Two posts in one day?! Well, I had time to write out a rant over lunch that I’ve been contemplating for awhile and here it is. If you aren’t interested in my unpopular opinions, scroll down to the next entry where yummy Mexican food awaits you.
Reading the book Earth Odyssey has changed my perspective on some of the problems our current world faces. But I believe most of all, what the book reiterated to me, is the vast scope of our current social and environmental problems, as well as the flawed human view that we will always inhabit this planet. I must say, this book did diminish my level of hope for the future, at least a little bit, for a number of reasons – the largest being that no problem is as simple as one would think it should be, nor are the solutions necessarily apparent or satisfactory.
First, let’s start with the human view that we will always be around. There are many reasons that this is likely an incredibly inaccurate view of reality. First off, and this doesn’t bode well for us, but it is true, that roughly 99% of all species that have ever lived on this planet have gone extinct. It’s just the way things work. This 99% of species that have become extinct also did not have near the influence and impact (though of course all species effect their environments) that we humans do.
Second, there is the idea that if we ceased to exist, so too will the planet and everything on it. This is a very species-centric view point. Earth is incredibly resilient; she will still be around regardless of what we do to her. As Brett stated so very appropriately ‘Earth doesn’t care if we pollute it, it will go on.’ We may not, but the Earth will. For millennia, the Earth has been pummeled with radiation, meteors, all sorts of stuff, not to mention the crazy environmental changes that have occurred naturally over time, and it’s still here. Granted, if we do all the wrong things, we might take a lot of species down with us, but to think that life will not go on if we were to perish is pretty absurd, unless of course, we lose our atmosphere, then life on this planet is probably doomed and Earth will become more like Mars – but I doubt our ability to wreak
that much havoc. If for no other reason than the compounds that would likely cause the destruction of the atmosphere are in short supplies.
Now onto human caused environmental degradation and the likelihood of our reducing or stopping the current trend of things. Let me state right off, I
don’t believe that we will be able to tackle all the problems that face our planet, I really don’t. I have little faith in the idea that human ‘ingenuity’ or technological advances will save us (and thus everything will be puppies and daisies); remember, those things are what got us here in large part to begin with. Maybe I’m just a major wet blanket, but this is how I feel. Some issues can be addressed, but others are just too big, rely on too many people all doing the right things, rely on too many people to sacrifice certain comforts and luxuries and so on. We are facing global air and water pollution on a massive scale, vital resource depletion (and the environmental ramifications of rampant industrialization), top soil erosion at an alarming rate (which is the very basis of our ability to feed ourselves), water and food shortages (often due to political and economic reasons rather than true shortages, at least in the case of food), rising consumption patterns and an ever increasing population.
As part of the ‘environmentalist’ crowd, I have heard countless times that overpopulation (and of course, the Third World in particular is always singled out) is the single most important factor contributing to global environmental problems. This seems valid on first glance, and besides, it’s easier to blame all of our problems on ‘those poor people in the Third World who have nothing better to do than to continue to pop out babies they can’t afford’ than to look at ourselves (I must note that this is not my view point, but one that is very common). Yes, population is an issue, but it might not be the
biggest one.
I can’t remember who said it, but someone once said that America is the most over populated country on Earth. Sounds ridiculous right? Well, just take a look at consumption habits. An American baby, over its lifetime consumes about as much as 8-10 South American children and something like 40 Indian children. So in a lot of respects,
consumption is more of a burden on the environment than population. And it should be noted that even our poor (in the West) live like kings compared to the rest of the world. This should, in no way, diminish the plight of the poor, I believe it ridiculous in the ‘richest’ country on the planet that
anyone should have to go without, but on a very fundamental level, our poor in the West are much better off than many in the rest of the world.
Back to consumption, I read somewhere that there is a car for
one of every two people in the US, can you imagine? In places like China, it’s more like one car for every
five hundred people . And China has a huge population. What’s more, one of the biggest dreams of many Chinese is to own a car. Can you imagine what the world would be like if every Chinese person owned a car - how bad the pollution and traffic would be then. There literally wouldn’t be enough space for all the cars, what an example we Americans are setting as to what one should strive for as a mark of 'success' and 'progress'.
This brings us to a very fundamental part of the problem. Many of the problems we are experiencing now are the straggling consequences of Western industrialization. What we all must remember is that pollution is not contained to the area that is the source nor is the consequence of our actions always seen immediately, it can take many years for problems to become evident. So now we are experiencing the ‘blow back’ of Western industrialization right at the time when many other nations are struggling to industrialize.
Places like China and India are often singled out due to their large populations, already dwindling resources, vast pollution and dependence on ‘dirty’ sources of energy such as coal. It’s easy to scape-goat other nations and forget the dirty deeds of our own pasts. I do recall that industrialization in America was not a pretty thing: necessities were in short supply, short-term profit ruled out long term sustainability, our burgeoning industries polluted many of our cities, rivers, lakes and streams. In short, there was a lot of suffering, and shucking the long-term concerns of the future of our species and planet aside for short-term gains. This is exactly what’s happening in China and India, and here we are, telling these people that they can’t have the things we now take for granted or else they’ll ‘ruin it for everyone’. Just think about the social and political problems this brings about.
Many of the things people in the Third World want are not extravagant, useless things, they are things that we in the West take for granted: electricity, clean running water, enough to eat, schools, jobs, etc. These things are not necessarily delivered at a low cost to the Earth though. The problem is, places like China are not blessed with an abundance of natural resources and their climate is quite harsh. Coal is one of the only resources China has in any excess, and it’s one of the dirtiest and most inefficient forms of energy there are. Therefore, most of the power plants in China are coal powered, and many of them do not have the ‘extras’ that mitigate some of the environmental damage (unlike most coal plants in the US that are fitted with scrubbers and other sorts of filtration devices). There is such a demand for electricity that given the choice between building 20 no-frills added coal plants, or 10 with the ‘extras’, they will of course chose to have more coal plants. The demand is such that that’s really the only choice they are faced with. It would be political suicide for a Chinese politician to say that no more coal power plants will be built. The capital is not there for renewable energy, nor does renewable energy have the capacity to quench the large demand in China. It’s a bad situation all around, but one can’t knock them for wanting to better their plight, just as we did.
And of course, in places like China and India (and the rest of the developing world), massive amounts of power and water are required for industry, which provides jobs that are desperately needed in these areas. If you look at any of the major industrial cities in the Third or developing world, they are polluted to a point that most of us couldn’t imagine. And yet the people there take it willingly, even knowing that it’s bad for their health and the environment. Why? The same reason people in the slums of New York at the beginning of our American experiment dealt with the squalor, even with all the degradation, life was better for the people than it was before. So, yeah, I’m sure that those in Northern China would love for their air and water to be clean, but they also enjoy not fearing freezing to death over the winter as well.
As an American, I feel as though if I were to say anything about the consumption levels and aspirations of other countries, that it would be like the pot calling the kettle black to use an old cliché. I honestly have no idea what the ‘right’ thing to do about this is.
And finally (I’m sure this piece has been very disjointed and I hope it makes some sense), I’d like to touch on the ‘population problem’. I want to be able to show a different perspective on the ‘problem’ than is often taken.
Many argue that the high birth rates in Third World countries and the resulting poverty and destitution are responsible for, or are at least vital factors in, the environmental problems of the world. Granted, more mouths to feed in an already strained environment aren’t helping, but also keep in mind that consumption is a major factor as well.
First off, we should take a look at
why birth rates are so much higher in the Third World and developing nations than they are in the West. The answer is really simple and two-fold, first is the status of women; the second is access to family planning and birth control. Numerous studies have shown that there is a direct correlation (relationship) between a woman’s educational level and the number of children she has. Also, many of the worlds impoverished live in poor, patriarchal societies, where medicine in general is not widely available, let alone birth control. Men controlling the family, and thus family planning options, have limited a woman’s ability to access and maintain access to appropriate methods of birth control. Not to mention, the people who need (and want) it most, do not often have the money to purchase these things. With just this simple, basic assessment of the situation, one can easily see that high birth rates are not a result of stupidity or lack of things to do. It has to do with lack of options, and a woman’s inability to choose when she has children.
The point of this whole rant was just to express my concern about the number of problems facing our planet and the faulty logic that often befalls us as we try to place blame for the situation (which in my opinion is useless and counterproductive). I didn’t address the fact that many of the problems that the Third World faces are due to Western corporate influence and ‘structural adjustment programs’ by international monetary bodies - these are huge issues that could be rants in and of themselves. My reasoning is likely juvenile and misses many important points, but certain perspectives that I myself once held have changed and I thought I’d share that. As always, thanks for listening to me rant, and I promise, the next post will be food related. :-)
'Til next time!
Reading the book Earth Odyssey has changed my perspective on some of the problems our current world faces. But I believe most of all, what the book reiterated to me, is the vast scope of our current social and environmental problems, as well as the flawed human view that we will always inhabit this planet. I must say, this book did diminish my level of hope for the future, at least a little bit, for a number of reasons – the largest being that no problem is as simple as one would think it should be, nor are the solutions necessarily apparent or satisfactory.
First, let’s start with the human view that we will always be around. There are many reasons that this is likely an incredibly inaccurate view of reality. First off, and this doesn’t bode well for us, but it is true, that roughly 99% of all species that have ever lived on this planet have gone extinct. It’s just the way things work. This 99% of species that have become extinct also did not have near the influence and impact (though of course all species effect their environments) that we humans do.
Second, there is the idea that if we ceased to exist, so too will the planet and everything on it. This is a very species-centric view point. Earth is incredibly resilient; she will still be around regardless of what we do to her. As Brett stated so very appropriately ‘Earth doesn’t care if we pollute it, it will go on.’ We may not, but the Earth will. For millennia, the Earth has been pummeled with radiation, meteors, all sorts of stuff, not to mention the crazy environmental changes that have occurred naturally over time, and it’s still here. Granted, if we do all the wrong things, we might take a lot of species down with us, but to think that life will not go on if we were to perish is pretty absurd, unless of course, we lose our atmosphere, then life on this planet is probably doomed and Earth will become more like Mars – but I doubt our ability to wreak that much havoc. If for no other reason than the compounds that would likely cause the destruction of the atmosphere are in short supplies.
Now onto human caused environmental degradation and the likelihood of our reducing or stopping the current trend of things. Let me state right off, I don’t believe that we will be able to tackle all the problems that face our planet, I really don’t. I have little faith in the idea that human ‘ingenuity’ or technological advances will save us (and thus everything will be puppies and daisies); remember, those things are what got us here in large part to begin with. Maybe I’m just a major wet blanket, but this is how I feel. Some issues can be addressed, but others are just too big, rely on too many people all doing the right things, rely on too many people to sacrifice certain comforts and luxuries and so on. We are facing global air and water pollution on a massive scale, vital resource depletion (and the environmental ramifications of rampant industrialization), top soil erosion at an alarming rate (which is the very basis of our ability to feed ourselves), water and food shortages (often due to political and economic reasons rather than true shortages, at least in the case of food), rising consumption patterns and an ever increasing population.
As part of the ‘environmentalist’ crowd, I have heard countless times that overpopulation (and of course, the Third World in particular is always singled out) is the single most important factor contributing to global environmental problems. This seems valid on first glance, and besides, it’s easier to blame all of our problems on ‘those poor people in the Third World who have nothing better to do than to continue to pop out babies they can’t afford’ than to look at ourselves (I must note that this is not my view point, but one that is very common). Yes, population is an issue, but it might not be the biggest one.
I can’t remember who said it, but someone once said that America is the most over populated country on Earth. Sounds ridiculous right? Well, just take a look at consumption habits. An American baby, over its lifetime consumes about as much as 8-10 South American children and something like 40 Indian children. So in a lot of respects, consumption is more of a burden on the environment than population. And it should be noted that even our poor (in the West) live like kings compared to the rest of the world. This should, in no way, diminish the plight of the poor, I believe it ridiculous in the ‘richest’ country on the planet that anyone should have to go without, but on a very fundamental level, our poor in the West are much better off than many in the rest of the world.
Back to consumption, I read somewhere that there is a car for one of every two people in the US, can you imagine? In places like China, it’s more like one car for every five hundred people . And China has a huge population. What’s more, one of the biggest dreams of many Chinese is to own a car. Can you imagine what the world would be like if every Chinese person owned a car - how bad the pollution and traffic would be then. There literally wouldn’t be enough space for all the cars, what an example we Americans are setting as to what one should strive for as a mark of 'success' and 'progress'.
This brings us to a very fundamental part of the problem. Many of the problems we are experiencing now are the straggling consequences of Western industrialization. What we all must remember is that pollution is not contained to the area that is the source nor is the consequence of our actions always seen immediately, it can take many years for problems to become evident. So now we are experiencing the ‘blow back’ of Western industrialization right at the time when many other nations are struggling to industrialize.
Places like China and India are often singled out due to their large populations, already dwindling resources, vast pollution and dependence on ‘dirty’ sources of energy such as coal. It’s easy to scape-goat other nations and forget the dirty deeds of our own pasts. I do recall that industrialization in America was not a pretty thing: necessities were in short supply, short-term profit ruled out long term sustainability, our burgeoning industries polluted many of our cities, rivers, lakes and streams. In short, there was a lot of suffering, and shucking the long-term concerns of the future of our species and planet aside for short-term gains. This is exactly what’s happening in China and India, and here we are, telling these people that they can’t have the things we now take for granted or else they’ll ‘ruin it for everyone’. Just think about the social and political problems this brings about.
Many of the things people in the Third World want are not extravagant, useless things, they are things that we in the West take for granted: electricity, clean running water, enough to eat, schools, jobs, etc. These things are not necessarily delivered at a low cost to the Earth though. The problem is, places like China are not blessed with an abundance of natural resources and their climate is quite harsh. Coal is one of the only resources China has in any excess, and it’s one of the dirtiest and most inefficient forms of energy there are. Therefore, most of the power plants in China are coal powered, and many of them do not have the ‘extras’ that mitigate some of the environmental damage (unlike most coal plants in the US that are fitted with scrubbers and other sorts of filtration devices). There is such a demand for electricity that given the choice between building 20 no-frills added coal plants, or 10 with the ‘extras’, they will of course chose to have more coal plants. The demand is such that that’s really the only choice they are faced with. It would be political suicide for a Chinese politician to say that no more coal power plants will be built. The capital is not there for renewable energy, nor does renewable energy have the capacity to quench the large demand in China. It’s a bad situation all around, but one can’t knock them for wanting to better their plight, just as we did.
And of course, in places like China and India (and the rest of the developing world), massive amounts of power and water are required for industry, which provides jobs that are desperately needed in these areas. If you look at any of the major industrial cities in the Third or developing world, they are polluted to a point that most of us couldn’t imagine. And yet the people there take it willingly, even knowing that it’s bad for their health and the environment. Why? The same reason people in the slums of New York at the beginning of our American experiment dealt with the squalor, even with all the degradation, life was better for the people than it was before. So, yeah, I’m sure that those in Northern China would love for their air and water to be clean, but they also enjoy not fearing freezing to death over the winter as well.
As an American, I feel as though if I were to say anything about the consumption levels and aspirations of other countries, that it would be like the pot calling the kettle black to use an old cliché. I honestly have no idea what the ‘right’ thing to do about this is.
And finally (I’m sure this piece has been very disjointed and I hope it makes some sense), I’d like to touch on the ‘population problem’. I want to be able to show a different perspective on the ‘problem’ than is often taken.
Many argue that the high birth rates in Third World countries and the resulting poverty and destitution are responsible for, or are at least vital factors in, the environmental problems of the world. Granted, more mouths to feed in an already strained environment aren’t helping, but also keep in mind that consumption is a major factor as well.
First off, we should take a look at why birth rates are so much higher in the Third World and developing nations than they are in the West. The answer is really simple and two-fold, first is the status of women; the second is access to family planning and birth control. Numerous studies have shown that there is a direct correlation (relationship) between a woman’s educational level and the number of children she has. Also, many of the worlds impoverished live in poor, patriarchal societies, where medicine in general is not widely available, let alone birth control. Men controlling the family, and thus family planning options, have limited a woman’s ability to access and maintain access to appropriate methods of birth control. Not to mention, the people who need (and want) it most, do not often have the money to purchase these things. With just this simple, basic assessment of the situation, one can easily see that high birth rates are not a result of stupidity or lack of things to do. It has to do with lack of options, and a woman’s inability to choose when she has children.
The point of this whole rant was just to express my concern about the number of problems facing our planet and the faulty logic that often befalls us as we try to place blame for the situation (which in my opinion is useless and counterproductive). I didn’t address the fact that many of the problems that the Third World faces are due to Western corporate influence and ‘structural adjustment programs’ by international monetary bodies - these are huge issues that could be rants in and of themselves. My reasoning is likely juvenile and misses many important points, but certain perspectives that I myself once held have changed and I thought I’d share that. As always, thanks for listening to me rant, and I promise, the next post will be food related. :-)
'Til next time!