Climate ‘Overshoot’? Let’s Go!

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 3, 2026

“CO2/climate optimism is merited, not more recalibration by falsified merchants of doom.”

David Carlin must be a worried guy outside of his smiling photos.  This “policy, sustainability, and finance expert” has a firm (D. A. Carlin Company) ready to assess your climate/ecology risks for a nice fee. He has the knowledge and answers to the ‘problem’… Or maybe not.

Here is his New Year’s post:

With 2026 beginning, what date would we overshoot the planet’s resources if everyone lived your lifestyle?

Great visualization showing when 100+ countries would exceed a sustainable balance based on the resource use and consumption habits of different nations.

The U.S. and Canada hit their sustainability threshold in March, so maybe North America should just hibernate for three-fourths of the year.

Carlin ends:

It’s the mirror image of how many earths we would need. An earlier overshoot date means that country is borrowing against the future. Needless to say, we cannot borrow forever!🌍

Malthusianism never dies. Paul Ehrlich lives! The neo-Malthusian ‘overshoot’ predictions date back to the 1960s and 1970s with such quotations as:

MIT/Club of Rome (1972)

If all the policies instituted in 1975 in the previous figure are delayed until the year 2000, the equilibrium state is no longer sustainable. Population and industrial capital reach levels high enough to create food and resource shortages before the year 2000.

• Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (New York: Universe Books, 1972), p. 169.

Although we have many reservations about the approximations and simplifications in the present world model, it has led us to one conclusion that appears to be justified under all the assumptions we have tested so far. The basic behavior mode of the world system is exponential growth of population and capital, followed by collapse.

• Ibid., p. 142.

Limits to Growth … “astonishingly young” (the oldest was 30) authors were true believers. Dennis and Donella Meadows retreated to a New Hampshire farm after completing the book “to learn about homesteading and wait for the coming collapse.” “‘We definitely felt like Cassandras,’ Donella Meadows added, ‘especially as we watched the world react to our work’.”

• Quoted in Robert Bradley, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (2009), p. 234.

And regarding climate change?

“Many people think that the threat of ‘global warming’ arose only towards the end of the twentieth century…. Climate change, either natural or anthropogenic, has been discussed from the classical age onwards, evolving from the expected benefits of climate engineering to today’s fear of global disaster.”

• Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr, “Climate Change in Perspective,” Nature, June 8, 2000, p. 615.

At the moment we cannot predict what the overall climatic results will be of our using the atmosphere as a garbage dump. We do know that very small changes in either direction in the average temperature of the Earth could be very serious. With a few degrees of cooling, a new ice age might be upon us, with rapid and drastic effects on the agricultural productivity of the temperature regions.  With a few degrees of heating, the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps would melt, perhaps raising ocean levels 250 feet….  In short, when we pollute, we tamper with the energy balance of the Earth.

• Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (Cutchogue, New York:  Buccaneer Books, 1968, 1971), p. 39.

Another ‘overshoot’ is the world racing past the (arbitrary, peculiar) temperature increase of 1.5°C, a baseline for Net Zero policies in the future. The quicker the warming threshold is exceeded, the more angst will follow and new targets set. In the meantime, free markets will adapt to weather/temperature changes with government “climate mitigation” policy causing waste and futility. CO2/climate optimism is merited, not more recalibration by falsified merchants of doom.

Appendix: Related Posts

Alarmism Now – and Then (Modern Malthusianism in its 6th Decade) (May 9, 2024)

Avoiding a Malthusian Future (Richard Fulmer: September 13, 2022)

Malthusianism Reconsidered: Desrochers on Smil (October 22, 2020)

‘McKibben goes McKibben on COVID-19 (Malthusians get ‘dizzy’ about the human scourge) (March 19, 2020)

Halloween: Neo-Malthusian Day (October 31, 2019)

Out of Climate Time … Again (failed Malthusianism rolls on) (May 2, 2017)

‘Fear Not: The Malthusians Are Wrong’ (2000 Op-Ed for Today) (August 3, 2016)