Message-ID: <365BDCBB.CE17C3A@thegrid.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 11:32:50 +0100
From: Christopher Christie <refugee@thegrid.net>
Reply-To: refugee@thegrid.net
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To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
CC: Jfoster@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU
Subject: Re: established facts
References: <1.5.4.16.19981124140401.2a778680@oregon.uoregon.edu>
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John Bellamy Foster wrote:
 
> I want to try to get things back on track by listing ten well-established,
> incontrovertible facts that form the basis for any meaningful discussion of
> population issues.

John,

I think some people confuse unfounded assertions with "incontrovertible facts"
and a blind, arrogant and self-righteous confidence with a progressive
attitude. Needless to say, your list is not of "established facts," but of
your own biased views. 

I will attempt to deal with your  "incontrovertible facts" one at a time over
a period of time.
> 
> First, for those like myself who approach population questions primarily
> from the standpoint of global ecological crisis it has to be admitted that
> overpopulation, though a factor in this crisis, is a relatively minor one
> compared to the two other sources of environmental impact (according to the
> PAT formula): affluence and technology.  World economic output is increasing
> much faster than population and contrary to the latter there is no
> expectation that it will level off.  On top of this there has been a
> technological shift in the last half century to the production of toxic and
> radioactive "byproducts" that threaten the biosphere and the health of all
> the species within it at levels that we are only just beginning to
> understand.  Neither of these factors--affluence or anti-ecological
> technology--can be attributed directly to population growth.

I don't deny that the relative importance of variables in the I=PAT equation
will vary but what numbers and sources will you provide to support the above
statement that "World economic output is increasing much faster than
population?" What time frame are you using? Is the reason for this perhaps
that famine and disease in highly populated areas (Africa, Korea, etc.) is
slowing the rate of population growth? Who says that "there is no  expectation
that it will level off" and how do they justify such a view in the face of
resource limits? Can you point to any models that will support that assertion.
 Certainly the information provided by Meadows, Meadows and Randers in "Beyond
the Limits" (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1992) would not.

I think that a case can be made that in fact, both affluence and technology
can in part, if not in full, be directly attributed to population growth.
Whether you want to accept it or not, growth in animal (incl. human)
populations tend to expand to the limit of the local (not global)
environment's ability to sustain it. Momentary or prolonged affluence in terms
of available resources initially can be seen to allow for increased
populations which ultimately create scarcity. These pressures in humans
populations cause humans to pause and scratch their heads long enough to
develop technologies (food growing technology, energy technologies, etc.) to
support the increased population which in turn brings increased affluence as
long as resources and pollution sinks remain available to support the
technologies, and call remains at a manageable complexity. Increased affluence
in turn feeds increasing populations (for example, see "Perceived prosperity
raises fertility" in "Population Politics" by Virginia Abernethy, Plenum
Press, 1993) at least until the society in which the growth is taking place
reaches a level of technological development similar to modern industrialized
societies. (Does population growth always stop and stabilize in modern
industrial societies as predicted by the demographic transition?
Not if the society allows or feels a need for high levels of immigration due
to intractable economic problems or misguided ideologies.)

According to one basic text, "Cultural Anthropology," by Ember and Ember
(Prentice Hall 1999 sic.) "most anthropologists think" that population growth
at both local and global levels caused the change in technology from simple
and benign food collecting technologies to food producing technologies.

I conclude the population growth is a major factor that drives technology and
affluence directly.
 
> Second, there is no direct relationship between population growth and world
> hunger, or between population growth and famine.  This has been established
> in the work of Amartya Sen and in the various critiques of the agribusiness
> system.

It would be helpful if you provided a summary of the work you refer to and a
source. In any event, hunger is a local event so it does not surprise me that
one might have difficulty finding a relationship between "world hunger" and
population growth. However, World Watch Institute notes that "Grainland per
person has been shrinking since mid-century, but the drop projected for the
next 50 years means the world will have less grainland per person than India
has today. Future population growth is likely to reduce this key number in
many societies to the point where they will no longer be able to feed
themselves" (World Watch Paper #@ 143 "Beyond Malthus") While it is true that
localized famine in populations can be linked to political conflict disrupting
food distribution, or selling food for export, it is also true that these
conflicts would not be able to create such disruptions where high numbers of
people had not created a dependence on complex food production technologies,
and where culture and economic systems did not allow food export. But given
these realities, the population growth in these regions is associated with
famine. One might also want to consider what would occur in the absence of
conflict or food export. Ultimately the population must stabilize within
carrying capacity or famine will result. Additionally, the current example of
famine in North Korea appears to be a case where a local population has
exceeded the lowpoints in food productivity caused by cyclical environmental
events, in this case drought.

There is no just and equitable global distribution system and there will
likely never be one.  It is probable that the only way egalitarian societies
will be achieved is to lower population levels down toward the level where
those societies were able to flourish in the past, and those are very low, but
ecologically sustainable levels.

I would like to respond to the rest of your list of "facts" when time becomes available.

Until then-
(From Ed Glaze)
Published Sunday, November 22, 1998
Population growth affecting world's ecosystems, professor says
Tom Meersman / Minneapolis Star Tribune

Human population growth is having a dramatic effect on rain forests,
wetlands, oceans, prairies and all of the world's other major
ecosystems, said an ecology professor from the University of Minnesota
who spoke to more than 200 at a conference on population and consumption
in St. Paul.

David Tilman said that until the past few decades, humans have lived off
Earth's natural systems for thousands of years without destroying them.

"We are the first people to ever experience human domination of
ecological systems," he said. Habitat destruction through farming,
deforestation, pollution and development has changed the character of 45
percent of the world's land surface, he said, and has created conditions
in which 10 percent of the Earth's plant and animal species are thought
to be moving toward extinction.

The conference was sponsored by the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Lee
and Rose Warner Nature Center and the Minneapolis-based World Population
Balance.

Tilman linked what he sees as the world's environmental degradation to
human population pressures. The "green revolution" in agriculture
allowed the world to feed more people, he said, but it also resulted in
intensive farming that has depleted soils and increased the use of
nitrogen and pesticides. Food demands also have encouraged overfishing
of oceans and a mass production of livestock on factory farms, he said.

However, in recent years, other experts in this field have said that
resources are available to feed the world for several decades, thanks to
advances in agricultural research.

Anne Ehrlich, an author and population expert at Stanford University,
said Saturday in St. Paul that environmental degradation is everywhere,
largely because of the growth of the human population. "Poor nations
threaten their local environment, and developed nations threaten the
global environment because of their high consumption rates," she said.

Ehrlich agreed with Tilman that humans have crossed some kind of
threshold in this century, and so dominate the planet that their
emissions into the atmosphere and use of water are changing the climate
and its hydrologic patterns. "We've basically taken over the planet,"
she said. "We're burning our natural-resource capital instead of living
on the interest. The soil, ground water and biodiversity we're depleting
will take centuries to replenish."

Ehrlich said the only "good news" was a U.N. report released last month
that showed that the rate of growth for the world's population has
slowed. She said that some of the decline is the result of education and
family-planning programs in developing countries, but that it also can
be attributed to high death rates from disease.

William Ryerson, president of the Population Media Center, criticized
media coverage of population issues, especially the recent U.N. report.
Although the rate of growth may have slowed, he said, the world's
population is now almost 6 billion, and by 2025 it will have increased
by 3 billion.

"There's a crying need to convince people in this country that this is a
serious problem," he said.

Ryerson cited examples of countries where soap operas and radio dramas
are being used to educate people about family planning. In one popular
TV series in the Philippines, he said, the lives of two sisters were
dramatized: one who bore eight daughters to a husband who demanded a son
until she died in childbirth, and the other who followed a successful
career in broadcasting and did not accept the traditional role of women.

The radio and TV programs are not instructional and boring, Ryerson
said, but a form of "commercial-entertainment education" that has
dramatically increased sales of birth-control devices in some areas.

Ryerson said concerns about overpopulation are not restricted to
developing nations, since citizens in industrialized countries consume
far more natural resources on a per-capita basis. He said a recent study
predicted that "we would need three planet Earths" to sustain the
world's population if everyone lived at the same standard as those who
live in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In addition to continued efforts to encourage family planning in
cultures in which it is acceptable, Tilman said, developing nations need
to ask what they are leaving for future generations. "We have to have a
totally new ethic that tells us what our obligations are," he said. "The
whole world is flying blind, and we have no idea where we're going."

© Copyright 1998 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Christopher Christie
Mailing from Desolation Row
"If growthmen can spin telling analogies, so can the growth sceptics. A man
who falls from a hundred-storey building will survive the first 99 storeys
unscathed. Were he as sanguine as some of our technocrats, his confidence
would grow with the number of storeys he passed on his downward flight and
would be at a maximum just before his free-fall abruptly halted." - E.J.
Mishan, 1976 Spelling as found.