Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1227 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 2:44 pm Post subject: "Overshoot: ..." W.R. Catton, Jr.
"OVERSHOOT: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change" by William R. Catton, Jr. University of Illinois, 1980
The classic textbook explaining basic ecology with numerous examples of carrying-capacity excesses. If our society truly wanted to bring up real human beings-instead of unthinking consumers-this book would be required reading. Essential for an understanding of the human predicament, this work elegantly sums up Ecologic Thought with a full bibliography including Garrett Hardin, Aldo Leopold, and many other, more obscure writers. Also includes a glossary defining terms such as drawdown, takeover, detritovore, phantom carrying capacity, ghost acreage, etc. A book that makes it possible to grasp the full, and harrowing, implications of resource depletion.
I consider anyone who doesn't possess the primary principles outlined in this book to be an ignoramus. It is tragic that this knowledge is not widely understood-and our continuing, insane, destructive, activity during the quarter century since 1980 is just more damning evidence of our collective inability to avert the coming catastrophe. Catton's use of the past tense in reference to the coming dieoff is an elegant touch that adds an element of pathos to what might be called the Doomer's Bible.
I cannot think of a more intelligent or important book. Absolutely essential.
Joined: Dec 08, 2004 Posts: 1542 Location: Nez Perce Nation
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 3:12 pm Post subject:
This is an excellent book, if a bit dry and academic, but it is essential knowledge for helping one understand how we came to where we are and more importantly where we are going as a species. I’m a little more forgiving of those who may not have read this work than you, oowolf; it’s not the most accessible book and without a real awareness of the trouble we’re in, I can see how most people would not be motivated to read it.
I’m sure that most people on the PO board have not even approached it.
However, it has been in print for over 20 years so there must be a substantial group of people out there buying it. _________________ "Modern Agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food."
-- Albert Bartlett
"It will be a dark time. But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting."
-- James Lovelock
Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1227 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 3:36 pm Post subject:
re: "ignoramus" I was raised to be nothing more than a factory-working, TV-watching, beer-swilling, walmart-shopping ignoramus. No one ever pulled me aside to inform me that I was the perfect detritovore. I had to discover how ignorant I was myself, and I guess I'm somewhat resentful and sarcastic especially when I encounter people who say things like "Growing one's own food is a waste of time 'cos I can buy spuds for 7 cents a pound."
Joined: Dec 08, 2004 Posts: 1542 Location: Nez Perce Nation
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 3:48 pm Post subject:
oowolf wrote:
re: "ignoramus" I was raised to be nothing more than a factory-working, TV-watching, beer-swilling, walmart-shopping ignoramus. No one ever pulled me aside to inform me that I was the perfect detritovore. I had to discover how ignorant I was myself, and I guess I'm somewhat resentful and sarcastic especially when I encounter people who say things like "Growing one's own food is a waste of time 'cos I can buy spuds for 7 cents a pound."
There are no doubt a lot of ignorant folk out there. I was one just 2 years ago. It's very hard to step outside of the current paradigm that is our culture. Remember that "that kind of thinking" was/is the norm, the only problem being that for over 500 years it has been the type of common thinking that was correct for most of the period and supported by all the evidence. Now reality has already shifted but culture keeps most people thinking along a certain trajectory that was established long ago. It's difficult to change an entire culture quickly.
Unfortunately or not, Nature will take care of the problem. _________________ "Modern Agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food."
-- Albert Bartlett
"It will be a dark time. But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting."
-- James Lovelock
Last edited by DomusAlbion on Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
I couldn't agree more with all that has been written in this post, with the possible exception that the importance of this book is perhaps understated. For anyone wanting to understand the gravity of our current situation, especially with regards to Peak Oil, this is an essential core reading, right up there with Hubbert's theories. Most other Peak Oil books derive their arguments from both Hubbert and Catton, and with only cursory explanations of those arguments so expertly constructed in "Overshoot." Absolutely, a must-read.
Much of what I write on these forums is grounded in the basic concepts that Catton so eloquently outlined in his book. It has been prominent on my bookshelf for many years. A must read. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5141 Location: Oklahoma
Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:14 pm Post subject: Re: "Overshoot: ..." W.R. Catton, Jr.
Of all the books on peak oil and related topics I've read, if I had to choose just one to recommend everyone read it would be Overshoot. I am reading it for a second time right now, and it gives me goosebumps daily. This book was written in 1980. It's chilling to think how much worse our species's overshoot has gotten since then.
Personally I don't find it particularly dry and academic, but quite readable without much effort. Catton cites much data and the book is well referenced, yet his writing is engaging. For example, here are the concluding two paragraphs of one section:
Quote:
Toward the end of 1973, when a no longer deniable shortage of petroleum was curtailing the use of automobiles in many countries, and was producing other unanticipated modifications of human activity, one American food distributor warned customers that food bills might be increased more than travel costs by the oil shortage. The distributor reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had said some 30 percent of the nation's fuel consumption was used in growing food and conveying it to the consumer's table. What neither that distributor nor his customers seemed to recognize was that the figure cited implied that several times as much energy went into producing, processing, and distributing food as the food itself contained! In terms of "newspeak," the perverted language from George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, here was another inversion of meaning, similar to "war is peace" and "freedom is slavery." Fossil fuel use had enabled man to believe that "prodigality is efficiency."
Under these thoughtways men continued at the close of the 1970s to imagine that the solution to energy problems was to improve the technology for locating deposits and for extracting combustible substances from nature's underground storage, or to increase financial incentives for doing these things. It was as if a family whose members were living far beyond their current income should urge the head of the household to solve their problem of overspending by increasing his proficiency in filling out withdrawal slips at the bank. It was as if they were to commend rather than reprimand him for withdrawing more each week than the week before. Newspeak: "Extraction is production."
That was written 27 years ago. His point in that section was that what appeared to be "solutions" were really just exacerbating the problem, which is that we are relying on drawdown of non-renewable resources to sustain (and increase!) our current population.
I wish everyone would read this book. I think it would preempt many of the frustrating debates around here, or at least inform them. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:20 pm Post subject: Re: "Overshoot: ..." W.R. Catton, Jr.
Shannymara wrote:
I wish everyone would read this book. I think it would preempt many of the frustrating debates around here, or at least inform them.
Let's make it a criteria for debate. Haven't read it?
Sorry...next? _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:29 pm Post subject: Re: "Overshoot: ..." W.R. Catton, Jr.
mercurygirl wrote:
I don't know if I dare read this, for fear of becoming more bitter and depressed than ever.
Why oh why didn't someone point this out to me twenty years ago? I would have had myself sterilized long ago, but now I have a child to worry about.
OK, will get the book and thanks.
The book will give you a much broader understanding of our ecological world. That, in itself, will allow you to funnel that bitterness energy into something that will brighten your spirits as well.
It is so well written that it doesn't give you a sense of "doom." _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 12043 Location: Neither Here Nor There
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:25 am Post subject: Re: "Overshoot: ..." W.R. Catton, Jr.
mercurygirl wrote:
I don't know if I dare read this, for fear of becoming more bitter and depressed than ever.
Why oh why didn't someone point this out to me twenty years ago? I would have had myself sterilized long ago, but now I have a child to worry about.
OK, will get the book and thanks.
Of all the books listed about depletion and oil problems, I have only read two: Kunstler's The Long Emergency and Overshoot. Overshoot is a heart-breaking book. Specially if you have kids. If you can't get a copy, here is a preview containing much of it online:
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