The human race is a disease, a bacterium, a profligate parasite that is heading for demographic catastrophe — or so I’ve been told in bars, train stations, classrooms and web forums by strangers and friends alike. Most memorable was the conversation I had with the oral surgeon at my pre-wisdom tooth extraction consultation.
Him: So, Simone what do you study?
Me: Grawargrrhhh. (From which he managed to determine something to do with environmental studies.)
Him: Oh. And do you really think you’ll get a job with that? (Because if you are a mouth specialist it must be pretty irritating when people study things they actually find interesting.)
Me: Gjiggght hytthhh (Something halfhearted along the lines of “I hope so — the world needs more environmentalists”.)
Him: Personally … (pokes more vigorously at my back molar) … I think the only solution for that stuff is another Black Death. You know, total devastation. 80% of the world gone. It really is the only way. Frankly, there are just too many of us … But I don’t want to be one of them (big grin), so I tend to keep that to myself.
And, well, from then on it was really quite disconcerting to know that man was going to be wielding sharp instruments inside my head.
Though I wasn’t a fan of his conclusions I could understand his concerns. At face value the logic of Malthus seems inescapable: People use things in order to live. Many of these things are finite. The amount of people is increasing. At a certain point there will be more people needing to use things than there are things to use. Conflict will ensue. No one really argues about the first three points, but points four and five are more contentious than they seem and I’d like to draw attention to a few things that people often miss when they get all doom and gloomy about how many babies there are around.
The last edition of The New Internationalist carries a headline feature on population panic that is worth reading. One of the most interesting points that the author makes is that the naughty number 9 billion that is so often put out as the population size that will be causing chaos for the next few centuries is, in fact, the peak predicted population size. In most countries fertility rates are already dropping. And as the increasingly desperate governments of Italy and Japan have found out, once national fertility rates have dropped for a while it is really, really hard to get women to have more babies than they want to. Many demographers believe that after about 2050 global population will decrease, eventually stabilising at a lower level.
Though there must ultimately be a limit to how many humans this planet can put up with, >9 billion is not necessarily a disaster. At 6.7 billion our current global population is many times bigger than the “catastrophic” level predicted by Malthus yet there is enough food for everyone. Those that go hungry do so because they cannot access the food that there is. The problems with overpopulation are often better attributed to political failings and economic perversities. Humanity’s ability to construct a just society at whatever population density relies on our ability to rise to the challenges posed by the environmental limits and cultural mores of its time.
Which is not to say that 9 billion wouldn’t present challenges that are immense. It certainly wouldn’t be possible if the majority of people lived lifestyles like those of the average (or averaged) American.
To support 9 billion in a sustainable fashion is possible, though it might necessitate a world that many find unpalatable: high-density cities, food grown in artificially conditions and possibly water desalination powered by nuclear or renewable energy. In the last hundred years parts of the world have gone through as much, if not more, of a transformation than this.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that the increased global population has so far led to many things that are generally considered to be positive changes. It has made for economies of scale that provide a logic and incentive for more schools, clinics, markets and communications like this blog. It has led to the birth of many new cultures and explosions of art and intellect as humans have come into greater contact with each others’ ideas. Conflict has existed in human societies at all levels of density and so has environmental degradation. Either the answer is none of us (not my choice) or it is all of us, mucking it out together.
Part 1
The wealthiest 20% are consuming 82.49% of all of the riches on Earth while the poorest 80% are living on only 17.51%, and humanity is currently consuming 30% above the regenerating capacity.
Clearly overconsumption by the wealthiest 20% of the population is the problem, as even if the poorest 80% of the population miraculously disappeared overnight, we would still exceed the carrying capacity of the earth’s resources.
A green economy is ideal for the South African situation. We have ample land and resources to train and put one million small scale organic farmers on the land. The spin-off in job creation, food security and exports are immense. New Zealand will be using 95% renewable energy within 20 years and Germany plans to be using 100% renewable energy by 2050. If a densely populated highly industrialised country like Germany can convert to 100% renewable energy, South Africa can do so much more easily, as we have more renewable energy resources in the form of sun, wind and wave energy from our vast coast line than Germany. If we continue to burn coal for electricity as Crass suggests, estimates are that climate change will shrink the global economy by 20%.
Part 2
What are we waiting for? Predictions are that China will soon be the world largest producer of renewable energy products, while in Germany the number of jobs from the renewable energy sector are growing daily and far outstrip those ever created by the coal and nuclear industry currently being phased out.
If you think nuclear energy offers a solution read ‘THE CODE KILLERS: AN EXPOSE ‘
Alternate title: Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Corrupt Government, Corporate Greed, Mass Hysteria, General Ignorance, and Your DNA: A Dangerous Mix? A look at the Data
by Ace Hoffman
First published: 2008
Available free from:
http://www.acehoffman.org
@ Simone: “At 6.7 billion our current global population…there is enough food for everyone. Those that go hungry do so because they cannot access the food that there is.”
The only people who believe that ‘lack of access’ is the cause of world hunger are the statisticians who crunch numbers with their Cheerios. Yes, there are silos full of grain without markets. There are occasional gluts of various food stuffs and yes, PART OF THE PROBLEM is cost of transport, local conflicts, regional wars, and remote location of some populations. The question of HUNGER is far more complicated than LOGISTICS!
About 50% of the world’s people are either underfed or undernourished or both as documented every year by OXFAM, the UN, and various world health organisations.
Rural (food growing areas that look green on your map!) to urban migration has increased by several hundred fold in the past 5 decades. “Lack of access” to things like LAND, WATER, SEED PLANTS, PEST CONTROL, AND MONEY TO OBTAIN ALL OF THE PRECEDING has created a global problem. The solution is not better access to food grown elsewhere. The solution is in keeping arable land in the hands of peasant farmers rather than in the hands of agri-conglomerates who clear-cut forests for cattle grazing or ‘real estate development’!
The critical ‘lack of access’ is to effective and long-term birth control. It IS difficult to get women to bear more children than they want. That is their RIGHT. tbc
The reason that the planet is currently able to support 6.7 billion people is because of fossil fuel energy. Unfortunately that source of energy is fast becoming more expensive as fossil fuels become less easy to obtain. While populations are decreasing in a few countries, there are so many more where the birth rates are very high still. I personally don’t think we have enough time to convert to another energy source and educate people to have less children before there is a major die off in human numbers due to warfare, famine and disease. I am very pessimistic.
@ Simone “In most countries fertility rates are already dropping. ”
In most western countries population growth is below ‘replacement levels’. In some developing countries population growth is slowing. But in the POOREST countries–the one least able to feed excess populations–the rate is growing. Even the AIDS pandemic has not resulted in proportional reductions in new births.
“political failings and economic perversities’ are at the root of the resource management problem as well as the continuing population explosion. Religious and cultural PERVERSITIES also contribute by forbidding birth control to women.
On the other hand “economies of scale…make advances like the internet possible”. The only place that true economies of scale are seen nowadays is in massive automation-that also takes people’s jobs and leaves them without resources to earn money that used to give them ‘access to food’.
No matter how you split the supply and demand atom, population size is the center of it: the nucleus of a failed human ecology.
When we lived in clans and small tribal groups, women breast-fed each child for three to four years! That meant no pregnancies for the period of active lactation. Men and women also lived in separate groups in many tribal societies and women were not available for ‘sex on demand’! There was an unspoken recognition that long-term nurture of the young was essential to the survival of the group. As was women’s fertility. Everyone’s survival depended on maintaining the population-resource balance.
Smart ancestors…
Having seen what we have done to the common chicken so that we can feed oursleves, what other perverse genetics do we have to do to maintain our ever increasing food supply needs?
Mad cow desese comes from feeding cows with – cows. What depths do we have to sink to to get a hamburger?
Why are we obsessed with growing our populations? Why can we not be content with a smaller pop?
England had a negative growth rate and then offered incentives for more babies, – why?
Here in SA we have a child grant system that says to every poor young lass have babies so that they bring in the bread and butter. Is that not aggravating poverty?
Sure we can mainatin a bigger pop but at what cost to our social and moral fabric?
Having become rather cynical about expert opinion and the UN in particular and humanity in general, I find myself with a strong negative reaction to your article.
There are standards of living (In Africa read: levels of survival) that I and others like me are not prepared to accept no matter advocates it.
To state that world population will naturally stabilise at 9 billion, using in support such widely differing scenarios as a forced decrease in population (China) and an education stimulated decrease (Italy), is strange indeed. There are so many variables involved: religious, cultural, educational, political, natural, etc. that to state something like that with total confidence sounds like an attempt by corporates to pacify the alarmed / alarmists in order to protect their market share.
It presupposes a lot of facts: that education and therefore attitudes about size of family will improve worldwide as it has in countries with a high average level of education. Just looking at South Africa, for example, I am compelled to ask: “Really?!” (“Idiocracy” at best)
I do not agree with your view on art and culture since what I see and hear around me is a rehash of innovations before the mid twentieth century. Perhaps a few lucky scientists have more money to do research but how many of the 9 billion will ever share in the fruits? What point to “positive changes”, if only a select few can enjoy these whilst many suffer a lifestyle straight out of the middle ages.
What you say about 2050 is very encouraging. But I think the poorer parts of the world are a long way from there. Travel the jungle tracks of the DRC and you’ll see kids, kids, kids. Stand on top of the lorries that are public transport and you’ll see the straw roofs of nameless towns that stretch for kilometres on either side of the lorry tracks. Check out Madagascar, Malawi. I have made return trips to these places over the years and seen more deforestation and people eeking a living out the ground with more difficulty. With urbanisation comes the disappearances of forests thanks to the charcoal industry. These places make SA look First World. But here the grant system is encouraging even more directionless breeding. I really hope the forecast you mention reaches this continent by that time too …
@Clean Air: You make very salient points, and I would wholehearted cheer a movement towards a green economy based on renewables, were the South African government to put political will behind that venture. As far as nuclear is concerned, I do not think it is ‘the answer’ and it would undoubabtly lead to at least a temporary continuation of the status quo. But, I don’t really believe in ‘the answer’ at all – rather many possible solutions contingent on other developments.
@Siobhan: Thank you for raising many interesting points which, for the sake of being concise, were not included in the blog.
As concerns hunger and its causes: I was in fact referring to lack of access to all those things you felt the need to capitalise, and not just to issues of location.
As concerns access to birth control and other methods of family planning: It is indeed quite tragic that women who want access to these things are denied them. The role of religious and patriachal institutions in this is damning. However, there are women who have access to these things and still choose to have families which by current Western standards are considered ‘large’. This is also their choice, and outside of authoritarian regimes like that of China, their right as well.
As concerns falling fertility rates: Even in many countries characterised as poor fertility rates are falling. Families in these countries are still larger than the average, uh, European family but mortality rates are also higher.
I don’t mean to be sanguine about the burden of the human species on the planet. This blog is in not in response to concerns about or attempts at discussion as to what global population increase means for our societies. Rather it is in response to characterisations of population increase as apocalyptic, disgraceful, sinful etc. Attempts to portray it as such leave one asking the question, ‘And so what? Must we kill 4 billion ‘surplus’ humans?’
Alarmist claims also prevent dialogue with the majority of the planet who, happily, still consider children a source of joy and wonder, not an alarm siren.
As pointed out in the blog and by Clean Air, it is the distribution of resources that lie at the heart of both environmental degradation and extreme poverty. The lifestyles that are ‘straight out of the middle ages’ would not be improved by a drastic decrease in the world’s population, and neither would the externalities of global capitalism that leave people jobless and forests bare.
Whilst this is not apposite to the above, it is relevant. The worst is happening – following the heavy rains, the basins under the Witwatersrand Ridge are decanting Acid Mine Drainage Water into the Vaal, the Cradle of Human Kind and the riverine systems of Gauteng, as well as the groundwater. We are facing an huge environmental crisis.
X Cepting,
Even in the most technological of today’s societies, there is a huge gradation between those relatively well off and those living in the lap of luxury.
However, that gap pales in comparison with the gap between the lifestyle of your grandfather/great-grandfather and ourselves – no matter how wealthy he/she was…
The reason why so many more children survive and why population explosions occur in rural areas is better education, health and nutrition… It may not be great by our standards – but it’s better than death…
Which takes us to population control. And free population control (as postulated by Siobhan) doesn’t resolve the issue. Poor people have large families in order to survive: it’s their insurance policy. Until you change that need – by a better lifestyle aka moving them up to the middle-class – you won’t change the dynamic…
What will help is jobs – and moving to a more equitable society aka sharing jobs and hence the wealth around…
Having had a night to think about this I have also realised that there are other negative impacts to uncontrolled population growth.
A hundred years back you were top dog with a R1000, then came the millionaires, now it is billionaires. How? Their market has obviously grown with population growth. This gives the lucky few, and I wouldn’t put it as high as 20%, more like 3%, immense power and control as has been illustrated with the recent man-made economic recession. The other offshoot is that innovation happens faster. Faster than most people can catch up and it is not always healthy innovation. Prosac before AIDS remedy? This leaves most gasping.
Someone commented the other day that it seems a fastforward button was pressed somewhere and can they please press play now, he is tired. Stress related diseases have increased enormously, using a lot of resources that could be used elsewhere in making antidotes to stress.
As proved by staticians worldwide individuals have become numbers, just another statistic. We have become a commodity for those in power and the more of us there are, the cheaper we become. Simple economics. I ask myself, is there not a balance point where the speed of innovation would match the ability to accept new ideas? Yes, the economy will slow down and there will be less billionaires. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Where the power is shared amongst more people the decisions they make will be less devastating to the majority.
For sure there are too many – almost 6.6 billion too many – a parasitic species !
Too many people around are just a plain irritation. I much prefer the serenity of the open bush, with some impala grazing, and a bateleur drifting overhead. A global population of about 1 or 2 billion would be ideal. Enough to make it possible for everyone to live comfortably without overcrowding and impinging on other people’s personal space… (Or having to revert to a hunting-gathering lifestyle). And best of all – the rest of earth’s diverse “children” will also still have a place to live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=related
Andrew Slaughter above is on to it. Energy (i.e. oil) impacts everything. The answer to the Q in your headline is an emphatic “Yes”. I invite you to bear with Albert Bartlett – follow the attached link. You’ll find the rest of the lecture on You-Tube.
It is important – no matter where you live.
The problem is slightly more mathematically intricate. Once you approach a carrying capacity, a small percentage increase in population can have a huge negative effect in lifestyle and resource allocation. After 1900 when there were slightly over a billion people on the planet, a growth rate yielding a 20% increase in population in 10 years would be an additional 200million people. The same percentage now means an increase of 1.2 billion people in that time span, i.e more than the entire globe’s population in 1900. That percentage is related to our behaviour and our habits. It does not take much over-population for an exponential demand effect to suddenly wipe out populations of fish (ask the Japanese who are eating deep sea fish now) and other foods, that places enormous pressure on substitute products that will collapse too. Its a sudden and catastrophic event that nobody can predict but the first signs are here. As such I agree with your dentist and I suggest that when this event unfolds, it would benefit your survival to be residing in a country with massive military power and few powerful neighbours. Thats because humans are the worst kind of animal and will kill eachother long before they agree around a table as evidenced by Copenhagen.
@Simone
Thank you for your reply.
I see nuclear energy as a part of the problem to be phased out as soon as possible.
In the U.S, which has 104 nuclear reactors, uranium now costs $60 per 450 grams compared to $10 per 450 grams nine years ago. There is still no safe repository for nuclear waste anywhere in the world, and Yucca Mountain 145 kilometres outside Las Vegas where the U.S. hopes to store its nuclear waste had an estimated cost of $58 billion in 2001 which has now escalated to an estimated $96 billion. Last year there were 250 incidents of nuclear material being lost or stolen, in many instances never recovered. In the worst case scenario of a Chernobyl type accident the costs could be as high as $ 700 billion, roughly the size of the current U.S. fiscal bailout. The Yucca Mountain repository is now 19 years behind schedule and may never be completed.
No nuclear plant has ever come in on time or on budget.
Research: Children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8785
South Africa has spent billions of rands on drawing plans for Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor plants, a technology Germany experimented on last century and dumped after an accident in 1986. Newspaper reports say the government is still going ahead. I believe this is a bigger more dangerous scandal than the arms deal ever was.
@Simone …continued
Nuclear plants take 8 to 10 years to complete, solar and wind farms 18 months. In South Africa we live very close to rolling power outages all the time, we need to work out how to inject political will into the ruling political elite.
See recent report below:
New Energy Finance: Solar power 50% cheaper by year end, other clean energy
sources drop 10% Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
By the end of 2009, there will have been a 50% drop in the levelized
cost-i.e. the lifetime cost per kWh before subsidies-of solar power, and a
10% reduction in the levelized cost of other sources of renewable energy
sectors compared to the end of 2008. This prediction is a result of
detailed quarterly research by New Energy Finance.
“So far this year, the steady decline in the cost of equipment in sectors
like solar and wind has been largely offset by the increasing costs of
financing,” said Michael Liebreich, chairman and CEO of New Energy Finance.
“By the end of this year, however, as capital markets loosen up and
equipment prices continue their decline, we will see the levelized costs
decline, finishing the year 10% below the end of last year across the board
and far more than that in solar.”
The point that lack of access to food (rather than there being enough of it) is a key problem is absolutely pertinent. There are plenty of cases where large farmers in an area export the food they grow even as marginal farmers and landless persons in the same region do not get enough nutrition. Moreover, where agricultural land is diverted for cash crops and most food has to be purchased, the disadvantage is reinforced. Contrary to some of the comments, “poor people” are not “obsessed” with having more children. In many non-Western cultures, children are a source of social security and wealth, and the cheapest source of labour if you are a poor agriculturist for whom agriculture is the only option of feeding oneself. Major beneficiaries of highly populated societies are many West-based multinational companies, since they form an important market as well as a pool for cheap, easily exploited labour. Let not those who live in glass houses throw stones at others. It may interest some of us that between the 16th and the 19th centuries, Europe had pretty high rates of population growth comparable to what we see in the poor coutries today. Large-scale migration to the Americas, Australia and NZ, where native peoples were decimated or driven off their lands saved the day for the Europeans. Are today’s rich countries willing to let history repeat itself? I fear not.
9 billion people will be too many if all aspire to live the ‘American Dream.’ Americans alone will need at least 3 planet Earths to be sustainable. Africa for its size is largely under-populated compared to countries such as Indonesia.
High birth rate is directly correlated to high infant mortality rate. Pandemics like Aids have perhaps a counter effect. When large numbers of people die due to disease, famine and wars – which all are no strangers to Africa – our biological reproduction drive increases.
@ Owen. Most likely some reasons why countries with a negative birth rate would encourage women to have more children are:
1. With fewer people, there are fewer consumers. No consumers mean less profit for big corporations.
2. Governments need people to vote for them/stay in power.
3. Governments and big corporations need to make sure they will have a labour force in the future.
@Andrew Slaughter
If you feel depressed read George Monbiots ‘HEAT: How to stop the planet burning’ in which he describes for the first time that we can achieve the necessary cut – a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 – without bringing civilisation to an end.
Keep in mind that we could also very quickly sequester or remove enough carbon from the atmosphere to take us back to 285 parts per million, ie pre-industrial levels if we converted the world tillable acres from conventional farming methods to organic agriculture. This will buy us time to convert to renewable energy, read more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19229.cfm
First (for years) we debated whether climate change from carbon emissions was a reality, then we debated what could be done, now we have to work out how to get governments to do it.
That is our task for 2010, kicking government ass around the world. Action year!!!!
Or read Gwynne Dyers equally informative/ depressing analysis: Climategate and disbelief http://www.straight.com/article-282021/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-climagegate-and-disbelief
i.e. the major governments are going to let us down.
@Peter Win – My previous comment was posted before I read your comment, I apologise if it seems in answer to your argument. To agree that my grandparents were worse off than me we would first have to agree what constitutes a quality life. Whenever someone points out to me that medicine has become so much more advanced I have to point out that, unlike my parents and without a shift in class I cannot afford any of those great innovations, so, in effect for me they do not exist. I quite agree though that the means and therefore an income is the first requirement for life.
@Simone – this is becoming a circular argument and not my intention. To say the world is overpopulated does not necessarily mean one dislike people and wish to kill them. Densely populated areas usually lead to more killing for obvious sociological reasons.
To be able to make informed decisions about family size one need an understanding of responsibility to those children, so they remain a joy and wonder, which usually increase with an increase in education. What I am therefore saying is that perhaps the problem is the inequality in knowledge distribution that is at fault and which should be adressed to solve the population problem. I did not mean to send anyone on a guilt trip for wanting a child. Every person should contribute to the gene pool, it keeps it healthy, just not overly so.
I am so glad that smarter heads than mine are thinking about this highly sensitive issue. It has been really interesting to read the different posts and their particular approach to this. I too am very pessimistic about where the world under the stewardship of man is taking us. I think that the problems we are experiencing now are the real fruits of industrilisation which lead to much of the urbanisation followed by technology. Speaking from an African context and also a farmer’s daughter I think it is important to remember that agriculture came before the wheel. Man does not control the climate as much as we may like to imagine so. I’m not putting down the green movement here and recycle, reuse every day of my life, however I believe our climate is controlled by forces much larger than what the creatures on earth have to put up against it. Climate change happens in cycles regardless of population size and who possesses how much of what. The subject of knowledge came up – that more knowledge would help people chnge their attitudes towards the perilwe are in. Personally I believe knowledge is a two edged sword. Those who have it should not see it as a means to enrich themselves at the expense of those who do not. They should think well about the long term consequences of eradicating diseases which take out millions of the poorest and at the same time not prolong or create life themselves.
Interesting article – “Mounting Stresses: Failing States” http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch01_ss5
@Grant
Well said. The relationship between geometric growth and exponential effect is exactly what I was getting at–in my inexact way! Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
@Simone
We agree on many things but as Grant observed above, critical mass cannot always be predicted and a slight increase in numbers can result in a catastrophic effect on resources.
And, yes, babies should be a cause for joy. But when they are born in the precincts of odiferous, rodent infested, disease ridden mega-garbage dumps such as those on the outskirts of Rio or Mombai. how long do you think the joy will last?
Babies may represent many things: male prowess, female fertility, faith in the future, hope, despair in face of economic and political impotence, family survival or the opposite: extinction of a family and, ultimately, humans in general.
Every child should be wanted not for what it represents to the parents or grandparents, but for itself, a unique being whose care and rearing is a sacred trust.
Children are not here to save their parents. They are not here to rear each other in over-large families or AIDS-decimated ones. It is the birthright of every child to develop her/his gifts as fully as possible. The number of children we bring into the world should never exceed our ability to provide for their needs: clean air and water, healthy food, medical care, education and, most importantly, love that nurtures, not narcissism that reflects glory on parents.
Methinks “too many of us” is code for ‘too many of them’ and ‘we consume too much’ is a PC expression for concerns about too many doing too much for comfort.
The right of reproductive choice is natural and INALIENABLE, some may not legitimately decide into what circumstances it is ‘good’ for others to be born and what not.
The only ‘overpopulation’ is that of loud mouthed politicos in shiny suits strutting about telling everybody what to do, backed by their ‘lobby groups’ who pontificate endlessly upon how others lives should be lived, what other people should have and what they should not, what they should want and what not.
The reality is we all come into this world the same way, wet and screaming down the birth canal, and getting here first does not confer the privilege of pronouncement upon the destiny of subsequent arrivals.
Political structures mandate shifting of responsibility onto some for the consequences of others choices, enabling people with no reasonable prospect of providing for their progeny to throw themselves onto the mercy of ‘the state’ or the broader human community.
Reproduction is a right, a putative claim upon the time, effort and output of others is not.
It is these mandates (exercised by the shiny suits with back pockets stuffed with other people’s money) which distort due accountability and mess up the planet, not the natural proclivity towards reproduction.
@Siobhan, Some random observations. The large families in under-deveoped countries are more a pension plan than of any innate desire to have lots of kids. Where infant and pre-adult mortality is high, you need quite a lot to ensure that at least some survive to take care of you in your old age.
However, having said that, the possession of reproductive apparatus does not give the unfettered right to use it. I an sure that you agree that just by looking around in a shopping mall you see people who should never reproduce.
I also find it incomprehensible that in countries that are barely able to feed themselves, and in which large numbers of the inhabitants are at least HIV+, faith based organisations still preach that condoms are a sin. The logic escapes me.
Sometimes I feel that we deserve the leaders we are blessed with, and that as a result of their unstinting efforts, nature will redress the balance and send mankind after the dinosaurs. And quite soon at that.
@Carolyn
To dismiss anthopogenic (man made) climate change in this scientific age is ludicrous. Cylclical climate change has always been with us and there is nothing we can do about it, but if you are dubious about the greenhouse effect from carbon emissions as a result of industialisation I can only ask where you have been these last ten years?
The other evening on Radio Sonder Grense a farmers organisation was giving our government hell for not doing more to mitigate man made climate change and by moving towards green energy. They know how much at risk they are.
Farmers in South Africa are already starting to expeience the effects from climate change, just read Farmers Weekly.
@Grant
I beleive the critical mass of how much we consume is more important than the critical mass of how many of us there are.
For example you could add billions more people who live on one or two dollars a day to the planet, but you could not add one more USA to the planet, they simply consume too much. Those extra 350 000 Americans would destroy us.
@Grant – I completely agree. Sir Crispin Tickell put it succinctly: “We can remove one, two, or ten rivets. But at a certain point, it could be the eleventh or thousandth rivet… things fall apart”. Stresses do not always have a linear effect.
Shiobhan – Well said, especially: “Children are not here to save their parents”. To consider a child as security or riches is unethical since it demotes him/her to the level of a possession, a thing.
Green Bean has got it right I believe. I read somewhere that if everyone in the world lived at the consumption levels of Americans (which it seems most people, ignorantly, aspire to) we would need two planet Earths, right now.
It has to stop & if Mother Earth (the idea of god is a preposterous human conceit) experiences much more human stupidity, she will fix the population balance – in fact she’s already begun, I suggest.
We so easily forget that Life was flourishing on Earth for eons before the human species evolved – and will, no doubt, re-flourish when human kind has committed collective suicide through over consumption. Life does not need human beings to exist.
@Grumpy Old Man
Good comments.
I realise that in many countries (including ‘First World’ ones) children are still seen–and used–as ‘pension plans’ for their parents. One need only observe the phenomenon of beautiful children maimed for life by their parents so that they (the children) can become successful beggars whose takings will support the whole family. Parents choose the ‘best looking’ child for this ‘honour’.
The ‘honoured’ child has at least two limbs broken in several places and left un-set (or even amputated) to appeal to the tender consciences of passers-by. Such children are put into wheelchairs or wagons and wheeled up to car doors near traffic robots. The justification used by the parents is that the child will be allowed more food than the other children as a reward for his/her ‘sacrifice’. The truth is that all of the children are ‘sacrifices’. Sacrificed to their parents’ irresponsibility in having more children than they can support.
“Suppose a couple can’t afford to have ANY children?” I hear the PC crowd ask. Then they shouldn’t have them and they should avail themselves of the services of a donor-supported clinic to obtain long-term birth control devices such as IUDs (to be used always with condoms, boys!), or implants to stop menses, etc.
It is time for the human race to grow up and stop excusing our irresponsibility by blaming religion or culture for lack of birth control. Each of us is responsible for choosing.
@greenbean. You are correct. Nature is a self balancing organism. Too many people for an environment to support, people die or the environment changes, or both. Eventually, something has to give. Just look at African famines. Without Band Aid, Clown Aid and Saints Geldof and Bono, lots more people and livestock would have died, all because their cattle and goats ate all the grass and the topsoil blew away.
Why not address the fundamental problem, that there are too many cattle and goats because there are too many people for the environment to support.
@Bovril24, be prepared for an onslaught from the God Botherers. The Greeks had a word for it – Hubris. The Hubris in assuming that somehow mankind is special and more deserving of saving that any other species. The second level of hubris, that if you do not follow my particular brand of faith, then you are somehow broken or deficient and need fixing by being spoken to like a five-year old getting a telling off from your parent.
Get your copy of Dawkins latest book ,and swat the irritants away when they come abuzzin. And they will.
Grumpy old Man ..well said.. the god fearing masses think the planet is here for them to rape, pillage and consume at will while they happily go forth and multiply!……more importantly, they think that once the fishes of the sea and birds of the air etc have all been eaten, god will answer their prayers for once and will provide their daily bread! (like he has in Haiti!)
To the naysayers:
1) Rural Agricultural Cooperatives Move Into Successful Fish Farming in Mozambique:
http://africastories.usaid.gov/search_details.cfm?storyID=345&countryID=15§orID=0&yearID=5
2) Successful conservation farming in Zambia
http://africastories.usaid.gov/search_details.cfm?storyID=178&countryID=29§orID=0&yearID=3
3) Greening the Namibian Desert: An African Success Story
http://www.saiia.org.za/archive-eafrica/greening-the-namibian-desert-an-african-success-story.html
4) Organic Agriculture related success stories in Africa http://www.ifoam.org/about_ifoam/around_world/aosc_pages/success_stories.html
I could go on and on documenting African success stories in farming, but none so blind as those who don’t want to see and instead monotonously repeat the mantra of ‘overpopulation’. They are the goats and sheep.
A great example of exponential society decay are the Easter Islands. Once entirely covered by forest, the human population chopped down trees to make fire, shelter and to roll their big stones along. At some point, long before they all killed eachother and died out, a critical number of trees was breached where the rate of use of trees exceeded available trees plus the time required for new trees to reach maturity. At that point, their society had condemned itself to war, killing, starvation and extinction. Yet life probably carried on as normal for some time. Then one day, somebody did a rough calculation and saw that trees were getting so scarce that if he didn’t chop them down today someone else would chop them down tomorrow. The human need to survive and to protect the welfare of those carrying your genes at the cost of others prevailed. It probably even accelarated the demise.
My point is that the knee curve of resource demand is a slippery slope from which there is little if any chance of recovery and you don’t know you are on it until the slide begins in earnest. The debate about numbers of people or their right to procreate is largely irrelevant. What is relevant is that the globe will experience a period of massive turbulence. People will no doubt fight, kill and survive but the conditions in which they will find themselves when the dust settles will make our present world look like paradise.
@Green Bean you are right. There are many cases where intervention of the “give a man a fish……..” sustainable agriculture type has brought meaningful and positive change. In many cases this also results in a marked drop in birth rates.
However, many times it has not, because the unfettered activities of the “give them a loaf” aid agencies has engendered a handout and entitlement mentality. Why spend all day working in the hot sun when you can sit on your bum in the shade waiting for the truck to arrive with today’s supper.
Human(e) culling, please!