Mckibben Philosophy Overview

Ashby Johnston

Professor Sellars

Philosophy 101-CBL

March 31, 2015

Limits to Growth

Limits to Growth: Expanding on McKibben’s article

In No Limits to Growth by Tsvi Bisk, the concern for overpopulation is looked at as a minor issue compared to the issue of environmental shortage our planet is at risk for. Bisk explains that we as humans have spent too much time tying to control growth rates, and during this time, we have caused the problem to become worse with the overuse of natural resources. He expands on this idea by adding that we could slowly protect our environment by using more conservative resources such as transforming heat waste into electricity, cutting down on CO2 emissions, switching over to electric power cars to decrease the use of oil, and planting vertical farms to save space. Bisk also states in his article that “recent data indicates that a demographic winter will engulf humanity by the middle of this century” (p. 25) making impending population implosion a bigger issue than population explosion.

When McKibben talks about altering growth trends in his article Is Justice for All Possible? he begins by stating the facts he has compiled from other sources addressing the need to control population growth and economic growth. He later says that the world would be miserable if the economy growth were to cease, because that would indicate the inability for new jobs and income, creating more debt in which we could not pay off. With his thoughts, McKibben is amazed at the idea of how we came so close to listening to the message to control growth, as we tried to hard for years with different strategies. He goes on to evaluate Carter’s attempt to help by using solar panels on the White House’s roof and reducing the speed limit to save oil use. Later Reagan took down the panels and changed the speed limit once again, simply because we became lazy in our efforts to invest in solar energy and debt was an added issue. McKibben reports that “We are on...