In his sobering article, ‘Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie’, Albert Bartlett (Physics Today, July 2004, p. 53) pinpointed the failure to name human population growth as the major cause of our energy and resource problems. Bartlett averred that “their (scientists’) general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population – at least in the U.S. Or perhaps scientists are uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise”.
Whatever the reason, Bartlett argued it was equivalent to perpetuating a “silent lie”, a term derived from a Mark Twain quote:
"Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them…I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion: we can tell it without saying a word.”
At least recently, however, more scientists have been bold enough to toss the cat amongst the pigeons, and try to wake people up. In a previous blog:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/01/commodities-surges-harbinger-of.html
for example, I noted that the current commodities cost pressures are not due to speculators alone, but that population pressure also feeds into them. One of the best indicators for this is provided by the Global Footpoint Network, at:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
According to this site, we currently need not one but one and one half EARTHS to sustain our current rate of consumption. This means it requires on average 1.5 years for the Earth to regenerate the resources humanity uses in one year! Thus, even if the estimate is high, with current growth rates we'll soon reach the actual limits defined and dictated by this number - which means a tipping point and crash. See also:
http://www.dieoff.org/
The argument here is that this spike in critical commodities - contrary to the economic pro-growth mongers, is telling us we need to halt or reduce our growth or we'll all be for the high jump. The only other alternative, based on the excess footprint numbers, is we need to find another planet - at least half the size of Earth- and FAST!
Now as if to reinforce this, the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has called for more funding for global family planning initiatives to stem population growth, especially in the developing world, as well as reforms to food production practices.
As the global population surpasses 7 billion this year (some experts expect that figure will surge to 9 billion by 2050, but other say 10 billion) and standards of living supposedly rise, natural resources continue to diminish. All this conspires to put additional pressures on a global ecosystem already buckling under the weight of human consumption. According to scientists at the annual meeting of the AAAS, the confluence of precipitous demographic and environmental factors amount to a massive ecological bubble; one that, should it burst, could lead to catastrophe.
According to the World Wildlife Fund's Jason Clay:
"To feed [everyone] we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000. By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable."
This statement to me also explodes the myth that some economists have circulated that: "Average worldwide income is expected triple over the next 40 years. And in developing nations that figure could jump 500 percent."
This is totally preposterous on the face of it. First, the African nations, e.g. Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Congo...with the most accelerating populations (and highest proportions of the young) can't even find jobs for 50% of the existing demographic, far less provide a context for future income increases of "500 percent".
Besides, why would that ever occur anyway? If one has a vast downgraded sector that is unemployed and some elite sector with 500% greater income, there is no way the latter will be able to live safe, and quality lives given they will face perpetual predation: robbery, rape and murder every day from the have-nots.
Further, a large surplus population (in a particular country, say Nigeria) acts as a brake on wages and benefits, as well as keeping the hoi polloi in place. (Since there will always be more people than jobs). This is also useful in further consolidating an already incipient inequality as in the U.S., since employment can't even keep up with the rate of population increase (about 150,000 per month). Thus, destabilizing pressures inevitably caused by a too large excess population leads to an entrenched unemployed (estimated to currently be over 25 million in the U.S. if all are properly counted) which certainly is not conducive to a higher standard of living. Worse, as population pressures and size increase, more use is made of existing resources and this leads to their degradation. (Visit a national park near you if you think I'm exaggerating. Or better, don't!)
A truly rational nation, with the collective nation's welfare at heart, would not plump for more bodies - to desecrate watersheds, spew out CO2, pollute the air and add trillions of tonnes of waste each year... increasing all manner of woes. Instead, it would be allowing perhaps 1 child per family, and then taxing each addition to the same extent "tax breaks" are currently dispensed. (At least $1000 in extra tax burden for each child) This would instill in would-be parents the warning not to over-breed. Or you will pay a price.
Personally, I'd go for a $10k tax increase per extra kid, but that would have about zero chance of seeing the light of day. The late, noted science writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov- in various essays written over decades- warned repeatedly of severe constraints on humanity’s use of resources, particularly in terms of how population growth impinges on finite resources and sets limits to growth. Isaac Asimov was probably also the first to use the term “carrying capacity” which he estimated to be 3 billion humans for this limited world.
Asimov warned that humans had two choices: decrease their population to the carrying capacity limit to live in an equilibrium with the Earth and its resources, or let nature “increase the human death rate” (e.g. by starvation, pestilence, wars over resources etc.)
This brings us to the next aspect of the pie-in-in the-sky future prognostications: the dwindling resource base simply won't support any increase in income for most people in a 9-billion (or more likely, 10 -billion) populated world. The reason is that it is natural resources which provide the base to support production and prosperity. As they dwindle (see the link on commodities pressures) their prices will soar and so will the fuel (still fossil fuel, like coal, or oil) to produce them. Thus, diminishing returns must set in. Sure you MIGHT earn 500% more in Ghana, but oil will also be 500% higher in cost, as will food, so you gain nada. You are as poor as you ever were because the resource base has dwindled in proportion. This is what most dopey economists- not to mention pro-population Pollyannas- refuse to grasp.
Indeed, they have only barely begun to append costs to the "externalities" (grasslands, wetlands, lakes and rivers, forests etc.) they'd previously ignored. Which was one major reason the costs of many products (e.g. furniture) were much much less than they should have been, say had the natural resource (forest trees) value been reckoned in as a repository for absorbing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse warming gas. But now that those resources have markedly been reduced, any honest appraisal of their cost would make it much much higher in proportion to the degree to which the resource base has diminished. Thus, if there are seven times fewer forests (by total area) now than in 1970, the cost of furniture must be seven times higher even factoring in inflation. Thus, that nicely furnished cabinet should now cost you more than $5,500.
The same thing applies to all other products. Even if economists don't take this into account, the speculators certainly will, and hence will drive up commodities costs to reflect it - as they are now doing with food crops - threatening more food riots, such as we saw in 2008.
The bottom line is that humans, like it or not, can't escape harsh reality. Either humans must cut their numbers and drastically, or be prepared to inhabit a nightmare world of profound scarcity in 2050: barely any oil, even to drive a car around the block (I predict most cars will either be in junkyards or museums as Peak Oil hits), no cooking fuel, little wood for fires, and hardly any fish (tuna will be long gone as will cod, as the AAAS also predicts). Meats like steaks, pork chops? Dream on! Only the elite wealthy be able to afford them, if they can even get them! As for medicines, hardly any - as the dearth of petrol will make production of many meds impossible. Anti-biotics? All useless as bacteria will have developed resistance because of our overuse (e.g. in poultry and cattle to try to add additional weight).
Water? So rare (at least in potable form) it will compete with the cost of oil, and that will likely be at over $40 a gallon! 500% increase in income? Well, you better have at least that or forget about making ends meet! Prefer to get your own H2O from streams, rivers, etc.? Good luck - and just be sure you have plenty of meds to treat the typhoid, cryptosporidium, amoebic dysentery and cholera you will get!
Debt? If you think today's deficits are "exploding" wait until you behold those in 2050! 5000% of GDP anyone?
We simply can't afford more people - and indeed, ought to be doing everything to reduce the numbers to at least a theoretical carrying capacity load. Instead of waiting for our numbers to overshoot existing resources and crash back to that base number, minus any control. The conscious tailoring back would be the sign of an intelligent species that's able to confront its own plundering, consumptive dynamic.
The blind allowance of continuing population growth, and inevitable natural resource dearth is the sign of a dumbass loser species. Just think: Technological advances and economic liberalization have apparently opened a whole new world of opportunity for billions who only decades ago would have been abandoned to extreme poverty. Then, wouldn't you know it? Thomas Malthus rears his ugly head, and his warnings of the dangers of population growth are like a post-historic Hydra.
This time, we'd damned well pay attention or be prepared to write our species' epiitaph.
Whatever the reason, Bartlett argued it was equivalent to perpetuating a “silent lie”, a term derived from a Mark Twain quote:
"Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them…I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion: we can tell it without saying a word.”
At least recently, however, more scientists have been bold enough to toss the cat amongst the pigeons, and try to wake people up. In a previous blog:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/01/commodities-surges-harbinger-of.html
for example, I noted that the current commodities cost pressures are not due to speculators alone, but that population pressure also feeds into them. One of the best indicators for this is provided by the Global Footpoint Network, at:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
According to this site, we currently need not one but one and one half EARTHS to sustain our current rate of consumption. This means it requires on average 1.5 years for the Earth to regenerate the resources humanity uses in one year! Thus, even if the estimate is high, with current growth rates we'll soon reach the actual limits defined and dictated by this number - which means a tipping point and crash. See also:
http://www.dieoff.org/
The argument here is that this spike in critical commodities - contrary to the economic pro-growth mongers, is telling us we need to halt or reduce our growth or we'll all be for the high jump. The only other alternative, based on the excess footprint numbers, is we need to find another planet - at least half the size of Earth- and FAST!
Now as if to reinforce this, the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has called for more funding for global family planning initiatives to stem population growth, especially in the developing world, as well as reforms to food production practices.
As the global population surpasses 7 billion this year (some experts expect that figure will surge to 9 billion by 2050, but other say 10 billion) and standards of living supposedly rise, natural resources continue to diminish. All this conspires to put additional pressures on a global ecosystem already buckling under the weight of human consumption. According to scientists at the annual meeting of the AAAS, the confluence of precipitous demographic and environmental factors amount to a massive ecological bubble; one that, should it burst, could lead to catastrophe.
According to the World Wildlife Fund's Jason Clay:
"To feed [everyone] we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000. By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable."
This statement to me also explodes the myth that some economists have circulated that: "Average worldwide income is expected triple over the next 40 years. And in developing nations that figure could jump 500 percent."
This is totally preposterous on the face of it. First, the African nations, e.g. Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Congo...with the most accelerating populations (and highest proportions of the young) can't even find jobs for 50% of the existing demographic, far less provide a context for future income increases of "500 percent".
Besides, why would that ever occur anyway? If one has a vast downgraded sector that is unemployed and some elite sector with 500% greater income, there is no way the latter will be able to live safe, and quality lives given they will face perpetual predation: robbery, rape and murder every day from the have-nots.
Further, a large surplus population (in a particular country, say Nigeria) acts as a brake on wages and benefits, as well as keeping the hoi polloi in place. (Since there will always be more people than jobs). This is also useful in further consolidating an already incipient inequality as in the U.S., since employment can't even keep up with the rate of population increase (about 150,000 per month). Thus, destabilizing pressures inevitably caused by a too large excess population leads to an entrenched unemployed (estimated to currently be over 25 million in the U.S. if all are properly counted) which certainly is not conducive to a higher standard of living. Worse, as population pressures and size increase, more use is made of existing resources and this leads to their degradation. (Visit a national park near you if you think I'm exaggerating. Or better, don't!)
A truly rational nation, with the collective nation's welfare at heart, would not plump for more bodies - to desecrate watersheds, spew out CO2, pollute the air and add trillions of tonnes of waste each year... increasing all manner of woes. Instead, it would be allowing perhaps 1 child per family, and then taxing each addition to the same extent "tax breaks" are currently dispensed. (At least $1000 in extra tax burden for each child) This would instill in would-be parents the warning not to over-breed. Or you will pay a price.
Personally, I'd go for a $10k tax increase per extra kid, but that would have about zero chance of seeing the light of day. The late, noted science writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov- in various essays written over decades- warned repeatedly of severe constraints on humanity’s use of resources, particularly in terms of how population growth impinges on finite resources and sets limits to growth. Isaac Asimov was probably also the first to use the term “carrying capacity” which he estimated to be 3 billion humans for this limited world.
Asimov warned that humans had two choices: decrease their population to the carrying capacity limit to live in an equilibrium with the Earth and its resources, or let nature “increase the human death rate” (e.g. by starvation, pestilence, wars over resources etc.)
This brings us to the next aspect of the pie-in-in the-sky future prognostications: the dwindling resource base simply won't support any increase in income for most people in a 9-billion (or more likely, 10 -billion) populated world. The reason is that it is natural resources which provide the base to support production and prosperity. As they dwindle (see the link on commodities pressures) their prices will soar and so will the fuel (still fossil fuel, like coal, or oil) to produce them. Thus, diminishing returns must set in. Sure you MIGHT earn 500% more in Ghana, but oil will also be 500% higher in cost, as will food, so you gain nada. You are as poor as you ever were because the resource base has dwindled in proportion. This is what most dopey economists- not to mention pro-population Pollyannas- refuse to grasp.
Indeed, they have only barely begun to append costs to the "externalities" (grasslands, wetlands, lakes and rivers, forests etc.) they'd previously ignored. Which was one major reason the costs of many products (e.g. furniture) were much much less than they should have been, say had the natural resource (forest trees) value been reckoned in as a repository for absorbing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse warming gas. But now that those resources have markedly been reduced, any honest appraisal of their cost would make it much much higher in proportion to the degree to which the resource base has diminished. Thus, if there are seven times fewer forests (by total area) now than in 1970, the cost of furniture must be seven times higher even factoring in inflation. Thus, that nicely furnished cabinet should now cost you more than $5,500.
The same thing applies to all other products. Even if economists don't take this into account, the speculators certainly will, and hence will drive up commodities costs to reflect it - as they are now doing with food crops - threatening more food riots, such as we saw in 2008.
The bottom line is that humans, like it or not, can't escape harsh reality. Either humans must cut their numbers and drastically, or be prepared to inhabit a nightmare world of profound scarcity in 2050: barely any oil, even to drive a car around the block (I predict most cars will either be in junkyards or museums as Peak Oil hits), no cooking fuel, little wood for fires, and hardly any fish (tuna will be long gone as will cod, as the AAAS also predicts). Meats like steaks, pork chops? Dream on! Only the elite wealthy be able to afford them, if they can even get them! As for medicines, hardly any - as the dearth of petrol will make production of many meds impossible. Anti-biotics? All useless as bacteria will have developed resistance because of our overuse (e.g. in poultry and cattle to try to add additional weight).
Water? So rare (at least in potable form) it will compete with the cost of oil, and that will likely be at over $40 a gallon! 500% increase in income? Well, you better have at least that or forget about making ends meet! Prefer to get your own H2O from streams, rivers, etc.? Good luck - and just be sure you have plenty of meds to treat the typhoid, cryptosporidium, amoebic dysentery and cholera you will get!
Debt? If you think today's deficits are "exploding" wait until you behold those in 2050! 5000% of GDP anyone?
We simply can't afford more people - and indeed, ought to be doing everything to reduce the numbers to at least a theoretical carrying capacity load. Instead of waiting for our numbers to overshoot existing resources and crash back to that base number, minus any control. The conscious tailoring back would be the sign of an intelligent species that's able to confront its own plundering, consumptive dynamic.
The blind allowance of continuing population growth, and inevitable natural resource dearth is the sign of a dumbass loser species. Just think: Technological advances and economic liberalization have apparently opened a whole new world of opportunity for billions who only decades ago would have been abandoned to extreme poverty. Then, wouldn't you know it? Thomas Malthus rears his ugly head, and his warnings of the dangers of population growth are like a post-historic Hydra.
This time, we'd damned well pay attention or be prepared to write our species' epiitaph.
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