Three Potential Causes of Cultural Suicide

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Three Potential Causes of Cultural Suicide

• Population, Environment, Inequality

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We stick with things that apparently worked for
us, even when our cause-and-effect reasoning is
faulty, even when new circumstances demand new
approaches.---van der Elst, p. 267
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World Population, 1650 to 1982
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Population

• World 6,511,791,092
• U.S. 298,589,905
• 2004 GMT (EST5) Apr 24, 2006

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Population
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Most Populous Countries, 1999
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Most Populous Countries, 2050
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Population

• What worked for humans about having (many)
  children?
• What is the danger now?
• How might we adapt to prevent cultural suicide by
  over-population?

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Global Warming

• We may have gone past the point of being able to
  undo irreparable change to process of global
  warming as a result of fossil fuel consumption
  (coal, oil, gas) over the past 250 years.
• Global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to
  increase average temperatures by 2.5 to 10.4
  degrees Fahrenheit in this century
  (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001).

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Global Warming

• Will lead to the melting of the Antarctic and
  Greenland ice sheets, and by 2100, sea levels
  expected to be slightly higher than they are now,
  and rise increasingly thereafter.
• End of glaciers and coral reefs
• Probably will lead to some species die-out as a
  result of lack of ability to adapt quickly to
  rapidly changing environmental conditions.

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Global Warming

• Rising ocean levels will lead to the complete
  destruction of some low-lying countries and
  island nations Bangladesh, islands in the
  Pacific (Guam, Vanuatu, Samoa).

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Kyoto Treaty

• By signing and ratifying the treaty, countries
  have promised to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.2
  (on average) by 2008-2012, compared to their 1990
  levels.
• Note that scientists say we would have to reduce
  greenhouse gases by 70 to achieve climate
  stabilization.

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Kyoto Treaty ratification
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End of Fossil Fuels?

• The United States, with less than 5 of the world
  population, consumes 25 of worlds coal, 26 of
  the worlds oil, and 27 of the worlds natural
  gas.
• We may have reached peak oil production, with
  declining reserves of oil hereafter, even as the
  world consumes increasingly more oil year after
  year.

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Water Oceans

• Water tables in 80 countries around the world
  (affecting 40 of the worlds population) are
  getting lower, leading to concerns about wells
  (most water goes to irrigation of agriculture).
• Oceans some fisheries are showing signs of
  collapse, due to over-fishing.

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Soil Species

• Loss of soil productivity since 1945, 11 of the
  earths vegetated surface has been degraded and
  per capita food production in many parts of the
  world is decreasing.
• Species extinctions, leading to loss of
  biodiversity and which could possibly have
  practical uses in the future (new medicines).

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Environment

• What worked for humans regarding burning fossil
  fuels and using underground water tables?
• What is the danger now?
• How might we adapt to prevent cultural suicide by
  environment?
• Ecological sustainability P x A x T lt earths
  sustainable yield

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Social Inequality in the World

• 1.1 billion people lived on less than 1/day 2.7
  billion people lived on less than 2/day.
• Reductions in poverty in Asia since 1970, but not
  in Latin America or Africa.
• Within-country inequalities growing in many parts
  of the world (including Eastern Europe), but
  between-countries inequality may be declining
  (because China is getting richer?).

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Social Inequality in the World

• The combined wealth of the worlds three richest
  people is greater than the total gross domestic
  product of the 48 poorest countries.
• In 1960, the average income of the richest 20 per
  cent of the worlds population was 30 times
  higher than that of the poorest 20 per cent. By
  1995, this had become 82 times greater (United
  Nations Development Programme Report 1998).
• In 1970, the gap between the per capita GDP of
  the richest country, the United States of America
  (5070) and of the poorest, Bangladesh (57) was
  881. In 2000, the gap between the richest,
  Luxembourg (45,917) and the poorest, Guinea
  Bissau (161) was 2671.

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Ian Dew Becker and Robert J. Gordon, Where did
the Productivity Growth Go? (National Bureau of
Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2005)

• The study finds that between 1966 and 2001 in the
  US, Growth in median real wage and salary income
  barely grew at all while average wage and salary
  income kept pace with productivity growth,
  because half of the income gains went to the top
  10 percent of the income distribution, leaving
  little left over for the bottom 90 percent.

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Median CEO Pay, US, 2002
In 2002, the average CEO compensation package
equaled 10.83 million according to The New York
Times. Note that salaries increased at nearly
twice the rate of most workers paychecks
(inflation last year was 3.8).
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Ratio of Average Worker Pay to Average CEO Pay, US
For the top 100 CEO's the disparity is even
greater. During the past 30 years, the average
real annual compensation of the top 100 C.E.O.'s
went from 1.3 million -- 39 times the pay of an
average worker -- to 37.5 million, more than
1,000 times the pay of ordinary workers.
(Source Fortune Magazine)
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Social Inequality

• What worked for humans about paying some people
  so much and some people so little?
• What is the danger now (both internationally and
  nationally)?
• How might we adapt to prevent cultural suicide by
  social inequality?