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226Cairns: Eco-Ethics and Sustainability Ethicsbase: water. Typically, exponential growth is not mentioned, either because it is not understood orbecause of denial that human behavior must be drastically changed to avoid the consequences ofexceeding carrying capacity. Resources are actually diminishing in many instances; they are certainlynot increasing exponentially as growth is.RESOURCE WARSWhen a population exceeds the carrying capacity of the area it controls, a resource war toacquire additional resources is often the result, although another reason is usually given for theconflict. World War II was a resource war, although not usually described in those terms. As mentionedearlier, Hitler wanted “living room” and Japan needed almost every type of resource. TheGulf War occurred when Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait in an attempt to control an evenlarger share of the world’s oil reserves. Countries, such as the United States that are greatlydependent on imported oil, simply could not tolerate this takeover, so Kuwait and its oil wereliberated.More recently, Smyth (2002) believes that a water war may be in the making over WazzaniSprings, in south Lebanon, where Lebanon is building a pumping station to supply drinking waterto villages being rebuilt and repopulated after the Israeli military occupation ended several yearsago. Water resources in this area are inadequate to meet ever increasing demands caused by populationgrowth and inefficient use of water supplies. Pumping was expected to begin on October15, 2002. Israeli officials threatened to attack the pumping station if water were diverted from theriver, which flows into the Jordan and Lake Tiberius and contributes 138 m m 3 (millions of cubicmeters per year) to Israel. Lebanon claims it only wants 3.6 m m 3 from the springs. Living sustainably,within the region’s carrying capacity, is possible, but war is usually preferable to thechanges that human society would have to make to live sustainably. War reduces resources bydiverting them and is an unsustainable practice.EXPONENTIAL POPULATION GROWTH, IMMIGRATION, AND LIVING SUSTAINABLYRegrettably, the ecological messenger is usually blamed for a problem rather than the poor leadershipand inept management that produced the problem. People who are happy with the statusquo are not interested in changing it. Demonizing those who advocate lasting solutions to the crisisof carrying capacity is the way to become popular and to use force to acquire a disproportionateshare of finite resources. Humankind can no longer focus on special interest groups or tolerateshort-range damage control, especially when these are used as a substitute for developing sustainablepractices. Living sustainably requires that all levels of social organization — individuals,nations, organizations, corporations, and ethnic and religious groups — embrace new thought patterns,behaviors, and policies that facilitate sustainability.Proponents of perpetual economic and population growth carefully ignore the fact thathumankind inhabits a finite planet. Living sustainably requires balancing population demands withresource availability. Populations will increase exponentially; resources will not. Additionally, thenatural systems that produce these resources cannot be expected to do so if their integrity is damaged.However, population control is a subject that is rarely discussed by political leaders, religiousgroups, the general public, and the news media.On August 20, 2002, Dr. Joseph Chamie, Director of the population division of the UnitedNations, stated that the United States has a population growth rate comparable to that of developingnations (as cited in The New York Times). It now ranks seventh in growth, but an astonishing
Article 2622780 percent of the growth comes from immigration. Unless the per capita standard of living isreduced, more resources will be required for these additional people. This need comes at a timewhen the United States is already using a disproportionate amount of global resources. Regardlessof the present position on immigration, the United States can neither have perpetual exponentialpopulation growth in a finite area nor continue to co-opt a disproportionate share of the planet’sresources. As pressure on finite resources increases, per capita share of them will diminish. Whenthis occurs, the United States will become less attractive to migrants, unless per capita resourcesworld-wide are becoming depleted.In areas such as Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip, exponential population growth continuesdespite an already low standard of living. In the United States, massive immigration, both legal andillegal, continues and many large families are still produced here, so the concept of carrying capacityis neither understood nor is it a major issue in national policy decisions. If this situation continuesthroughout the 21 st century, arguably even the first half of the century, there will be a painful,possibly tragic, day of reckoning.Reducing the per capita and national size of the ecological footprint will provide more time inwhich to make the transition from unsustainable to sustainable living. Examples of how this reductionmay be implemented are given in Wackernagel and Rees (1996) and Hawken et al. (1999).These and other similar publications provide persuasive evidence that reducing the size of the ecologicalfootprint does not produce a concomitant reduction in quality of life. In fact, social capitalincreases as a consequence of the group effort to live sustainably.Living sustainably requires that humankind recognize that exponential growth of population andincreased resource consumption are simply not possible on a finite planet. It also requires an ecoethicalrelationship with natural systems, which avoids viewing natural systems as commodities.Eco-ethics will guide humankind toward sustainable behaviors. An ethical relationship with naturalsystems, which recognizes humankind’s dependence upon them, will also increase the likelihoodof leaving a habitable planet for future generations.CONCLUSIONSUntil the end of the 20 th century I would have thought referring to Homo sapiens as an endangeredspecies was absurd. However, loss of habitat can drive a species to extinction andhumankind is destroying its habitat on a global scale quite rapidly in evolutionary time. The primaryillustrations used in this paper are the two interrelated concepts of carrying capacity and the majorextinction of species both of which may disrupt some processes of evolution with consequencesthat might well persist for millions of years. Loss of resources per capita is likely to result in aresource war. Resource wars are increasingly likely because the human population is increasingexponentially while resources are not. The Albuquerque example was used because the situationcould have been avoided if simple steps were taken in the framework of a water budget and adrought plan. However, the special interest groups have not been able to reach the necessary consensus.If humankind used eco- and sustainability ethics, science-based decision making, and a systemslevel approach, there would be more incentive to replace unsustainable practices with sustainableones. These latter practices must be integrated within human society if they are to persist(i.e., become sustainable). If the concept of carrying capacity is taken seriously, either subsistenceor optimal human density and per capita ecological footprint size should be used to develop animmigration policy. Emigration should be discarded as a means of solving carrying capacity issues.
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