{"product_id":"living-within-limits-ecology-economics-and-population-taboos-9780195078114","title":"Living within Limits: Ecology  Economics  and Population Taboos","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"We fail to mandate economic sanity \" writes Garrett Hardin  \"because our brains are addled by...compassion.\" With such startling assertions  Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades  winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist  ecological philosopher  and keen student of human population control  Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date  with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earths resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits  Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation  making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself  he writes  is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead  nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often  he writes  we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardins famous essay  \"The Tragedy of the Commons \" he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone  but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology  he argues  making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. \"The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the population problem would only ensure that it would never be solved.\" Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument  as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries  to allow each state to help itself. \"The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable \" Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe  and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book  one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have been afraid to consider.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646889091125,"sku":"ByrdShop_019507811X","price":33.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195078114.jpg?v=1781680220","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/living-within-limits-ecology-economics-and-population-taboos-9780195078114","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}