College of Business Administration

Business Management and the Natural Environment

Discussion Questions for April 10, 1996:

Read Article 16 in Reading Packet: Sex and the Single Planet by Paul Harrison
Pickup one-page article tacked to Dr. Dunns door: Overpopulation and Overconsumption

1. Overpopulation versus Overconsumption:
Overpopulation is mostly a problem in the poor nations and overconsumption is mostly a problem in the rich nations.
We have meet the enemy and it is them, not us.
Can the debate over overpopulation and overconsumption be divided into them versus us?

2. Religion: Conspicuous Overconsumption
The Vatican maintains the real problem is not overpopulation, but overconsumption and the better distribution of wealth.
If the developed countries would reduce their overconsumption, the world could accommodate a much larger population.
Is overconsumption and the distribution of wealth the sole problem?
Can solving social inequalities and economic disparity solve the problems of overpopulation and overconsumption?

3. Science: Overpopulation, Overconsumption, and Overexploitation
Is science partly responsible for causing the problems of overpopulation, overconsumption, and overexploitation?

Overpopulation: Modern medical care and its marketing have extended the average human life span from 30 years-old during Elizabethan times to 76 years-old today.
Overconsumption: The uses of communication technologies have resulted in mass marketing and distribution that has spurred overconsumption and consumerism.
Overexploitation: Advanced sonar techniques have allowed oil companies to find and develop new sources of oil, and the commercial fishing industry to more easily locate fishing areas, leading to the over fishing of the coastal oceans.

What are some more examples of overexploitation as a result of science and business, that lead to overpopulation and overconsumption?
Can business and technology itself rescue us from overpopulation and overconsumption?

4. Business and Overconsumption
Seventy-seven percent of Americans think Americans over consume. But, they also believe it is one of the great things about being an American.
Is it likely that a society steeped in advertising can alter its consuming ways?

Economists argue that the concept of limits is obsolete, no matter what the ultimate size of the earths population.
Is business responsible for the behavior of consumers or are consumers responsible for their own behavior?

Americans have the highest rate of consumer debt in the world.
Is spending more, and saving and investing less, an economic problem for the future?

Overconsumption inflicts injury on the ecology through pollution.
Is there a win-win situation concerning overconsumption and business?

5. Women and Overpopulation
About 70 percent of the 130 million children not enrolled in primary school are girls; two-thirds of the worlds 960 million illiterate adults are women; and the higher rate of mortality among girls in some countries suggests a son-preference.
Can the empowerment and education of women solve the overpopulation problem?

6. Reality in an Uncertain World
T.S. Eliot said, Human kind cannot bear very much reality.
What realities do overpopulation and overconsumption hold for human kind?

7. The Future
The worlds population grows at a rate of 90 million babies per year.
In 1950 the worlds population was 2 billion people and took 10,000 generations to reach it. Since 1950, the worlds population has almost tripled in just two generations.
In the year 2050, the population will be 10 billion versus todays 5.75 billion.

What can business do to stop population growth and overconsumption?
Can self-preservation motivate behavioral change?

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