EDITORIAL To All Good Friends, With Thanks Eleven years of meeting a deadline—manuscripts go to press and must stay within the page limit—is ending. I relinquish editing Population and Environment with both relief and appreciation, thanking everyone who has helped to make this job rewarding. My colleagues at Human Sciences Press who have worked with me, sometimes giving a little on the page budget and allowing, annually, for changes, graciously granting permissions for reprinting, and always facilitating, deserve high praise for being a thoroughly professional outfit in every way. I thank the readers who came to browse and sometimes stayed with us for the whole run. And particularly I thank the authors without whom no journal could shine. Editing has been a fine and joyous adventure which I would not think of trading, an opportunity given to me by Norma Fox, who called one day to say, "Human Sciences Press published your book. We know you can write. Will you become the new editor of Population and Environment?" If you read this, Norma, thanks for that call. The journal is moving on. The new editor-in-chief, Kevin MacDonald, brings fresh insights and interests and a new disciplinary slant (social psychology rather than anthropology). Most importantly, the distinctive interdisciplinary character of this publication is secure under its new leadership. "Environment" encompasses just about everything, from the biological and mineral carrying capacity of Earth to the political systems that humans design for themselves. In every aspect, Population and Environment is positioned to address the key facets of human nature and humans' manner of interacting with their surroundings. Good information increases humanities' chances to live well in a wellfunctioning natural environment. But success in preserving civilization and Earth's carrying capacity on which civilization subsists is by no means a foregone conclusion. How many of our kind squeeze into the next centu-

Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 20, Number 6, July 1999 © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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ries, and how long we remain, depend on how well the carrying capacity is protected. If we are wise, strong, and lucky, the news will be good. At times, however, I think that Americans are only strong and lucky. For example, a premier conservation organization, the Izaak Walton League of America, supports a "sustainability education project" and publishes Sustainability Communicator. What a splendid chance, one might think, to teach about balancing population and the environment, without which sustainability is a mirage. One searches volume 1, number 5 in vain, however, for a mention of "population." Can one assume, therefore, that no one in the League knows that the number of people using resources and emitting wastes is a huge part of the sustainability challenge? I hardly believe this, because Christopher Hren, while he was with the Izaak Walton League, guided it well. Has there been a critical change in staff that should be checked? Population cannot be ignored. The balance between population and resources, mediated by technology, is the basis of standard of living and also the basis, thinks this old cynic, of willingness to think beyond one's personal and parochial good. Yes, I think that certain circumstances make generous thoughts and good deeds more likely. Other circumstances make evil deeds more likely. Good deeds increase where there is a sense of plenty and where most people are kin or long-time neighbors. Introduce acute scarcity and introduce outsiders, and the mix becomes explosive. With growing scarcity, unpredictability increases if anyone, even a long-time neighbor, is perceived as outsider. Recall Bosnia and Kosovo. Remember Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia. Political explosions may sometimes be averted by separating potential antagonists. I think that a wish to avoid conflict explains the partitioning of many countries today. Belgium, so civilized, the home of bureaucrats engaged in creating a United Europe, is said to be dividing, and the reason is the longstanding competition between its main regions, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia (Belgium, 1998). Russia, increasingly impoverished, seems also to be re-partitioning, finishing what the break-up of the old Soviet Union began (Russia Shipwrecked, 1998). Only one or two more elections stand between Quebec going it alone, apart from English-speaking Canada. The United States is acquiring enough selfconscious ethnic groups to consider splitting, too. In Around the Cragged Hill, elder statesman George F. Kennan suggests that the United States has become too large (too populous) to be governed efficiently. To resolve the ponderousness and irrelevancy of a huge centralized government, Kennan, proposes devolution into twelve more or less autonomous administrative units. Nevertheless, if this partition

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effectively did away with the United States, perhaps it would be too extreme a solution to big government, and even counter-productive. A sovereign national state is the only unit capable of withstanding the globalism of international police, international justice, and international meddling in home values, traditions, and business. For globalism run amok, think only of Great Britain first officially welcoming, and then arresting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet at the behest of a Spanish magistrate who sought Pinochet's extradition. In a wildly improbable coincidence, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was at that moment receiving a visiting dignitary's honors from the Spanish government. Castro has strewn about more bodies than Pinochet ever did, by most accounts (Melloan, 1998). The Chilean success in Spain is a tempting act to follow. In France, by December 1998, ex-patriot Haitians had taken their cue and were agitating for the arrest of Haiti's ex-dictator, Baby Doc Duvalier. Perhaps Cuban exiles now in Florida should have lobbied the U.S. government to bring an extradition order against Castro while he was visiting Spain. Alternately, perhaps all countries should be left to deal with their own dictators, if and when they can. Generalizing the rule, back off from globalism and all-too-easy to sign—hard to honor or enforce—international treaties. Globalism has more problems than intrusiveness and uninvited application of its self-anointed legalisms to domestic issues. Globalism has internal flaws that presage a collapse of its own weight, fortunately, although I do not predict what will be the trigger. The good and sufficient reasons (over-determination describes this gambit) for being sure that globalism will have a short run during its latest outing (it keeps erupting), are that •

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the only way to maintain a cohesive political unit is to have external enemies, or at least competitors. But a global government—by definition—has no enemies unless Earth is visited by funny green popsicles from outer space, globalism depends on handouts from the United States, meaning that the plug on global police-work could be pulled at any time if the United States want, or have to, conserve domestic resources. if an energy crisis materializes in twenty years or so, enthusiasm for churning about the world in energy-guzzling machinery is going to fizzle fast.

I count on all of the above to keep globalism on thin gruel and the United States secure, sovereign, and together. Together in mind and spirit, as well as government matters. If America were to split the sheets, however, let us give the creation of

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our new countries due thought. George Kennan's divisions may not be the best. (See Around the Cragged Hill for how he would draw the map.) What about putting boundaries around football conferences? Tennessee could live quite well among its Southeastern Conference (SEC) brethren. Vanderbilt and the Big Orange would just have to work it out, refereed by the Georgia Bulldogs or Mississippi State Bulldogs (yes, title to the moniker is a bit of a quibble—something more to work out). Government by football conference is modeled on sixth century Byzanteum, where the greens and the blues, sporting teams, evolved into political parties. Never underestimate the power of the pigskin. With luck, the hardest blows stay on the playing field. But assume, for a moment, that sports are not the moral equivalent of war. Antagonisms run too deep for games when resource competition becomes extreme. Americans should be taking every precaution to ensure that the scarcity of everyday life does not build to emergency proportions. America has been warned; the carrying capacity is imperiled (Pimentel et al., 1995; Pimentel & Pimentel, 1996; Pimentel et al., 1998). The more people, the less unity, the weaker the majoritarian culture, which is the font of rule of law, the greater the danger to political stability. The path to the future divides. Along one fork is blind trust that good luck will hold. Along another is an effort to plan, save, and limit risk. Acknowledging that the carrying capacity is in jeopardy is a first step. The personal and policy responses will need to address 1) energy, 2) population, 3) savings and investment as the means of affording better technologies, 4) correct information, 5) a reformed educational system, and 6) responsibility and control at the lowest possible administrative level, including individual and family responsibility. Interdisciplinary problem solving will be of the essence. Americans may also have to acknowledge, and overcome, certain human frailties, particularly our near-unending willingness to both procrastinate and fool ourselves with Pollyanna-like rose-colored glasses. Optimism is surely adaptive in evolutionary terms, because without it we would too often probably quit. But optimism that shades into denial and self-delusion puts the future is at risk. The richness of the North American continent encourages confidence; let it not be misplaced. Threats to the carrying capacity are the new reality. In the interests of domestic harmony, America should take heed. Virginia Deane Abernethy

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REFERENCES Belgium (September 12, 1998). The Economist, pp. 57-58. Melloan, George (December 1, 1998). Pinochet, Ocalan and the hypocrisy of the Left. Wall Street Journal, p. A23. Pimentel, David & Pimentel, Marcia (Eds.). Food, energy and society. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1996. Pimentel, David, Giampietro, Mario, and Bukkens, Sandra G.F. An optimum population for North and Latin America. Population and Environment 20 (2), 125-149, 1998. Pimentel, David, C. Harvey, P. Resosudarmo, K. Sinclair, D. Kurz, M. McNair, S. Crist, L. Shpritz, L. Fitton, R. Saffouri, and R. Blair, Feb. 24, 1995. Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits. Science 267: 1117-1123. Russia Shipwrecked (September 12, 1998). The Economist, pp. 55-56.