Global concerns

I am fearful of the future. It comes as a shock to realise that the world now contains more than three times as many people as it did on the day I was born. Currently more than 130 million babies enter the world every year - almost 360,000 each day. These figures are utterly absurd and flatly damning of man's ability to take control of his situation. Even supposing the world population growth rate remains as it is (an unimaginably optimistic scenario) instead of roaring ahead exponentially, by the time my grandchildren reach my age there will be over 20 billion people squabbling for a place - and a life - on this planet. I am glad I won't be one of them. Here's a thought you might find outrageous and shameful, but I hope you will consider it all the same. Every new arrival in the world is potentially a pest. Yes, strange words indeed coming from one who professes to be a humanist and an optimist. I'm also a realist, and sick to death of our world's leaders dozing off to sleep again after every wake-up call - if indeed they even heard the alarms going off. And if it were not true that every new arrival is potentially a pest, why would I be pushing for immediate drastic action to deal with the world's greatest problem, the zooming population? (see below and this segment on 'potential').

The fact is, many global issues are becoming morally significant. As well as population growth, these include the related areas of conservation, especially of natural forest, lifestyle, agricultural practices and vegetarianism.

Within the next half-century Global warming is likely to become the overriding problem. By now, most of us should have an idea of some of the likely consequences if nothing is done to halt it. The evidence, from many different fields, has become overwhelming, and steps must be taken immediately to avert worldwide disaster. Maybe not many people realise that global warming and its associated effects will probably accelerate due to factors such as the release of greenhouse gases trapped in permafrost and changes in heat absorbed and reflected by the Earth’s surface. Once this cycle of events gains momentum it will become virtually impossible to control it.

The consequences of rising sea levels due mainly to the melting polar ice caps have been widely publicised. But it’s possible that an even more serious effect of global warming will be the melt-down of mountain glaciers, particularly those upon which large populations depend for their water supply. Can you imagine the Ganges drying up? Much of northern India, with a population of around half a billion, would then be without its main water supply, for drinking and for growing crops. In places such as the Indus basin and along the coasts of Peru and northern Chile, the effects of disappearing glaciers would be even more dire, because very little rain falls in these regions. Faced with the prospect of zero water, either the people would have to move to regions where water is plentiful, or water would have to be brought to (or created in) their homeland. The second solution would appear to be preferable.

Until recently it seemed to me that the most effective single step that could be taken immediately to slow down global warming would be to drastically reduce fossil fuel production, replacing it with nuclear, solar and (possibly) subterranean thermal sources, and introducing cleaner technologies for using natural gas, e.g. to make hydrogen for powering motor vehicles. (But, for goodness sake, not biofuels from cereals or cane grown on good arable land, and not wind farms, except in remote areas.) I now tend to think this is an unrealistic approach, as the economic and human costs would probably outweigh the benefits. It might be better to put resources into intensive research and development aiming to drastically reduce the cost of alternative energy sources down the track. Only economists can deal with this question, but inevitably each one will give a different answer. (Australians should travel to India or China during their winter to get a better understanding of atmospheric pollution!)

Other contributing factors to the problem include lifestyle improvement (if not pure greed), forest destruction and agricultural practices. But the root of the problem - and a major cause of many other problems - is population growth, which astonishingly has received little attention either from politicians or from scientists. This, along with forest destruction, needs to be vigorously controlled on a global scale. In particular, people should be educated to understand they no longer have a (so-called) "natural right" to breed willy-nilly. It's simply unethical. Above all, it's grossly unfair to their children. Recent models of sustainability suggest that the world is already overcrowded by as much as 50% (which means, putting it less politely, that the world would be better off if a third of us were not here). The goal of every country should be, not just reduced or zero population growth, but negative growth. The kindest way of achieving this is by increasing access to education, especially of girls, and birth control measures (the most important technology ever devised!) - see "Population and human development - the key connections". Realistically, however, I cannot see progress along these lines happening quickly enough, so it will end up being done the Chinese way (or worse) - by enforcement. In my opinion, drastic action of this kind needs to be taken now. (Why the Australian government actually hands out large sums of money for having babies is beyond comprehension. This sets a terrible example to countries like India, Pakistan and a fistful of African nations - already bursting at the seams - whose populations continue to soar because no viable control measures are in place.)

The increasing rate of deforestation - particularly the rain forests of South America and South-East Asia - is extremely alarming. I doubt whether most people are aware how bad the destruction has been: entire forests have simply disappeared. It's a complete myth that revegetation with fast-growing species is the solution. This may or may not help the global warming problem, but it cannot replace the complicated, absolutely vital role played by rain forests in maintaining a life-friendly global environment. And forests consist of much, much more than trees! Most importantly, they harbour numerous beautiful, often quite intelligent, animal species that face extinction as their habitat dwindles.

The chief moral dilemma is that the livelihoods of a significant number of people depend on bulldozing trees. But since the lives of a much greater number of people, as well as animals, in the future depend on halting the destruction of our forests immediately, the dilemma has an easy answer. In practice politicians everywhere are just too stupid to include it high on their agenda, and everything weighs against them doing so. Similar arguments apply to current agricultural and fishing practices, and the disregard by global corporations for both people and the environment. Though I think of myself as an optimist, the chance of finding a way out of these predicaments, among many others, is rapidly receding. (See The Wilderness Society of Australia for further information and ways of helping to save our natural heritage.)

Anyway, it isn't at all certain that we will ever have to face up to these problems. Excessive population growth and global warming would, of course, have a serious effect on the global economy. But the chances seem quite high that, long before these physical changes become life-threatening, the economy will collapse into utter chaos, effectively putting a brake on those factors that are causing them. The reason for the anticipated collapse is simply that the financial system on which we have become entirely dependent is a complete illusion, consisting of nothing but figures invented by punters and stored in computers. Those figures could reduce to zero at any time, and the value of paper money would quickly follow suit. What then? (Did I say I was an optimist? Well, I'm also a realist, and there's no more reality to money than there is to God or ghosts.)

#21 - A graph that looks like this is cause for extreme alarm! Where to next?

Overseas aid

The welfare problem in gravely overpopulated regions (e.g. parts of Africa) is not being tackled wisely. Almost certainly, the instant remedies prescribed by the richer nations, such as providing food, water and health care, don't have the remotest chance of keeping pace with the increases in mortality and disease generated by the continuing high population growth. The plain fact is that, in the long run, curbing birth rates in these regions is going to save many more lives than stop-gap measures such as providing famine relief. It could also save the world from disaster. But will the citizens of western nations ever come to think of population control as being more humane than reducing the suffering of human beings here and now? No, their compassion will be spent in vain and birth control may never get the priority attention it deserves. (We've already left it far too late and have put ourselves in a position of being forced to deal with the effects of overpopulation rather than the cause. Good grief, Malthus foresaw this more than 200 years ago!)

A world based on oil - for how long?

The peoples of industrialised societies have long since lost contact with Nature. In days gone by, ordinary people knew when water was scarce because they had to fetch it for themselves. They appreciated the value of energy because they had to chop their own firewood. They did not waste any bread because every grain of wheat was planted by hand. This is a form of education most of us no longer get. Now everything comes off a supermarket shelf or through a cable or a pipe, and god only knows where it came from. Our relationship to Mother Earth has become distant and complicated. We cannot understand our dependence on her - or how we are ravishing her - unless we make a real effort to find out. And, for all the science accompanying the menu, we understand our needs less well than ever before, because the corporate giants of industry inundate us with a huge variety of mysterious packages that probably contain few, if any, of the essentials of life.

The preservation of our society in its present state of detachment from the Earth is hugely dependent on the supply of a single commodity - oil. It is chiefly because of oil that we have managed to become so remote from Nature. (Another contributer to our condition is money, a near-fictional entity which we tend to substitute for real goods.) However, world oil production is forecast to begin declining quite dramatically within 20 years from now (2006) - not so much because the Earth's oil reserves are running out, but because of the complexity and prohibitive cost of the technology needed to extract it from ever more inaccessible places. Viable alternative energy sources still seem to be in the notebook stages of development. Furthermore the technologies which sustain our current isolation from Nature are geared to the use of oil and will require extensive modification to make them compatible with other forms of energy. In view of our unpreparedness for the decline in oil production, one can only envisage economic chaos. The means by which all the nameless bounties of the Earth are transported from source to factory, converted into modern consumer goods and again transported to the cities, will be swept from under our feet, along with the make-believe wealth tied up in shares and superannuation. The only consolation is that the decline in oil use may help to reduce the severity of global warming. Or will it just add one crisis to another?

There are four unassailable objections to intensive animal production (“factory farming”), namely:

food wastage - most intensive animals eat about three times as much food as they yield on the plate. This is mainly food that could be eaten directly by people (e.g. wheat, corn, soybean, fish)

cruelty - most intensive animals, especially pigs, and caged poultry, are still confined in unacceptable conditions. (Remark: Free range poultry systems are not normally satisfactory either. In Australia the best egg production method is a well-run barn system. (In other countries cageless intensive systems can be dreadful.)

health risks - these include over-consumption of protein (resulting in kidney problems) and saturated fats (heart disease); risks of infection by various disease organisms (problems ranging from food poisoning to swine flu') and possible consumption of antibiotics, heavy metals and other toxins. (Remark: But not hormones, which were banned from animal farming donkey's years ago!)

environmental degradation - vast areas of arable land and large quantities of water are needed to grow the crops used for animal feed. Large amounts of nitrogenous waste are produced which are highly polluting and difficult to get rid of. (Recent research, however, suggests that products from grazing animals, such as beef, lamb and milk, have a larger "carbon footprint" than intensive animals. Grass is converted less efficiently than feed-crops, and the larger areas required mean that more forests are decimated. Grass eating animals produce methane, which makes a significant contribution to global warming.)

A fifth reason, of relevance to humanists who find themselves having to eat frequently among muslims (or jews), is to avoid consuming halal (or kosher) meat. As pointed out elsewhere, religious slaughter is obnoxious and absurd.

These objections provide strong support for vegetariansm or, at least, for greatly reducing our consumption of meat. In my view, children (say, under the age of 15) and certain medical patients may benefit from eating meat in limited quantities, but normal adults don't need to, and probably should not, eat meat. (In some other countries, however, there are communities whose existence depends on animals.)

........Dabs of Grue..........2002-2010.....................