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Issue 4.2 Abstracts

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Homage to Malthus, Ricardo, and Boserup: Toward a General Theory of Population, Economic Gr owth, Environmental Deterioration, Wealth, and Poverty

By Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd

The debates over the future of human population and the earth's environment, and similar large issues, usually take place without reference to explicit models. Debate would be clarified if such models were employed. We propose that the logistic equation and its extensions like the Lotka-Volterra equations, so familiar to ecologists, can easily be modified to model the important "macro" questions that motivated the three thinkers of our title. The long-term rate of population growth must normally be controlled by the rate of improvement in K, the carrying capacity of the earth. K will in turn be con trolled by the rate of technological progress. The present situation, in which technological improvement (but also, perhaps, environmental deterioration) are increasing at rates above r, the Malthusian intrinsic rate of natural increase, is probably unique in human history. Can present levels of human prosperity and population growth be sustained? What processes are most likely to determine the answer to this and similar questions? We here sketch a model that endogenizes technological progress and environmental deterioration in the logistic framework. We discuss extensions of the logistic approach to multiple populations, such as other species, and sub-populations, such as human social classes, using the Lotka-Volterra equations.

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Can NIMBY Top the Bottom Line?

By William R. Catton, Jr.

NIMBY may be more than a pejorative acronym. In Pierce County, Washington, a garbage-hauling corporation attempted to override local residents' opposition to its proposed construction of a "state of the art landfill" on a 360-acre site subject to annual flooding. Neither side in the long running controversy saw the area's solid waste disposal problem as part of a national or global predicament in which the ability to segregate three functions of environment (supply source, activity space, and disposal site) has been severely diminished by population increase, urban growth, and industrial progress. Inability to segregate the three environmental functions may be an important indicator of having overshot carrying capacity. Despite organized opposition by two citizens' groups con cerned with defending the area's "sole source'' aquifer, as well as protecting residential property values, the for-profit corporation had recurrent editorial support by the area's metropolitan newspaper and persistent concurrence by county officials in claiming that local disposal was more cost-effective than shipping county garbage to a drier landfill east of the Cascade Mountains (as adjacent cities and counties were doing). The corporation gained one required permit after another porn county and state authorities, as well as repeated postponements of required closure of a previous (Superfund site) land fill it was already operating for Pierce County. When the proposed new landfill was "killed" by denial of a final permit by the Army Corps of Engineers, the corporation sought court reversal of the Corps' decision, while county officials began reluctant accommodation to the long-haul alternative.

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Understanding the Social Construction of Environmental Concern

By Linda Kalof

While it is uncertain whether the mass media promote environmental apathy or action, it is clear that the media play an important role in the social construction of environmental concern. To better understand public perceptions of environmental problems it is important to study how individual attitudes are structured and the negotiation of meaning of environmental messages in the media. This paper reviews the literature on the interpretation of environmental messages in the media and proposes a research method to unravel the social construction of environmental concern.

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Ecosystem Management: In Search of the Elusive Paradigm

By Robert T. Lackey

Ecosystem management is proposed as the modem way of managing natural resources and ecosystems. Championed as an approach that will protect the environment, maintain healthy ecosystems, preserve biological diversity, and ensure sustainable development, ecosystem management also has been derided as a new label for old ideas. The definitions of ecosystem management are vague. Here I offer seven core principles, or pillars, of ecosystem management to delimit the concept. As with all management paradigms, there is no "right" decision, but rather those decisions that best respond to society's needs. For selecting the most important research needs, the most important criteria are policy relevance and scientific tractability-research that addresses important management or policy problems and is likely to be scientifically achievable. Ecosystem management would be enhanced by developing ( I ) credible procedures to determine ecosystem health, which is within the domain of social and biological science; (2) scientifically sound options on which to base policy decisions about biological diversity and endangered species; and (3) a clear understanding of the relationship between ecosystem stability and biological diversity, and how each responds to external stress such as altering habitat and harvesting biotic resources. While many other research priorities also are important, the three identified needs meet the specified criteria and are likely to improve implementation of ecosystem management.

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