This is a very long, and important, post. If you're in a hurry, please bookmark it and come back later.
Of all the radical ideas I have
espoused in How to Save the World,
none has proven to be as controversial as my belief that substantial
human population reduction is a necessary condition (I am not sure
whether it is a sufficient
condition) to prevent ecological catastrophe in this century. The chart above,
which I explained in this post,
shows the impact of our continued population explosion, far beyond the
levels of sustainability represented by the green and red lines on the
chart (the green line allows for coexistence with other creatures, the
red line hogs all resources on earth for humans).
The chart below right shows the vicious cycle that Daniel Quinn argues,
in The Story of B, has led us to
this point. The argument is that (a) the exponential curve shown above
is creeping up on us so quietly and quickly that if we wait for the
first undeniable evidence of cataclysm, it will be too late, and (b) the root
cause of the population explosion is excessive and ever-increasing food
production, and the paradoxical and counter-intuitive solution to human
misery caused by overpopulation and starvation is to cut food production.
It is this second argument that causes the strongest reaction, and I
have been unable to briefly articulate Quinn's line of thinking (and
there's no room in this blog for a 40-page treatise). But I've just
discovered a brilliant précis of both arguments (a) and (b) above, on
David Sheen's Anarchitecture
site. I've reproduced David's précis of both arguments in their
entirety below, and thank David for his diligence in putting this
online. I would encourage readers to buy the extraordinary Story of B so they can read these
arguments in their entirety.
(a) The
Boiling Frog
Systems
thinkers have given us a useful metaphor for a certain kind of
human behaviour in the phenomenon of the boiled frog. The phenomenon is
this. If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course
frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of
tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite
placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a
tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long,
with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be
boiled to death.
An example of the smiling-boiled-frog phenomenon, is provided by our
own culture. When we slipped into the cauldron, the water was a perfect
temperature, not too hot, not too cold.
When
did we become we? Where and when did the thing called us
begin? In the Near East, about 10,000 years ago. That's where our
peculiar, defining form of agriculture was born, and we began to be we.
That was our cultural birthplace. That was where and when we slipped
into that beautifully pleasant water: the Near East, 10,000 years ago.
As the
water in
the cauldron slowly heats, the frog feels nothing but a pleasant
warmth, and indeed that's all there is to feel. A long time has to pass
before the water begins to be dangerously hot, and our own history
demonstrates this. For fully half of our history, the first 5000 years,
signs of distress are almost nonexistent. The technological innovations
of this period bespeak a quiet life, centered around hearth and village
-- sun-dried brick, kiln-fired pottery, woven cloth, the potter's
wheel, and so on. But gradually, imperceptibly, signs of distress begin
to appear, like tiny bubbles at the bottom of a pot.
What
shall we
look for, as signs of distress? Mass suicides? Revolution? Terrorism?
No, of course not. Those come much later, when the water is scalding
hot. 5000 years ago it was just getting warm. Folks mopping their brows
were grinning at each other and saying, "Isn't it great?"
You'll know where to find the signs of stress if you identify the fire
that was burning under the cauldron. It was burning there in the
beginning, was still burning after 5000 years . . . and is still
burning today in exactly the same way. It was and is the great heating
element of our revolution.
No, not
agriculture. One particular style
of agriculture. One particular style that has been the basis of our
culture from its beginnings 10,000 years ago to the present moment --
the basis of our culture and found in no other. It's ours, it's what
makes us us. For its complete ruthlessness toward all other life-forms
on this planet and for its unyielding determination to convert every
square metre on this planet to the production of human food, I've
called it totalitarian agriculture.
Totalitarian
agriculture was not adopted in our culture out of sheer meanness. It
was adopted because, by its very nature, it's more productive than any
other style (and there are many other styles). Totalitarian agriculture
represents productivity to the max. You simply can't outproduce
a system designed to convert all the food in the world into human food.
Totalitarian
agriculture is the fire under our cauldron. Totalitarian agriculture is
what has kept us "on the boil" here for 10,000 years.
Food availability
and population growth
The people of our culture take food so much for granted that they often
have a hard time seeing that there is a necessary connection between
the availability of food and population growth. For them, I've found it
necessary to construct a small illustrative experiment with laboratory
mice.
Imagine
if you
will a cage with movable sides, so that it can be enlarged to any
desired size. We begin by putting 10 healthy mice of both sexes into
the cage, along with plenty of food and water. In just a few days there
will of course be 20 mice, and we accordingly increase the amount of
food we're putting in the cage. In a few weeks, as we steadily increase
the amount of available food, there will be 40, then 50, then 60, and
so on, until one day there is 100. And let's say that we've decided to
stop the growth of the colony at 100. I'm sure you realize that we
don't need to pass out little condoms or birth-control pills to achieve
this effect. All we have to do is stop increasing the amount of
food that goes into the cage. Every day we put in an amount that we
know is sufficient to sustain 100 mice -- and no more. This is the part
that many find hard to believe, but, trust me, it's the truth: The
growth of the community stops dead. Not overnight, of course, but in
very short order. Putting in an amount of food sufficient for 100 mice,
we will find -- every single time -- that the population of the cage
soon stabilizes at 100. Of course I don't mean 100 precisely. It will
fluctuate between 90 and 110 but never go much beyond those limits. On
the average, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, the
population inside the cage will be 100.
Now if
we should
decide to have a population of 200 mice instead of 100, we won't have
to add aphrodisiacs to their diets or play erotic mouse movies for
them. We'll just have to increase the amount of food we put in the
cage. If we put in enough food for 200, we'll soon have 200. If we put
in enough for 300, we'll soon have 300. If we put in enough food for
400, we'll soon have 400. If we put in enough for 500, we'll soon have
500. This isn't a guess, my friends. This isn't a conjecture. This is a
certainty.
Of
course, you
understand that there's noting special about mice in this regard. The
same will happen with crickets or trout or badgers or sparrows. But I
fear that many people bridle at the idea that humans might be included
in this list. Because as individuals we're able to govern our
reproductive capacities, they imagine our growth as a species
should be unresponsive to the mere availability of food.
But we
have
considerable data showing that, as a species, we're as responsive as
any other to the availability of food -- 3,000,000 years of data, in
fact. For all but the last 10,000 years of that period, the human
species was a very minor member of the world ecosystem. There was some
growth, of course, through simple migration continent to continent, but
this growth was proceeding at a glacial rate. It's estimated that the
human population at the beginning of the Neolithic Age was around
10,000,000.
Then,
very
suddenly, things began to change. And the change was that the people of
one culture, in one corner of the world, developed a peculiar form of
agriculture that made food available to people in unprecedented
quantities. Following this, in this corner of the world, the population
doubled in a scant 3000 years. It doubled again, this time in only 2000
years. In an eye blink of time on the geologic scale, the human
population jumped from 10,000,000 to 50,000,000 -- probably 80% of them
being practitioners of totalitarian agriculture: members of our
culture, East and West.
The
water in the cauldron was getting warm, and signs of distress were
beginning to appear.
5000 B.C.E. - 3000
B.C.E.
It was getting crowded. Think of that. People used to imagine that
history is inevitably cyclical, but what I'm describing here has never
happened before. In all of 3,000,000 years, humans have never been
crowded anywhere. But now the people of a single culture -- our culture
-- are learning what it means to be crowded. It was getting crowded,
and overworked, overgrazed land was becoming less and less productive.
There were more people, and they were competing for dwindling
resources.
It's during this period, starting around 5000 years ago, that we see
the first states formed for the purpose of armed defense and
aggression. It's during this period that we see the standing army
forged as the monarch's sword of power.
Now note well that no one thought that the appearance of states and
armies was a bad sign -- a sign of distress. They thought it was a good
sign. They thought the states and the armies represented an improvement.
The water was just getting delightfully warm, and no one worried about
a few little bubbles.
3000 B.C.E. - 1400
B.C.E.
The fire burned on under the cauldron of our culture, and the next
doubling of our population took only 1600 years. There were 100,000,000
humans now, at 1400 B.C.E., probably 90% of them being members of our
culture. The Near East hadn't been big enough for us for a long time.
Totalitarian agriculture had moved northward and eastward into Russia
and India and China, northward and westward into Asia Minor and Europe.
Other kinds of agriculture had once been practiced in all these lands,
but now, agriculture meant our style of agriculture.
The
water is
getting hotter -- always getting hotter. All the old signs of distress
are there, of course. And as the water heats up, the old signs just get
bigger and more dramatic. War? The wars of the previous age were
piddling affairs compared with the wars of this age.
1400 B.C.E. - 0
The fire burned on under the cauldron of our culture, and the next
doubling of our population took only 1400 years. There were 200,000,000
humans now, at the beginning of our "Common Era," 95% or more of them
belonging to our culture, East and West.
Famine
became a
regular feature of life all over the civilized word, as did plague,
ever symptomatic of overcrowding and poor sanitation. Slavery became a
huge, international business, and of course would remain one down to
the present moment.
0 - 1200 C.E.
The fire burned on under the cauldron of our culture, and the next
doubling of our population would take only 1200 years. There would be
400,000,000 humans at the end of it, 98% of them belonging to our
culture, East and West. War, plague, famine, political corruption and
unrest, crime, and economic instability were fixtures of our cultural
life and would remain so.
1200 C.E. - 1700
C.E.
The fire burned on under the cauldron of our culture, and the next
doubling of our population would take only 500 years. There would be
800,000,000 humans at the end of it, 99% of them belonging to our
culture, East and West. It's the age of the Black Death, the
Inquisition, the first known madhouse, and the first ghetto.
These
signals of
human evil are reactions to overcrowding -- too many people competing
for too few resources, eating rotten food, drinking fouled water,
watching their families starve, watching their families fall to the
plague.
1700 C.E. - 1900
C.E.
The fire burned on under the cauldron of our culture, and the next
doubling of our population would take only 200 years. There would be
1,500,000,000 humans at the end of it, all but 0.5% of them belonging
to our culture, East and West. It would be a period in which the opium
trade would become an international big business; in which Australia,
India, and Africa would be claimed or carved up as colonies by the
major powers of Europe; in which indigenous peoples all around the
world would be wiped out in the millions by diseases brought to them by
Europeans, with millions more herded onto reservations or killed
outright to make room for white expansion.
This
isn't to
say that native peoples alone were suffering. 60,000,000 Europeans died
of smallpox in the 18th century alone. Tens of millions died in the
cholera epidemics. And anyone who doubts the integral connection
between agriculture and famine need only examine the record of this
period: crop failure and famine, crop failure and famine, crop failure
and famine, again and again all over the civilized world. The numbers
are staggering.
As the
cities
became more crowded, human anguish reached highs that would have been
unimaginable in previous ages, with hundreds of millions inhabiting
slums of inconceivable squalor, prey to disease borne by rats and
contaminated water, without education or means of betterment.
1900 C.E. - 1960
C.E.
The fire burned on under the cauldron of our culture, and the next
doubling of our population would take only 60 years -- only 60. There
would be 3,000,000,000 humans at the end of it, all but perhaps 0.2% of
them belonging to our culture, East and West.
What do
I need
to say about the water steaming in our cauldron in this era? Is it
boiling yet, do you think? Does the first global economic collapse,
beginning in 1929, look like a sign of distress to you? Do two
cataclysmic world wars look like signs of distress to you? Stand off a
few thousand miles and watch from outer space as 65,000,000 are
slaughtered on battlefields or blasted to bits in bombing strikes, as
another 100,000,000 count themselves lucky to escape merely blinded,
maimed, or crippled. I'm talking about a number of people equal to the
entire human population in the Golden Age of classical Greece. I'm
talking about the number of people you would destroy if today you
dropped hydrogen bombs on Berlin, Paris, Rome, London, New York City,
and Hong Kong.
I think
the water is hot, ladies and gentlemen. I think the frog is boiling.
1960 C.E. - 2000
C.E.
The next doubling of our population occurred in less than 40 years,
bringing us to the present moment, when there are more than
6,000,000,000 humans on this planet, all but a few scattered millions
belonging to our culture, East and West.
For
some four
decades the water has been boiling around the frog. One by one, its
cells have shut down, unequal to the task of holding on to life.
We bewail the collapse of everything we know and understand, the
collapse of the structure on which everything has been built from the
beginning of our culture until now.
The
frog is dead.
The next doubling of our population will take 75 years. That slight
slowing, at least in exponential terms, is due to a combination of
reduced population in relatively affluent and heavily populated areas,
massive immigration from horrendously to less crowded areas, and new
developments in food technology, birth control and medicine. But as
recently as twenty years ago there was no thought of 12,000,000,000
humans on earth -- people who believed that possible were called
neo-Malthusians and the prevailing view was that population would top
out at 7-8 billion, which was then revised to 9-10 billion and then
10-12 billion and most recently hedged to 10-15 billion. Wonder what
the next revision will be, and at what point we'll notice the
temperature of the water?
(b)
Population: A Systems Approach
Among life-forms found on the surface of our planet, all
food energy originates in the green plants and nowhere else. The energy
that originates in green plants is passed on to creatures who feed on
the plants, and is passed on again to predators who feed on plant
eaters, and is passed on again to predators who feed on those
predators, and is passed on again to scavengers who return to the soil
nutrients that green plants need to keep the cycle going. All this can
be said to be the A of the ABCs of ecology.
The various feeding and feeder populations of the community maintain a
dynamic balance, by feeding and being fed upon. Imbalances within the
community -- caused, for example, by disease or natural disasters --
tend to be damped down and eradicated as the various populations of the
community go about their usual business of feeding and being fed upon,
generation after generation. Viewed in systems terms, the dynamic of
population growth and decline in the biological community is a negative
feedback system. If you've got too many deer in the forest, they're
going to gobble up their food base -- and this reduction in their food
base will cause their population to decline. And as their population
declines, their food base replenishes itself -- and since the
replenishment makes more food available to the deer, the deer
population grows. In turn, the growth of the deer population depletes
the availability of food, which in turn causes a decline in the deer
population. Within the community, food populations and feeder
populations control each other. As food populations increase, feeder
populations increase. As feeder populations increase, food populations
decrease. As food populations decrease, feeder populations decrease. As
feeder populations decrease, food populations increase. And so on. This
is the B of the ABCs of ecology.
For systems thinkers, the natural community provides a perfect model of
negative feedback. A simpler model is the thermostat that controls your
furnace. Conditions at the thermostat convey the information "Too
cold," and the thermostat turns the furnace on. After a while,
conditions at the thermostat convey the information "Too hot," and
thermostat turns the furnace off. Negative feedback. Great stuff.
The A of the ABCs of ecology is food. The community of life is nothing
else. It's flying food, running food, swimming food, crawling food, and
of course just sitting-there-and-growing-food. The B of the ABCs of
ecology is this, that the ebb and flow of all populations is a function
of food availability. An increase in food availability for a species
means growth. A reduction in food availability means decline. Always.
Invariably. More food, growth. Less food, decline. Every time. Without
exception. There is no species that dwindles in the midst of abundance,
no species that thrives on nothing. This is the B of the ABCs of
ecology.
Defeating the system's controls
For three million years our species grew at an infinitesimal rate from a
few thousand to 10,000,000. Then about 10,000 years ago we began to
grow rapidly. This was not a miraculous event or an accidental event or
even a mysterious event. We began to grow more rapidly because we'd
found a way to defeat the negative feedback controls of the community.
We'd become food producers -- agriculturists. In other words, we'd
found a way to increase food availability at will.
This ability to make food available at will is the blessing on which
our civilization is founded. The ability to produce food at will is an
undoubted blessing, but its very blessedness can make it dangerous --
and dangerously addictive.
"At will" is the operative expression here. Because we could now
produce food at will, our population was no longer subject to control
by food availability on a random basis. Anytime we wanted more food, we
could grow it. After three million years of being limited by what was
available, we began to control what was available -- and invariably we
began to increase what was available. You don't become a farmer in
order to reduce food availability, you become a farmer to increase food
availability. And so do the folks next door. And so do the folks farming
throughout your region. You are all involved in increasing food
availability for your species.
And here comes the B in the ABCs of ecology: An increase in food
availability for a species means growth for that species. In other
words, ecology predicts that the blessing of agriculture will bring us
growth -- and history confirms ecology's prediction. As soon as we
began to increase the availability of our own food, our population
began to grow -- not glacially, as before, when we were subject to the
community's negative feedback controls -- but rapidly.
Population expansion among agriculturists was followed by territorial
expansion among agriculturists. Territorial expansion made more land
available for food production -- and no one goes into farming to reduce
food production. More land, more food production, more population
growth.
With more people, we need more food. With more food available, we soon
have more people -- as predicted by the laws of ecology. With more
people, we need more food. With more food, we soon have more people.
With more people, we need more food. With more food, we soon have more
people.
Positive feedback, this is called, in systems terminology. Another
example: When conditions at the thermostat convey the information "Too
hot," the thermostat turns the furnace ON instead of OFF. That's
positive feedback. Negative feedback checks an increasing effect.
Positive feedback reinforces an increasing effect.
Positive feedback is what we see at work in this agricultural
revolution of ours. Increased population stimulates increased food
production, which increases the population. More food, more people.
More people, more food. More food, more people. More people, more food.
More food, more people. Positive feedback. Bad stuff. Dangerous stuff.
A demonstration
Let me now outline a demonstration that will clarify the issues I've
raised here.
Into a nice roomy cage we introduce two young, healthy mice. The cage
has a built-in feeder that enables us to make food available to the
mice in any quantity we like.
We start by putting in a certain amount of food and we increase it
daily. However much the pair of mice eat the first day, we put in 50%
more the second day. However much they eat the second day, we put in
50% more the third day. Before long there are 4 mice. No matter, we
follow our procedure. Whatever they eat in a day, we put in 50% more
the next. Before long there are 8 mice, 16 mice, 32 mice. No matter,
whatever they eat in one day, we put in 50% more the next. 64 mice,
128, 250, 500, 1000. Whatever the mice eat in one day, we put in 50%
more the next, carefully extending the sides of the cage as needed to
avoid stressful overcrowding. 2000, 4000, 8000, 16,000, 32,000, 64,000.
At this point, someone runs in and yells, "Stop! Stop! This is a
population explosion!"
What shall we do? I have a suggestion. Let's start by answering this
question: How much did the 64,000 mice eat yesterday? Answer: 500 kilos
of food. Okay. Well, ordinarily, we'd put 750 kilos of food into the
cage tomorrow, but let's abandon that procedure now. Our new procedure
will be based on this theory: Yesterday 500 kilos was enough for them,
so why shouldn't 500 kilos be enough for them today?
So today we put just 500 kilos of food into the
cage, same as yesterday. Now watch closely. There are no food riots.
Why should there be? The mice have just as much to eat today as they
did yesterday. Now watch closely again. No mice are starving. Why would
there be?
Now its tomorrow, and again we put just 500 kilos of food into the
cage. Again, watch closely. There are still no food riots. Still no
mice starving.
We do it again on day three. Again, no food riots, no mice starving.
But aren't new mice being born? Of course -- and old mice are dying.
Day four, day five, day six. I'm waiting for the food riots, but there
are no food riots. I'm waiting for the famine, but there is no famine.
There are 64,000 mice, and 500 kilos of food will feed 64,000 mice. Why
should there be riots? Why should there be famine?
And the population explosion stopped overnight. What else could it do?
Population growth has to be supported by increased food availability.
Always. Without exception. Less food -- decline. More food -- growth.
Same food -- stability. That's what we've got here: Stability.
Now the head of the department charges in and says, "Who needs 64,000
mice? These mice are eating us out of house and home. What's special
about 64,000 mice anyhow? Why not 8,000? Why not 4,000?"
You know what to do because you understand the B in the ABCs of
ecology. We don't need birth control. All we need is food control.
Someone says, here's what we do. Yesterday 500 kilos of food went into
the cage. Today we'll reduce that by a kilo. Oh no, another objects. A
kilo is too much. Let's reduce it by a quarter of a kilo. So that's
what they do. 499.75 kilos of food go into the cage. Tension in the lab
as everyone waits for food riots and famine -- but of course there are
no food riots and no famine. Among 64,000 mice, a quarter of a kilo of
food is like a flake of dandruff apiece.
Tomorrow 499.5 kilos of food go into the cage. Still no food riots and
no famine.
This procedure is followed for 1000 days -- and not once is there a
food riot or a famine. After 1000 days only 250 kilos of food are going
into the cage -- and guess what? There are no longer 64,000 mice in the
cage. There are only 32,000. Not a miracle -- just a demonstration of
the laws of ecology. A decline in food availability has been answered
by a decline in population. As always. Nothing to do with riots.
Nothing to do with famine. Just the normal response of a feeder
population to the availability of food.
Objections
I've been surprised by how challenging people find these ideas. They
feel menaced by them. They get angry. They feel I'm attacking the
foundation of their lives. They feel I'm calling into question the
blessedness of the greatest blessing of civilized life. They somehow
feel I'm questioning the sacredness of human life itself.
I've been told that it doesn't have to be this way. I've been told that
it's possible for us to increase food production and simultaneously
reduce our population. This is basically the position taken by
birth-control advocates. This is basically the position taken by
well-intentioned organizations that undertake to improve indigenous
agricultural techniques in Third World countries. They want to give
technologically undeveloped peoples the means of increasing their
population with one hand and birth-control aids with the other hand.
They're certain that we can go on increasing food production while
ending population growth through birth control. This represents a
denial of the B in the ABCs of ecology.
History -- and not just 30 years of history but 10,000 years of history
-- offers no support whatever for the idea that we can simultaneously
increase food production and end population growth. On the contrary,
history resoundingly confirms what ecology teaches: If you make more
food available, there will be more people to consume it.
Obviously the matter is different at the individual level. Old
Macdonald on his farm can increase food production and simultaneously
hold his family's growth to zero, but this clearly isn't the end of the
story. What's he going to do with that increase he produced on his
farm? Is he going to soak it in gasoline and burn it? If so, then he
hasn't actually produced an increase at all. Is he going to sell it?
Presumably that is what he's going to do with it, and if he does sell
it, then that increase enters the annual agricultural increase that
serves to support our global population growth.
I'm often told that even if we stop increasing food production, our
population will continue to grow. This represents a denial of both the
A and the B of the ABCs of ecology. The A in the ABCs of ecology is
this: We are food. We are food because we are what we eat -- and what
we eat is food. To put it plainly, each and every one of us is made
from food.
When people tell me that our population will continue to add new
millions even if we stop increasing food production, then I have to ask
what these additional millions of people will be made of, since no
additional food is being produced for them.
And of course I have to deal with the starving millions. Don't we have
to continue to increase food production in order to feed the starving
millions? There are two things to understand here. The first is that
the excess that we produce each year does not go to feed the starving
millions. It didn't go to feed the starving millions in 2003, it didn't
go to feed the starving millions in 2001, it didn't go to feed the
starving millions in 2000, it didn't go to feed the starving millions
in 1999 -- and it won't go to feed the starving millions in 2004. Where
did it go? It went to fuel our population explosion.
That's the first thing. The second thing is that everyone involved in
the problem of world hunger knows that the problem is not a shortage of
food. Producing more food does not solve the problem, because that's
simply not the problem. Producing more food just produces more people.
Our population explosion can no more continue without food than a fire
can continue without fuel. The fact that our population continues to
grow year after year is proof that we're producing more food year after
year.
When all else fails, it will be objected that the people of the world
will not tolerate a limit on food. That may be, but it has nothing to
do with the facts I've presented here.
What do I have against birth control? I don't have a thing against
birth control as such. It just represents very poor problem-solving
strategy. The rule in crisis management is, Don't make it your goal to
control effects, make it your goal to control causes. If you control
causes, then you don't have to control effects. Birth control is a
strategy aimed at effects. Food-production control is a strategy aimed
at causes. We'd better have a look at it.
If you've read this carefully, you will inevitably have one of three
reactions: (1) Object that the logic is flawed, and try to poke holes
in it, (2) Say it might be true but there's nothing we can do about it
anyway, so there's no point worrying about it, or (3) Ask what the
answer is, in practical terms. If you have reaction (1), The Story of B has several pages of Objections
that Quinn addresses in patient detail. Contrary to Malthus, Quinn is
saying the problem isn't the inevitable failure of totalitarian
agriculture, but its continued success. To those that point out that
countries with high living standards have low growth rates, Quinn
simply points to the chart at the top of this post as evidence that
this isn't nearly enough to prevent catastrophe. Quinn has no answer
for the fatalists and salvationists in the second camp -- he just sees
them as part of the problem. And to the third group, those that say
"OK, what do we do about it" his answer is "reduce food production". He
offers no suggestion on how
to do that, just assurances, as descibed above, that such reduction
will not produce massive famine and poverty, but will in fact alleviate
it.
The group Zero Population Growth collapsed in the 1970s when Paul Ehrlich's dire predictions in his now-notorious book The Population Bomb,
turned out to be dead wrong. In his well-intentioned desire to bring
attention to the problems of overpopulation, he unfortunately
discredited and set the ZPG movement back decades.
Ehrlich's answer was to deal with the effect -- population growth --
via dire methods such as adding birth control pills to our foods and
withholding humanitarian aid from third world nations until they
implemented strong population control programs -- exactly the "poor
problem-solving strategy" Quinn describes above.
On the surface it would seem futile to expect political consensus and
action towards a global, mandated reduction in food production, for all
kinds of reasons. But there was a time when other political struggles
seemed equally impossible given the political, social and economic
realities of the day -- bringing an end to slavery and getting women
the right to vote come to mind. And reducing agricultural production
would have all kinds of other benefits besides lowering population
quickly -- freeing up farmland for other uses (human and natural),
reducing cruelty to animals in factory farms, reducing the degradation
of land, reducing soil erosion, reducing the burning of forests to
create cropland, less environmental damage due to production and runoff
of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, less global warming caused
by farm animal wastes, and less reliance on genetically-altered foods.
So until someone can show me the illogic in Quinn's argument, or can
offer a better solution to the problem of overpopulation, I'm going to
add 'reduction of global food production' to my activist agenda.
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MADE IN CANADA
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