The Easter Island effect

Now let's work our little thought experiment. Given the four simple truths described above, it is only a matter of time before the continued procreation of human beings collides with the reality of limited resources, causing a crisis of unsustainability.

At some point, in other words, the continued expansion of human beings will destroy so much of the natural environment (and use so many natural resources) that there will not be enough resources available to support the continuation of the existing population.

I call this the "Easter Island effect," in reference to the way in which the natives of Easter Island chopped down all their trees to build ever-larger monuments to themselves, and in doing so they destroyed their entire ecosystem and soon perished. The entire human civilization is now pulling an Easter Island on a global scale.