John Howe on one child per woman: still too high to stay under limits to growth curves

Posted on February 2, 2026 by

population 1 child per woman not good enough john howe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preface. I first published this post in 2012 and have updated it today. Below I summarize a part of a 2012 article by John Howe on having one child per woman to stay under the oil depletion curve.

In the last two years, more and more experts in mainstream media are predicting collapse, which is quite startling since in the past it was obligatory to offer happy endings, because people expect that (especially in the U.S. due to TV and Science Fiction).

In the past, it was difficult to impossible to publish articles and books about collapse outside of scientific journals and university presses, since the publisher wouldn’t make money. Plus, most mainstream media is infotainment, and when serious articles are printed, forces blinders of economic and political over everything, ignoring the actual triggering biophysical factors, such as climate change, overpopulation, and drought.  Also ignored are the dozens of factors in the overshoot polycrisis (biodiversity, freshwater and soil depletion). Only climate change is mentioned.  And you certainly won’t often read about how the planet can only support about 400 million without our fossil fueled civilization.

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Part 6 Raven Rock: Alarming quotes from leaders

Posted on January 27, 2026 by

Preface. This is the 6th part of my book review of: Graff, G.M. 2018. Raven Rock. The Story of the U.S. Governments Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die.  What follows are some of the things presidents, generals, and other leaders said.

Truman stopped one Oval Office debate over civilian versus military control of the bombs cold, saying, “You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannons and ordinary things like that.

As Eisenhower said at a cabinet meeting, if war happened, the nation didn’t have enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the street. The destruction might be such that we might have ultimately to go back to bows and arrows.

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Ted Trainer: The radical implications of a zero growth economy

Posted on January 20, 2026 by

Projections of business as usual from Meadow’s et al “Limits to Growth”

Preface. Clearly infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. Returning the world to ecological health requires humans to live within ecological boundaries in a steady state economy. But today systems cannot exist without growth as Trainer explains in this paper, which you can also find online. I wish it were more well known because I think it sums up well how our current economic system needs to be revised.

Although Herman Daly’s (2008) “Steady State Economy” is a model for many ecologists, Trainer explains that what Daly recommends has some pretty serious implications that will require a radical cultural and economic change.

I don’t see any way this can happen. It is not even going to after societies crash and reboot. Inequality and slavery are too hard-wired in the human system across time and cultures. Societies will have to live within ecological limits, but without equality and often slavery. Though Scott (2018) offers some hope for slaves, in the past they could escape to join other groups or nomadic tribes.

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Part 5 Raven Rock. Hidey holes for government and military officials to carry on democracy after nuclear war destroys the planet

Posted on January 13, 2026 by

Preface. This is the fifth part of my book review of: Graff, G.M. 2018. Raven Rock. The Story of the U.S. Governments Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die. There are many doomsday shelters listed in this book, plus many missing because they are Top Secret.

I’m interested in the government’s plans for a nuclear war because I have always assumed the government would have plans for the permanent emergency of declining fossil fuels.  After reading this book, it is obvious there is no way to prepare for a permanent emergency of going back to a non-fossil fueled civilization mainly dependent on wood for energy, structures, and more. Although the aftermath of a nuclear war isn’t permanent, the nuclear winter will last up to 15 years, far too long to feed and house billions of people, especially since the UV radiation and ice age will drastically reduce crop production.

The only solution is for industry and government to ask for less consumption. But that can’t happen in a Ponzi capitalist economic system that depends on endless growth.  And to do everything possible to prevent nuclear war. The way to go about this is explained in this July 16, 2025 scientists warning to humanity here:  The Nobel Laureate Assembly Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War

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Become a Bison rancher

Posted on January 6, 2026 by

Preface. Far more buffalo can be grazed per acre than cattle and improve rather than destroy the ecosystem like cattle do. It’s likely wild bison will return to the Great Plains in the future.  Already there are fewer people in areas where the Ogalalla aquifer has been depleted than when Native Americans roamed the tall grass prairie.  And a quarter of U.S. food.

Below are excerpts from O’Brien’s book “Buffalo for the broken heart”. It may make you think twice about being a bison rancher or ranch hand postcarbon, but the life and work sound more interesting than farming in many ways, especially if you love being in the Great Outdoors.  Also below are excerpts from Lott’s book “American Bison”, mostly about bison behavior.

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Part 4 Raven Rock. The government abandons plans to aid the public, only the government to survive

Posted on December 30, 2025 by

Source: aquamagazine.com

Preface. This is the fourth  part of my book review of: Graff, G.M. 2018. Raven Rock. The Story of the U.S. Governments Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die. Simon and Schuster.  Clearly if the U.S. government abandoned plans to help Americans survive for two weeks until they could emerge from their bomb shelters, there are certainly no plans to help the public survive world peak crude oil production and peak everything — a permanent emergency. On the other hand, with world peak crude oil production in 2018, let’s hope our ability to wage nuclear war runs out of gas.

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Prisoners are treated worse than slaves in America

Posted on December 23, 2025 by
Source: It’s Time to Stop Using Inmates for Free Labor

Preface. United States Prisons have 2.2 million in jail, 5 million on parole.

How can Americans be so proud of themselves when our society has imprisoned one in a hundred people, more than any other nation on earth, and for that matter in all of history, many of them subjected to the most cruel kind of torture, isolation, that crushes their souls and drives them insane. It is not only evil but stupid: Violence spawns violence. Prison is a good place for criminals to get a PhD in crime, find new partners, and learn new (violent) skills.

How is this any different from slavery? If anything even more cruel. Prisoners are unable to spend time with their families, in the great outdoors, eating decent food — arguably worse lives than most slaves in human history. And they work for almost nothing plus additional fees that their families have to pay if they can’t.

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Part 3 Raven Rock. The government’s plans for after a nuclear holocaust

Posted on December 16, 2025 by

This is the third part of a book review of: Graff, G.M. 2018. Raven Rock. The Story of the U.S. Governments Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die. Simon and Schuster.

This book stresses that a full nuclear attack might destroy civilization at best, and drive humans extinct at worse.  So to spend hundreds of billions to strike back with even more nuclear weapons, as well as continue Democracy and the Non-negotiable Way of Life of America is bizarre, preposterous. America will have gone from amber waves of grain to a vast scorched and blackened radioactive wasteland under the grim skies and UV radiation from stratospheric ozone destruction (which is an existential threat) from nuclear winter.

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Part 2 Raven Rock. The U.S. government’s plans to save civilians from nuclear war

Posted on December 2, 2025 by

This is city planner Oscar Newman’s probably tongue-in-cheek vision of an enormous spherical underground replica of Manhattan located thousands of feet below the city itself, to be switched into action in the event of a nuclear event. Source: www.6sqft.com

Graff, G.M. 2018. Raven Rock. The Story of the U.S. Governments Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die.

At the outset of the cold war, scientists proposed that nationalism had to go away to prevent nuclear wars, which could only be done by having the entire world come under one government that owned all weaponry.  That idea was agreed to be impractical.

So the next Big Idea was to go underground and bury urban populations inside mountains linked by subterranean railroads. Life magazine gave this a positive spin “Consider the ant, whose social problems much resemble man. Constructing beautiful urban palaces and galleries, many ants have long lived underground in entire satisfaction.” The military jumped on this underground bandwagon by saying “After all, sunlight isn’t so wonderful. You have to be near a window to benefit by it. With fluorescent fixtures, you get an even light all over the place.”

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Legal & Illegal Immigration numbers must drop to carrying capacity

Posted on November 26, 2025 by

Source: The Overpopulation Project (2020) Is overpopulation a dirty word?  Too many people consuming too much

Preface. Without fossil fuels, the carrying capacity of the planet would be around 300 million people. Fossil fuels made it possible for human population to grow 27-fold to 8.2 billion people since coal production began the Industrial Revolution.

World crude oil production is likely to peak between 2030 and 2032. Already most new oil is obtained from deep offshore, surely a sign of desperation since these projects cost billions of dollars and take years to construct.

The carrying capacity of the United States without fossil fuels is about 100 million people (Professors David Pimentel at Cornell, Paul Erlich at Stanford). You can figure this out for yourself. In the Great Depression, when oil production was just starting to ramp up, there were about 100 million people, 25% of them farmers so most people had relatives that grew food they could retreat to if all else failed. Society had fossil fuels and coal powered factories, ships and rail. Yet people went hungry and starved.

Now only 1% of people are farmers in the U.S., using diesel powered farm vehicles and equipment. They have no clue how to farm without diesel, or natural gas based fertilizers and petroleum pesticides so toxic they are causing an insect and biodiversity crisis.  And a quarter of greenhouse emissions. Aquifers are depleting fast and now are pumped up from hundreds of feet below, far deeper than a hand pump could manage. The topsoil has eroded away but can still grow crops with tons of fertilizer and toxic pesticides. Most farms are thousands of acres, with crops quickly delivered all over the world using diesel-powered trucks, rail, and ships.  I doubt that the carrying capacity is as high as 100 million any more once diesel declines until it is gone for good.

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