Peter A. Victor is Professor Emeritus at York University. He was awarded a PhD in economics from the University of British Columbia in 1971 and has worked for 50 years in Canada and abroad as an academic, consultant, and public servant specializing in ecological economics and alternatives to economic growth. Peter sits on the Honorary Board of the David Suzuki Foundation and the Circle of Ecological Economics Elders, is chair of the Science Advisory Committee of the Footprint Data Foundation, and is an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada. He was the recipient of the Molson Prize in the Social Sciences from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2011 and the Boulding Memorial Prize from the International Society for Ecological Economics in 2014. He is the author of six previous books, including Managing without Growth. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Kurt Klingbeil –
I have a question about the overall methodology and philosophy of the book.
Overshoot is the result of our hyper-consumptive hyper-emissive eco-cidal psychosociopathic capitalist infinite-growth predatory-parasitic exploitive extractive trickle-up dominator cult-ures
which have pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed…
Past Silent Spring
Past Small Is Beautiful
Past Limits to Growth
Well into Overshoot.
How is tossing around the “8 billion” number at all relevant ?
Only a couple of billion live in the most hyper consumptive hyperemisive countries.
While some societies were beneficiaries of Imperial colonialism and industrial Revolution and cronyCorpiratist predation, many others were largely peasant societies with very low per-capita impact on Overshoot.
There is a tendency to smoosh and dilute the actions and consequences of small groups of primary perpetrators across the entirety of humanity.
Also, take note that fomenting discussion about population is a tactic of the PetroRacket and Denialism Racket to evade their culpability
lindsa01 –
I use this book to teach my community engagement classes and all the students love it!
In this thought provoking and highly recommended book, Peter Victor elaborates on environmental degradation and the need for a new way of thinking if we are ever to save the planet from peril. It’s a must read.