The spirits lose their objectivity

An excellent example is that of Jean-Christophe Victor, author of the weekly issue of “em” arte: The Dessous des Cartes. Even though his political performances have always proved to be of a high standard, his entry into the field of eco-demo-futurology ended in a monumental fiasco, to the point that the video published on Youtube was definitely removed by the channel.

It is possible to check in his script, saved by an Internet user, that the commentator commits an incredible error of reasoning, as if at any cost he had to reassure viewers as to the demographic evolution to come, or reassure himself.

In essence, it makes the following reasoning: “the figures show that the ecological footprint has increased the most in developed countries, where demography has increased the least; population growth would therefore not be a threat to global ecology.”

The mistake is glaring from a logical point of view: the fact that the ecological footprint can increase in a shrinking population does not exclude that it can also increase in a growing population! On the contrary, it has all the reasons to increase faster as the number of individuals increases as their way of life develops…

The worsening of the ecological footprint in developed countries simply proves that this worsening is due to other factors: here the continuation of an ever more harmful progress for the environment. Rather, it should be a matter of concern: it clearly demonstrates that access to progress does not exclude a growing greed for progress that is even more harmful to the environment. So once all the nations of the world have achieved the same progress as the West, the race will not be over and the ecological footprint per individual will continue…

It is clear that the more humanity grows, the greater the individual ecological footprint multiplied by the number of individuals. The fact that environmental nuisances may increase outside of population growth does not imply that it should decrease in the presence of population growth. On the contrary, in the second case they have two reasons to worsen: once by the effect of the development of habits, and once by the effect of the increasing number of predator-polluters!

Jean-Christophe Victor therefore reasoned the exact opposite of common sense: arguing that an increase in the ecological footprint is observed in a case where the population is decreasing, he concluded that population growth would in itself have no harmful effect. This would mean that it is better to drive faster to save fuel because it has been found that the engine consumes more when you drive slower, forgetting that this finding was made on the climb…

The fact that a distinguished economist and politician comes to this point demonstrates at least one thing: reasoning is not necessarily reliable when it comes to stressful subjects, as the future of the planet and humanity may be, even in the mouths of the greatest specialists.

The fact that they have largely forgotten the sexual factor therefore does not allow us to prolong the omerta…