I was rather stunned recently to read the latest U.N. projection for human population, by end of this century. I thought the projection for 2100 was about 9 billion people, but the estimate has been raised to 11.2 billion. That dropped my jaw. There could well be six billion people in Africa alone by the end of this century. But one has to factor who the worst culprits are, in terms of resource use. It's not Africans. It's us...in the developed countries. We're the ones who use the most, pollute the most, etc. I try my best to live like an African, except for the prodigious baby-making.
Two billion people would be sustainable, long-term. We reached that number in the 1920's. There's no way our numbers now are sustainable.
Many years ago I read Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb. When the Green Revolution happened, his excellent book began to be mocked. But I believed then - and still believe - that Dr Ehrlich was right. Human population is a bomb. In fact the Green Revolution will just make the ultimate death toll from that bomb exploding even higher, by billions. It's not something we can say will happen to Africa, and not us. It will happen to every continent...including North America.
The disaster that lies ahead is a collapse of the entire global ecosystem (primarily due to global warming). Nature is sensitive, and we have never given it enough respect. The collapse of agriculture will occur when the human population is at some truly insane level. The population bomb will just be a lot bigger than what Paul imagined. In the end, we just delayed the inevitable and made the catastrophe even worse.
Scientists keep warning us; but how many heed?
Around Antarctica, ocean life is already collapsing, because the population of krill - tiny shrimp-like creatures - is rapidly collapsing. Human warming of the atmosphere means that the plankton that the young krill eat off the bottom of the ice during the winter, so they can survive, are not being stored in the ice, owing to the ice-forming period being much shorter now. The ice doesn't contain much nourishment now, compared to what it once did. So...goodbye krill. Which means...goodbye fish. And also goodbye the creatures (like penguins) that depend on those fish. There are now only a few percent of the krill that were once there, and it's headed toward zero. They are important because they're the foundation of the entire food chain in that part of the ocean.
That's just one example of our increasingly devastating effect on the planet. The fundamental basis for the destruction we're doing is: the human population.
So how to put it in blunt terms? I love putting things in blunt terms. Humans...are breeding... like the bunnies in Australia were breeding? Before myxomatosis kinda killed their interest in sex? You can't be a lovin' bunny when you're dead. Maybe that was a C&W-style hit on Australian radio at one time.
I think now, a much better analogy for humans (than rats or bunnies) is Asian carp. Those fish didn't belong in North America; they were cleverly put here by a genius species. They got away from us, so to speak. Because we are the genius species that routinely effs up. They have just spread and spread and spread. They have been stopped at the Great Lakes - so far. But once they cross that threshold, they will then own the entire water system of North America, from Florida to Alaska. They're voracious and they breed like crazy.
So. Humans are a lot like Asian carp. Very much like. Many days I figure: humans are about as smart as, too. Look at us jump. Wow...we're planning to jump all the way to Mars...like that's a fit place to live. The plan is: trash this planet and move to an uninhabitable one. Do I jest? I think not.
I need to say this. I THINK ASIAN CARP ARE SMARTER THAN HUMANS. Sorry to any humans offended by my remark. But I believe it's accurate.
Two billion people would be sustainable, long-term. We reached that number in the 1920's. There's no way our numbers now are sustainable.
Many years ago I read Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb. When the Green Revolution happened, his excellent book began to be mocked. But I believed then - and still believe - that Dr Ehrlich was right. Human population is a bomb. In fact the Green Revolution will just make the ultimate death toll from that bomb exploding even higher, by billions. It's not something we can say will happen to Africa, and not us. It will happen to every continent...including North America.
The disaster that lies ahead is a collapse of the entire global ecosystem (primarily due to global warming). Nature is sensitive, and we have never given it enough respect. The collapse of agriculture will occur when the human population is at some truly insane level. The population bomb will just be a lot bigger than what Paul imagined. In the end, we just delayed the inevitable and made the catastrophe even worse.
Scientists keep warning us; but how many heed?
Around Antarctica, ocean life is already collapsing, because the population of krill - tiny shrimp-like creatures - is rapidly collapsing. Human warming of the atmosphere means that the plankton that the young krill eat off the bottom of the ice during the winter, so they can survive, are not being stored in the ice, owing to the ice-forming period being much shorter now. The ice doesn't contain much nourishment now, compared to what it once did. So...goodbye krill. Which means...goodbye fish. And also goodbye the creatures (like penguins) that depend on those fish. There are now only a few percent of the krill that were once there, and it's headed toward zero. They are important because they're the foundation of the entire food chain in that part of the ocean.
That's just one example of our increasingly devastating effect on the planet. The fundamental basis for the destruction we're doing is: the human population.
So how to put it in blunt terms? I love putting things in blunt terms. Humans...are breeding... like the bunnies in Australia were breeding? Before myxomatosis kinda killed their interest in sex? You can't be a lovin' bunny when you're dead. Maybe that was a C&W-style hit on Australian radio at one time.
I think now, a much better analogy for humans (than rats or bunnies) is Asian carp. Those fish didn't belong in North America; they were cleverly put here by a genius species. They got away from us, so to speak. Because we are the genius species that routinely effs up. They have just spread and spread and spread. They have been stopped at the Great Lakes - so far. But once they cross that threshold, they will then own the entire water system of North America, from Florida to Alaska. They're voracious and they breed like crazy.
So. Humans are a lot like Asian carp. Very much like. Many days I figure: humans are about as smart as, too. Look at us jump. Wow...we're planning to jump all the way to Mars...like that's a fit place to live. The plan is: trash this planet and move to an uninhabitable one. Do I jest? I think not.
I need to say this. I THINK ASIAN CARP ARE SMARTER THAN HUMANS. Sorry to any humans offended by my remark. But I believe it's accurate.