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Bottleneck : Humanity's Impending Impasse: Humanity's Impending Impasse
Book by Catton, William R.
306 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
3 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
William R. Catton Jr.
6 books32 followersWilliam R. Catton, Jr. was an American sociologist best known for his scholarly work in environmental sociology and human ecology. The calm but unflinching realist got most praise for his 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change.
Catton had graduated from Oberlin College with an A.B. degree in 1950, whereupon he entered the graduate program in sociology at the University of Washington. He earned his M.A. there in 1952 and his Ph.D. in 1954. He was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Washington State University. Catton served as president of the Pacific Sociological Association 1984-85 and as the first chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Environmental Sociology.
Catton had graduated from Oberlin College with an A.B. degree in 1950, whereupon he entered the graduate program in sociology at the University of Washington. He earned his M.A. there in 1952 and his Ph.D. in 1954. He was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Washington State University. Catton served as president of the Pacific Sociological Association 1984-85 and as the first chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Environmental Sociology.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 19, 2010
Follow up to his seminal 1980 book Overshoot, which I hold as one of the clearest books written on the human predicament vis a vis resource depletion, environmental degradation and population overshoot. It's also one of the three legs of the stool I recommend for grokking said human predicament (as perhaps best defined by John Michael Greer in The Long Descent, also recommended). The three legs are Catton's book, Overshoot, Albert Bartlett's talk on Exponential Growth, and the documentary What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire. Toss in some Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen and Richard Heinberg, and you'll really be up to speed. But start with that solid three-legged base.
May 19, 2016
An excellent overview of our precarious future
This book covers the history of our arrival at a critical transition point in human evolution, secondary to our overuse of fossil fuels in the past two centuries and the resultant overpopulation that has accompanied that. His development of the concept of planetary carrying capacity and the problems we face due to our overshooting that capacity, makes clear why we are facing serious climate change and a population bottleneck most likely within this century. Recommended highly.
This book covers the history of our arrival at a critical transition point in human evolution, secondary to our overuse of fossil fuels in the past two centuries and the resultant overpopulation that has accompanied that. His development of the concept of planetary carrying capacity and the problems we face due to our overshooting that capacity, makes clear why we are facing serious climate change and a population bottleneck most likely within this century. Recommended highly.
May 3, 2020
Gets to the truth we are all looking for. Overpopulation is a source of evil ...or as Linkola put it, "the enemy of life is too much life." Catton does a great job explaining why this is so - with evidence, reason and impeccable argumentation. Definitely a book worth buying, reading and writing all over it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews