Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
The Libertarian Party is much like pornography, trying to find any redeeming social value in it is problematic.
What should a scientist think about religion?
Vertebral variation, Hox genes, development, and cancer
Modules and the promise of the evo-devo research program
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
« Dr Who? Dr Dawkins! | Main | Connections »
Category: Environment
Posted on: June 30, 2008 7:44 AM, by PZ Myers
If you've got an hour, this conversation between Carl Zimmer and Paul Ehrlich is well worth listening to. Ehrlich has a somewhat controversial reputation as an ecological Cassandra…but remember, Cassandra was right.
Comments
Not only was Cassandra right, people never listened to her.
Posted by: Zeno | June 30, 2008 8:10 AM
That is, I think, the point.
Posted by: Token | June 30, 2008 8:20 AM
'The Population Bomb" aside, it is obvious that several of his forecasts are with us today and will only worsen if there are no sensible methods taken. Six billion people are too many for our planet's diminishing resources and it will deteriorate. do you know that it takes 100 acres of woods to make one mile of highway? One hundred acres of oxygen producing plants, the animals that live in those woods, and the ascetic and ecological value, gone, to support an ever increasing needless population. I am not an alarmist over this matter, but just a realist who sees and understands the obvious consequences. His book will certainly be worth a read and thoughtful consideration.
Posted by: Holbach | June 30, 2008 8:21 AM
Any transcripts?
Deaf people know Greek mythology too, you know :)
Posted by: joseph | June 30, 2008 8:21 AM
When most of the people believe there's a magic spirit sky daddy looking out for them, that loves them, (despite all the evil in the world), & they wouldn't know what theodicy means, it's no feckin' wonder that the edjits are barely aware that the survival of our species, (in numbers beyond a few percent of present population), is very much in the balance. And those few that do survive will likely be sent back to a new stone age.
Posted by: Richard Harris | June 30, 2008 8:29 AM
What's that Dr. Ehrlich is drinking? Or more to the point, is that the first and last time he's using that container?
Posted by: Dan Jensen | June 30, 2008 8:31 AM
One thing from the comments. I think a lot of these people are living in an imaginary world. See below:
All well and good. Except in the 1970's and 1980's millions of people DID starve to death, nothing was done, and radical action is still needed. From Wikipedia:
So: still not hundreds of millions, true. But most of these famines took place in third-world countries with arguably lousy population tracking. And of course there's governmental pride. Look at the disparity between recorded deaths and admitted deaths by our government. *sigh*
Just way too irked by deniers seeking every tiny little straw to push away the reality of global warming.
Posted by: Joseph | June 30, 2008 8:33 AM
As a friend of mine used to say: "Malthus has been proven wrong. So far."
Natural population controls will eventually kick in. They're called "starvation" and "plague" - by making ourselves more resistant to the latter, we choose the former.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 30, 2008 8:46 AM
Joseph (#7):
Many of the famines you listed were the result of the political decisions made by deranged dictators (Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Il-sung), not by natural disasters.
Sure, droughts have killed millions in Africa, but politics has killed tens of millions.
Posted by: David Harper | June 30, 2008 8:53 AM
Joseph writes:
All well and good. Except in the 1970's and 1980's millions of people DID starve to death, nothing was done, and radical action is still needed.
Actually, something was done - by a guy named Norman Borlaug. Depending on how you want to count it, Borlaug can be credited for saving more lives than any other human in history, by helping extend human's food-growing capacity.*
There are basically three ways this can play itself out:
- collapse and cull
- incremental improvements in food technology allow us to continue layering population growth
- mankind gets its head out of its collective ass and gently begins to reduce its population
Neither of the first two is fun and the third seems amazingly unlikely.
Meanwhile, as David points out, starvation is a popular weapon used by government to suppress people. Unfortunately, I'll bet that if global warming begins causing pressure on marginal governments, they'll resort to it more and more.
(* This is why someone needs to slap da fool Prince Charles of England whenever he says he wants there to be no genetically modified crops. If it weren't for the already genetically modified crops that people have been eating for decades, there would have been massive food shortages all over the world.)
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 30, 2008 9:02 AM
David @ # 9, & it'll likely be politics, (poisoned by religion), that'll therefore kill most of the human population. And if it happens, I think there's a good chance that human civilization will never recover. We'll have missed the wonderful destiny, the product of the Enlightenmnet, that we might've achieved
Posted by: Richard Harris | June 30, 2008 9:03 AM
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here in the past, but Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts is a neglected but very solid book on the huge famines of the later 19th century. From Publishers Weekly:
For some reason, it lacks a real conclusion, but it should definitely be of use to anyone with an interest in the interplay between natural forces and political action in creating famines. It's on Google Books.
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 9:15 AM
No! That's impossible! Such an insignificant creature as the human being cannot possibly have any impact on the environment.
/shameless plug
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | June 30, 2008 9:20 AM
Ah, another Borlaug reference, another occasion for me to replay my comment from April:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2000/lecture5.shtml
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=698
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 9:22 AM
Joseph,
The quote claims Ehrlich predicted 100's of millions dead in the 70's and 80's and you just came up with 70 million in the whole century. I think it is fair to say that his predictions were both inaccurate and imprecise. Ehrlich is an embarrassment to working ecologists because he makes quantitative claims well beyond our ability to justify them.
There is a lot of room between anti-environmental ostriches and catastrophe driven Chicken Littles. Joel Cohen's ("How many people can the earth support?") and Jared Diamond's book are both much more reasoned approaches. We don't all have to die to suffer the consequences of resource overuse. As others have pointed out, much of the problems with food still are a result of political and economic decisions about how to divide resources, not result of real scarcity.
Posted by: James | June 30, 2008 9:28 AM
Andrés Diplotti @ #13,
Is that your work?
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 9:35 AM
"Malthus has been proven wrong. So far." Neither of the first two is fun and the third [gentle reduction of population] seems amazingly unlikely. - Marcus Ranum
Malthus thought people would produce as many children as they could possibly obtain the food to rear. He was wrong. Human decisions about how many children to have are a lot more complicated than that.
Since the 1960s, the number of children per women has fallen sharply in almost every country, and the proportional rate of population increase per annum has fallen from about 2.4% to about 1.2%. Since around 2000 global population growth has probably been slightly sub-linear. In some rich countries (most notably Japan), birthrates are now so low that population will shortly begin to fall quite fast. Total world population is predicted to peak at between 9 and 11 billion, around mid-century, if current trends continue, then decline.
None of the above means population growth isn't a problem, but we also know what to do to speed the fall in birthrates:
1) Move people from rural to urban areas. This is happening, and we couldn't stop it even if we wanted to, but we could make cities much more liveable for the poor moving to them.
2) Improve the status of women, above all by educating girls, undermining religion, and making micro-credit available.
3) Improve access to contraception and abortion - again, religion (specifically Catholicism) is a key obstacle.
The over-emphasis on population, of which the Ehrlichs' earlier work is a good example (I haven't looked at the interview yet), is a good way of distracting attention from the gross inequalities that have been directly or indirectly responsible for all for significant famines since 1900 at least; and the fact that it is overwhelmingly the rich (us) who are responsible for the unsustainable use of resources, including the planet's ability to cope with pollution.
This is why someone needs to slap da fool Prince Charles of England whenever he says he wants there to be no genetically modified crops. - Marcus Ranum
Whether you agree with his view or not, Charlie is talking about something very different from the techniques Borlaug and others used: the introduction of specific genes using biotechnology methods that were simply not available in the 1970s and 1980s. While the "green revolution" undoubtedly increased yields, it also worked against many small farmers who could not afford the fertilisers and pesticides the new crop strains needed - one reason why there are still more malnourished children in India than in Africa (where the green revolution had little impact), as small farmers became landless labourers. The key objection to current agricultural biotechnology is that it is almost entirely aimed at concentrating control over food supplies in the hands of a few large corporations - not at "feeding the poor" as the PR would have you believe. Large increases in yield for poor farmers can be achieved by very simple methods: small amounts of artificial fertiliser, more efficient stoves (so they can use their animals' manure as fertiliser not fuel) simple tools, better storage and transport facilities, probably biochar.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 9:37 AM
'ehrlich' is german for 'honest'...
Posted by: Alcyon | June 30, 2008 9:58 AM
I think this is true, but I think the take-away lesson is not that we need fewer people, but that we need more resources... which means, more planets.
Managing our existing resources won't do the trick: No matter how efficient we are, if we continue to grow, we'll eventually outstrip the planet's true carrying capacity (as an aside, I think that point is farther out in the future than many doomsayers... but it's out there nonetheless). Expecting us to not continue growing isn't realistic, either: The vast majority of population growth comes from cultures and regions that have yet to fully enjoy the benefits of a first-world middle-class (which is to say, resource-intensive) lifestyle. It's both unfair and naive to expect those cultures to voluntarily give up their own hopes of modernization so that the rest of us (distinctly in the majority) can continue to enjoy the lives they would never have. Generally, I think humans expect a continuing trend of more people living better lives... and I don't think that's an undesirable expectation. What else should a species hope for for itself (esp. the only species, as far as we know, that is capable of forming those sorts of abstract, forward-looking hopes and dreams)?
Of course, there are plenty of possible nonvoluntary checks on our growth — the Malthusian resets of plague, famine, and war — but they're hardly things we should hope for. But all this is based on the assumption that the resource pool is fixed; I say we need to stop thinking that way: If we start thinking of the whole Solar System, rather than just this planet, as our home, the time horizon for resource saturation changes radically.
I'm not suggesting some sci-fi movie scenario of space lifeboats ferrying masses of humanity off-planet just ahead of species-wide disaster: That just doesn't stand up to any sort of rigorous analysis. But if we start now thinking about bringing resources (solar power, platinum for catalyst applications, He3 for potential fusion applications) from space to Earth and simultaneously beginning to create infrastructure for off-Earth human populations, then just maybe we'll have enough of a relief valve to stave off Malthusian resource wars.
And, of course, by the time (millennia hence) we have to start talking about having depleted all the exploitable resources of the Solar System... I have no doubt humanity will have spread to the stars.
Sorry for the propellor-beanie geek-out here... but I don't see wagging our collective fingers at folks, asking them to back their frickin' lifestyle up a couple hundred years is either plausible or desirable.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 30, 2008 10:02 AM
Yes, it is.
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | June 30, 2008 10:10 AM
Where Malthus went wrong is in assuming that agriculture technology and food production per acre (or hectare for those using the wrong measurement system :>)) is static. It wasn't and yields have been steadily increasing over time.
Where Erlich went wrong and he was wrong about the famines of the late 20th century, was in calculating how much food the earth could produce. Some calculations I've seen indicate that with state of the art agriculture, the earth could support up to 12 billion people. Whether the planet should and whether this is sustainable is another question.
It doesn't look like food is the problem anyway. Our technological civilization is based on cheap fossil fuels. We are quite likely at or near Peak Oil. There is uncertainty since one never knows where the top is until you are on the other side and looking back.
The other potential problem is environmental degradation. Some ecologists think we have been mining the life support system rather than using it and we will have an overshoot and a die off some day. For myself, I don't believe there is enough data to say one way or another and we will just have to find out, perhaps the hard way.
Posted by: raven | June 30, 2008 10:12 AM
Yes, it is.
Really well done. Please keep on plugging! (and please forgive the lame Monday-morning pun)
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 10:18 AM
raven,
What's good, in terms of taking action, is that these problems are all related. So if we can, say, move away from industrial agriculture, we'll make a huge dent in oil use and promote environmental recovery; conservation efforts will create and maintain better conditions for food production; etc.
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 10:24 AM
It doesn't look like food is the problem anyway. Our technological civilization is based on cheap fossil fuels. We are quite likely at or near Peak Oil.
Our current food production and distribution systems are heavily oil-dependent. That doesn't mean we can't feed 12 billion people - but we certainly can't do it without major changes. A large-scale shift away from meat and dairy among the rich is likely to be essential, for one thing, and far more production for local use. Fortunately, peak oil should itself encourage at least some of the necessary changes.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 10:31 AM
Fluid Dynamics is easy, population forecasts are difficult
Differential equations are not for English Majors
Posted by: scooter | June 30, 2008 10:34 AM
Marcus: we British who host the Royal family (in the sense of a host/parasite relationship) have gone beyond wanting to inflict physical violence on the gentlemen.
His Ma clearly thinks he is barking and suspect will not stand down to give him a crack at Kinging while there is a breath in her body. Her Ma (The Qeuen Mother) lived to 102 thanks to the theraputic properties of gin drunk in heroic quantities, so this Queen probably has another 20 years in her making Charles either 79 or dead by the time the present Queen (Gawd blesser!) karks it.
Charles looks a reduced, grey, disappointed figure whom I suspect knows will never wear the crown.
Anyway Charles is Prince of Wales. He's bugger all to do with us English. They're welcome to him: he's very into his Woo.
Posted by: Peter Mc | June 30, 2008 10:37 AM
Differential equations create English majors! At least, that's how it worked in my case. (BA English, 1981; MA English/Creative Writing, 1984; MS Space Studies, 2003)
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 30, 2008 10:50 AM
SC writes:
What's good, in terms of taking action, is that these problems are all related. So if we can, say, move away from industrial agriculture, we'll make a huge dent in oil use and promote environmental recovery; conservation efforts will create and maintain better conditions for food production; etc
These problems are all related, and at the crux of all of them is population. Greenhouse gas emissions, conversion of forest to farmland, fossil fuel consumption, electrical demand, etc -- all are directly impacted by population and population growth. The song "conservation" sounds really nice but any gains from conservation will rapidly be eradicated by population growth, unless there are highly unlikely and gigantic improvements elsewhere in the system. Put differently: if mankind managed to get a sustainable space alien fusion energy source (cheap clean free safe energy) the result would not be a better standard of living for everyone, which is what many people seem to expect, but instead we'd just get more humans.
There's probably some game theory/evolutionary explanation for why it is that everyone is comfortable limiting someone else's population growth but secretly covets that limitation as an opportunity to increase their niche.
If humans were rational, they'd recognize this as a matter of species survival and skip a couple breeding cycles, abandon 2 or 3 continents to revert to nature, and drop our population to something reasonable but very low. At that point humankind'd be able to last a very long time and there'd be plenty of surplus, etc. It just seems so damn obvious to me.
..But then I'm a misanthrope who particularly dislikes children. :)
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 30, 2008 10:59 AM
Yeah, that Malthus guy, that Ehrlich guy, they're all wrong, wrong, wrong. Ha-ha! Why just look at all the stuff those guys got wrong! I'm so glad we can point at them and laugh.
I think it was Thomas Sowell who said the entire population of the earth could fit inside the state of Texas, with room for a house and yard for each family. I ran the figures and he was right.
Of course, there wouldn't be enough room for all the farms needed to grow food for those people, or the stores to buy stuff from, the bauxite mines for aluminum, the forests for lumber, the parks and wildernesses for recreation, the oceanic fishing grounds for seafood, the electrical generation plants, the roads and rivers and railroads and wires to deliver all this stuff, or for schools, hospitals, factories, dairies, meat markets, cattle pastures, government buildings, churches, entertainment facilities and on and on and on.
I read a piece in the local paper about a guy who tried the 30-day experiment of cutting his energy consumption by half. He succeeded. The article was hopeful and optimistic, the writer pointing out that we CAN do something to save the earth.
What he didn't notice, in the midst of his happy crowing, was that in that month, 10 million more humans arrived on planet Earth.
There's not enough room or food or resources on the whole planet for 6.5 billion people, much less the supertanker-load of new ones pulling into port every day, and our only solution seem to be conservation and recycling ... which simply can't work if population continues to soar. It's like bailing out a canoe with a teaspoon, when there's a bucket-sized hole in the hull to refill it.
Sitting here at our computers commenting about this, all glib and confident and rich, with nothing but distant images of starvation and shortage in our heads to clue us in, I begin to suspect that none of us are even capable of realizing just how screwed we are, or of how fast it's getting worse.
Like every child star you ever heard of who made millions in his/her glory days but wound up broke as an adult, we're burning through our wealth like ... well, like there's no tomorrow.
Posted by: Hank Fox | June 30, 2008 11:07 AM
I don't think there's a correlation between population size and plagues or pandemics.
The really nasty plagues that swept Europe and Asia were a direct result of the Mongol Conquest, and the re-opening of the Silk Road trade routes which spread the thing around.
The most recent was the 1918 flu pandemic which spread rapidly because WWI was on and people were traveling like crazy to go kill each.
That thing was a mofo. The flu itself was not particularly lethal, but it caused an over-reaction by the immune system in about 10% of those infected. Death was excruciating with blood running from every orifice, including the eyes. However, from onset to death was typically 1 day.
It targeted healthy people, young males with strong immune systems were the hardest hit.
Those nasty type flus seem to show up about every hundred years, and we're overdue.
This time around it is going to be quite a hideous wave of world wide death.
Have a Nice Day!!
Posted by: scooter | June 30, 2008 11:07 AM
The song "conservation" sounds really nice but any gains from conservation will rapidly be eradicated by population growth, unless there are highly unlikely and gigantic improvements elsewhere in the system.
Population growth is slowing (in proportional terms, has been doing so for forty years), and we know how to encourage that process. Your pessimism, on this matter at least, is not supported by the evidence.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 11:09 AM
Charlie is talking about something very different from the techniques Borlaug and others used: the introduction of specific genes using biotechnology methods that were simply not available in the 1970s and 1980s.
I understand that - but is there a real difference??
I find it mega-ironic that a failed experiment in controlled breeding (a member of the British royal family) - is complaining about intelligently designed new foods... Or, is that it - do you think he's maybe just jealous? ;)
There are some aspects of some GM crops that horrify me - deliberately producing versions of food that are going to lock farmers into having to effectively license them on an annual basis, etc. An example of the ruthlessness of capitalism in its worst form. The rich get richer and the poor get screwed; nothing new here.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 30, 2008 11:13 AM
#20 Andre
BRAVO !! good one!!
Posted by: scooter | June 30, 2008 11:15 AM
It's not quite that bad. The USA would be at or below zero population growth if it wasn't for immigration, mostly from Mexico.
Parts of Europe and Japan are at or below zero population growth. Even Australia is facing ZPG and they are trying to increast their birth rate.
The data is clear. Wealthy, urban, industrialized societies decide there is more to life than producing babies with an uncertain future ahead of them.
Posted by: raven | June 30, 2008 11:19 AM
Peter Mc #26- given that the title Prince of Wales was created by an English King who liked killing Welshmen, as a way of cementing his rule by appearing to give the Welsh a link to the royal family, as it were, your final sentence is a bit wrong.
Posted by: guthrie | June 30, 2008 11:21 AM
Population growth is slowing (in proportional terms, has been doing so for forty years), and we know how to encourage that process.
I didn't realize it was happening in the more populated parts of the world, too; so mark me "schooled" while I go update what I thought I knew on that topic.
I thought the deal was that countries like Sweden and Japan were having negative population growth but, so what, those are relatively small populations to begin with. If humanity is actually managing to rein itself in, that's very very good news because I just don't see any way that'd work otherwise.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 30, 2008 11:22 AM
Population control is important, of course, and as Nick Gotts has pointed out above, doable (and happening). But I disagree that population itself has effects, beyond the most basic level, that are not powerfully mediated by our choices and actions. There's no biological imperative, for example, to consume in the way we do in the US. Moreover, I question the proposition that the "first-world middle-class (which is to say, resource-intensive) lifestyle" (to quote Bill Dauphin) is desired by all; I think this is more a conceit of growth-above-all neoliberal propaganda. Rather, it is increasingly recognized that this lifestyle doesn't necessarily bring happiness or health (micronutrient malnutrition and obesity are major problems in rich countries built around industrial agriculture, alongside other major issues). At the same time, I believe recognition is growing that this unsustainable, polluting, resource-sucking culture is a crime against the rest of the planet, and people are fighting back. Will the changes that are necessary come about without large-scale struggle? I don't know. But while control of our numbers is crucial, control of our actions is feasible and potentially more effective.
- SC (not a misanthrope)
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 11:24 AM
You're probably right to suggest that as a rational solution... but it's not emotionally realistic.
Yah, and if your attitude were typical throughout the species, we would never have survived long enough/increased enough in numbers to be having this conversation.
It's not just about liking children, either: To think radical reductions in population — plus radical descoping of human lifestyles — is a culturally sustainable solution for our species' future, you have to imagine a whole world full of people who don't really like people very much. IMHO, species-wide self-loathing is not a viable long-term strategy, even if it would enable some quantitatively effective changes.
This is not to say I'm opposed to asking people to make sacrifices in order to protect the future — indeed, I think it's essential that we do so — rather, I think it's unrealistic to ask people to sacrifice in order to protect a future that strikes them as less worthy than the present. Instead, in order to motivate sacrifice, you have to show people their sacrifice is in service of a more abundant future.
Ultimately, I believe, it won't be doomsayers like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement who will save humanity; it will be people who can persuasively make the case that a much more exciting and abundant future is possible if we're only careful and smart and judicious in the present.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 30, 2008 11:29 AM
Ehrlich is a case study in trying to do implicit cost benefit analysis by only counting costs and ignoring benefits.
Economists have a name for this sort of behavior: crap.
Posted by: Bad | June 30, 2008 11:34 AM
This is not to say I'm opposed to asking people to make sacrifices in order to protect the future -- indeed, I think it's essential that we do so -- rather, I think it's unrealistic to ask people to sacrifice in order to protect a future that strikes them as less worthy than the present. Instead, in order to motivate sacrifice, you have to show people their sacrifice is in service of a more abundant future.
That's a really good way of putting it!!!
I think one of the big problems with the current environmentalism is that it's making an appeal to sacrifice for an unforseeable future - and a lot of people (read: most of the developing world) are going to think "not until I get mine." While I can be semi-facetious and say "humans should skip a few breeding cycles" it's about as realistic as expecting that the population of China is going to look at the insane wealth of tchotchkes we have over here and turn their backs on them in favor of an eco-friendly society.
Could we agree that picking a safe path through the future is a global problem? If so, the first thing that's got to go is nationalism, because virtually every sustainable path forward entails scrapping national soverignty (good!) Ultimately, the only way to make everyone wealthy, high-tech, entails massive wealth redistribution. I'd sooner try to take a nice tasty treat from an adult male chimpanzee than I'd try to take assets from the wealthy power elite. And you can see exactly how well that's working. I.e.: it's not.
(PS - no, I didn't expect people would do the rational thing, or even the smart thing. That's why I fully expect humanity will join the fossil record in fairly short order.)
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 30, 2008 11:43 AM
I question the broad characterization of social changes as unpalatable "sacrifices." Again, I think that the dishonesty of the propaganda of consumerism-"growth" has been revealing itself for some time now, and people are looking more positively at alternative paths, as well as to visions of a future that are radically different without being bleak or dystopic. Part of the problem may be that people aren't generally aware or appreciative of what's happening on these fronts in other countries (India, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia,...). The resistance to any such efforts on the part of the rich is and will continue to be fierce, but they will continue.
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 11:56 AM
Yeah, that Malthus guy, that Ehrlich guy, they're all wrong, wrong, wrong. - Hank Fox
Er, well yes, they were. Should we not say so?
What he didn't notice, in the midst of his happy crowing, was that in that month, 10 million more humans arrived on planet Earth. Hank Fox
Where is your 10 million figure from? That's slightly low for births, but considerably too high for population increase (people do die as well as get born). According to the Population Reference Bureau (http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HasGlobalGrowthReachedItsPeak.aspx
yearly increase in population, in absolute terms, peaked at around 87 million in 1990, and in 2002 was down to slightly below 80 million. No cause for complacency, but none for despair either.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 12:00 PM
Marcus Ranum @ # 10: Borlaug can be credited for saving more lives than any other human in history, by helping extend human's food-growing capacity.*
C'mon, all Borlaug did was figure out how to turn petroleum into grains. As noted above, we're getting low on petroleum now: arguably all the "Green Revolution" did was postpone Ehrlich's doomsday - and make it much worse (and even more subject to political manipulations).
*... someone needs to slap da fool Prince Charles of England whenever he says he wants there to be no genetically modified crops.
Your other comments are politically astute, so it's particularly odd to see you echoing corporate propaganda here. (Okay, I'm not aware of any mega-corps promoting the bitch-slapping of Mr. Windsor. But the supercrops spiel is pure agribiz...)
Likewise, your comments indicate you have a grasp of basic evolutionary principles, which theoretically translate into elementary ecological logic. Here's a hint: GM crops = massive monocultures, overwhelming reduction in genetic diversity, huge vulnerability to diseases & pests. (The dietary alarms heard from the newagers are a red herring; dismissing those seems to have successfully distracted the pro-science crowd.)
Malthus, like Darwin, missed a lot of clues and has been largely superceded - but was not, all in all, wrong. I very much doubt that we'll see that projected 11 gigapeople peak and gentle decline that some very optimistic demographers project.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 30, 2008 12:13 PM
Thank you, Nick. When the theater catches fire, and you stand up to shout "Fire!", it's extremely important that one's pitch and intonation are perfect, and that you carefully explain the full nuances and details of the fire, getting your facts (such as the temperature, combustion products and rate of spread) correct.
Also, as everyone files calmly toward the exits, it's important to ignore those people who point out that they're blocked. They don't have all the facts, and their unnecessarily pessimistic attitude is unworthy of civilized people.
The fire, if there is a fire, is still rows and rows away. Plenty of time.
Posted by: Hank Fox | June 30, 2008 12:21 PM
Could we agree that picking a safe path through the future is a global problem? If so, the first thing that's got to go is nationalism, because virtually every sustainable path forward entails scrapping national soverignty (good!) - Marcus Ranum
Agreed!
Ultimately, the only way to make everyone wealthy, high-tech, entails massive wealth redistribution.
Agreed again! Very difficult, but not necessarily impossible. The strongest point in our favour is that, objectively, everyone who cares about what happens more than 20-30 years hence has a common interest in mitigating anthropogenic climate change. Doing that is going to require a global "deal" on other issues as well.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 12:24 PM
Bill Dauphin @ # 19: ... not that we need fewer people, but that we need more resources... which means, more planets.
Yeah - pity none of those in the neighborhood seem suitable.
Let's say the technogeeks come up with a set of terraforming techniques that work first time, every time, even on a bare chunk of rock like our nearest neighbor, Luna. Then all we need is a way to relocate >80 million humans to the moon, every year.
There's a potential good sf novel lurking in that scenario, but a solution for the current planetary crisis? Not so much.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 30, 2008 12:25 PM
I'm not sure to what extent we really disagree, but I wanted to clarify my position a bit. When I say "first-world middle-class ... lifestyle," I think people's minds immediately go to the most trivial, superficial indulgences of our culture (as an aside, whether some of those things are really as superficial as they seem is, I think, arguable... but that's a different argument). That's not really what I mean: I really mean a level of shared wealth, technology, and physical infrastructure such that people's lives are not entirely given over to toiling in support of mere survival. I believe that virtually all people aspire to lives that are more than simply "nasty, brutish, and short," and if that marks me as the victim of "neoliberal propaganda," well, mark me down as a happy victim. In terms of pure physical survival, time (and emotional energy and resources) to pursue art and study and discovery and invention is a luxury... and yet those are the things that give the continued existence of the human species purpose. I don't think it's shallow or inappropriate to hope for a future in which Life/(Life Devoted to Subsistence) >> 1 is true for all people and cultures.
But achieving that sort of abundant life, even assuming we're rational and balanced about it, for all (as opposed to the wealthy minority of us who enjoy some version of it now) will, I suspect, entail steady growth in resource usage, no matter how careful we are. Since I don't hope for less than that life for my fellow humans and our descendants, I do hope we'll expand beyond this little ball of rock.
Plus which, I think all approaches to the future that ask people to forever give up on what they consider the good life, not only for themselves but for their children and grandchildren, are doomed to failure. Even if we stipulate for the sake of argument that that's the right answer logically and morally, it's not an answer that will ever broadly win the hearts and minds of the human animal at its present state of evolution. IMHO, the emotional and political reality is that we can only hope to get people to sacrifice for the future by showing them a future that looks bigger and better; a vision of a future that's smaller and meaner will only motivate people to cling tenaciously to what they've already got.
-Bill (Not a misanthrope, either!)
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 30, 2008 12:28 PM
Andrés Diplotti @ #13,
Nice work! Planting my tongue in my cheek though, let me say this:
Aren't we lucky that the cyanobacteria didn't rein themselves in. The fact that they went ahead and crapped their own bed created the environment that allowed the likes of us to come along.
Can we now in good conscience save the planet for ourselves and thereby preclude the development of some future species that would have evolved to enjoy their environment as we have enjoyed ours?
We've had our turn.
Posted by: another | June 30, 2008 12:33 PM
Thank you. I think I will. :)
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | June 30, 2008 12:42 PM
Pierce R. Butler @ 43
I have to ask, exactly how do you think this is different than current agri-business crops? I'll also point out that the last bit is one of the things GM can overcome.
Posted by: D | June 30, 2008 12:43 PM
Re #44
Hank, I appreciate the gentle sarcasm, but your parallel actually makes my point not yours: in emergencies involving large numbers of people, panic is often a killer - people get crushed to death, or fall and block the exits for others. Moreover, you should shout "Fire!" if and only if people have not noticed the fire. Even when Ehrlich brought out his Population Bomb in 1968 this was not the case. The IPPF was founded in 1952. the WWF, IIRC, was making the connection between population growth and pressure on animal populations by the early 1960s. The Bihar famine of 1966 (when mass death was averted only by US food aid) also concentrated minds.
If people believe, as many do, that nothing is being done about population growth, or that it is unstoppable (very often, though not here so far, these are people who claim that it is "never talked about" because of "political correctness"), they will arrive at foolish or immoral suggestions for what to do about it - like halting emergency food aid in disasters, forced sterilisation, or even deliberate mass murder. Population growth is also, as I've already noted, a very convenient way for the rich to scapegoat the poor for environmental damage and unsustainable use of resources.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 12:46 PM
Can we now in good conscience save the planet for ourselves and thereby preclude the development of some future species that would have evolved to enjoy their environment as we have enjoyed ours?
We've had our turn. - another
Well, we may be on the way to returning it to the anaerobes. If the temperature rises too much, ocean currents will slow as the Equator-Pole temperature gradient is reduced, large parts of the ocean will become anoxic, and vast amounts of hydrogen sulphide will be produced by anaerobic bacteria - as may have happened (due to volcanic eruptions on a vast scale producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide) at the end of the Permian, when IIRC 96% of species are estimated to have persihed.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 12:52 PM
Agreed, but I thought this was a given :).
Bill Dauphin - I'm not sure if we really disagree, either. I think there are a few separate issues here with regard to "the good life" or a high standard of living. This first is how we define this. Is the current lifestyle of the US a model of the good life for humans? I think (but I may be wrong) that we agree that it isn't, though we may not be in full agreement as to the elements of that lifestyle, if any, that are valuable and those that are not.
Second, there is the question of whether "people" (and we'd need to specify which people, precisely, we're talking about) consider that lifestyle valuable and either want it for themselves or, if they have it, regard abandoning it as an unmitigated sacrifice and living any other way as wholly undesirable. You appear to lean more toward the "they value/want/want to keep it," while I lean in the other direction. I'll admit that I'm not able to provide at the moment empirical support for my position, and there may be some intuition involved, but nevertheless I think much of the notion of such a powerful attachment to this way of life is the result of propaganda.
Third, there's the question of the role of science/technology in our present way of life vs. in alternatives. I resent that the people on the other side have been so successful in selling the idea that science and technology go hand-in-hand with the current system, and that calls for radical change entail their rejection. Since I've already mentioned Kropotkin above and thus the day is lost on that score, I'll do so again. The anarchist horticultural vision promoted by Kropotkin was an extremely scientific, high-tech one. It was very different from the types of communes that predominated in the '60s, and in fact Kropotkin rejected all such schemes. Efforts to develop radical alternatives in agriculture, energy use, urban planning, etc., in the present can similarly be based in science. They can also be used to bring more people into scientific work and educate them about science, but that's a topic for another time (FFA sponsored by agrocorps *grumble*).
I'm giving a talk on a related theme at a conference next month. Perhaps you could come and heckle me! :)
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 1:00 PM
If you're imagining kids playing Frisbee on the green, green grass of a park in downtown Burroughs City, Mars... well, yeah. But that's explicitly not what I was talking about.
In particular, I specifically disavowed the idea of relieving population pressure by the sheer relocation of excess population.
Look, the first step can occur without moving even 1 person off planet permanently: If we can develop space-based solar power, we can radically change our current energy-use reality, which underpins many of the interlocking resource problems we face (as several others have noted). Ditto WRT lunar He3, if we ever solve the problems of practical fusion power (a big "if," I admit... but I'm afraid a successful human future depends on some "big ifs" paying off). Plus which, so far (though I know this may change) fuel cells are heavily dependent on platinum group metals, which are both rare on Earth and ecologically damaging to extract... but which may be abundant in certain types of asteroids, or even on the moon (h/t to Dennis Wingo, who is, IMHO, wrong about many things, but may not be wrong about this).
Opening field of view a little more, would we ever have to worry about running out of hydrocarbons if we could mine the gas giants?
As for population, you're quite right that moving any significant portion of Earth's existing population off the planet in any near-term timeframe is purest fiction. So is waving the magic terraforming wand and producing duplicate Earths on the moon or Mars. But creating small, self-sustaining off-Earth human populations is not nearly so farfetched. And once created, they wouldn't stay small: Like colonists always do, those populations would learn to adapt both themselves and their environment to each other, and would grow in the same way that new human populations always have.
The science fiction novels (not all of them good) along these lines are thick on the ground, rather than "potential," but I'm not even vaguely talking about an immediate solution for current crises. Of course we need to nurture and protect our beachhead in the universe while we're in the process of figuring out how to go beyond it. But I find it hard to root for a future in which all of humanity remains locked in this particular cage, doomed to periodically horrific Malthusian prunings (at best), or extinction (at worst). In the (admittedly very) long term, we need to expand both our range and scope, else what's the point of our current mean existence?
BTW, one of the (you should pardon the expression) blessings of being an atheist is that one's species need not be cosmically humble in deference to a nonexistent God. If we were not, after all, created by some big sky daddy who quixotically endowed us with innate depravity, why not seek to inhabit and master the whole universe?
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 30, 2008 1:09 PM
Guthrie @35: it was wishful thinking.
Posted by: Peter Mc | June 30, 2008 1:13 PM
Andrés Diplotti - Me gusta. I just bookmarked your blog.
Posted by: SC | June 30, 2008 1:14 PM
D @ # 50: ... exactly how do you think this is different than current agri-business crops?
As I understand it (is AIUI recognized acronym-speak yet?), genetically-modified crops are, even more than Borlaug's Frankenplants, geared up to deliver maximum yield per acre, with correspondingly minimized immune functions and maximized input dependence. Even more than with the present (and alarming: read up on the current threats to bananas and wheat) massive monocultures, these new crops are a standing invitation to the next big potato blight.
... the last bit is one of the things GM can overcome.
That's what Monsanto wants us to believe, anyhow. In point of fact, such gimmicks as the wiring-in of Bacillus thuringiensis israeliensis to plant DNA are money-back guaranteed to promote the evolution of Bti-resistant pests, and leave us with a net reduction in biological controls - as well as already-documented collateral damage to beneficial insect species.
Before I'm accused of neo-Ludditism: I'm not saying there is no place for such new technologies. I am saying that, as currently applied (on gigantic scales, for short-term megacorporate profit, without adequate study or regulation), their net long-range effect will probably be negative, and certainly no substitute for population control and reduced consumption.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 30, 2008 1:30 PM
Bill,
I don't dismiss the possibilities of using extraterrestrial power sources or materials, nor the advantages of a future prospect of human (or more likely post-human) expansion off Earth, but I don't think either has much relevance to getting through the "long crisis" of the 21st century. Neither SSP nor fusion is going to help over the next few decades, which is when we need to make a fundamental shift away from CO2-producing energy sources; and over the entire century, it's difficult to see space-derived metals being feasible alternatives if we run short on Earth. Lead-times for all these possibilities just look too long. Where space capability will be important is in learning more about Earth via comparative planetology, and above all in environmental monitoring, mostly from near-Earth orbit. In that regard, severe problems may arise because we've already started to seriously pollute near-Earth space, with debris from previous launches: a "collision catastrophe", where collisions raise the number of separate bits of junk which in turn increases the probability of further collisions, is a real possibility. As far as long-term human extraterrestrial expansion as a carrot for being good now - well, it might motivate a few geeks like you and me, but is that really how most people think? I'd say there's more chance of appealing to people's desire that their children, or other younger people they know, will have a chance of a decent life. As for "inhabit and master the whole universe" - I worry about the aggressive, domineering, hyper-masculine attitudes that phrase reeks of, and the effect they would have in the nearer term. How about aiming for a decent life for all in the medium-term future, and leaving mastery of the universe for our descendants, if any, to worry about?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 1:55 PM
Pierce, I understand where you are coming from now. I would agree that the problem is indeed more with the monopolistic controllers of GM crops and their short sighted choices, not with the technology. There are also other routes for pest resistance, such are R genes, as well as ways to mitigate damage and resistance development in pests from pesticide factors, specificity of toxins & limiting expression for the former and use of multiple toxins for the later. It has been a few years since I have been in any real contact with the field, so it is likely other solutions have since been developed.
Posted by: D | June 30, 2008 1:57 PM
Bill Dauphin @ # 54: So all we have to do is move >80 megapersons' worth of resources from space to Earth, every year? Well, that might be easier than getting them distributed to those who, um, actually need said goodies.
At the risk of inviting jeers from the capitalist-propaganda echo chamber here, I'd like to invite you to remember the "Club of Rome" study from circa 1980 (one of the early computerized global-modeling projects, for you whippersnappers). Though their approach was horribly oversimplified, the projection that simply adding more materials and energy would only produce more wastes - and a consequent population crash - still stands as a significant warning.
Somehow I've missed the Earth-exodus eco-sf stories you mention - any recommended titles? (Stories set on the new colony planets, even Robinson's Mars trilogy, don't count.)
... why not seek to inhabit and master the whole universe?
The likelihood of non-supernatural Big Bastards who wouldn't put up with a gang of greedy punks?
FTR: I would love, absolutely go into spasms for, a realistic and ambitious space-settlement program. But I don't see it as a capital-s Solution to our impending disasters, except as a relatively small component of a massive redirection of human efforts to research and education, itself just part of a species-wide effort at self-rescue. The present probability of such an enterprise seems in inverse proportion to its necessity.
Hell, even our esteemed host barely touches on any part of the on-going 6th Extinction in 1 of 100 posts, at maximum.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 30, 2008 2:08 PM
I'd like to invite you to remember the "Club of Rome" study from circa 1980 - Pierce R. Butler
1972, Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens Limits to Growth. I reread my disintegrating copy recently for a conference paper I was writing, and was surprised how well the thesis, as opposed to my copy, held up. There were some very obvious faults (e.g. ways of estimating how long various metals and other resources would last were excessively crude even for 1972), but it was much better than I expected. There are also updates, from 1993 Beyond the Limits and 2004 Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 30, 2008 2:19 PM
While the earth might be able to feed 10 or 12 billion people, right now for the first time in a while there is a food shortage worldwide.
In fact, people are starting to starve to death in a few places. Afghanistan and Ethiopia are two such places. Many more are just having food riots while the poorer people are under and mal nourished.
This will probably get worse rather than better over the next year or two. Petroleum, an important input as fuel and fertilizer is pricing itself out of reach of marginal third world farmers and marginal agricultural lands elsewhere. Plus a good chunk of the US midwest's crops have just drowned.
I'm not aware that the USA is doing a whole lot about it but it isn't all that clear that we even can do much about it. At least the US is donating food stocks to some of the relief aid efforts.
Posted by: raven | June 30, 2008 2:51 PM
There are two reasons why our future should lie in off of earth settlements.
1. We have all our eggs in one basket. The average species only lasts 1 to 10 million years. And we are one catastrophe or Chickxulub asteroid class impact away from extinction. If nothing else in 1-2 billion years, the sun will go red giant and torch us.
2. The galaxy appears to be empty or at least the small part we can study. No aliens nearby are broadcasting sitcoms. If we spread out we could own it all.
The technological hurdles seem daunting. But we have only been doing Hi Tech for a few hundred years. Who knows what we will be able to do a thousand years from now?
One would hope that at least some humans have higher aspirations for the species than pretending that 2 pages of 4,000 year old mythology in Genesis is fact.
Posted by: raven | June 30, 2008 3:03 PM