Drivers of Change

Overpopulation, overconsumption, & technology

$$I = P {\times} A {\times} T$$ (1)

After Ehrlich and Holdren (1971)

Overpopulation

Overconsumption

Technology

Problems with IPAT

• ``Implicitly neo-Malthusian'' (de Sherbinin et al., 2007)
• Industrial production (Commoner et al., 1971; Commoner, 1997)
• Global trade & material flows (Fischer-Kowalski and Amann, 2001)
• Policy & institutional factors (Geist and Lambin, 2001)
• Scale & spatial factors (de Sherbinin et al., 2007)
• Interactions between the terms (Dietz and Rosa, 1994)
  • Population & consumption growth cause collapse
  • Population & consumption growth stimulate technology
  • Technology subsumes population & consumption
  • Multiple factors

Tragedy of the Commons

• Used by Hardin (1968) to advocate
  • Eliminating foreign aid
  • Eliminating welfare and social services
  • Privatization of natural resources and public parks
  • ``Lifeboat ethic''
• Difference between ``common-pool'' and ``open-access'' resources (Berkes et al., 1989)
• Policy recommendations called unrealistic, untenable, and ethically dubious (Callahan, 1974)
• Privatization & destruction of communal property exacerbated environmental degradation (Reddy, 2002; McGranahan, 1991; Monbiot, 2002)

How is globalization affecting the biosphere?