Supplemental Lecture (98/05/26 update) by Stephen T. Abedon (abedon.1@osu.edu)

1. Chapter title: Environmentalism
1. A list of vocabulary words is found toward the end of this document
2. "Is it responsible for scientists to hold out the hope that endless population growth can be matched by endless doublings of world food production? At some point, probably sooner rather than later, we are going to run into the limits set by the law of conservation of stuff. The people of the world would be better served if we scientists gave our primary attention to the achievement of zero or negative population growth, first in the United States and then worldwide, so that further increases in agricultural production could be devoted to substantially improving diets worldwide." - Albert A. Bartlett
3. "Whether the problem is population growth, or climate change, or diminishing biological diversity, the essential difficulty is in asking individuals today to make sacrifices that benefits communities tomorrow. . . I fear that the inflexibility of social institutions, rooted in the past evolutionary history of our species, will ineluctably continue to put their emaphasis on the interests of individuals and of the short term." - Robert M. May
4. Only those who choose to ignore the laws of thermodynamics are optimistic about the biotic future of the earth (e.g., you can't get something for nothing and there is no such thing as a free lunch). To put things very bluntly, it is very questionable whether our planet is capable of sustaining the current population of humanity in the medium term, much less more people in the long term.
5. Nevertheless, humans continue to increase their numbers. Much of this increase is done at the expense of an irreversible disruption of the environment; an environment which humans (and all other organisms) rely on to supply nutrients and raw materials necessary for the continuation of life. We humans are literally mining our biological environment to add to our already enormous numbers.
6. Each addition to humanity's numbers signals a decline in the probability that any (or many) members of our species will live to see a future that is more optimistic than the miserable one we currently envisage. Indeed, we may be already well past the decisive point: The lessons of ecology, evolutionary biology, and history are that the survival of our global civilization and an ever-increasing number of humans are simply not compatible.
7. The solutions to our problems---primarily political---appear overwhelmingly intractable. It is difficult even to imagine environmentalism taking precedence over other seemingly more pressing problems (a predictable outcome, of course, since from our evolutionary studies we know that progress in biological systems usually occurs as short term solutions to short term problems rather than the long term solutions necessary to stabilize our global environment). In this lecture I make my small contribution to the solution of this, our ultimate crisis, by drawing to your attention a grab bag of specific problems.
2. Overview [of environmentalism]
1. What is learning? Learning is the modification of information in response to feedback. What is feedback, feedback is the environment's response to an action made by an individual or a group of individuals. Many forms of life are capable of learning in a physiological (i.e., non-genetic) sense. That is, they are capable of modifying the information content held by their physiology in response to external inputs: feedback. At a very basic level, then, most life forms are information-containing systems capable of modifying their physiology in response to environmental feedback. Obviously, survival of such life forms most likely is greatly enhanced by this ability to learn from their environment.
2. What is culture? Culture is the passage of non-genetic information from one individual to another. Culture is capable of modification in response to environmental feedback. In fact, much of what we call history (as well as archeology) is the study of the modification of culture in response to externally- (as well as internally-) sourced information. That is, just as with the information held by a single individual, culture tends to be modified over time. One might even argue that what is occurring is a kind of learning (albeit on a superorganismal level). Again, obviously, the ability of culture to be modified in response to feedback most likely greatly enhances the survival ability of those individuals privy to the information. In other words, knowing something without having to learn it for yourself is a very efficient way of adapting to an environment, though out of date information can be as dangerous as no information at all.
3. What is genetics? Genetics is the study of information carried on DNA (or, in some cases, RNA). The information stored within each individual on their DNA (or RNA) is their genotype. Over time, genotypes are capable of changing. Unlike learning by individuals or by groups (culture), the changes which occur in genotypes are both random and, for the most part, unalterable within any given individual (exceptional are the immune system as well as various disease states which, not coincidentally, the immune system combats). Thus, the genotype of an individual is a form of information that, for the most part, is not capable of learning from feedback. In other words, within the individual, the genetic information content held is for the most part invariant whether feedback is present or not. This is not, however, to say that feedback cannot impact on genotype. It just cannot modify genotype. This lack of genotypic response to environmental feedback is potentially problematic. Note that one way around this problem is to possess a mechanism whereby feedback may be incorporated into an organism's non-genotypic information content. Being able to learn is key to survival in complex environments.
4. But this is not to say that genotypes themselves are incapable of learning. In fact, it is only within the individual that genotypic invariance exists. Instead, consider a group of genotypes. If an individual genotype may be considered to be an information carrying system (which, indeed, it is), then a group of genotypes, too, must constitute an information carrying system. As noted, genotypes are capable of changing only randomly by mutation. However, given a group of genotypes, this potential for random change results in a high probability that genotypes will vary. This variation in genotype, too, is a form of information. In fact, above the level of the organism, the genetic information content of a group resides entirely within this variation. Now, is population-wide genetic information capable of non-random modification in response to environmental feedback? You bet it is, though there is a catch: Only that information which is relevant to any specific feedback is subject to such modification. Particularly, those genotypic variants that respond inappropriately to an environmental cue risk culling (essentially analogous to the removal of inappropriate learning). Following interaction with an environment, then, a population of genotypes is capable of modifying its information content. That is, a population can learn. For historical reasons, such learning we call Darwinian evolution. Does an ability to genetically learn at the population level bestow advantages upon a population? How could it not?
5. When populations are marginalized, their numbers tend to decline. Because of statistical effects (sampling errors when numbers are small), such populations have a tendency to lose population-level genetic information. That is, inbreeding occurs and genetic variation is lost. Since the ability of a population to learn is a direct function of the degree to which such variation is available, marginalized populations tend to lose their ability to learn from the environment. To the extent non-genetic learning is limited in most organisms, especially when time is limiting (even in man, really), the ability of a population to respond to environmental inputs often depends to a large extent on population learning at the genetic level. An inability to learn from (or respond properly to) a negative influence from the environment is clearly not conducive to the survival of a healthy population of individuals. The actions of man have a strong tendency to reduce the population sizes of most organisms (exceptions tend to be those we do not want around). Over time such populations lose the ability to learn from their environment. The loss of learning results in negative survival potentials. Such populations have a strong tendency to go extinct.
6. We, as humans, have the greatest ability to learn in a non-genetic sense of any species which has ever lived (on this planet, at least). Unfortunately, we have used this knowledge to deprive populations of other species of their information content. However, humans do not exist in a vacuum. Indeed, our information content largely overlaps that of the organisms around us. Thus, as we gain ever more knowledge, allowing us to further alter our immediate environment, we are simultaneously culling relevant knowledge from our environment. As this knowledge base declines (extinction destroys information forever), so too does our ability to learn (in a cultural sense). With less information, our ability to respond appropriately to our environment declines. This in turn decreases our ability to survive. Such populations (ourselves) have a tendency to go extinct.
7. In other words, the ability of a species to survive over time is a direct function of the total information content privy to that species. Increasing the population of humanity does not intrinsically increase the total body of information held by humanity. However, increasing the human population has a negative impact on the total information content held by our planet. Since the information found on this planet constitutes the vast majority of information potentially available to humanity, an increasing human population which leads to the destruction of such information alone imperils the long-term survival of humanity. And this says nothing of the consequences our continued, seemingly wanton annihilation of the very resources we need simply to survive over the medium-term.
3. Population * consumption * efficiency
1. Impact of humans:
1. The impact of humans on the planet can be considered in terms of three variables:
1. the size of our population (population)
2. the realized per capita needs, wants, and desires of the population (consumption)
3. the impact each unit of consumption has on our environment (efficiency)
2. This is actually more typically described as IPAT, i.e., impact = population x affluence x technology, where consumption = affluence and technology = efficiency.
2. All variables equivalent:
1. Any individual change in any of these variables has a comparable repercussion on the humanity's impact on the earth's environment.
2. Note, therefore, that no matter how much consumption might be reduced and no matter how much efficiency might be increased, an increasing population can, and will, wipe out any progress made in decreasing humanity's impact on the earth's environment.
4. Population
1. Fewer deaths:
1. The rate of human births has remained more or less historically constant at about 30 births per year per 1000 individuals.
2. Thanks largely to better sanitation, vaccination, and, a distant third, the use of antibiotics, the human death rate has declined from the 30 individuals per year per 1000 individuals which has been the norm since the dawn of civilization, to approximately 10 individuals per year per 1000 individuals.
3. This represents a net increase in the human population of approximately 20 individuals per year per 1000 existing individuals, about 2 percent.
4. An increase of 2% per year means that the size of the human population is 10% larger after 5 years (1.02 * 1.02 * 1.02 * 1.02 * 1.02 = 1.02⁵ = 1.104). 22% larger after 10 years, nearly 50% larger after 20 years, and doubled in number (100% increase) in less than 40 years.
2. Enormous population growth:
1. The current population of the earth is 5.5 billion individuals. This represents nearly a doubling since I was born (1961).
2. In less than 40 years, if all goes as planned, the human population will exceed 10 billion. This will present an approximate quadrupling of the number of humans on this planet in a single human lifetime.
3. Population explosion in developing countries:
1. Of course, this considers only the population of the entire world. The rate of population increase is not geographically homogeneous. Many countries exhibit more rapid growth rates.
2. These countries tend to be developing countries that do not have the infrastructure necessary to adequately care for those humans already in existence. In general, these countries also have the most rapidly declining environments. Growth in developing countries is expected to continue to be explosive in the coming decades.
3. Billions living in developing countries and searching for a better life will pressure destination countries to increase their populations. In fact, the population increases seen in such countries as the U.S. is already driven primarily by immigration.
4. A significant debate currently rages in the U.S. over whether immagration is good or bad thing. Little consideration, however, is made for whether this country can afford the increasing environmental impoverishment apparently inevitably associated with increasing populations. Instead, such debates tend to be biased toward racial, nationalistic, and economic themes.
5. Truly, then, the human population explosion we are witnessing is a developing country population explosion. However, we all breath the same air, fish in the same oceans, and have been blessed with only a single world-wide environment. Therefore, the pressures these growing billions will and do exert on that environment is a problem for all of the citizens of all the world's countries, whether growing, shrinking, or holding steady in their populations.
6. If nothing else, developed countries are under moral obligation to practice what they preach to developing countries, at least to the extent individuals consider a growing human population to have relevance at least to the extent individuals consider growing human populations to have relevance.
4. Population-growth advocacy:
1. The rising population of the earth effectively divides humanity into two competing camps:
1. population growth advocates---Those who consider increasing numbers of humans to be a good thing and therefore who are interested in achieving the means by which increasing numbers of humans may be sustained.
2. population control advocates---Those who do not consider the absolute number of humans living to be a relevant indicator of moral goodness.
2. Population control advocates tend to ask questions like, why do we need more humans at the expense of everything else? Population growth advocates apparently have trouble understanding why such a question might even be posed (especially when that humanity is closely related such as one's own current or potential progeny, or one's own ethnic or religious group).
3. Any current debate about whether population growth is an issue is often between these two groups. Clearly, any and all for whom increasing numbers of humanity is a good thing and long term stability irrelevant, there is no debate.
5. Sustaining population growth
1. Increasing resource extraction:
1. As a consequence of the increasing human population and its associated increasing burden on the human environment, strategic thinking by those who have accepted the inevitability of this trajectory tends to focus on how to increase the availability of resources in order to sustain more individuals.
2. Such thinkers tend to project past increases in resource extraction into the future in order to justify arguments that human civilization is quite capable of feeding y number of additional mouths expected in year x. However, such arguments are flawed on two levels.
2. Ignoring environmental sustainability:
1. Level one is that they do not consider sustainability. Are our current practices with our current population size sustainable into the distant future?
2. Not obviously so.
3. However, any individual who considers current practices to be sustainable (they haven't completely failed us yet) could easily extrapolate future increases in the intensity of those practices to be similarly sustainable (after all, they haven't completely failed us yet).
3. Assuming environmental constancy:
1. Level two is the assumption of environmental constancy. This assumption is flawed for at least two reasons.
2. First, there is no evidence for environmental constancy in the absence of human activity (and, indeed, there is also evidence that our current climate is about a good as climates get).
3. Two, there is absolutely no evidence that human intervention has a positive influence on environmental constancy. Indeed, what little has been observed of the impact of humanity on the environment has demonstrated a bias toward negative impact.
4. Nevertheless, the most conservative estimate of future conditions is that they will be the same as they currently are, and therefore that a growing human population will continue to be sustainable.
4. Unusually stable climate:
1. "It is now clear that climate variability in many regions of the world . . . was significantly greater during the last 10,000 years than during the last 150 years. Most Holocene (current interglacial) events were smaller in magnitude than their glacial counterparts, but many were still large enough to dwarf changes seen in the instrumentally based climate record of the past 150 years. More important, many of these past Holocene events appear to have been large enough that, if they were to recur in the future, they would have major impact on humans." Overpeck, 1996
2. "The past 10,000 years are anomolous in the history of our planet. This period, during which civilization developed, was marked by weather more consistent and equitable than any similar span of the past 100 millennia [100,000 years]." Broecker, 1995
6. Population control
1. Fewer people:
1. Population control advocates consider the root of the world's current and projected environmental problems to be a direct consequence of the size of the human population.
2. Such individuals would argue that there really is only one solution, and that is for there to be fewer people living on our planet.
2. Not an achievable goal:
1. The problems with this argument are both moral and logistical.
2. That is, essentially, the only rapid way to reduce humanity's numbers in the near term is through an increase in the rate of per capita death.
3. Any volunteers?
3. Slowing growth:
1. Alternatively, we might work instead toward stemming humanity's population growth is to reduce our per capita birth rate.
2. Having fewer babies therefore represents the lesser of two evils.
3. However, it also represents a solution which is less and less efficacious longer its implementation is delayed.
4. In other words, for our environment to survive, humanity must either stop having so many babies or must start killing those who have already been born. The longer we wait, the less effective the former solution can be. If we wait indefinitely, we will simply have the latter solutions imposed upon us by our environment. Presumably an intelligent species would strive to avoid such a fate.
7. Fewer births
1. fewer births --- (below) (i) An obvious means by which the world's population may be decreased is through a decrease in the number of per capita births. (a) In real terms, however, this means a decrease in the number of births per individual, i.e., a reduction in family size. (b) Any scheme for reducing family size must involve either voluntary reduction, incentives for reduction, or imposition of reduction (mandatory curtailment of births). (ii) Voluntary reduction in family size tends to predominate world-wide as a means of population curtailment. China is an exception. (iii) Voluntary curtailment is biased whereby it is often those in the best position to think through their family planning options and act altruistically (i.e., those humans which one might consider most desirable to have around) which would be expected to voluntarily curtail their reproductive output. (a) Sex being sex, however, it is often those in the worst of situations (e.g., those least informed, with the least education---whether formal or acquired through personal experience---and/or in the worst of economic situations) which are least empowered to curtail their reproductive output. (b) A possible solution to this situation is to create a system whereby the economic (and emotional) limitations of family planning technologies are eliminated (through enlightened thinking plus direct subsidy, perhaps) thereby allowing those lacking in either education, maturity, or economic means to have the same level of access to family planning technologies as the mature, well educated, or economically well off. (iv) The problem of reducing reproductive output threatens only to worsen with time. This is because, due to the effects of population demographics, a growing population is a young population and therefore one with the greatest potential to maximize reproductive output. (a) That is, it is young people who have the babies. It is also young people who are least well empowered (emotionally, educationally, and economically) to fully think through their family planning options. (b) This is true (and then some) in those developing countries in which population growth has and continues to be occurring so explosively. (c) Note that a statement such as "a growing population increases, simply by growing, its ability to grow" is an example of positive feedback and exactly what exponential growth means.
8. Delay births
1. delay births --- (below) (i) One rapid answer to how to slow population growth is to increase generation times. That is, the per capita rate of birth is automatically lowered if a significant fertile fraction of a population refrains from reproduction. (ii) By delaying births, a population does not constrain any individual's potential to reproduce (except for those who would not have lived to have fully raised their children, or who intend to have very large families) but nevertheless can have a significant impact on per capita birth rate. (iii) For example, a family which brings a new generation into the world will consist of as many as five individuals simultaneously (ranging in age from 0 to 80, e.g., 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and considering only the maternal line). However, a family which brings a new generation into the world every 30 years will consist of only three individuals at any given time (e.g., 0, 30, 60). (a) This change from a 20 year to a 30 year generation time results in a population reduction of at least 25% even if, per capita, there is no absolute reduction in births! (reducing bursts to, on average, one per family would further dramatically reduce population growth rates even more, essentially slowing, stopping, then reversing human population growth.)
9. Consumption
1. consumption --- (below) (i) The impact an individual has on the environment is a direct function of how many things that person uses or consumes. Among consumption is included direct uses of the environment such hunting, trash disposal, off road motor vehicle recreating, etc. (ii) "Virtually all land that can be cultivated is already in use (indeed, humans already co-opt approximately 40% of the world's terrestrial photosynthetic output); 20% of the world's topsoil has been lost from agricultural lands during that period; and the human population continues to grow explosively. Much of the world is populated by large numbers of hungry people (about 1/5 of the world's population) who are rapidly destroying the sustainable productivity of the lands they inhabit; at the same time, consumption in industrialized countries such as the United States is running at 20 to 30 times the rate in developing countries and is having an even greater adverse effect on the future of humanity." (p. 537, Raven & Johnson, 1995) (iii) "Humanity now uses 26 percent of total terrestrial evapotranspiration (that's fresh water to you and me) and 54 percent of runoff that is geographically and temporally accessible. Increased use of evapotranspiration will confer minimal benefits globally because most land suitable for rain-fed agriculture is already in production. New dam construction could increase accessible runoff by about 10 percent over the next 30 years, whereas population is projected to increase by more than 45 percent during that period." (p. 785, Postel et al., 1996)
10. Wealth [Affluence]
1. wealth (affluence) --- (below) (i) The more wealth an individual possesses, the more things that person can consume. While this does not necessarily have to be, the truth is that the degree to which people consume is a direct function of their wealth. (iii) Note the horrific implications: Any measure to improve the living standards of the world's population can have the paradoxical effect of degrading the environment (due to increased per capita consumption) and thus increasing in absolute terms the impact of humanity on the environment. In a world in which resources are limiting, the quickest way to increase per capita living standard is to decrease the total number of people. (ii) A wealthy nation such as the U.S. annually consumes approximately one-quarter of all the resources consumed by humanity, but has only 5% of the world's population. (a) All else being equal, the impact of the U.S. population therefore is at least five-fold in excess of the impact of the average world citizen. This disparity is a direct consequence of our countries collective wealth. We as Americans, per capita, are essentially as environmentally bad as anyone alive in the world today.
11. Energy
1. energy --- (below) (i) Ultimately, wealth is interconvertible with energy. Indeed, it is the possession of abundant, cheap energy which goes a long way toward explaining the current high standard of living enjoyed by at least some of the world's population (notably, those individuals living in the U.S.). (ii) The diversion of energy toward personal use impacts directly and negatively on the world's environment (minimally, energy production and use is hardly an environmentally benign endeavor). (iii) Diversion of energy toward personal use also constitutes a diversion of said energy away from projects which might have some more positive effect on the world's environment.
12. Efficiency
1. efficiency --- (below) (i) In considering consumption, it is often most relevant to speak in terms of both the amount of energy required to consume a given item as well as the amount of energy necessary to replace this item once consumed. (a) That is, the third component of humanity's impact on the earth's environment is the efficiency with which every item consumed by every individual is used, produced, and transported. (ii) The greater the efficiency, the greater the number of consumables which may be utilized for a given dollop of energy. Consequently, efficiency leads to greater effective standards of living. (a) Another way of saying this is that a penny saved is a penny earned. (iii) Note, however, that energy savings are not real if they are achieved at the expense of the environment. (a) If the energy required to bring the world's environment back up to its preconsumption state is either not considered or not expended, then the act of consumption is essentially one of mining the world's resources, hardly a sustainable or environmentally benign practice. Note that current account practices tend to ignore environmental regeneration and therefore are biased toward a mining of the world's resources.
13. Reduce, reuse, repair, recycle
1. reduce, reuse, repair, recycle --- (below) (i) An individual can decrease his or her impact on the environment by directly reducing personal consumption. This particularly means owning fewer things. That is, directly reduce consumption. (a) Note that reducing consumption does not often mean that one should therefore throw out all of one's belongings in order to live a "simpler life" (unless, of course, a belonging requires ongoing consumption to possess). (b) The far more effective approach is to never acquire an extensive collection of belongings in the first place. (c) Above all else, avoid impulse buying/consumption. (ii) Of those things you must own, it is often better to own a well made, durable thing than one which must be replaced often. That is, reusable is usually preferable to disposable. (a) Note that there are some exceptions to this concept, particularly when reuse itself requires an energetically demanding process (thus the argument between the use of disposable and reusable diapers; which solution is preferable is very debatable and dependent on personal circumstances). (b) There are also numerous situations where replacement of an energy inefficient appliance with an energy efficient one is preferable to the reuse of the inefficient one. (c) When energy efficiency is not an issue there is often great merit in purchasing or otherwise acquiring a much needed item used rather than new. (iii) It is very often preferable to repair an item rather than replace it. However, it is obvious that this is a difficult philosophy to stick to in a world of appliances which are far more inexpensive to repair than to replace. This is one reason why it is often environmentally preferable to avoid purchasing these items in the first place. (iv) In order of preferable strategies, reduce is preferable to reuse, and reuse is similar in impact to repair. The least favorable environmentally conscious option is to extract and then reuse the raw materials found in an item. This last option is recycling. (a) It is always far better to never purchase an item or to keep reusing an item once purchased, than it is to purchase, use once, and then dispose of an item, even if the materials in that item are recycled. Example: Aluminum beverage cans are reasonably efficiently recycled but nevertheless are used only once prior to resource recovery and remanufacturing. (b) In fact, the glamour associated with recycling in today's world could have the paradoxical effect of increasing consumption (though clearly also increasing the efficiency associated with that consumption---remember however that, in terms of impact, increases in efficiency are irrelevant if it simply allows or is associated with increased comsumption). (c) This, of course, in no way is an endorsement of the throwing away of items that can and ought to be recycled (i.e., this is not an endorsement of non-recyclable disposables over recyclable "disposables"), only that recycling is far from the panacea its growing popularity might suggest. Bottom line, rather than recycling, for a change, try not bying in the first place.
14. Biome impoverishment
1. biome impoverishment --- Many of the technologies employed to sustain growing human populations simultaneously are impoverishing the world's ecosystems and bioms. As follows is a sampling of those technologies along with a run down on their impact on the environment. Concentrating on those things with a more biological (as opposed to meteorological) etiology.
15. Green revolution
1. green revolution --- (below) (i) "During the 1950s and 1960s, the so-called Green Revolution took place as a result of the development of new, improved strains of wheat and rice. As a result of these efforts, the production of wheat in Mexico, for example, increased nearly ten-fold between 1950 and 1970, and Mexico temporarily became an exporter of wheat rather than an importer. During the same decades, food production in India was largely able to outstrip even a population growth of approximately 2.3% annually, and China became self-sufficient in food. Despite the apparent success of the Green Revolution, the improvements were limited. The agriculture techniques that were employed require the expenditure of large amounts of energy and abundant supplies of fertilizers (nitrogen fertilizers are petroleum products), pesticides, and herbicides, as well as adequate machinery (and an enormous displacement of agricultural jobs). For example, in the United States it requires about 1000 times as much energy to produce the same amount of wheat that results from traditional farming methods in India." (p. 540, Raven & Johnson, 1995) (ii) "Certain nutritional problems have also arisen in connection with the Green Revolution. The overconcentration on cereal crops has tended to lower the production of other nutritionally important plants, including legumes, oilseeds, and vegetables of all kinds. The reason that legumes and cereals are often nutritionally combined is that they provide a balanced set of (essential) amino acids required by humans from proper growth. The varied strains of crops grown on small farms may also be driven out by fewer kinds of modern strains (decrease in genetic variation---lower ability to survive environmental change) and fewer crops, which produce better yield if large-scale inputs of chemicals and the use of machinery are possible." (p. 540, Raven & Johnson, 1995) (iii) In short, world-wide adoption of Green Revolution practices has led to a similarly world-wide impoverishment of agricultural practices. As well as an increase in the chemical and mechanical impact on the planet. (a) The Green Revolution has resulted, essentially, in the destruction of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and genetic variability necessary to grow traditional food in traditional manners; techniques that often have a many thousand year proven ability to assure local human survival. In other words, the Green Revolution represented a short term improvement in world-wide agricultural yields, but at the cost of long term world-wide agricultural stability. (b) This improvement in yields has had the paradoxical effect of allowing a vast expansion of human populations such that the world has no greater a food surplus than it had prior to the Green Revolution. (iv) The world is in far greater environmental trouble that it otherwise would have been had human numbers been constrained by agricultural yields common prior to the Green Revolution. (a) At some point in human exponential growth starvation for the majority of humans will be common place. The only question is how many other organisms are we going to take down with us prior to and during the crash of our own population. The fewer humans in existence when we crash and shorter time until that crash occurs, the smaller the likely environmental effects. (b) What the Green Revolution therefore accomplished is to delay mass starvation but also to delay the time until we actually feel compelled to do something about curtailing our growing numbers. Of course, ideally, we will have dealt with our population problem prior to when a population crash becomes inevitable. (v) Proponents of the concept, that technological improvement will keep pace with the growing hoards of humanity, use the Green Revolution as proof that further, dramatic improvement in agricultural yields are inevitable (and therefore sustainment of ever growing numbers of humanity). In fact, one could argue that the past success of the Green Revolution is the strongest of these proponents arguments. Humanity, I suppose, had better hope is that prophesy, in this case, proves more powerful predictor than past experience.
16. Collapse of fisheries
1. collapse of fisheries --- (below) (i) At the same time the Green Revolution was dramatically increasing agricultural yields, the application of new technologies to fishing also resulted in dramatic increases in yields. In 1989 the world-wide fish take peaked at 82 million metric tons. (that's about 15 Kg, 35 pounds, per person assuming 5 billion people.) (ii) Notwithstanding, in the decade or so leading up to this 1989 peak in take, a dramatic decline in populations of preferred fish had occurred, the slack taken up by utilizing less preferred fish. Following 1989 the populations of even these less preferred fish have been rapidly declining. (iii) Catches in all oceans, except the Indian Ocean (in which introduction of new technologies came much later), of all species are either stagnant or declining. Indeed, some of the world's great fisheries such as the Grand and Georges Banks found off the coast of Easter North America are today essentially closed to fishing. (iv) Bottom line: There is no possibility that fish protein will be a growing, not yet exploited food supply for exponentially increasing populations of humanity. We, as humans, instead should consider ourselves lucky (and the environment profoundly unlucky) that fishing as an industry still survives. (v) All of these arguments also ignore the profoundly negative effect current fishing practices have on the oceans in general, independent of the fact that massive numbers of fish and other creatures are killed to be eaten. Example: One in four animals taken from the see is killed but then discarded. This amounts to approximately 40 million animals per year including 44,000 albatross, 55,000 adult sea turtles, 2,800 metric tons of shark, and, prior to their protection, 400,000 dolphins, though the techniques employed which limit dolphin kills dramatically increase the killing of other animals including sea turtles and sharks. Example: Trawling nets routinely disrupt the ocean bottoms on the continental shelves resulting in heavy damage to nearly all of this habitat world-wide. This is especially dramatic in the warm, shallow waters where corals are found. With certain fishing techniques a single boat can destroy a square kilometer of coral reef in a single day.
17. Aquaculture
1. aquaculture --- (i) Compared with such protein sources as terrestrial vertebrates, aquaculture, the raising of captive fish populations for food, has significant environmental advantages. Particularly, if nothing else, fish contribute far more of their caloric intake to increasing their mass than do, for example, cows. This is because fish are neither warm blooded nor have to constantly support a large mass in a not buoyant medium. (ii) However, aquaculture is not a panacea. Example: What fish are fed has to come from somewhere. Unless the food source would otherwise be wasted, it is produced as a result of, for example, Green Revolution practices. Example: As is the case for aquaculture shrimp production, food comes from the exploitation of the oceans for even less preferred fish (etc.) which are used as fish food (essentially eliminating the majority of environmental advantages associated with aquaculture). Example: Fish farms have to located somewhere and very often they are sited in locations that would have remained wild were it not for the introduction of aquaculture. (iii) In short, eating at high trophic levels does not come environmentally cheap except when very few people are exploiting very large populations of otherwise unexploited fauna. All else being equal, however, farm raised fish are a more efficient means of converting plants into animal protein than are farm raised mammals.
18. Deforestation
1. deforestation --- (below) (i) The reasons for deforestation are as varied as the consequences. Reasons include (a) a demand for lumber (especially cheap lumber), (b) slash and burn agriculture (c) demands for firewood for cooking. (ii) Consequences of deforestation include (a) the impoverishment of ecosystems, (b) dramatic increases in runoff from clear cut landscapes (demineralization of soils and erosion), (c) choking of rivers with silt thus dramatically affecting both navigation and fisheries, (d) destruction of carbon sinks (which remove CO2 from the air), (e) in many cases, conversion of stored carbon to atmospheric CO2 (e.g., burning of trees and wood). (ii) Forests are often harvested or cleared in a not sustainable manner. (a) In other words, wood and wood products as well as the soil beneath forests are essentially mined and then discarded. (b) Since the economic justification for these practices does not go away (few can eat only one potato chip much less stop using wood products), the mining of forests inevitably continues until forests no longer exist. (c) An alternative, the monocropping (use of monoculture) of land once covered with never logged (old growth) forest solves some but not all of the problems associated with the wholesale clearing of the world's remaining forests. (d) Such practices amount to sustained agriculture (as opposed to the retention of the original forest) and at least are not outright mining of forest land. (iv) At some point, we are all simply going to run out of wood except for that produced by sustainable methods (e.g., tree farming). Mining our remaining old growth, world-wide, does absolutely nothing to address this inevitability. And the same can be said for just about every other resource mankind relies upon.
19. Depletion of stratospheric zone
1. No entry.
20. Global warming
1. No entry.
21. Loss of biodiversity
1. No entry.
22. 90's politics
1. Spring, 1996:
1. The U.S. House of Representatives, lead by Speaker Newt Gingrich, finally managed to pass a U.S. Budget (7 months overdue), a budget which includes reductions in support for overseas family-planning programs and increases in support for Alaskan logging. In other words, official U.S. policy, at least according to the majority, apparently supports world-wide population growth and expanded ecosystem destruction.
23. Jobs vs. owls
1. Those of you who recall the owls versus jobs debate in the Pacific North West during the early 90s may or may not be aware that this debate was really about the saving of the last of the climaxed, large tree ecosystems in the Pacific North West, versus the conversion of those ecosystems into vast tracts of weeds, erosion, and genetic impoverishment in order to give a few people a few more years of jobs implementing this destruction.
2. Spotted owls entered into the debate because (a) they are K strategists specifically adapted to survival in the these climax forests, and (b) protection of specific, usually of large animals via the endangered species act, is one of the few ways whole ecosystems may be legally protected in this country short of outright private ownership by benign individuals.
3. The probable extinction of spotted owls in the course of the logging of the majority of the remaining of the Pacific Northwest climax forest ecosystem was thus being used as a tool to effect the saving of the Pacific Northwest climax forest ecosystem.
4. It was very obvious, at the time, to the environmentally aware that all those who framed this debate simply in terms of jobs versus owls (including a certain sitting president) were displaying an unforgivable biological naivet‚ as well as an unfortunate man over nature arrogance.
5. Instead, the relevant question was not owls vs. jobs? Even stated more even handedly, is the short-term employment of people paid to destroy ecosystems more important than the survival of the spotted owl, the question misses the point. A far more truthfully framing of the debate would in terms of the question, is the short-term employment of people paid to destroy ecosystems more important than the survival of the ecosystem they are paid to destroy?
6. It would have been interesting to how such a rephrasing might have affected the owls vs. jobs debate. Particularly, in other countries when there is conflict between employment and gross environmental degradation (e.g., jobs vs. South and Central American rain forests) Americans appear to come close to achieving consensus in their condemnation of the choosing of employment over the environment. Is it therefore any wonder why the survival of the American North West big tree ecosystem debate was not framed in terms of cutting down the rain forests but instead in terms of saving an animal few have ever seen, but at the expense of American jobs?
7. The relevant question was not just is the survival of a single K selected species (the owls) more important than the extremely short-term livelihood of people paid to destroy ecosystems, but whether the survival of an entire ecosystem is more important.
8. Oddly, when it comes to other country's forests and livelihoods (e.g., tropical rain forests in South and Central America) Americans seem far better united on the side of the ecosystem than on the side of worker’s jobs. Is it any wonder then why those whose interests do not include ecosystem survival would frame this debate simply in terms of owls versus jobs?
24. Vocabulary
1. Aquaculture
2. Collapse of fisheries
3. Consumption
4. Deforestation
5. Delay births
6. Depletion of stratospheric ozone
7. Fewer births
8. Population
9. Population * consumption * efficiency
10. Efficiency
11. Energy
12. Global warming
13. Green revolution
14. Loss of biodiversity
15. Reduce
16. Reuse
17. Repair
18. Recycle
19. Wealth
25. Practice questions
1. Name two ecologically naive assumptions a human population growth proponent might make. [PEEK]
2. I proposed in class that the delaying of first births may be an effective strategy humans may employ to reduce their rate of population growth. In ecological terms, how might you describe such a strategy. [PEEK]
3. How might the current exponential expansion in human numbers be understood in terms of predator-prey interactions? [PEEK]
4. What goes a long way toward explaining the current high standard of living enjoyed by at least some of the world's population (notably, those individuals living in the U.S.)? [PEEK]
26. Practice question answers
1. assumptions could include: absence of limits, disregard for sustainability, assumption of environmental constancy, inappropriate extrapolation from past successes, and even a lack of appreciation of the negative impact wealth has on the human environment.
2. it represents an increase in the human generation time
3. one reason why there are fewer human deaths is due to the eradication of pathogens (parasites/predators) through vaccination, greater sanitation, and other means.
4. cheap energy
27. References
1. Broecker, W.S. (1995). Chaotic climate. Scientific American November:62-68.
2. May, R.M. (1998). An attempt to link the sciencees and humanities. Scientific American June: 97-98.
3. Overpeck, J. T. (1996). Warm climate surprises. Science 271:1820-1821.
4. Postelthwaite et al., 1996, p. 785.
5. Raven, P.H., Johnson, G.B. (1995). Biology (updated version). Third Edition. Wm. C. Brown publishers, Dubuque, Iowa. pp. 531-558.
6. Raven, P.H., Johnson, G.B. (1996). Biology. Fourth Edition. Wm. C. Brown publishers, Dubuque, Iowa. pp. 612-631.
7. Safina, C. (1995). The world's imperiled fish. Scientific American November 1995:46-53.