158 The Environmental Debate
will require labor force skills markedly different
from those of the current oil-based economy.* * *
Before us now is the opportunity to adjust
our values according to our changing perceptions
of our world and our place in it. Of necessity, the
path to sustainability will be littered with cast-
off values. Materialism, planned obsolescence,
and a desire for large families will not survive the
transition. But they will not leave a void. Frugal-
ity, a desire for a harmonious relationship with
nature, and other values compatible with a sus-
tainable society will take their place.Source: Lester R. Brown, Building a Sustainable Society
(New York: Norton, 1981), pp. 247-48, 350.The transition to renewable energy will
endow the global economy with a permanence
that coal and oil-based societies lack. More than
that, it could lead us out of an inequitable, inher-
ently unstable international energy regime since,
unlike coal and oil, solar energy is diffuse, availa-
ble in many forms, and accessible to all countries.
As the switch from fossil energy to solar
energy progresses, the geographic distribution of
economic activity is destined to change, conform-
ing to the location of the new energy sources. The
transition to a sustainable society promises to
reshape diets, the distribution of population, and
modes of transportation. It seems likely to alter
rural- urban relationships within countries and
the competitive position of national economies in
the world market. Then too, a sustainable society
DOCUMENT 127: Julian L. Simon on Population Growth (1981)
Many people disagree with the apocalyptic environmentalists such as Paul Ehrlich [see Document 107] and the
radical environmentalists such as Arne Naess [see Document 129], who argue that we must take immediate action
to constrain the human impact on the environment. One of the most strident opponents of their ideas was Julian
Simon, a professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois at the time that he wrote
The Ultimate Resource, from which this selection is taken, as a popularization of his earlier book about population
growth. Simon later moved to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C.
In 1980, Simon made a now famous wager with Paul Ehrlich[see Document 107] about the future cost of five
metals (copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten), with Ehrlich betting their prices would go up and Simon betting
they would go down as a result of improved technology. In 1997, when the wager was settled, Ehrlich was the loser.Food. Contrary to popular impression, the
per capita food situation has been improving for
the three decades since World War II, the only
decades for which we have acceptable data. We
also know that famine has progressively dimin-
ished for at least the past century. And there is
strong reason to believe that human nutrition
will continue to improve into the indefinite
future, even with continued population growth.
Land. Agricultural land is not a fixed
resource, as Malthus [see Document 26] and
many since Malthus have thought. Rather, the
amount of agricultural land has been, and still is,
increasing substantially, and it is likely to continue
to increase where needed. Paradoxically, in the
countries that are best supplied with food, such
as the U.S., the quantity of land under cultiva-
tion has been decreasing because it is more eco-
nomical to raise larger yields on less land than to
increase the total amount of farmland. For this
reason, among others, land for recreation and for
wildlife has been increasing rapidly in the U.S. All
this may be hard to believe, but solid data sub-
stantiate these statements beyond a doubt.
Natural resources. Hold your hat—our sup-
plies of natural resources are not finite in any eco-
nomic sense. Nor does past experience give reason
to expect natural resources to become more scarce.
Rather, if the past is any guide, natural resources
will progressively become less scarce, and less