In 1798, Thomas Malthus saw an ever rising population and falling agricultural production and concluded that the United Kingdom was on the verge of a demographic catastrophe. It seemed inevitable that there would be mass starvation or at least a permanent state of abject poverty for the vast majority of its population (Malthus, T. R. An essay on the principle of population, London: J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1798). Malthus argued that increases in agricultural productivity could not keep pace with population growth and that such growth would always outpace agricultural production. He saw little option but to limit population growth, but saw no (at the time) morally acceptable means of doing so, except to limit welfare transfers to the urban poor.
The fact that 19th century Europe did not see mass starvation and instead had massive increases in agricultural production has been seen as a rebuke to Malthus’ thesis. The key gap in Malthus’ approach was his inability to predict the role that technology would play in increasing agricultural productivity during the industrial revolution. He did not fully foresee the effects of the mechanization of farm production (p2, Johnson, D. Gale, “Population, Food and Knowledge” 90 The American Economic Review 1 (2000)), nor the role that colonialism and the expansion of trade would play in providing new sources and venues for agricultural production. It was a mix of policy and the ingenuity of invention driven by necessity that provided an escape from the demographic trap that was a consequence of Malthus’ analysis. Technology saved the early industrial revolution from the limits imposed by land availability. Accompanied by the transition to fossil fuels and new fertilizers, the resultant new industrial agriculture created newer, cheaper products, better food preservation and a whole host of benefits that increased survivability.
The heirs of Malthus can be found in the twin 20th century movements to address environmental degradation and population growth. The new Malthusians sought active government policies to discourage population growth in the face of the absolute limits on the capacity of the planet to produce enough resources to support a global population that consumed at the level of the comfortable middle classes in the global north. The new Malthusians have argued that we may have already overshot the carrying capacity of the earth and have begun to consume the resources that would be necessary to sustain future populations (Daily, Gretchen and Paul Erlich “Population, Sustainability and Earth’s Carrying Capacity” 42 BioScience, 761 (1992)). In particular the argument is that we are creating permanent changes in the nature of the ecosystem itself resulting in ecosystem crashes in which the evolutionary and adaptive niches of the creatures and plants that make up the ecosystem are destroyed. With the prospect of irreversible climate change we may be encountering the very real possibility of an ecosystem crash for much of humanity, a true Malthusian moment.
The Earth continues to experience record-breaking temperatures caused by increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) (p30, IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Climate change presents a challenge to almost all areas of human economic activity because of our reliance on greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels and fossil fuel products, the key driver of global modernization in the 20th century. Addressing climate change therefore appears to require that we give up the prospect of modernization and presages unprecedented changes and limits in our patterns of production and consumption.
However, it may be that, just as in that post-industrial period when Europe made the transition from whale oil to fossil fuels and transformed agricultural production, technology may yet save us, or at least buy us time in which to consider our options. Policymakers and citizens cling to the possibility that climate change can largely be addressed through the rapid dissemination of existing technologies, such as energy efficient light bulbs, windmills, solar panels, and the development of new ones such as carbon capture and storage, smart grids, and artificial meat. We may not have to give up our comfortable lifestyles in the US and Europe, or the promise of lifting millions out of poverty, in China and India and the rest of the developing world.
For that hope to become reality requires a massive effort in the near term to ensure distribution of existing technologies, and a significant effort in the longer term to invest in R&D and distribution of new innovations. That effort has to be global and can only be accomplished by unprecedented levels of global cooperation. In terms of global cooperation, the global community has already accomplished a significant amount. 194 countries, including the US, are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed in 1992. 192 countries, not including the US, are party to the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC. The world has agreed to unprecedented levels of cooperation to develop and disseminate technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. But it’s not enough. Over the course of the next few months and years, I will argue that to address the scope of the climate challenge we will have to rethink our entire approach to the global generation and distribution of climate technologies. In particular, because intellectual property is the primary way in which we organize technology markets, there may be no option but to rethink how we manage intellectual property at the global level.
Recommended Citation: Dalindyebo Shabalala, “A Malthusian Moment at Last?”, Technology Transfer for Climate Change (Mar. 18, 2015, 10:18 PM), https://dalishabalala.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/a-malthusian-moment-at-last/
Technology, Sustainability & Human Rights 