The Most Important Articles Ever Written

For me, there are a handful of articles that qualify as the most important ever written--at least of the ones that I have read in in the latter half of this decade. The kind that are capable of fundamentally changing how people look at an issue. Until recently those articles, in my opinion were: “Return of the Population Timebomb” by John Feeney. It drew some 242 comments in the Guardian before they had to shut the discussion down. That article answered our critics in plain language like no other essay I have read. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/05/returnofthepopulatio... “Treading on a Taboo” by John Hart. Finally someone took on this Green Living fixation for what it is. An inconsequential distraction from the fact that the environment doesn’t care about our per capita consumption. Only about our TOTAL consumption, which consists of the sum total of "per capitas" (the number of people) times their per capita consumption. http://www.populationpress.org/publication/2008-3-hart.html “A 10,000 Year Misunderstanding: A Short History of Population Overshoot” by Peter Salonius. This 840 word history lesson revolutionized my concept of carrying capacity. No longer will I think in terms of “billions” of survivors. Rather, “millions”. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/12/2241454.htm A related essay of equivalent merit, also by Peter Salonius is http://www.relocalize.net/population_and_intensive_crop_culture_are_unsu... “Quantifying Overextension: America’s Predicament”by Chris Clugston. This article offers a refinement and broadening of the Eco-footprinting analysis pioneered by Rees and Wackernagel. I found its revelations about the United States both shocking and exciting in their potential to educate doubters. In Canada GFN data has been misused by our opponents as a club to beat us. SOA (Societal Overextension Analysis) definitely would not allow them to do that. It really downgrades our carrying capacity. Using SOA guidelines, my guesstimate is that Canada could alternatively, either persist with its current population of 33 million if it accepted a Cambodian per capita income of $1800, or, keep its current consumption level but trim its population to 1.18 million-- about the number of people who live in Ottawa-Carleton and Cornwall, Ontario combined. I personally prefer the latter choice---if I am one of the 1.18 million. But intermediate options are available. Trade-offs are the message of Clugston’s approach, which pays much homage to GFN as the trailblazer. Since then Chris has added substantially to his archive and is refining his analysis with more research. http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46892 "Forget Shorter Showers" by Derreck Jensen http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801 Jensen set the soft green environmental movement straight. Green living habits are a trivial pursuit in relation to the real challenge: confronting corporate power and instituting structural institutional change. But then John Feeney, organizer of the first Global Population Speak-Out, wrote this: "Agriculture: Ending the World as We Know It" http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/html/aug10-20.htm John picks up Peter's theme and runs with it. His approach is radical in the best sense of the word. He gets to the root of our problems, as Peter did. In this article, John manages to be both concise and comprehensive. So many shrill voices locate our problem in the capitalist economic system, in the paradigm of economic growth, in obsolete technology, in greed or selfishness, in irresponsible living habits, in organized religion and so forth. But it goes much deeper than that. Not only is industrial civilization unsustainable, but civilization itself. "Civilization is made possible by agriculture. Agriculture is unsustainable." Tim Murray