The New UN (IPBES) Report On Species Extinction Means Our Economic Growth Needs To Be Pared Down

On Monday, the largest ever assessment of the health of nature was published by a UN group (IPBES) which warned starkly that the annihilation of wildlife is eroding the foundations of human civilization.  The  numbers tallied included nearly 1 million species headed for extinction and effectively also putting humanity itself at risk - given we exist in a web of life- not isolated from it or independent.  As that web collapses our species will go down as well. You can make book on it.

How so? Because humans depend on many species of animals for food, from fish to mammals such as cattle, pigs.  If therefore part of that network is collapsed or rendered fragile, the rest is put at risk.  And this nutrition support system can be destabilized as easily as an infection - such as African Swine fever- which has now been responsible for the Chinese having to kill over 140 m pigs to protect the rest from infection.

Apart from diseases, the biggest toll on many species is from the spread of humanity, the ever increasing human numbers which encroach on habitats and reduce animal species, and biodiversity.  Human activities such as over fishing of specific sea species as well as industrial agriculture and claiming wetlands for real estate development are cases in point.  Indeed, any real estate development has the potential to affect animal habitat - such as here in Colorado where mountain lion and human confrontations have become more frequent - as well as bears and humans.  We've encroached on their habitats by over building then we scratch our heads and wonder why we'r being "'invaded"  by these terrible critters, which make feasts of our pets.

The planet is currently home to an estimate eight million plant and animal species, with the average number living on land having fallen by at least 20 percent.  Incredibly, most of this extinction has been since 1990 according to the UN report. Much of it is being caused by human expansion and its attendant nature -destroying activities, from widespread pesticide use and pollution to unchecked global warming.

More aspects to consider: Nearly half of amphibians and a third of all marine mammals are threatened.  Coinciding with this, since 1970 there has been a 30 percent reduction in global habitat.  How bad? Well, more than 85 percent of the wetlands that existed in 1700 were gone by the year 2000.

One of the more ominous notes was sounded by Joseph Walston, senior vice president for global conversation of the Wildlife Conservation Society:

"We're not just losing bee species. We're losing insects."

Insect extinction itself is approaching 40 percent of all insect species, and as a member of the Xerces Society (devoted to insect protection) this appalls me no end.  Hate bugs or love them, it cannot be denied they are part of the planetary ecosystem and their demise would not bode well for humans.

According to he IPBES report: “Insect abundance has declined very rapidly in some places … but the global extent of such declines is not known.” It said the available evidence supports a “tentative” estimate that 10% of the 5.5m species of insect thought to exist are threatened with extinction.  According to Prof Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

"Insects are the glue in nature and there is no doubt that both the [numbers] and diversity of insects are declining. At some stage the whole fabric unravels and then we will really see the consequences.”

Let's not mince words,  the food and water humanity relies upon are underpinned by insects.  Insects play a critical role in the complex natural world that sustains all life on Earth. Best known is the pollination that fertilizes most of the world’s crops and wildflowers, including the tiny midge essential to cacao.  The waste disposal service provided by insects is also vital, decomposing wood, plants and animals into nutrients for new life. In Australia, the lack of native dung beetles able to deal with the prodigious output from imported European cattle led to vast swathes of pasture being rendered useless in the 1960s.

Another critical service provided by insects is as food for many other creatures, from birds to reptiles and amphibians and mammals. The weight of insects eaten by birds alone is about the same weight of all 7 billion people on the planet, said Sverdrup-Thygeson. However, falling insect populations have contributed to the loss of 421m birds in Europe in the last three decades.

Sverdrup-Thygeson’s new book, Extraordinary Insects, spends many of its pages on how wonderful and weird insects are. “The first stage is to get people to appreciate these little creatures,” said Sverdrup-Thygeson.

Many insects appear to defy the normal rules of life. Some fruit flies can be beheaded and live normally for several days more, thanks to mini-brains in each joint. Then there are the carpet beetles that can effectively reverse time, by reverting to younger stages of development when food is scarce.
Others are bizarrely constructed. Some butterflies have ears in their mouths, one has an eye on its penis, while houseflies taste with their feet. Insect reproduction is also exotic. The southern green shield bug can maintain sex for 10 days, while another type of fruit fly produces sperm that are 20 times longer than its own body.

But for all their abundance, insects are in trouble. “Global data suggests that while we humans have doubled our population in the past 40 years, the number of insects has been reduced by almost half – these are dramatic figures,” she said.

Some researchers warned back in February that falling insect populations threaten a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, while recent studies from Germany and Puerto Rico have revealed plunging numbers over the last 25 to 35 years. According to Sverdrup-Thygeson, the destruction of natural environments to create farmland is the key cause.

She went on:

“I can understand people might not be interested in saving insects for insects’ sake. But people should realize this will come back on ourselves. We should save insects, if not for their sake, then for our own sake, because it will make it even more difficult than today to get enough food for the human population of the planet, to get good health and freshwater for everybody. That should be a huge motivation for doing something while we still have time."

Much of this insanity can be attributed to growth for growth for growth's sake dynamics, especially in the capitalist driven U.S.  This means U.S. voters become a large part of the problem - as pointed out by WaPo opinion writer Helaine Olen. As she notes:

"Americans agree that protecting and securing our envronment is a high priority, but they also assert we need to grow the economy."

The problem is that growth is exactly what drives the devastation of species' habitat and ultumately imperils our own survival.   All of the worst policies, including proposals to drill in federal lands, to continue water-destroying fracking and the contamination of our watersheds have been amplieid under the Trump administration.  Of course, they are cheered on by big business which abhors any regulations that cut short term profits.  Business in turn is assisted by a myopic economic model which disregards all "externalities" and their value.  These externalities were once estimated in worth via a paper appearing in the journal Science:



Alas, given this paper was published over two decades ago, all the areas under column (2) have since decreased, in some cases by 50 percent or more. (Such as wetlands and tropical forest areas)

For example, All totaled, between 1990 and 2005 Niger lost 34.9% of its forest cover or around 679,000 hectares.

It is clear there is a tie in, a nexus, between the global resource area each human commands (in hectares) and how it affects other species.  Richard Attenborough (in a 2014 BBC nature documentary), showed the divergences, with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average American is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair (2 hectares) theoretical apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. (At that time). 

According to Attenborough's expert reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people. This is the upper limit of carrying capacity given the finite resources the planet actually provides and the rate they are now consumed. 

The other marker for resource use - which effectively sets an upper limit on growth - is the concept of Earth Overshoot. 

The graphic below puts this into perspective;

The interpretation of the graph (upward) is simple. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate. Just like the hands of the  'doomsday clock'  approaching 'midnight' for nuclear cataclysm, 
The extinction of species projected by the UN Report then, is an indicator disclosing our growth  - in both population and via GDP - is too high. 

What to use in place of GDP? The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare which was first proposed by Eco-economist Herman Daly of the University of Maryland. is a prime alternative  Daly's point was that the GDP was too artificial and narrow an indicator of economic health. He argued that if one incorporated all the "externalities" usually dismissed or ignored by standard economic models, people would be more parsimonious in how they consume which would yield a better world.  By "Better" he meant with ample room for different species as well as human beings. Not just humans!

Ignoring these externalities leads us into a fool's paradise where we come to believe things are much better than the GDP numbers show. Similarly with energy, conveniently ignoring externalities of cost and demand leads too many to envisage a pie-eyed future of never-ending growth.  

The upshot of this? Instead of aiming for the fossil fuel high consumption target of 3 % growth per year - which assures extinction of all non-human species by 2100 (if it could be realized) - we pare it down to 0.5-1 percent per year at most.   Or better zero percent growth, in the context of Daly's Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare. 

Would a zero percent growth world / economy be difficult to adjust to? Probably! No more closets packed with seldom worn clothes,  50 pairs of shoes, or garages packed with tossed out or stored Barbies, X-Boxes, old Ipads, comic books and other crap.  Nor the need to rent storage units!  But hey, people will survive. They will not survive without bees and other insects to pollinate their foods, or the collapse of multiple food chains. 

Basically, the future of the terrestrial web of life, including Homo Sapiens, depends on limiting growth and not allowing it to limit life as we know it.

See also:

http://projectcensored.org/12-lives-depend-keeping-80-percent-fossil-fuels-ground/

And:


http://projectcensored.org/3-rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-threaten-permanently-disrupt-vital-ocean-bacteria/

Human Overpopulation Contributing To Sixth Mass Extinction

In a blog post last year, I tied the mass migration to Europe and other nations directly to human overpopulation, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/08/of-dead-lions-and-swarming-migrants-why.html

As I wrote earlier, referring to a WSJ piece, 'Humans, Lions Struggle to Co-Exist', Aug. 8-9, p. A7:

"Africa's human population is the fastest growing in the world. In roughly the same period as the lion decline (42 percent over 21 years), the number of Africans has doubled to nearly 1.2 billion people. The population will double again to 2.5 billion by 2050 according to the United Nations."

Adding:

More people "has meant more forests being turned into pastures, more locals hunting lions' prey for their own meals - leading to starving lions- and more herders killing lions rather than risking cattle."

The process noted above is all too clear: exploding human numbers, especially in Africa and Asia, are not only contributing to human mass migration but also the  leveling of forests and decimation of  many species. In fact, a new study out of Stanford University by geoscientist Jonathan Payne points to a new mass extinction event (the 6th) of which we are right in the middle. Arguably, most people - including environmentalists-  aren't even aware it.

The Stanford -based study published in Science looked at 2,497 different marine animal groups at one taxonomic level above the level of species called genera. They found that increases in an organism's body size were linked to an increased risk of extinction in the present period. More puzzling, they found this was not the case in the Earth's distant past.

What was missing then, but is present now - to drive the current extinction?  Here's a prime clue: During the preceding 66 million years there was actually a not insignificant link between smaller body sizes and going extinct. In other words, the mass extinction of the current period is totally reversed from that.

According to Payne, hinting at the solution:

"Human hunting has been extensive for many thousands of years on land, whereas it's been extensive for a couple of hundred years in the oceans."

Conclusion: Humans already drove to extinction many land-based, large animal species (in the Late Quaternary Extinction Event) and are now driving other large animals - mainly in the oceans - to extinction   Interestingly, however, for the oceans the threats of extinction are not apportioned equally among all marine species. Instead, the largest ones - in terms of mass and body size- are the ones most threatened. Why?

Well, because these species: shark, tuna, whales ...afford the most profit in terms of human consumption or just predation (hunting -fishing).   As the authors of the recent Science paper put it: "From sharks to whales, giant clams, sea turtles and tuna, the disproportionate threat to large marine organisms reflected the unique human propensity to cull the largest members of a population."

No mystery then that many ecological researchers and other biologists (e.g. John Phillips of Barbados) predict that by the middle of this century the main form of marine life will be ....wait for it...Jellyfish!   This will be a result of all the remaining desirable marine species being extracted and consumed, in combination with enhanced ocean warming.

The extinction and displacement of land animals is already well under away, thanks to selective human hunting (including for sport) as well as the pernicious destruction of diverse ecosystems where humans build homes, set up farms, extend cities and erect massive wind power turbines or solar collectors. Moreover, as climate change worsens the biodiversity will crash even further, since too many species will compete for an ever decreasing resource 'pie', as well as desirable territory..

The above findings call into question the arguments by Cally Carswell in a recent article ('People and the Planet') appearing in Sierra magazine (Sept., p. 26). In it, Carswell argues against blaming increased human population for global warming - a claim which I vehemently took issue with, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-alert-biggest-problem-remains.html


She writes:

"While it's true in the long term fewer people will likely result in fewer carbon emissions ...the extent to which each new person contributes to the emissions problem varies dramatically according to where and how well they live."

This is true. The reality is that the bio-productive output in different nations is not equal, and using a map of the world, Richard Attenborough (in a 2014 BBC documentary), showed the divergences, with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average USA person is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair, equal apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. According to Attenborough's expert, by this reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people. This is the upper limit of carrying capacity given the finite resources the planet actually provides.

By contrast, the hectare average is about 0.5 for each Rwandan. But it is precisely this limited bio-productive output per person that drives the ravaging of extended surrounding resources including hunting game, and destroying existing forests for charcoal burning - for fuel. Carswell extends this to conditions in Niger, writing:

"At current rates it would take a person from Niger about 200 years to produce the carbon the average U.S. resident produces in one year."

Which is true, but she omits a critical aspect: That Niger person may not have a Chevy Grand Cherokee belching out 6 tons of CO2 a year but he or she is raiding forests (e.g. for wood to render charcoal for fuel) and thereby decimating the primary carbon "sink". All totaled, between 1990 and 2005 Niger lost 34.9% of its forest cover or around 679,000 hectares. Meanwhile, the total rate of habitat conversion for the same interval amounted to 25. 7 percent. The habitat loss means larger mammals, reptiles could be affected, and the forest reduction means not only animal habitat destroyed but also a key CO2 absorption sink..

Carswell's argument is that population control is better achieved via greater access to  higher education for women, in all nations. There is no argument with this position, but it can't be embraced while also reducing efforts to limit human numbers.  Also, I take issue with the contention, from a UC- Riverside prof (Jade Sasser),   she quotes to the effect that:

"To support justice for women means supporting their right to have children"

Well, only up to a point!  Up to replacement level say two kids per family- yes. Beyond that,  no. While I do not advocate draconian solutions such as have been applied in India (mass sterilization) and China (firm 1-child policy) there is room for removing any tax credit support - certainly in this high carbon nation. This is for anyone having more than 2 kids. They can have those extra kids, then, but receive no tax credits for them.

Time is growing short to stave off a sixth great mass extinction, but those like Carswell and Sasser seem not to grasp that means looking beyond the carbon deposition factor. It also means examining  how we are adversely affecting thousands of vulnerable species that share this planet with us.

The Global Economy Cannot Be Based On Population Growth!

Isaac Asimov makes a crucial point about over population at his Queen's Park Lecture in Barbados, on Feb. 6, 1976. This photo was part of a write-up in The Barbados Advocate newspaper.

There is a good reason why most physical scientists consider the majority of economists to be blockheads and simpletons: they don't use rational or testable models. One of the most irritating aspects of market economics posits that population growth is essential for future economics growth. This simpleton proposition was expressed yet again in today's Wall Street Journal (p. A1, 'Population's Flagging Growth Undermines Global Economy')

The author, Greg Ip, writing:

"Previous generations fretted about the world having too many people. Today's problem is too few. This reflects two long-established trends: lengthening lifespans and declining fertility.

Simply put, companies are running out of workers, customers or both. In either case economic growth suffers"


Which is total, unadulterated balderdash which no serious rational person should buy. It is merely PR and propaganda for a world we simply cannot afford.  See, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-alert-biggest-problem-remains.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/11/bret-stephens-as-ill-informed-on.html

As noted therein, there's an 80 percent probability that world population - now 7.3 billion - will increase to between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion by 2100.  This portends a basically unlivable world featuring assorted life-destroying forms of blowback (new diseases, mass starvation, antibiotic failure, disasters, wars) .

As Isaac Asimov bluntly put it in a magnificent lecture delivered in Barbados in February, 1976:

"We can either control our numbers, or.....let nature increase the human death rate"

A serious marker is the fact we humans are currently consuming the equivalent resources of 1.5 Earths per year, which is clearly unsustainable. In fact, it is now approaching 1.6 Earths because of the added humans - more than eighty million per year (1 million added every 4.5 days according to Alan Weisman).   The excellent BBC documentary last year on the Earth's population (hosted by Richard Attenborough) entitled: 'How Many People Can Earth Hold?' also provided much needed realistic insights on sustainability and the planet's bio-support capacity.

Attenborough didn't pull punches or mince words, noting that every current major societal, environmental problem:  from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs to crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time it's born.  The more people generated the more CO2 produced as a result of their gobbling resources and assorted carbon footprints. While the latter are greatest in the West, because our societies are based on consumption,

By the same token, Greg Ip's idiotic complaint that the global economy will suffer from flagging population growth is based upon the market economy's over reliance on consumption - as opposed to services. It is also flat out wrong in its claims!

For example, Ip claims companies are "running out of workers". Absolutely not so!  There are an estimated 93 million unemployed or under-employed workers in toto in all the industrial (G 20)  nations and that may well be an underestimate. There are an estimated 150m - 250m unemployed workers world wide all with marketable skills. Why aren't their talents being put to use?  The answer is that capitalist market economies demand higher unemployment numbers - called the "employment rent" - a barometer used by the Federal Reserve to stave off inflation. (Alan Greenspan once stated that every 1 million unemployed workers lowers inflation by 1 percent).  Then there is the general tenet that too few unemployed workers  will drive up wage pressure. Also a goodly pool of "surplus workers" is supposed to strike fear into the existing workers not to complain too much about their jobs or one of the next 20 in line will take them. In other words, unemployment is based on FEAR in market economies.

This simply cannot hold and this attitude is unsustainable! This also applies to healthy, older workers - of whom there are tens of millions in the U.S. alone, who want work and are willing to work - not just sit in recliners watching reruns on TV all day! Why aren't these older workers being hired instead of being let go? Because of rampant ageism which the AARP has repeatedly exposed!  (This goes back to a Fortune 500 white paper that appeared in 1996 claiming that keeping workers past age 50 threatened companies with "diminishing returns". What utter bullshit!)

Hence, Ip's claim is palpable bullshit!

He also insists that companies are "running out of customers". In fact, the truth of the matter is too few companies are producing the service-based artifacts and devices that most people really need. Matching that, current wage levels don't generate the salaries needed (even for existing workers) to provide the disposable income to buy most of the durables  on offer without going into serious debt. (Subprime car loans are now among the fastest growing - totaling $30b according to the WSJ) . Hence, existing customers go for the low hanging more affordable toys such as HDTVs and Ipads etc, available on Black Fridays or at major sales.

Elderly people, since Ip complains about "lengthening life spans" -also need more and varied medical and other services. A recent AARP Bulletin report ('Caregiving in America 2015', Nov. p. 6) notes:

"An invisible army of 40 millions heroes sacrifice their days and nights to care for loved ones. It's time the nation recognized their work"

Indeed! So where the hell are the additional service workers to take over those stressful jobs or at least help them to make lives easier. THAT IS WHERE THE JOBS ARE NEEDED AND CUSTOMERS!  The piece notes that a total of "37 billion hours of unpaid caregiving worth $470 billion" is administered. Why can't companies do it and for a decent price?

Thus, Ip's whining that there is a "shift toward demand of services such as health care"  and away from durable goods - like cars and TVs - is understandable. Can't these stupid capitalists grasp that most Americans already have enough 'stuff'? What they need are more services of every variety, especially in the caregiving realm. (Not just for the elderly but also disabled younger citizens and those ravaged by serious cancers and/or cancer treatments.) There is plenty of work to go around and millions of "customers". And there will be no end to either going forward!

Ip admits (p. A14) that the population increase is indeed more than ample - up 32 percent by 2050- but the "working age" population (ages 26-64) "will only have increased 26 percent". Well, then "working age" needs to be redefined! He admits this means "working longer" or encouraging people to do so, but has absolutely no prescriptions, none, for getting companies to escape their ageist mold and hiring them.   It is obviously one thing to say people should work longer, another to ensure they can get the chance and not be discriminated against.

Contrary to Ip's obsession with durables production, we certainly don't need more stuff in our homes to end up in the massive trash piles and landfills for which we are already running out of space.  Already the inventories of unpurchased durables are so great that warehouses may not be cleared out in 2 years even if there's no further production. What we need, therefore, is a total re-orientation of jobs -including fixing our mangled infrastructure - as opposed to generating more crap to sell:  more Ipads, more Barbies, more X-boxes etc.

Besides all this, economic growth imperatives are toxic by their very nature.

As Charles Reich poignantly notes in his book, Opposing the System, Crown Books, p. 103:

"When society itself comes to be modeled on economic and organizational principles, all of the forces that bind people together are torn apart in the struggle for survival. Community is destroyed because we are no longer 'in this together' because everyone is a threat to everyone else. "

In such a capitalist-driven, consumerist organizational economic model, wherein the resource “pie” for the non-wealthy elite grows ever smaller, the young are threats to us oldsters, as we are threats to them, as neighbor is to neighbor. It can't be otherwise. This capitalist model has seen fit, in other words, to destroy our areas of commonality and common cause, replacing neutral civic space with demeaning commercial space and commercialist, market values.

Reich then describes the visceral 'dog-eat-dog', endless economic warfare that ensues between people in the never ending quest to 'make it' and not be left behind. A tragic game wherein every one, every man, woman and child has a 'market value' and all abiding principles, social or moral, are reduced to economics. Alas, the cost resides in devastated marriages, families and communities.

The capitalist driven “rupture” can occur as quickly as when your neighbor builds a large recreational pool, or puts in a hot tub, and you can’t afford one. Or when he makes a great home improvement add-on while you are left to humble by with the status quo.

By comparison, the endemic socialist, communitarian structures of Barbados or Norway (for example) promote a healthy growth of the social commonweal and the belief that what is done for the benefit of one, or a few, redounds to the benefit of all. Hence, the imperatives for government subsidized low cost housing, national health insurance for all, free education through college. The result is no one becomes hyper-rich (by virtue of the progressive, leveling tax scales), but no kid is starving when he goes to bed at night either, as shown on one CBS '60 Minutes' piece several months ago.

In the U.S. capitalist system, it is more rank commercialized competition that prevails - and that engenders a perpetual creative destruction that ravages precious resources.

IN a world in which already we are consuming the equivalent of 1.6 Earths a year, we simply can't afford more consuming inhabitants. The aim must be to continue toward a stable population policy and adapt economics to suit. Endless growth can no longer be part of the conversation or on the table. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html

And here is a more useful template for our economist friends (or economics journalists)  like Greg Ip to go by:

1) The definition of economic assets must be extended to include ecological resources, including virgin forests (what is left!) fresh, potable water, and arable land.

2) The definition of growth must be expanded to include entities/activities that are not resource-intensive. For example, let's look at reading and writing poetry, giving singing classes or physics tutorials.

3) Time must be fully exchangeable for money, thereby allowing workers to have more of it via a reasonable monetary exchange. This is especially geared to the 40 million- odd caretakers in the U.S. who currently receive no remuneration for the 37 billion hours of time they invest caring for loved ones - saving the gov't $470 b a year.

Earth Day Alert: The Biggest Problem Remains Over-Population

Today, Earth Day, behooves all of us to give serious consideration to alleviating the horrific problems that plague our world, and threaten to make it uninhabitable in a very short term. At the root of all the problems, including fouled water, polluted air and soil, melting glaciers, severe crowding - not to mention mass panic migrations (such as claimed over 850 lives this week) is overpopulation..

Already multiple lines of research are questioning the UN estimates that project a global population of 10.9 billion by 2100. If, however, women - mainly in the poorest nations and without access to contraceptives, have even 0.5 more offspring each  (than projected)  that 2100 estimate could turn into 12.3 billion or even 15.8 billion. The latter pointing to a certain 'Soylent Green' world. Meanwhile, Adrian Rafferty of the University of Washington, publishing in a recent issue of Science, computed there's an 80 percent probability that world population - now 7.3 billion - will increase to between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion by 2100.  I personally don't buy into that, firmly convinced - as Isaac Asimov once pointed out in a Barbados lecture, e.g.

Isaac Asimov makes a crucial point  concerning overpopulation and carrying capacity at his Queen's Park Lecture in Barbados, on Feb. 6, 1976. He argued  that we either control our numbers ourselves, or nature will do it for us.

That assorted life-destroying forms of blowback (new diseases, mass starvation, antibiotic failure, disasters, wars) will limit that to the carrying capacity by that date. So we may well see only 3 or at most 4 billion inhabiting Earth by then. As Asimov bluntly put it:

"We can either control our numbers, or.....let nature increase the human death rate"

A serious marker is the fact we humans are currently consuming the equivalent resources of 1.5 Earths per year, which is clearly unsustainable. In fact, it is now approaching 1.6 Earths because of the added humans - more than eighty million per year (1 million added every 4.5 days according to Alan Weisman).   The excellent BBC documentary last year on the Earth's population (hosted by Richard Attenborough) entitled: 'How Many People Can Earth Hold?' also provided much needed realistic insights on sustainability and the planet's bio-support capacity.

Attenborough didn't pull punches or mince words, noting that every current major societal, environmental problem:  from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs to crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time it's born.  The more people generated the more CO2 produced as a result of their gobbling resources and assorted carbon footprints. While the latter are greatest in the West, because our societies are based on consumption, the lesser footprints also matter in the sense that wars, tribal unrest and religious wars can result in millions fleeing their home nations and disrupting the balance of life in those countries fled to.

Of all the resources, the most critical is water because no one can live without it for very long. Even now, 1 billion people live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita. One notable ‘State of the World’ report (2000, pp. 46-47), warned that the ever increasing water deficits will likely spark “water wars” by 2025. As one Mexican water-truck driver observes on the BBC special (while making his rounds in Mexico City): "Not very long from now, we will see wars over water. It will be more important than oil. Even now, we can see how little people think of it and how much they waste it". Indeed!

Attenborough reinforces this observation by noting the water intensity of the various beverages, foods we produce. For example, merely to produce one cup of coffee requires the consumption of 120 liters of water. To get a single can of beer requires 150 liters, and to obtain that 'Big Mac' or quarter pounder takes some 8,000 liters.

And we won't even get into fracking for oil shale, given that each well fracked requires up to 5 million gallons of freshwater which is then despoiled for further use after being re-evacuated as "brine"..If 10 million frack wells are projected world wide by 2020 (according to T. Boone Pickens) then you can do the math and figure out that means 4  million gallons (on average)  x 10 million wells = 40 TRILLION gallons of water lost for human consumption - in a world already running dry from climate change.

Obviously, there is a link between fracking and population since the more people there are the more energy is needed to support them. Whether driving their cars, or using planes for trans-national business, or even their computers. (And we won't even go into how much electronic waste is generated each year by sheer obsolescence.)

There is also the issue of the carrying capacity, or rather the bio-support capacity of the planet. If one divides the total output of bio-productivity (determined in terms of food crops generated per hectare, water volume per hectare, etc.) and divides that by the population, one can get some idea. One expert (seen on the BBC documentary) has calculated that based on his models - if we wanted a planet with equally shared bio-productive output - each human would get TWO hectares. If we inhabited such a world, then the planet might support 15 billion people. One could get this to eighteen billion if one reduced the hectare average to 0.5 per person, or about that for each Rwandan.

The reality is that the bio-productive output is not equal, and using a map of the world, Attenborough showed the divergences, with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average USA person is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair, equal apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. According to Attenborough's expert, by this reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people.

Population Pollyannas might argue, 'Well, no problem, just get everyone to reduce to Rwandan hectare consumption level'.  Right, and if you can show me any practical way that would be politically implemented I have a patch of beach in Barbados for you - for free!

There are, of course, more draconian solutions that have been used in over-populated nations, such as India and China. In the former, forced sterilization saw nearly 8 million males sterilized during Indira Gandhi's reign but that had to be stopped on account of massive public outcry. Then China, trying to escape from its famine-ravaged past,  enacted "one child only" laws with serious sanctions. While people may seethe at such a law, they enabled China to achieve economic superpower status within a generation and now compete directly with the U.S. As Attenborough notes, if that law hadn't been enacted China would now have 400 million additional people and still be at the mercy of famine from too few grains, foods or ability to import them. Nor would it have the military and civilian infrastructure it displays today - including for alternative energy.

The U.S. doesn't need such draconian methods-  yet-   only minor tweaks to its tax code. Taking away the child tax credit, or having a sliding scale of increased taxes when people have more than 2 children, while giving credits when they adopt more kids in need is one possibility. The problem is, the U.S. is already overpopulated in terms of the resources it can deliver for 315 million people.

How much do you know about population-related issues? Test yourself with this quiz:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/quiz/2013/nov/07/development-data-population-quiz-hans-rosling

Today is World Population Day- How Much Do You Know?

Today, July 11th, is designated World Population Day, with the objective to focus global citizens' attention on an unsustainable growth of human numbers beyond the planet's carrying capacity.

The carrying capacity basically means the ability of the planet's resources to sustain existing human numbers. Estimates in the past have run from 2 billion (Isaac Asimov - in his 1976 Barbados lecture) to 3 billion (Richard Heinberg). In any case if human numbers are now approaching 7.5 billion we are way over in any case. 

Another marker is the fact we are currently consuming the equivalent resources of 1.5 Earths per year, which is clearly unsustainable. The excellent BBC documentary on the Earth's population (hosted by Richard Attenborough) entitled: 'How Many People Can Earth Hold?' also provides much needed realistic insights on sustainability and the planet's bio-support capacity.

Attenborough doesn't pull punches or mince words, noting that every current major societal, environmental problem:  from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs to crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time it's born.

Of all the resources, the most critical is water because no one can live without it for very long. Even now, 1 billion people live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita. One notable ‘State of the World’ report (2000, pp. 46-47), warned that the ever increasing water deficits will likely spark “water wars” by 2025. As one Mexican water-truck driver observes on the BBC special (while making his rounds in Mexico City): "Not very long from now, we will see wars over water. It will be more important than oil. Even now, we can see how little people think of it and how much they waste it". Indeed!

Attenborough reinforces this observation by noting the water intensity of the various beverages, foods we produce. For example, merely to produce one cup of coffee requires the consumption of 120 liters of water. To get a single can of beer requires 150 liters, and to obtain that 'Big Mac' or quarter pounder takes some 8,000 liters.

And we won't even get into fracking, with each well fracked requiring up to 5 million gallons of freshwater which is then despoiled for further use. If 10 million frack wells are projected world wide by 2020 (according to T. Boone Pickens in a recent CBS Early Show appearance) then you can do the math and figure out that means 4  million gallons (on average)  x 10 million wells = 40 TRILLION gallons of water lost for human consumption - in a world already running dry from climate change.

The program also  brings up the issue of how to compute the carrying capacity, or rather the bio-support capacity of the planet. If one divides the total output of bio-productivity (determined in terms of food crops generated per hectare, water volume per hectare, etc.) and divide that by the population, one can get some idea. One expert to whom Attenborough turned calculated that based on his models - if we wanted a planet with equally shared bio-productive output - each human would get TWO hectares. If we inhabited such a world, then the planet might support 15 billion people. One could get this to eighteen billion if one reduced the hectare average to 0.5 per person, or about that for each Rwandan.

The reality is that the bio-productive output is not equal, and using a map of the world, Attenborough shows the divergences, what with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average USA person is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair, equal apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. According to Attenborough's expert, by this reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people.

Population Pollyannas might argue, 'Well, no problem, just get everyone to reduce to Rwandan hectare consumption level'.  Right, and if you can show me any way that would be politically implemented I have a patch of beach in Barbados for you - for free!

Attenborough then presents some of the more draconian solutions that have been used in over-populated nations, such as India and China. In the first, forced sterilization saw nearly 8 million males sterilized during Indira Gandhi's reign but that had to be stopped on account of massive public outcry. Then China, trying to escape from its famine-ravaged past enacted "one child only" laws with serious sanctions. While people may seethe at such a law, they enabled China to achieve economic superpower status within a generation and now compete directly with the U.S. As Attenborough notes, if that law hadn't been enacted China would now have 400 million additional people and still be at the mercy of famine from too few grains, foods or ability to import them. Nor would it have the military and civilian infrastructure it displays today - including for alternative energy.

The U.S. doesn't need such draconian methods, only minor changes for example in its tax code. Taking away the child tax credit, or having a sliding scale of increased taxes when people have more children, while giving credits when they adopt more kids in need. The problem is, the U.S. is already overpopulated in terms of the resources it can deliver for 310 million people. Illegal immigration from already overpopulated nations in Central America is making it worse, since each of them will likely adopt consumptive U.S. habits.

How much do you know about population-related issues? Test yourself with this pop quiz of 8 questions:

http://www.populationconnection.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pop_quiz

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/56979/we-are-too-many-los-angeles-as-a-preview-of-what-was-to-come

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/06/needed-prevent-2-billion-births-by-2050.html

A Glimpse of What Our Future, Overpopulated World WIll Look Like

Yesterday evening, my niece Heidi - an RN in Arizona-  sent me a link to a video that must be seen to be believed. It shows 'rush hour in Dhaka at the time of Ramadan'  (2 1/2 months ago) but could equally be a preview of what our world's largest cities will look like - in NORMAL  periods- in 40 years when the population tops 10 billion. You can see the video here:

http://safeshare.tv/w/vwncRciSFb

Note especially the traffic congestion, the piling into buses, literally crawling over one another to secure whatever small space available. Note also the congestion in the streets and the mass motion to get to destinations.  Again, this could very well be the normal scene in the planet's largest cities including, Dhaka, Mumbai, Jakarta, Tokyo, Lagos, Beijing, and even London and New York.

Richard Attenborough, in his BBC documentary entitled: 'How Many People Can Earth Hold?',  pulls no punches in his assessments. He observes that every current major societal, environmental problem- from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs to crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time it's born.

Of all the resources, the most critical is water because no one can live without it for very long. Even now, 1 billion people live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita. One notable ‘State of the World’ report (2000, pp. 46-47), warned that the ever increasing water deficits will likely spark “water wars” by 2025. The situation is likely to be exacerbated by the fracking mania which is rendering millions of cubic feet of water useless for humans after it's been used for releasing natural gas and oil from underground deposits.

Attenborough reinforces this observation by noting the water intensity of the various beverages, foods we produce. For example, merely to produce one cup of coffee requires the consumption of 120 liters of water. To get a single can of beer requires 150 liters, and to obtain that 'Big Mac' or quarter pounder takes some 8,000 liters! All of this is water that could be put to better use, if changes were made in our highly consumptive diets.


Can this world be averted? This is an especially apt question given the most recent UN Climate Report noting that it is a near certainty that humans are the primary causative agents for global warming. It is even of more pressing concern, giving the enhanced effect of CO2 absorption by the oceans - converting them into carbonic acid (H2 CO3).  This is even now dramatically affecting the viability of sea life, including corals, crustaceans and varieties of fish.

What steps can be taken?

Attenborough brings up the "one child only" law in China. While people may seethe at such a law, it enabled China to achieve economic superpower status within a generation and now compete directly with the U.S. As Attenborough notes, if that law hadn't been enacted China would now have 400 million additional people and still be at the mercy of famine from too few grains, foods or ability to import them.

The U.S. doesn't need such draconian methods, only minor changes for example in its tax code. Taking away the child tax credit, or having a sliding scale of increased taxes when people have more children, while giving credits when they adopt more kids in need. The problem is, the U.S. is already overpopulated in terms of the resources it can deliver for 315 million people.

We also need to target and fight against the spurious arguments that we need to have more people in order to pay for what the Right called "entitlements". No we do not, we need more judicious use of our existing economic resources and their allocation. A good start would be to cut the Pentagon budget by 50% and use that money to shore up Social Security and Medicare. The only reason these huge budgets remain is because certain communities - like Colorado Springs- have become dependent on the federal tax teat at the expense of other communities (the majority) which lack military bases.

There is still time to alter the course toward a nightmare world, but it isn't infinite. If we don't begin to act now, we will pay dearly later - all of us - even if we don't live in the most densely populated areas or cities. We will experience the shortages of food, fuel, much higher prices, as well as shortages and blackouts, attendant on a population beyond carrying capacity.