Be Fruitful and Multiply

John Locke claimed that “the main intention of nature” is “the increase of mankind and the continuation of the species,” the “preservation of all mankind” being a “law of nature.”[1] Centuries later, Locke’s assumption that an increased population necessarily makes the preservation of the species more likely could be challenged in a way that he could hardly have imagined. The human population reached 8.16 billion at the end of 2023, as compared with only 2 billion of our species having been alive in 1900. The exponential increase of energy-consuming organic hominoids has undoubtedly been a cause of the increased carbon emissions arising from human sources, and therefore of climate change in the Anthropocene. The biblical permission to be fruitful and multiply may have come from an eternal source (i.e., Yahweh), but that the divine decree is to be applied regardless of the size of the population as well as the impact that the human imprint is having on the environment, including the climate, is, I submit, a faulty and foolhardy assumption to make in the twenty-first century. The decree in the biblical narrative could be interpreted as a mandate that the Hebrews, freed from slavery in Egypt, follow to fully occupy the promised land.  Empirically, it may even be time for humanity to take stock of its increased numbers globally.

The full essay is at "Be Fruitful and Multiply."

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1. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, P. Laslett, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), First Treatise, sec. 59 and Second Treatise, sec. 7.

Energy and Global Population

There is a temptation, especially since the global average temperature reached the 1.5C increase threshold in 2023 much faster than anticipated, to focus narrowly on the progress in renewable energy sources without placing it in perspective relative to the total amount of energy being used globally, the annual increases in energy demand, and the root cause, the explosive growth in human population since the early 20^th century. The strategic geo-political international interests of countries impacted and should thus be considered as well. 

The full essay is at "Energy and Global Population." 

China's Population: Demographic Imbalances and the Climate Emergency

In his treatise on Understanding, David Hume posits that we don’t know as much about causation as we think we do. Often times, positive correlation (i.e., two or more things present at the same time) is confused with causation (i.e., one thing causing another). That umbrellas tend to be out when it is raining does not mean that umbrellas cause rain (or that rain causes umbrellas). Rain and umbrellas have their own distinct causes, which Hume would say we don’t understand as well as we think we do. It is very difficult, for example, to determine whether climate change caused by methane and CO2 emissions caused October 2019 to the hottest October globally on record; more data-points covering long stretches of time are needed to distinguish even a few outliers from being part of a broader trend. By October of 2019, not only had scientists obtained and analyzed enough samples over a long enough time-frame to be confident (99%) that climate change had been occurring due to human carbon emissions. Not since roughly 60 million years ago had the carbon parts per million in the atmosphere stood at 410 ppm. In having to repeatedly accelerate their forecasts regarding the various impacts, such as sea-level rise due to melting ice (on land, such as Greenland), scientists had demonstrated that our understanding of the causation on the various impacts was still far from perfect. Even so, 11,000 scientists knew enough by November 2019 to declare unequivocally that humanity was facing a climate-change emergency. That is to say, drastic changes in terms of carbon emissions (e.g., energy sources, lifestyles) would have to be quickly made to avoid the worst-case scenario (e.g., mass food shortages, mass migrations from coastal areas and the loss of cities, and disease). This scenario is in line with Mathias’ theory of population ecology wherein a population of a species increasing without reaching an equilibrium maximum faces an increased risk of war, disease, or starvation. Once a species’ population pierces the semi-permeable constraints of the wider ecosystem (i.e., natural environment), Nature has its own ways of arresting the schizogenic growth of a species if it fails to limit its increase. During the twentieth century, the global increase of our species’ population was expediential, going from 1.6 to 6.1 billion. Sadly, even many policy-makers were oblivious to the fact that such a huge change must surely have consequences, at least some day. China’s one-child policy was an exception, making the relatively unconstrained population growths in India and Africa more noticeable as potentially problematic. Why did China need its policy while India, also with a population of over a billion, did not? In fact, the growth mantra generally subscribed to by countries across the globe acted as an incentive to make matters worse! Even a population with a low birth rate was generally taken as a problem. The negative impacts on a labor force and economic growth more broadly gave governments an incentive to increase birth-rates and thus populations (even though immigration served as an alternative). I want to look further into the case of China as a means of assessing how seriously the world was taking the climate emergency.

The full essay is at "China's Population amid Climate Change."

Was U.S. President Obama the Antichrist?

In the twentieth century, Christian apocalypticism thought it saw the end of days in the midst of baleful signs, including historical biblical criticism, the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, evolutionary science, and the United Nations. In the United States, the consolidation of power in the federal government at the expense of federalism (and, theoretically, liberty as well) was apocalyptically taken as a precursor to the end. According to Matt Sutton, “As the government grew in response to industrialization, fundamentalists concluded that the rapture was approaching.” The trajectory, in other words, was viewed as headed toward a global super-state under the thumb of a seemingly benevolent ruler. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “consolidation of power across more than three terms in the White House, his efforts to undermine the autonomy of the Supreme Court, his dream of a global United Nations and especially his rapid expansion of the government confirmed what many fundamentalists had feared: the United States was lining up with Europe in preparation for a new world dictator. This “leader would ultimately prove to be the Antichrist, who, after the so-called rapture of true saints to heaven, would lead humanity through a great tribulation culminating in the second coming and Armageddon.”

The full essay is at "Was Obama the Antichrist?"

UN’s General Assembly as Nonbinding on Syria

According to the New York Times, “In a powerful rebuke to Syria’s government, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on [February 16, 2012] to approve a resolution that condemned President Bashar al-Assad’s unbridled crackdown on an 11-month-old uprising and called for his resignation under an Arab League peace proposal to resolve the conflict.” The reporter immediately undercuts his use of powerful by observing that the 137-12 vote (with 17 abstentions) is “a nonbinding action with no power of enforcement at the world body.” The “action” does represent “a significant humiliation” for Assad. I doubt very much if he felt humiliated. His UN ambassador “denounced the resolution as a politically motivated scheme to intervene in Syria by the Western powers and others who ‘would like to settle accounts with Syria.’” Altogether, the first two or three paragraphs of Gladstone’s article can be read in terms of logic as “X, not X.” Of course, the first X gets more attention, so the article gives the impression that the UN did something powerful when in fact the exercise was one of exposing the impotence of the world body.

The full essay is at "The Fecklessness of the UN."

The U.S. Pulls Out of the Paris Climate Accord: North-South Redistribution as Unfair

The Paris Climate Accord, President Trump announced on June 1, 2017, “is very unfair at the highest level to the United States.” This goes well beyond the deal’s anticipated toll on the U.S. economy. The deal, the president, argued is fundamentally unfair. Indeed, the agreement may reflect more the old North-South differential in economic development than even the climate. In this regard, the president characterized the U.S. assent to the deal as a “self-inflicted wound” made out of weakness—perhaps even guilt foisted by the developing world.  “This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States,” the president said. More to the point—the financial bottom-line, “The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries.”

The full essay is at "U.S. Pulls Out of the Paris Climate Accord."

On the Value of Business-Societal Linkages: Facebook’s Zuckerberg Opposing President Trump?

In a public letter in February, 2017, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, linked his company’s product, the online social network, to the societal and indeed global level in claiming that “progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.”[1] The New York Times took this to mean that the CEO “stepped into the raging debate about globalization.”[2] Taking sides in a political or cultural debate can both advance and harm a business, hence the matter of the stepping into is worthy of analysis in its own right.

The full essay is at "Facebook's Zuckerberg Opposing Trump?"

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1. Mike Isaac, “Facebook’s Zuckerberg, Bucking Tide, Takes Public Stand Against Isolationism,” The New York Times, February 16, 2017.

2. Ibid.

As the World Turns: A Troublesome Widening Gap Between Progressives and Traditionalists

In his last speech to the U.N.’s General Assembly in September, 2016, U.S. President Barak Obama pointed to a world more prosperous yet with political and security crises.[1] He called this combination a paradox arising from globalization—the converging of political, economic, and social systems around the world made possible by advances in technology. I contend that globalization is not the primary cause of the massive changes going on in some societies but not others (and in parts of a given society), hence Obama’s diagnosis and prescription fall short. In short, parts of some societies, and some societies as a whole were going through massive, deep changes that were reinforcing the tendency of traditional forces to resist and stay put. It is the widening of the gap, both within some societies and between them that is the real cause of the strife.

The full essay is at "A Troublesome Widening."

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1. Carol E. Lee, “Obama Urges Course Shift for World in Conflict,” The Wall Street Journal,” September 21, 2016.

China’s Increasing International Role: A Historical Departure

Historically, China was isolationist. The Opium Wars in the mid-19^th century is a good illustration of why. From this context, China’s announcements of a series of international trade and finance initiatives by which China would assume a larger leadership role internationally are stunning. Doubtless the enhanced role is in line with China’s geopolitical and economic interests. After all, political realism is hardly a dead theory in the 21^st century. Even so, the impact of the reversal on the culture is significant, and thus worthy of study. Specifically, the traditional mistrust of foreigners is likely to diminish. As it does, the Chinese will be more likely to consider and even advocate for economic and political principles, such as liberty and rights, that are valued elsewhere in the world but not so much in China. The result could be increased political instability. In short, the initiatives timed to coincide with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November 2014 could eventually weaken the Chinese government’s grip on power. 

The full essay is at "China's Increasing International Role"

Is the E.U. Relying Too Much on the IMF?

According to the New York Times, the IMF had more influence in the European debt crisis than did many E.U. states. Put another way, Christine Lagarde, head of the organization, became “a quasi head of state.” Without the advice and money from the IMF, the euro might have collapsed. If one could believe the rhetoric, the E.U. itself might have broken up. But the threat to the Union lies not in the euro, but, rather, on the emphasis on the state governments and in particular their respective officials. Indeed, the crucial role of the IMF during the debt crisis may have been in looking out for the interests of the E.U. in contradistinction to the various interests of the state governments. “In the absence of a strong federal government in Europe,” according to the Times, the IMF has helped “impose order on quarreling [state] leaders.” Put another way, if the balance of power in the federal system did not reside with the states at the expense of the federal government, the Europeans would not have had to rely on the IMF so much. For example, Lagarde played an important role, according to the Times, in “overcoming German reluctance to accept proposals intended to strengthen the euro zone, like a centralized bank supervisor.” Because the proposals involved shifting additional governmental sovereignty from the state governments to the federal level, the heads of the state governments faced a conflict of interest in assessing whether to support a federal regulator even though it would be in the interest of the whole.

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.                                               

Government Employees and Manufacturing Jobs: Takers and Makers?

I contend that we need to expand our notion of “making” in the twenty-first century global economy. We also need to reduce our conception of “taking” when it comes to what government employees do and even in what the government does. Otherwise, even Steven Moore might be left with the unavoidable conclusion that the American corporations, even more so than the “welfare mothers,” are the “takers.”

The full essay is at "Takers and Makers."