ABSTRACT
The carrying capacities paradigm can be defined as the suite of methods, concepts, and assumptions that inform and support the view that human–environment interactions can and should be understood in terms of the X:Y ratios that carrying capacities describe or prescribe. Criticisms of the carrying capacities paradigm have also persisted, mainly among economists and other proponents of liberal environmentalism and ecological modernization. The world economic crisis and growing evidence of anthropogenic climate change, on the other hand, have buttressed the paradigm’s supporters, who point out that Cassandra was, in fact, correct. Overlooked in the debates are the underlying concepts and assumptions of the carrying capacities paradigm itself. From systems analysis, it inherited a commitment to models that were necessarily bounded and closed, so that they could be constructed and run as complex programs of equations and algorithms.
