@langzi You raise some significant issues but there also some problems with your analysis, I think.
That’s not a definition of Malthusianism. The observation that two people consume more resources than one person is just a fact. Malthusianism, in the strictest sense of the term, is the assertion that increases in resource availability are typically linear while population increase is intrinsically exponential. In its more general application it is stated as “population growth outstrips resource availability” or something similar.
You have data on this? Some of the most insightful “naturalists” that I know are Indigenous.
Yes. On the other hand, the unevenness (an artifact of colonialism and postcolonial/neocolonial international economic structures) is diminishing as global political and economic systems become increasingly multipolar. India, Indonesia, the Philippines and China all had similar per capita ecological footprints in 1970 that were roughly a tenth of that in the US. All of them are now higher but not equally so. China’s per capita footprint has almost quadrupled and is now roughly half that of the US, which has seen its per capita footprint fall by about a fifth in the same period. The other three Asian examples have seen their footprints increase more gradually but given the aspirations laid out by governments in those places that is unlikely to remain the case.
Sustainable defined how, precisely? Extensive agriculture systems and hunting/gathering do not work in the absence of extensive land bases, an increasingly scarce resource. I work with a bunch of Indigenous communities whose cultures are deeply rooted in land ethics that are all about sustainable living. With few exceptions they have aspirations for their children’s material security and health that come into conflict with their cultural beliefs in challenging ways. They are well aware of this.
Sustainability is a complex issue in some respects but at its core it comes down to whether humanity is able to live within limits that do not degrade the planet’s ability to sustain humans in the future. A broader (and more sensible) definition encompasses sustaining biodiversity, not just humans. There is no way of talking about it without talking about human population. No amount of political, economic or social theorizing can overcome the reality that sustainability as a concept is about human use of other living things and the resources on which those things depend and that those things are finite in quantity. It is physically impossible for human population not to be part of any meaningful conversation on the subject.
OK. Fair point, although Ethiopia is certainly aware of US policy hypocrisy, whether they frame it that way or not.
Europe’s aging population is a direct result of low birth rates. Why would India see this as a problem?
Always, but unless you know of a way to deal with changing climate, ocean acidification, ocean overfishing, atmoshperic mercury, etc. etc. etc. without talking about, understanding and addressing things globally, looking only at our own groups is a bad idea.
Seriously? Unless you are proposing that information tech be dismantled globally, there is no conceivable argument for dismantling an initiative whose goal is increasing understanding of biodiversity. The amount of matter and energy associated with iNat use would not feature in the twentieth decimal place of any measure of ecological footprint. If you are talking about nature tourism, that’s a complex question that deserves its own conversation.