying, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:10.840 you know, quit your job and go like build solar 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:12.359 panels for a living and live on a on a 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.000 wind farm. You can do that. That'd be awesome, but 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.800 little little things, little positive steps. They've saved a little water, 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.000 save a little power. I disagree, man, what I don't 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.040 think the onus is on the people. I think the 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:31.719 onus is on the the people who are misdirecting technological advancement. 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.560 I'd say it's on both. I disagree. You don't think 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.720 the onus is on the people to conserve. I think 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.840 I think it. I think it is. I think we've 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:42.600 put it on the people, but I don't think it's 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:47.240 going to make enough of an impact. All right, I 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.280 think it's on the policy makers. That's who I think 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.440 it's on. I was, I think I think it's on both. Um. Okay, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:55.520 well that's a debate to be played out on the 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:57.600 Facebook page if you ask me. Right, yeah, man, we 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.200 should set up before um. So, if you want to 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.840 learn more, type in has the Earth reached its carrying capacity? 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.080 Or Thomas Malthus M A L. T. H U S 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:09.320 in the search bar how stuff works dot Com. It 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.000 will bring up some pretty cool stuff. Well, then that 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.560 means it's time for listener mail. All right, Josh, you're 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.920 gonna call this, uh how to make a my teenage son? 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:24.240 Listen to your show from Portland, Oregon, Hi, guys and Jerry. 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:26.919 When you have a teenager, you will quickly learn that 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:28.600 you can't just tell them what to do and expect 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.080 them to do it. I remember those days. It's so 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.160 frustrating because as a parent, you know that your kid 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:36.919 will love something and get lots out of it, but 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:38.800 you can't come right out and say it, or they 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.640 will never ever try the thing you told them to try. 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:44.919 For example, your podcast. I knew for a fact, like 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:46.720 I know that it will reign in Portland, that my 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.080 thirteen year old son Ethan would really love stuff. You 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:51.720 should know because I love the podcast. I've turned other 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:53.720 people onto it and they love it. But I knew 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:55.800 I had to be sneaky in order for my son 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.280 to give it a try. Ethan is a fencer and 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:01.480 at the time was also working on a research project 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:05.119 about Renaissance jousting and tournaments. So one Saturday, I was 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.840 working in the kitchen. I played how Nights Work Uh 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.200 to catch his interest. Every time he came in the kitchen, 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.960 I'd hit play. When he leave, I'd hit pause. I 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:17.680 would figure he would just think, Man, these guys take 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.239 a long time to finish the Center. He would hang 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:22.240 around the kitchen longer and longer each time, and I 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:24.239 could tell I almost had him on the line like 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.880 I was noodling. Although you would say that had him 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.120 on the arm. Yeah, there's no line. When it was over, 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.040 he said he already knew everything you talked about in 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:35.720 the podcast, but I could tell he was intrigued. Then 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:37.479 I hit him with the Scooby Doo Show and that 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:40.240 was it. You had another fan. Now he has downloaded 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:42.959