The Ecological Footprint

Among those who work to cut Impact, there has long been a split between those who think the key is to freeze and then lower Population and those who think we need to cut back on wastefulness and highlife (Affluence) among the better-off.  This is the clash we population-worried conservationists and environmentalists have with our conservation and environmental kith.  In many ways, this cleavage shows the Weltanschauung of those taking either side, and often seems like an “Is so/Is not” kids’ squabble.  Forsooth, it isn’t an either/or, but a both/and, as David Brower liked to say.  We need to freeze and cut both Population and gobble-gobble consumption.  However, in this Around the Campfire I want to show that without lowering population, cutting back on the highlife can’t do the job.

A rather new and deft way to frame Impact is by means of one’s Ecological Footprint.  It has the same narrowness and weakness as carrying capacity in that it weighs only our Impact on Earth’s wherewithal to support Man in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed.  In From Big to Bigger, a report for Progressives for Immigration Reform, Leon Kolankiewicz puts it this way:

Click on the attachment below to read the entire “Campfire.”