Dr. Garrett Hardin: Overpopulation, Survival and Morality

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PLOWBOY: In your own estimation, where do we stand with respect to the carrying capacity of the earth.

HARDIN: That's an impossible question to answer. You see, the concept of carrying capacity was developed to deal with domestic and wild game animals. In such applications, the limits can be very precisely worked out. We simply ask, "How many deer can forage in a given section of grass-and-woodland without damaging that piece of land's ability to feed the same number of animals in the future?" The answer, which can be arrived at through field studies and so forth, will equal the maximum carrying capacity—in terms of deer herd—for the piece of land.

Human beings, however, require much more than physical nourishment to live what is considered a ''good life". Let me put it this way: In the United States, the average person consumes about 3,000 calories' worth of food every day. That same typical American, however, accounts for nearly 150,000 calories a day in other ways ... by using electric lights, appliances, fuel, and so on. So we require 50 times more energy for nonfood items than we use for nourishment. Now, calories can, in principle, always be converted from one use to another. In other words, we could support a much larger population if we cut down on our use of nonfood calories.

Therefore, an area's carrying capacity—in human terms—depends entirely upon the kind of life its populace wants to lead, and the simplest way to express those differing lifestyles is in terms of calories. If a society wants to live a 150,000—calories per-person-per-day life, then the carrying capacity of that culture's territory will be far smaller than if the group would be satisfied with a 50,000—calorie life.

...even if we did succeed in producing more food, we would... feed more people...which would cause the population in question to increase, and make the problem worse!

And many people are becoming convinced that we could lead a better existence -if we had the willpower to manage the transition-by using far less energy than we consume now.

PLOWBOY: Would it be correct to say that energy is one of the basic units of carrying capacity?

HARDIN: It's certainly the easiest to measure or to talk about. Any other means of measuring carrying capacity tends to be hard to pin down ... and these alternate ''scales" are largely based upon personal feelings.

I, for instance, have a very high regard for the value of wilderness to the quality of human life. But some people wouldn't agree with me on that, The point is, though, that if you do make the availability of wilderness experience one of the standards for carrying capacity, you drastically limit that capacity. You also run into the problems of defining "wilderness'', and so forth.

Energy, on the other hand, is easy to measure. However, I personally believe that the opportunity to enjoy the beauties of nature should be part of the "formula"' for carrying capacity.

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