Overshoot
by William R. Catton · first published 1980
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Ecological analysis of how human population and energy use overshoot the planet's carrying capacity; readers value its clear framing of the energy problem and its sweeping, long-range argument for revolutionary change.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
To quote John Michael Greer: "Plenty of books in the 1970s and early 1980s applied the lessons of ecology to the future of industrial civilization and picked up at least part of the bad news that results. Overshoot was arguably the best of the lot,....."
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Two readings are relevant here: 1) Tragedy of the Commons by Harding 2) Overshoot by William Catton There is a sliver of hope that we can successfully decommission fossil fuel energy and master climate engineering, i.e. employ technology to solve global, systemic problems created…
on “Record low sea ice led to catastrophic breeding failure of emperor penguins” ↗Read the book OVERSHOOT https://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolution... You'll see that we can't feed 9bn people.
on “Feeding 9bn people will mean reimagining the edible world” ↗If you really want to scare yourself, read: Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, by William R. Catton
on “Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?” ↗…the can down the road far enough not to worry about it. Better to look forward to space mining and virtually limitless energy than spend my days feeling angry we didn't do something sooner. If you read Overshoot by William Catton (one of the most important doomer books), you know that there's nothing we really could have done. We will always grow into the size of container we have. So the best we can hope for…
on “Don't Be a Doomer” ↗Overshoot. https://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolution...
on “Ask HN: What do you consider the best (long) reads of the year?” ↗…most about him is that he writes not from a prescriptive "here's how to solve this" but an expository "here are the dimensions of the problem and possible frames of resolution". William R. Catton, Jr.'s Overshoot is also excellent.
on “Ecological Wealth of Nations” ↗The best resource I can think of offhand is the book "Overshoot" by William catton. It has a pretty strong political bent to it that I don't agreed with. But despite that, it frames up the problem of energy quite well.
on “EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document” ↗William Catton is another visonary. I consider his book, Overshoot to be better than limits to growth. This lecture sums up his work well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8
on “A Biography of E.O. Wilson, the Scientist Who Foresaw Our Troubles” ↗…bibliographical notes, and, given the nearly 30 years elapsed, testability numerous of his predictions, some failed, yes, others uncannily accurate. Rather more the latter. In a similar vein, William R. Catton's Overshoot looks at the ecological dynamics in more depth, with much wisdom, the writings of Richard Heinberg cover the ground of limits fairly accessibly and more recently. Vaclav Smil in numerous books addresses…
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗…bibliographical notes, and, given the nearly 30 years elapsed, testability numerous of his predictions, some failed, yes, others uncannily accurate. Rather more the latter. In a similar vein, William R. Catton's Overshoot looks at the ecological dynamics in more depth, with much wisdom, the writings of Richard Heinberg cover the ground of limits fairly accessibly and more recently. Vaclav Smil in numerous books addresses…
on “Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?” ↗…(it's not), but rather, that playing the blame game, or trying to assign causality, is frequently nonproductive and/or fraught. It's what William R. Catton, Jr. calls "futile vilification", from his book Overshoot. I love the example of Watt's steam-engine patent extension. I picked it up from Vaclav Smil's books, where'd you learn about it? On coercion -- you might be interested in William Ophuls. He's a political…
on “Nature’s libraries are the fountains of biological innovation” ↗Catton, Overshoot: https://www.worldcat.org/title/overshoot/oclc/16587666&refer... Meadows et al, Limits to Growth: https://www.worldcat.org/title/limits-to-growth/oclc/8165904... Online: http://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to...…
on “Overpopulation Is a Myth” ↗There's a tendency toward this among all living things, and worse cases in the past: Great Oxygenation Event and Snowball Earth being an extreme case. William R Catton, Jr., made the point, in Overshoot, that assigning blame isn't particularly useful. It's the dynamics which drive the thing. At the same time, humans can, and do, know better. Yet we're headed down that same path. And there definitely…
on “Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society?” ↗"As William R. Catton Jr. pointed out trenchantly many years ago in his book Overshoot, this is the situation the human population of Earth is in just now. The invention of fossil fuel-powered technologies and the breakneck extraction of fossil fuels that followed provided the industrial…
on “An Unfamiliar World, 21st Century's problem with population decline” ↗…through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly." William Catton ("Overshoot") may have been deeply wrong about what defined the Earth's carrying capacity or what the risks were to it (like believing civilization would end with peak oil). But Catton was right in general in the…
on “A few words on Doug Engelbart (2013)” ↗