A Modest Heresy

[GliderGuider]

The Carrying Capacity (K) of an environment determines the population (P) that the environment will support.

If K rises, P tends to rise. If K declines, P tends to decline.

K is determined primarily by the food production (F) of the environment.

By simple substitution: if F rises, P rises; if F declines, P declines.

This relationship holds true for all species, including humans.

See the work of Dr. Russell Hopfenberg for a more elaborate explanation of this relationship, or the writing of Daniel Quinn for a more colourful explanation.

The conclusion is that one sure method of altering the global human population is by altering the global food supply. This has been done very successfully for the last 10,000 years, but only in an upward direction.

There are now too many people, and we now want to reduce and eventually reverse the growth of the species.

This will not be possible as long as the food supply continues to grow. I know, I know: women’s education, condoms, demographic transition … sorry, none of it will reverse our overall population growth if we maintain a growing food supply. In order to reduce the world population we need to start gradually reducing the food supply.

Capping the world food supply by edict is a political impossibility.

Fortunately, soil fertility declines, fresh water depletion and climate change will reduce the food supply over time, but they won’t do it fast enough to keep us out of trouble.

What would help is if we came up with a program that diverted some of our existing food to non-food uses. We could start slowly, then gradually ramp up the food diversion over time, thereby avoiding sudden increases in starvation.

We have already created one program that precisely meets these criteria: biofuels from food crops.

Corn ethanol may be a lousy fuel, but it could be a great population control technology…

[Warpy]

1. Have you ever been really hungry?

I'm not talking about skip a few meals in college hungry. I'm not even talking about a 2 week cleansing fast hungry. I'm talking about the involuntary loss of the ability to get enough food to sustain you.

No one who has ever suffered through real hunger would say such a criminally heartless thing about other people.

[phantom power]

2. Except...

that along the way, we will throw so many other inhabitants of the biosphere under the bus in an attempt to keep the human (P) from declining.

[GliderGuider]

3. They're going under the bus anyway.

Shouldn't we try something that might work for a change?

[phantom power]

4. Would. you. like. to. play. a. game. Dr. Chefurka?

[GliderGuider]

5. Global Thermonuclear War, perhaps?

The only winning move is not to play. Kind of like "Global Population Growth"...

[phantom power]

6. Ooo. Population Bomb.

Yield: 5,000 mega-deaths.

[diane in sf]

7. The best birth control is to educate poor women to 6th grade--the birth rate

drops within one generation from 5-6 kids per women to 2-3. This has happened all over the middle east, Bangladesh, etc. in the last twenty years.

This is why the UN projections show the world population peaking in mid-century and then dropping. Buckminster Fuller noticed over 30 years ago that when power consumption increased to a certain per capita point the population stopped growing (when stuff is industrialized enough to obsolete a lot of uneducated labor). When people move to the city--even piss-poor third world slums--the birth rate drops. Kids off the farm are an expense--not cheap labor. In Costa Rica they are emphasizing the fact they will have social security for people's old age to help keep people's family size small.

Now visualize energy coming from wind, waves, solar and other clean and getting cheaper sources. Could be a great new world.

Thee are much better ways to slow and stop population growth than killing and torturing people with starvation, disease and other misery. Being willing to kill people for your cause (whatever it is) is so Bushco--one of them, Kissinger I think, was quoted as talking about "culling the herd," at a meeting where they thought they were not being overheard.

You do realize as a normal, middle-class American, Bushco and friends consider you to be part of the cullable herd.

[NNadir]

10. Actually there are lots of ways to kill people, notably by appeal to ignorance.

Wind, solar, waves and the other bullshit is basically the conceit of rich people talking for and about other rich people.

This may come as a surprise to the members of the "environment club" at the country club, but the attempt to raise the consumption level of the six billion people who live on less than half of the world's resources will have effects that are measurable.

In fact, the power consumption of anyone who spends lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of time cruising dumb "solar will save us," "wind will save us" and (this is even more outrageous and delusional) "tidal will save us" websites, consume more energy than they are responsible for creating.

Now, if one can do simple operations like say, division, one can calculate how much - after 50 years of cheering - energy is produced by solar, wind, and (get this) tidal energy, if one is willing also to throw in geothermal.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

Now.

By simple arithmetic, from this data one can calculate that 3.69 billion kilowatt-hours represents 1.3 exajoules.

There is NOT ONE illiterate anti-nuke who can count exajoules. NOT ONE.

The average power associated with this much energy can be found by dividing 1.3 exajoules by the number of seconds in a year. The answer is 42,000 MW.

If world population is 6.7 billion people, it follows that all the cute renewable energy systems on the planet produce about 6.2 watts per person, less than the energy consumed by a night light in a baby's room.

Put another way, all of the so called "renewable" cutesy schemes pushed by illiterates built in the entire history of the planet earth amount to merely a little more than three times the new gas capacity that will be built in the United States this year. That's one fucking year.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epaxlfile2_5.xls

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

There are zero anti-nukes on this website who live on 6 watts. Anyone who has a computer on is consuming way more than six watts.

Ignorance kills.

The per capita power consumption of the average American, it can be shown, although there is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke who could get the simple math, is approximately 12,000 watts average per person. The average Chinese still uses less than 1,000 watts per person. If the average citizen of this planet consumed like an American, the world energy demand would be over 2,500 exajoules, roughly 5 times as large as it is now.

Three children, by the way, is way above the replacement rate. If one has a proper 6th grade education, one should know that immediately. In the United States, the replacement rate is 2.1 births per family.

In any case, one thing that is notably disgusting about the immoral anti-nuke cult is its self serving definition of morality.

Ignorance kills, for sure. This is true whether the ignorance is deliberate as is often the case with the anti-nuke cults, or if the ignorance derives from poverty. The moral effects are identical.

[kestrel91316]

20. Poor NNadir, ranting to himself. Oblivious to the fact that virtually everyone

has his sorry, nasty a-- on ignore.........

[Champion Jack]

52. Great Idea! I just added him to the ol' ignore heap

[NNadir]

61. Um really?

There's a Heisenbergian element to this.

I'd explain it, but I have known exactly zero anti-nuke fundies who understand science.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Shouldn't the headline read "A Modest Proposal?"

You are (of course) talking about starving people (however slowly.)

...

One of Swift’s targets: public population “solutions”

Most critics have been reluctant to analyze the targets of Swift’s A Modest Proposal because of a misreading of Swift’s intentions. According to Wittkowsky, critics wrongly assumed that A Modest Proposal targeted conditions in Ireland,¹ instead of its true target, the “set of theories and attitudes which rendered such conditions possible”.¹

One of Swift’s overarching targets in A Modest Proposal was the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would purportedly solve social and economic ills. Swift was especially insulted by projects that tried to fix population and labor issues with a simple cure-all solution.² A memorable example of these sort of schemes “involved the idea of running the poor through a joint-stock company”.² In response, Swift’s Modest Proposal was “a burlesque of projects concerning the poor”,³ that were in vogue during the early 18th century.

A Modest Proposal also targets the calculating way people perceived the poor in designing their projects. The pamphlet targets reformers who “regard people as commodities”.⁴ In the piece, Swift adopts the “technique of a political arithmetician“⁵ to try and prove the utter ridiculousness of trying to prove any proposal with dispassionate statistics.

Critics differ about Swift’s intentions in using this faux-mathematical philosophy. Edmund Wilson argues that statistically “the logic of the "Modest proposal" can be compared with Marx's defense of crime in which he argues that crime takes care of the superfluous population”.⁵ Wittkowsky counters that Swift's satiric use of statistical analysis is an effort to enhance his satire that “springs from a spirit of bitter mockery, not from the delight in calculations for their own sake”.⁶

...

[GliderGuider]

9. I'm not talking about EATING them - that would be barbaric!

Let me ask you a question. Back in the days when we were just plain old homo sapiens, say 100,000 years ago -- before we developed this odd notion that we were the gods' chosen species and all the food on the planet was meant for us alone -- our population was essentially stable, and had been for well over a million years. Were the natural mechanisms that kept our numbers under control up till then evil, immoral and barbaric? Or does it just seem that way to us today because as the apotheosis of evolutionary progress we now feel it is our right to reject natural limits?

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. "Evil, immoral and barbaric?" I believe you mean, "Nasty, brutish and short."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/254050.html

...

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

...

The idea that the lives of our ancestors were somehow better (or more virtuous) by their being closer to the/other animals is to reject the value of art, science and the more noble aspects of human society.

[GliderGuider]

12. I never even hinted that the lives of our ancestors were "somehow better"

My point was merely that the limits on their reproduction were natural, and that those same limits, were they to come back into effect today, would be no less natural. I like art and science just fine, thanks, though I do think nobility tends to be in the eye of the beholder. I wonder if all that art, science and nobility is going to save the biosphere.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Reverting to "Nasty, Brutish and Short" will not save the biosphere

At this point, science is about our only hope, unless you're pulling for divine intervention.

[GliderGuider]

14. Reducing the number of humans is ultimately the only thing that will help.

We can either a) try to do that ourselves, or we can b) leave it up to Mother Nature. Since most people think we would cock it up if we tried a, that leaves us with b.

IMO the idea that science will save the day is pure monkey-brain hubris.

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. Nothing else is going to help

Natural feed-back loops are kicking in or are on the verge of kicking in.

If humanity said "farewell" tomorrow, I don't think the current warming would reverse itself any time soon. (Not if the ice core record is any indication.)

If the current trends continue, there are tough times ahead for essentially the entire ecosystem.

Now, I do agree with Lovelock on this much... we won't succeed in killing off all life. At the very least, some microbial life is bound to survive (consider the extremophiles.)

Like it or not, we've grabbed the pilot's seat on this planet. If the other passengers are to survive, it's up to us to pull us out of this nosedive.

I'm not saying that science absolutely will save us, however if anything will...

[GliderGuider]

16. It's time we faced up to some facts

Chief among them being that we have set the biosphere up for some rapid, unavoidable changes that will necessarily involve the loss of a lot of species. There is nothing we can do now to prevent that, because it's already happening.

The second thing is that we should be prepared for a sudden, widespread loss of the structural integrity of our civilization, starting any time within the next two to three decades. That will mean different things in different places, but for most of us it will imply loss of services, loss of resources and some loss of life. The loss of access to traditional food supplies (think Kroger and Safeway) will play a major role in the change.

Mainly though, it implies that we will need to quickly develop new, adaptive social mechanisms to support the smaller, more self-sufficient communities that will spring up where the larger structures of nations, states and provinces have foundered. Those adaptations are, IMO likely to be a more productive channel for human creativity than better batteries.

[XemaSab]

26. "there are tough times ahead for essentially the entire ecosystem"

Here's my more optimistic take on it:

Consider all the birds that nest on the arctic tundra, or in the boreal forest.

Gulls, shorebirds, passerines, hawks, owls... all kinds of birds.

10,000 years ago the boreal forest and tundra were under ice. Somehow these species managed to figure it out.

These species have survived glacials and interglacials, and we don't know what kind of tribulations they went through. But somehow they survived and adapted.

I think they will continue to adapt to new circumstances.

[OKIsItJustMe]

32. I appreciate your more optimistic take

What concerns me is that we have more going on here than "Global Warming" we also have the fact that (for example) we've been wreaking havoc on the ocean food web, essentially driving species to extinction (or to the brink of extinction.)

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/marinefoodwebs.htm

...

Over Fishing Changes Food Webs

We saw earlier that Cod stocks on Canada's East Coast have failed to rebound more than a decade after the fishery was closed. Now, Kenneth Frank and colleagues have reported the results of their study of changes in the food web in the large eastern Scotian Shelf offshore of Nova Scotia, Canada. They found that the removal of cod and other large fish changed the entire structure of the food web from top to bottom:

1. The population of small fishes and large invertebrates, including northern snow crab and northern shrimp increased markedly.
2. The population of large plant-eating zooplankton (> 2 mm) decreased markedly.
3. Phytoplankton increased markedly.
4. Seal populations are increasing exponentially.
5. The economic value of the crab and shrimp fisheries now exceeds the earlier value of the cod fishery.
6. Actions to restore the cod fishery have failed despite a nearly complete shutdown of cod fishing.
7. Cod stocks in other areas north of 44 degrees North have also failed to recover, while cod stocks in areas south of 44 degrees North have started to recover.

Fishing down the marine food web. After the large fish at the top of the food web are fished out, fisheries go after smaller fish and invertebrates at lower levels in the food web while their trawling destroys animals and plants on the sea floor. Time increases toward the right along the blue arrow. Scale on the right gives the trophic level in the food web.
From Pauly (2003).

...

[XemaSab]

25. This is my take on it:

At times more than 10,000 years ago, we GOT whatever food we COULD, and we DIED of stupid, basic, treatable diseases IN DROVES.

It's not an issue of attitude, it's an issue of technology.

Were you aware that until the turn of the century half of all women died in childbirth? And were you aware that infanticide in order to limit populations is WAY more common among native societies than we are now aware? And that's not so mention all the little kids who died of starvation, disease, accidents, malnutrition, animals, and a host of other causes.

People were trying their DAMNDEST to pump out kids 100,000 years ago... but the population didn't grow. Not due to lack of effort... but due to limiting factors.

[kristopher]

17. That is a very poorly supported argument..

"This will not be possible as long as the food supply continues to grow. I know, I know: women’s education, condoms, demographic transition … sorry, none of it will reverse our overall population growth if we maintain a growing food supply. In order to reduce the world population we need to start gradually reducing the food supply."

There are too many examples of humans adapting through controlled population growth. The sources you cite may document cases where we have failed; but I'm betting the analysis is flawed. I've read a little of Quinn and I'm sure his substantiation doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

As concerned as you are on this topic I strongly recommend you read "Cultural Materialism" by Marvin Harris. Don't read an interpretation; go straight to the source. His research strategy places primacy on two things as they affect the structure of human culture, production and reproduction. In the first third the recommended book gives a detailed explanation of the weakness of the argument above. It is much too complex to try to cover here so I'm not ducking the issue. Please, read the book.

In the meantime I'll read the two paper's on Hopfenberg's website. I'm downloading now. Harris will be harder to locate I'm afraid. If it helps he was Chair of the Canadian Anthropological Association.

[kristopher]

18. OK I just read Carrying Capacity.

The first limitation I see is the short time scale of the correlation. It tells us very little that is predictive.
There is nothing in it that is contradicted by Harris, but I don't think the relevance of the research is able to be properly appreciated without the theoretical structure of culture Harris provides.
Particularly noteworthy to me was this "Addressing
the problem of human population growth must include a shift in cultural attitudes, which
may well consist of changes in the social, political, educational and religious mindset. This
cultural shift must also include the recognition, as the present study makes clear, that the
problem of human population growth can be feasibly addressed only if it is recognized that
increases in the population of the human species, like increases in the population of all
other species, is a function of increases in food availability. "

Harris has outlined the mechanism by which the cultural changes referred to are accomplished in the real world.

I haven't time for the other paper today, but I'll read it by tomorrow and get back to you.

[GliderGuider]

19. The argument was to a degree a piece of mischief, intended to put the cat among the pigeons

However, I'm convinced by the argument that populations in aggregate rise only if food availability in aggregate also rises. The fact that a population may grow unevenly, that it may grow more in some places than in others, doesn't affect the overall outcome. You need more food to make more people. The same will hold true for food and population declines - if the aggregate food supply shrinks, then populations tend to go along for the ride, again with some inhomogeneity. We have seen this correlation with human populations on the upside, and my (and Hopfenberg's and Quinn's) claim is that the increase in food is actually a cause, not just a mere correlation, because the same thing is observed in other species. We haven't had a chance to test it yet on the downside, because, as everyone tells me, Malthus was just flat-out wrong. I think we're about to become a living laboratory for the hypothesis, though.

Take a look at Hopfenberg's animated Powerpoint as well.

[kristopher]

21. Read Harris. Trust me.

Unless you understand the mechanism by which cultures actually perform the adaptations you are referring to, you will fail to recognize them when they are occurring right in front of your eyes. Let me put it this way to pique your interest. I believe Deep Environmentalism et al are predictable second/third order manifestations of the process you are looking to find evidence for.

[GliderGuider]

22. If I said "culture is a memetic fabric"

and, "Small changes to the meme pool can result in big differences between cultures, just as small changes to a genome can result in very different species" -- would those ideas fall somewhere within Harris's spectrum?

I think I've located his book. I'll pick it up.

[kristopher]

23. Yes it would fit very well.

He speaks in terms of culture having an organic nature.

[XemaSab]

28. Food supplies don't typically shrink by a modest amount over a period of time

to provoke responsible population stabilization.

Usually populations hit a wall and crash.

[GliderGuider]

29. That's true.

In animal populations if the food supply is consumed much faster than it can regenerate, populations will crash.

With humans and our food storage technologies, though, that doesn't happen. As a species we haven't run short of food in millennia, not since we figured out how to remove land from the use of other unimportant species, use it to grow food for ourselves and store the resulting over-production.

If we want to reduce the human population reliable, I'm proposing that we modify this approach so that we don't produce food surpluses any more. I'm not proposing introducing deliberate food shortages, merely working with the natural processes of ecological degradation and climate change to ensure that we stop producing more than our current population needs.

As far as I can tell right now, that ought to rapidly stabilize our population (possibly over the course of a decade or two), but without introducing more starvation. Instead, as Hopfenberg mentions his paper with Pimentel, stabilizing the food supply should not increase starvation levels, but simply reduce fertility as it does in other species. The total amount of food being produced would still be more than enough to feed us all (if it were uniformly distributed, of course) so there is no moral hazard introduced.

Regarding other techniques, Demographic Transition won't happen because the energy needed to industrialize the poor half of the world just isn't available. I also don't hold out much hope for education both because of the number of people involved (half the world's population lives in countries with a TFR greater than 2.1) and the time it would require to take effect. It could take a generation, and if we want to avoid calamity I think the world population must begin declining before 2030.

If I'm right in my caveats on Demographic Transition and education, and we can't bring ourselves to stabilize the food supply through policy intervention, we will perforce have to wait for Mother Nature to do it, and then we could easily "hit a wall and crash".

[bananas]

62. "You need more food to make more people" - NOT TRUE!

Not if you make smaller people: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3127154

[diane in sf]

27. Thanks, sounds interesting--I just put it on my library request list.

[XemaSab]

24. As a woman, I don't follow

You can VIOLENTLY kill off a bunch of people, such as in Ethiopia in the '80s, but does that really affect global populations? Notsomuch.

I think education of women (and their mates) is the best way to control population, and barring a nasty CRASH, we might be able to land the plane fairly gently in the next 25 years or so IF we have the courage to educate women in the 3rd world. Which so far we've shown no signs of doing. :(

[GliderGuider]

30. Wars are not effective population controls

WWII killed 10 million people a year for 6 years. The net population growth was about three times that however, and then increased further after the war. The world population is currently growing by 75 million per year.

I commented on education in my post above. while it's definitely the most humane approach, unfortunately I don't share your faith in its effectiveness or expediency.

[OKIsItJustMe]

31. I'm curious

Why do you think the US (for example) has a lower fertility rate (2.09) than the world average (2.59)? Why does the EU have an average fertility rate of 1.50?

Is it because of high infant mortality rates in “developed countries?”

Why is world fertility down from 2.80 in 2000 to 2.59 in 2007? (What has changed in seven years?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate


I would hazard to say that it has something to do with education and/or health care.

(I've heard it said that the best birth control is the belief by mothers that their children will survive to adulthood.)

http://www.populationaction.org/Publications/Reports/Mapping_the_Future_of_World_Population/Summary.shtml

...

The medium projection, most commonly cited among UN projections, is the one used to make this world map of projected population distribution in 2025. The upper and lower curves define the range of what the UN demographers consider possible paths for world population between the present and the end of the 23rd century.

Source: United Nations Population Division, 2003

...

[GliderGuider]

33. I suspect the low TFR of the EU has to do with health care and social safety nets

Certainly when compared to the USA.

The decline in global fertility rates is probably a combination of demographic transition and education. A drop of 0.2 is significant, but not enormous. It needs to fall three times that far to stabilize our population - which is certainly conceivable over a generation.

My concern is, even if we do manage to stabilize our population at 9 billion by 2050 without springing a Malthusian trap, how long is such a population going to be sustainable? Especially since our financial system, climate system, energy system and food system are already showing signs of coming apart at the seams with less than 7 billion people?

[OKIsItJustMe]

34. Why are you so confident that we will stabilize at 9 billion?

Many "developed" countries have fertility rates < 2

A fertility rate of exactly 2.0 is not stable, since childhood accidents/diseases do happen.

[GliderGuider]

35. I'm not. That's the UN's Medium Fertility projection.

I expect our population to peak at 7 to 8 billion in about 2030 and then immediately begin declining. It will be entirely because of the mess we're in and the way we've degraded the earth's ecology and resource base, as well as the miserable state of the global economy.

We're out of time, money and resources we'd need for a truly soft landing, but we should still be able to set her down in a clearing somewhere without rolling the whole shooting match up into a ball. When the dust has settled, all passengers should immediately exit by the nearest unobstructed opening, gather into small groups and take an inventory of their possessions. Rescue parties should not be expected, and the flight crew will be busy saving their own skins.

[OKIsItJustMe]

36. The UN has revised their estimates

http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/popnews/Newsltr_83.pdf

WORLD POPULATION PROSPECTS: THE 2006 REVISION

...

The 2006 Revision confirms the diversity of demographic dynamics among the different world regions. While the population at the global level is on track to surpass 9 billion by 2050 and hence continues to increase, that of the more developed regions is hardly changing and will age markedly. As already noted, virtually all population growth is occurring in the less developed regions and especially in the group of the 50 least developed countries, many of which still have relatively youthful populations that are expected to age only moderately over the foreseeable future. Among the rest of the developing countries, rapid population ageing is expected.

Underlying these varied patterns of growth and changes in the age structure are distinct trends in fertility and mortality. Below-replacement fertility prevails in the more developed regions and is expected to continue to 2050. Fertility is still high in most of the least developed countries and, although it is expected to decline, it will remain higher than in the rest of the world. In the rest of the developing countries, fertility has declined markedly since the late 1960s and is expected to reach below-replacement levels by 2050 in the majority of them.

...

It seems to me that the key to population growth is to help the "less developed regions" become "more developed" (not to starve the poor as you modestly propose. I think that approach might have the opposite effect.)

[GliderGuider]

37. They still say 9 billion by 2050

I agree that wealth disparity is an important feature of the global population that can't be ignored -- especially as the poorest nations have the highest population growth rates.

I don't think there is any realistic way we can develop those poor parts of the world. Under the current economic paradigm, development takes large amounts of energy. With Peak Fossil Fuel looming we just don't have that much extra energy. Wind and solar won't do it on their own because (especially in the third world) those are still bootstrap industries that will rely on high levels of fossil fuel inputs for the next few decades. Even then the state of the electrical infrastructure in the less developed world isn't up to the task of rapid industrialization, and would itself need massive inputs of resources and energy to bring it up to scratch.

Then there's the problem that further industrialization (again under the current model) entails resource exploitation and waste production. No matter how efficient you make those processes (and remember we're talking about industrializing the third world here, not a modern country like, say, China) there will be resource degradation, habitat destruction and pollution increases simply because the economy is growing.

Unless we can come up with a radically different definition of "development" that would be equally as effective as classical industrial development, would have fewer resource and environmental costs, and would be just as acceptable to its recipients, plans of "salvation through industrialization" are doomed from the outset -- stillborn, if you will.

I'm not proposing we "starve the poor". That's just your projection, your attempt to discredit the discussion because something in it makes you uncomfortable. We produce plenty of food to feed the world. I'm proposing that we not produce any more than we do today. No additional starvation need (or even would result), just a rapid slowing of population growth.

[OKIsItJustMe]

38. "I'm not proposing we 'starve the poor'." - Well, of course you are.

If you limit the food supply, to decrease the population, the rich will still eat. The rich will always eat.

Limiting food supplies will naturally increase the price of food (as is happening now.) The logical result is that if there is any population decrease, it will be among the poor, who can no longer afford to feed themselves.

http://www.un.org/radio/9171.asp

Neglect of Agriculture Hurting Poor in Asia

27/03/2008

A new UN report says chronic neglect of agriculture in Asia and the Pacific has left over 200 million people in extreme poverty, despite robust growth in other sectors.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, helped launch the survey in New York.

"Over a longer term, there has been a decline in emphasis on food security. There has also been a particular emphasis on industrialization and a relative neglect of agricultural production generally, and of food production in particular, and this is something which the survey emphasizes."

The Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2008 says reforms in land policy are needed to connect the rural poor to cities and markets and to make it easier for farmers to access loans and crop insurance. The report's focus on the agricultural sector comes amid signs of rising food prices, pressured by soaring demand for biofuels. The Survey says that biofuels are not only hurting poor consumers in Asia and the Pacific through high food prices, but they are also failing to help the region's poor farmers, who do not have the resources to adapt their land to the biofuel crops.

[GliderGuider]

39. Ultimately, of course, it is always the poor that starve.

The distribution inequities that make their food security situation worse are being driven more by economics rather than the absolute food supply. As another poster pointed out at great length last week, the current rise in food costs appear to have more to do with the money flow in global commodity markets than pure supply/demand relationships.

The rich will always eat, as you say. The poor will always starve. It would be nice if we could figure out a perfectly equitable system under which that didn't happen, but we haven't come up with one yet. I'm pretty sure my proposal would not materially worsen an already bad situation, though it would make people think about it more directly. And thoughts like that always give post-modern liberals the heebie-jeebies.

[OKIsItJustMe]

40. It appears that helping the poor to feed themselves works well

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=is-green-revolution-finally-blooming-in-africa

November 1, 2007

Is a Green Revolution Finally Blooming in Africa?

Three years ago, experts and officials called for a green revolution in African agriculture.They are beginning to get their wish.

By David Biello

For the first time since record keeping began in the 1960s, per capita food production in sub-Saharan Africa is beginning to rise.

According to the World Bank's World Development Report 2007, "agricultural growth in sub-Saharan Africa has accelerated from 2.3 percent per year in the 1980s to 3.3 percent in the 1990s and to 3.8 percent per year between 2000 and 2005." As a result, the report stated, "rural poverty has also started to decline in 10 of 13 countries analyzed."

This is thanks largely to an African "green revolution"—a combination of better crop varieties and increased use of fertilizers—says soil scientist Pedro Sanchez, director of tropical agriculture at The Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City and co-leader of the Millennium Villages Project, an effort to transform selected African villages with targeted aid and technology interventions.

"The green revolution called for by Kofi Annan in 2004 is really beginning to happen," Sanchez says. "Countries, like Malawi, have gone from net food importers to net food exporters."

...

[GliderGuider]

41. The Green Revolution? Not f'ing likely

The African Green Revolution amounts to a Rockefeller/Monsanto initiative to force African farmers to use natural-gas based fertilizers and irrigate with water they don't have in order to grow food from patented seeds they have to buy from transnational corporations and then can't save for next year's crop. In my opinion it's one of the most misguided things the West has tried to do to Africa.

In my article Africa in 2040 I say this about Africa's ability to host a Green Revolution:

Much of African agriculture is rain fed rather than irrigated. The actual amount ranges up to 96% of Sub-Saharan agriculture, according to the World Bank. Rain fed agriculture is extremely vulnerable to any change in rainfall patterns. Unfortunately, such a disruption is one of the early effects of climate change. According to a recent estimate, climate change may reduce the yield of crops like maize by as much as 30% in Southern Africa over the next two decades.

(...)

The cost of nitrogen fertilizer is determined largely (about 85%) by the cost of the natural gas feedstock. As a result fertilizer prices track natural gas prices quite closely, and as gas prices have risen around the world the price of fertilizer has gone along for the ride. This trend appears to be accelerating, as one would expect in a world of tight energy supplies. In the last few years the price of nitrogen fertilizer has doubled, and this rise is showing no signs of leveling off. Fertilizer prices are expected to rise another 50% during 2008.

There are two significant facts about fertilizer use in Africa. One is that fertilizer in Africa costs two to four times the world price, largely due to the cost of transporting it inland by road from port cities. The second fact that follows from this is that African farmers use only one tenth of the world average fertilizer per hectare.

(...)

As I indicated in the section on Climate Change, very little of Africa's arable land is irrigated. In fact, over the whole continent only 7% of farmland is irrigated, and in Sub-Saharan Africa this drops to 4%. In comparison, Asia irrigates 38% of its arable land. This situation is not entirely because of a lack of ground water in Africa. In a speech in 2005 the Director-General of the FAO stated that Africa uses only 4% of its renewable water, compared to Asia's 14%. The probable reason for this lack of development is a combination of shortages in capital, energy and infrastructure. Given Africa's recent history, those factors seem unlikely to change significantly in the near future.

Whatever the reasons, the shortage of irrigation water along with the unavailability of fertilizer described above, represent major obstacles to the introduction of high yield "Green Revolution" crop varieties to Africa.

All things considered, Africa is unlikely to need any help from mischievous proposals like mine to reduce their food availability. My model in the above article shows a population loss of over half a billion people by 2040 just from the forces already at work.

[OKIsItJustMe]

42. As I've said before, "This isn't your Father's 'Green Revolution'"

http://allafrica.com/stories/200804070026.html

South Africa: Towards a New and Improved Green Revolution

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
6 April 2008
Posted to the web 7 April 2008

Stephen Leahy
Johannesburg

As food prices soar and hundreds of millions go hungry, experts from around the world will this week present a new approach for ensuring food security, at the intergovernmental plenary for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

...

The IAASTD brought together more than 400 scientists who examined all current knowledge about agricultural practices and science to find ways to double food production in the next 25 to 50 years and do so sustainably, while helping to lift the poor out of poverty. They concluded that the way to meet these challenges is through combining local and traditional know-how with formal knowledge.

The effort produced five regional assessments and a synthesis report, as well as an executive summary for decision makers.

Representatives from 30 governments of developed and developing countries, the biotechnology and pesticide industry and a wide range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Greenpeace and Oxfam, were involved. Public sessions were also held to gather input from producer and consumer groups, as well as others within the private sector.

...

[GliderGuider]

44. Notice that the headline says, "Towards" a New and Improved Green Revolution

AGRA, as it's currently scoped, and with the support of the Rockefeller and Gates foundations and has been pretty much a bog-standard water/fertilizer/diesel/commercial seed-based Green Revolution. They're desperately trying to change course because they're just now realizing that simply won't work in most of Africa.

Experts cast doubt on Agra’s soil fertility plan

February 18, 2008: Agriculture experts have criticised a programme seeking to restore soil fertility in Kenya and other African countries, saying that similar programmes implemented in India and elsewhere aggravated farmer’s problems instead of providing solutions.

The programme is an initiative of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), which recently announced that it was committing $180 million to the five-year project in 13 African countries. Agra’s soil health programme is targeted at small scale farmers and aims to increase farm yields and incomes by giving farmers seeds and inputs such as fertilizers through licensed agro-dealers.

Critics, however say that Agra’s programmes are a Trojan horse for genetically modified seeds which in Africa have only been fully embraced by South Africa. Although popular in many regions of the world GMO use in Africa has been hindered by safety concerns and regulatory issues even though the continent is in dire need of boosting its food production.

Agra has also been accused of fronting for seed and fertilizer companies in the West such as Syngenta and Monsanto that are hungry to take a slice of the African seed market.

“Although Agra does not on the face of it promote the use of GM technologies, 70 organisations from 12 African countries see Agra as shifting African agriculture to a system dependent on expensive, harmful chemicals, monocultures of hybrid seeds, and ultimately GMOs,” says the African Centre for Biosafety in a paper authored by Mariam Mayet.

These concerns were also echoed by participants from 25 countries representing farmers, agricultural and pastoralist organisations at a forum held in Mali from November 25 to December 2 last year to discuss the pitfalls of Green Revolution in Africa.

“Once the mask of philanthropy is removed, we find profit-hungry corporations vying to control the seed market in African countries, create a path for genetically modified seeds and foods and to pry open a market for chemical fertilizers—which in turn will have an adverse effect on African indigenous seed populations and destroy bio-diversity, not to mention the devastation of the environment and the salination of the soil,” said Mukoma wa Ngugi, co-editor of Pambazuka News in a recent commentary in Business Daily.

This is seriously evil shit.

[OKIsItJustMe]

43. Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa commits 180M to revive farmers' depleted soils

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/bc-afa012408.php

...

Contact: Preeti Singh
[e-mail]
301-652-1558, ext. 5722
Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa commits 180M to revive farmers' depleted soils

AGRA Soil Health Program plans balanced, sustainable approach to restoration of small-scale farms' soil fertility as exhausted lands pose major threat to food production

Nairobi, Kenya (25 January 2008) — Determined to revive the grossly depleted soils of sub-Saharan Africa, which are a major underlying cause of poverty and hunger, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) today announced a US$180 million five-year program to restore the fertility of Africa’s soils.

...

Balanced Approach to Restoring Soil Fertility

AGRA’s Soil Health Program will foster widespread adoption of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM). The ISFM strategy involves assessing local soil and water resources and considering how organic matter, fertilizers, farmer cropping systems, and farmer knowledge can work in concert to create highly productive and environmentally sustainable approaches to soil revitalization.

“The Soil Health Program was developed not only to boost the yield and incomes of small-scale farmers, but also to care for the soil in ways that conserve the environment,” said Dr. Akin Adesina, Vice President for Policy and Partnerships at AGRA.

The methods adopted by farmers will vary according to the nutritional needs of their crops and the deficiencies of their soils. For example, in some cases, soil health will best be improved with increased use of organic matter derived from crop residues, manure, or crop rotation with legumes that can increase the availability of soil nitrogen. In other cases, the restoration of severely depleted soils may require that farmers apply carefully formulated fertilizers, often in combination with organic matter.

...

[GliderGuider]

45. My response to this self-serving twaddle is in the post above

[OKIsItJustMe]

46. The Possibility of a Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Kenya

http://ideas.repec.org/a/fao/tejade/v2y2005i1p7-19.html

The Possibility of a Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Kenya

...

Abstract

It is widely believed that a Green Revolution similar to the one achieved in Asia is impossible in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although grain yields have been stagnant in this region, there are some signs of the intensification of farming systems in the face of growing population pressure on limited land resources. In this paper we focus on the new farming system based on the use of manure produced by dairy cows, which may be termed an “Organic Green Revolution.” Using the farm household data collected from Kenya, this paper demonstrates that the Organic Green Revolution has a potential of doubling maize yields in highlands of Kenya.

...

[GliderGuider]

47. This sort of work I support whole-heartedly.

A green revolution based on manure is good shit. One based on fossil fuels is bad shit.

[OKIsItJustMe]

48. Millennium Villages

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/1799

Millennium Villages

The Millennium Villages project offers a bold, innovative model for helping rural African communities lift themselves out of extreme poverty. The Millennium Villages themselves are proving that by fighting poverty at the village level through community-led development, rural Africa can achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and escape from the poverty trap. By applying this scalable model to give them a hand up, not a hand out, people of this generation can get on the ladder of development and start climbing on their own.

With the help of new advances in science and technology, project personnel work with villages to create and facilitate sustainable, community-led action plans that are tailored to the villages’ specific needs and designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Simple solutions like providing high-yield seeds, fertilizers, medicines, drinking wells, and materials to build school rooms and clinics are effectively combating extreme poverty and nourishing communities into a new age of health and opportunity. Improved science and technology such as agroforestry, insecticide-treated malaria bed nets, antiretroviral drugs, the Internet, remote sensing, and geographic information systems enriches this progress.

Over a 5-year period, community committees and local governments build capacity to continue these initiatives and develop a solid foundation for sustainable growth.To date, the Millennium Villages project has reached nearly 400,000 people in 79 villages. Clustered into12 groups across 10 African countries (Ethiopia,Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda,Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda), the villages are located in different agro-ecological zones that reflect the range of farming, water, and disease challenges facing the continent. Success in these different zones shows how tailored strategies can overcome each challenge.

[GliderGuider]

49. Again, a fantastic idea

New forms of resilient, community-based structures are needed world-wide. Africa should be a great laboratory for them, because they haven't lost their village infrastructure yet. Imagine trying to do this in Iowa or Nebraska?

[OKIsItJustMe]

50. SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR ‘UNIQUELY AFRICAN GREEN REVOLUTION’ IN 21ST CENTURY,

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sgsm9405.doc.htm

06/07/2004
Press Release
SG/SM/9405
AFR/988


SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR ‘UNIQUELY AFRICAN GREEN REVOLUTION’ IN 21ST CENTURY,

TO END CONTINENT’S PLAGUE OF HUNGER, IN ADDIS ABABA REMARKS

Following are Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s opening remarks at a high-level event on Innovative Approaches to Meeting the Hunger Millennium Development Goal in Africa: “Africa’s Green Revolution: A Call to Action”, in Addis Ababa, 5 July:

...

What would such a revolution look like?

We would see proven techniques in small-scale irrigation and water harvesting scaled up to provide more crop-per-drop.

We would see improved food crops, developed through publicly funded research focused specifically on Africa.

We would see soil health restored, through agroforestry techniques and organic and mineral fertilizers.

...

[GliderGuider]

51. In 2004 he called for a "Uniquely African" Green Revolution.

From 2004 to 2008 they delivered him a "Uniquely Transnational" Green Revolution.

Now they're backpedaling with all their might, "Wait, wait! We really meant what he said to begin with! We weren't trying to slip you Terminator Seeds, honest!"

[OKIsItJustMe]

54. June 14, 2007, Kofi A. Annan became chairman of "Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa"

http://www.rockfound.org/initiatives/agra/061407kofi_remarks.pdf

...

Three years ago, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I addressed the Africa’s Green Revolution Seminar in Addis Ababa—a gathering of African leaders committed to achieving a goal that has eluded us for too long—lifting tens of millions of our children, parents, brothers and sisters out of poverty and hunger into a world of opportunity and hope.

Today, I have the high honour of accepting the position of Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. I am humbled, and yet excited.

I do this alongside all of you—our farmers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and elected leaders. And I accept this challenge with gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all others who support our African campaign.

I do this because, for me, there is nothing more important. We must address poverty at its core.

...

[GliderGuider]

56. Sometimes you've got to dance with the devil to get the job done, I guess.

I hope Kofi gets to keep his soul. He may be naive, but his heart's in the right place.

[OKIsItJustMe]

53. Your attitude is based on the assumption that this is a 60's style "Green Revolution"

However, that's not what it was intended to be, it's not what is becoming, and it's not what it will be.

[GliderGuider]

55. You mean my cynical assumption

That transnational corporations like Syngenta and Monsanto will take (or make) any opportunity they can find to turn a profit? Whatever could have made me so jaded and suspicious?

There are lots of gentle, inclusive statements of intent from planners and politicians, and lots of programs aimed at organic agriculture within the local context. Then there's the "Green Revolution":

“Once the mask of philanthropy is removed, we find profit-hungry corporations vying to control the seed market in African countries, create a path for genetically modified seeds and foods and to pry open a market for chemical fertilizers—which in turn will have an adverse effect on African indigenous seed populations and destroy bio-diversity, not to mention the devastation of the environment and the salination of the soil,” said Mukoma wa Ngugi, co-editor of Pambazuka News in a recent commentary in Business Daily.

I'm glad these schmoes have been rumbled, because it means that a few good programs might come to fruition.

[OKIsItJustMe]

57. A favorite passage from Vonnegut

http://www.amazon.com/God-Bless-You-Mr-Rosewater/dp/product-description/0385333471

"In every big transaction," said Leech, "there is a magic moment during which a man has surrendered a treasure, and during which the man who is due to receive it has not yet done so. An alert lawyer will make that moment his own, possessing the treasure for a magic microsecond, taking a little of it, passing it on. If the man who is to receive the treasure is unused to wealth, has an inferiority complex and shapeless feelings of guilt, as most people do, the lawyer can often take as much as half the bundle, and still receive the recipient's blubbering thanks."

[One_Life_To_Give]

58. Man is not required to follow the predator prey equation

We have the ability to reason, analyze and understand. Therefore we can avoid the cyclical nature of the process and all the suffering it entails. As populations grow to exceed carrying capacity, followed by disease and famine bringing the numbers back below carrying capacity.

The question is do we have the Wisdom to control our population sufficiently below the carrying capacity to prevent our getting caught up in natural cycles?

[GliderGuider]

59. Do you really think so?

I've come to think we give reason altogether too much credit. We have a very bad case of Clever Monkey syndrome, to the point where we have convinced ourselves that our relentless reasoning sets us apart from nature and exempts us from its laws. In fact, even proposing that we might be subject to those laws is considered blasphemous by many.

We have indeed avoided the normal cycle of species-wide feast and famine, but only by turning our lives into a perpetual feast. I think we're about to be presented with the bill for this 10,000 year luau, and I worry that we may have left our wallets at home.

Have you read Dan Quinn's novel "Ishmael"? He has a fair bit to say on the topic of this fatal dualism.

[One_Life_To_Give]

63. Wisdom is like Common sense

For something common it is in very short supply.

What I expect is that we are like the Junior Design Engineer. Smart enough to see the train coming but not wise enough to get off the track.

[The2ndWheel]

60. So we can't avoid it then?

"The question is do we have the Wisdom to control our population sufficiently below the carrying capacity to prevent our getting caught up in natural cycles?"

So if we don't have that wisdom, we get caught up in it, however, because we are caught up in it, we need the wisdom to not get caught up in it, even though that means we're caught up in it, since we have to get out of it.

"Man is not required to follow the predator prey equation"

Yeah, we are. Unless you don't eat.

"Therefore we can avoid the cyclical nature of the process and all the suffering it entails."

No. As long as we exist in physical reality, we're not avoiding any process.

[Howzit]

64. "Corn ethanol may be a lousy fuel, but it could be a great population control technology…"

You call this a modest heresy? I thought Democrats stood up for the people that can't fend for themselves? Your modest heresy will make lives harder or impossible for the poor before it touches the rich. Who's side are you on?

I think we need to examine the real motives of those that propose mass starvation in the name of saving humanity. As for those with good intentions, beware of unintended consequences.

[GliderGuider]

65. Low tolerance for mischief?

Howzit workin' for ya?