Factory Farming, Population and Human Values

The previous post looked at how the enormous human population has created equally immense numbers of domesticated animals. They are so numerous (many billions) that they can no longer range on pasture lands but must be confined in horrid, cramped “factory farms.” (OK, OK, so they also make more profit, which justifies anything.) These factories, which will only get larger and more inhumane with human numbers increasing by over 70 million a year, may be the death of us yet, for they are perfect incubators for deadly viruses, and are just waiting for the right conditions to unleash a world-wide pandemic (the recent Mexican swine flu came close).
But what worries me even more is the loss of ethics, the loss of decency. We turn a blind eye to the fact that pigs, cattle, chickens and goats are also sentient creatures. We are all animals and share a common evolutionary heritage. Animals have feelings, emotions and sensitivity just like humans. The young of all animals want to be nourished and loved. The adults of all animals want security, to care for their young and to be loved. Farley Mowat summed it up nicely, “life itself – not human life – is the ultimate miracle upon this earth.”
The saddest part of all this is the loss of our own dignity and any shred of decency. If we don’t approve of Abu Ghraib prison and human torture, how can we possibly approve of factory farms? Humans may be all-powerful on this earth, but we are pathetic, sadistic, murderous bullies. We should be ashamed. We need to put our house in order. Let’s start by bringing our populations down to levels that are in harmony with the earth and the creatures on it.

Population and Frightening Factory Farming

The growing human population has put two diametrically opposite pressures on the fellow creatures that inhabit the earth with us. Wild animals are being slowly but surely wiped out. This is called the Sixth Great Extinction. The populations of domesticated animals, that is, the ones whose body parts we place on the dinner table, however, are skyrocketing in parallel with human population.
Here are some numbers. World meat consumption went from 40 million tonnes in 1950 to 218 million tonnes in 2005 (a 5.5-fold increase!). The population of cattle in the world is over one billion. 70 billion chickens are slaughtered annually. The number of pigs and sheep are one billion and 1.2 billion, respectively.
There is no free lunch (sorry, couldn’t resist), thus, the impact of these gigantic numbers of animals is enormous. They require food, land and energy. At the same time they create methane (hello, global warming) and waste (hello, Walkerton tragedy).
But most frightening is that the crowded factory farms are perfect incubators of disease and mutant viruses (hello, mad cow disease and avian flu). The latest swine flu (A/H1N1) from Mexico, which had world health authorities in a panic, is but one of many outbreaks associated with pig farms. As human population continues to soar, so will the numbers of domesticated animals. That even more deadly diseases and viruses will follow is inevitable and unavoidable. Our children and grandchildren will face some ugly threats.
All this because there are too many humans on this planet. Let’s change our ways. Let’s leave our children animals they can love.

Population, Prudence and the Precautionary Principle

The precautionary principle states that if an action might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, the action should not proceed until the advocates have provided scientific consensus that harm would not ensue. This statement, which is only common sense after all, has been adopted by the European Union and is promoted by the United Nations.

Unfortunately, society’s commitment to constant economic and population growth has trampled this fine tenet underfoot. There is no time for caution or common sense.

A growing population and increasing GDP demand ever more products, more services and more resources. How else can we provide jobs and a good standard of living to the growing population? The system requires never-ending innovation and production. Being careful would only slow things down. And heaven forbid that we should slow the train, it must keep chugging forward.

Take synthetic chemicals such as, for example, the organochlorines: PCBs, DDT, dioxins, furans. Only after they are shown to be toxic and have permeated the global environment is removal from the marketplace considered. These chemicals (not to mention nanotechnology and genetically modified organisms) are innocent until proven guilty; forget the precautionary principle. Why? Because we need growth: more, more, more.

Bizarre isn’t it? Not only is growth degrading the environment, destroying biodiversity and depleting resources, but it is also sapping us of the will to manage our affairs properly. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Imagine now a smaller population, say 3 or 4 billion, that is in equilibrium. There would be no pressure for growth, no need to pump out new chemicals and products heedlessly. Of the many benefits, the best is that we could re-establish the precautionary principle. We could act in a prudent, cautious manner.

Closing the Rich-Poor Divide

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that we all agree that human population growth should be slowed and, yes, even reversed until it reaches a stable, sustainable level. How do we proceed? Where do we place our priorities? Since 95% of future growth is projected to occur in third-world countries, this seems an obvious place to focus.
Developed nations need to re-design their foreign-aid programs so they are built on a foundation of family planning, empowerment of women and education. This not only encourages less children but also helps lift these countries out of poverty, a key goal. In fact, stabilizing population and eradicating poverty go hand in hand. Some positive steps include ensuring at least a primary school education for all children, girls as well as boys, providing rudimentary, village-level health care and helping women gain access to reproductive health care and family-planning services. We desperately need more enlightened foreign aid and organizations that can deliver it.
But it’s not so simple. The poor countries don’t want the rich nations preaching to them. “You caused the environmental problems with your profligate consumerism. You get your house in order first,” they respond. And they are right: Rich nations must work to reduce their eco-footprint. The two sides need to work hand-in-hand in a partnership built on dialogue and mutual respect. One side must work to decrease population growth; the other side to minimize their environmental impact. Only by working together can we achieve these goals.

Let’s close the gap between rich and poor.

Surfing

This week I took a break and went surfing. Here’s a collection of population info-morsels from the Net.

- President Obama’s Science & Technology advisor, Nina Fedoroff, stated that human population exceeds earth’s limit of sustainability. What an incredible change of view from the previous administration.
- Ten thousand years ago, humans and our domesticated animals comprised 0.1% of earth’s total mammal biomass. Today we account for 98%. Incredible! We’ve gone from being totally insignificant to ruling the world.
- So what about the other mammals, the other 2%? Is there room for them on the planet too? Not in Plainfield, New Jersey, where the deer population is deemed too high and when sterilization didn’t work, officials organized hunters to shoot deer from trees. Oregon has a cougar management program that sets the minimum number below which hunting, i.e., culling is not allowed. Bizarre, isn’t it, that they can calculate and control appropriate population numbers for cougars, but not humans.
- On the contrarian side, one website stated that earth’s population will stabilize at 10 billion, which the planet can easily sustain. Water, it claimed, could easily and cost-efficiently be gotten by desalination and rain-water collection. Hmmm?
- An Alternet piece stated “The last 200 years of economic growth has been based on a monumental Ponzi scheme ... and we are coming to realize Thomas Malthus was right.”
My board ran ashore.

Environmentalist ignores population -- Why?

“How to achieve sustainability” was the topic, and a large and sympathetic crowd – we tend toward green here – hung on every word. The speaker was Dr Neil Dawe of the Qualicum Institute and the locale was the community hall of the little island where I live.
The message was frighteningly clear: the world is in bad shape. The fundamental problem, Dawe asserted, is the relentlessly growing economy, which does not recognize that humanity is an integral part of, and is wholly dependent upon, nature. Instead the economy is in direct conflict with nature and is remorselessly grinding it down.
Dawe’s proposed solution is a steady-state economy. To achieve this goal, we as individuals need to raise a clamour and make our voices heard until politicians listen. Wonderful stuff!
During the animated discussion period, however, Dawe shocked me to the core. He shrugged off a question about human population growth by admitting it helps make the economy grow, but he feels curbing population is too complex and too wrapped up in religious issues to be dealt with. Therefore, he doesn’t address it.
Encroyable! It is impossible to achieve a steady-state economy if population continues to increase. Not theoretically, not practically, not in any way. After all, it is humans that purchase, consume and strive for a better life. An expanding population is the fundamental factor driving economic growth.
Why do religious leaders, politicians and most environmental organizations ignore this simple and irrefutable fact? One reason is that many religious groups are mired in dogma that defies logic, even sanity. Examples include the Pope’s recent condemnation of condoms in AIDS-ravaged Africa, and the America’s fundamentalist Christians’ denial of evolution and belief in Armageddon.
Perhaps it goes deeper. Have we entered a dark age where logic and common-sense are worthless commodities? Is gaining wealth and power all that matters? The financial meltdown is but one, albeit a gigantic, indicator that we have entered an era of denial, anti-intellectualism, greed and just plain not caring about the planet or our children’s future.
I tossed and turned long into the night wondering how to get human population on the agenda.

"We’ll Save the Planet Only If..."

A 15 February 2008 article in the UK's Independent and reprinted at CommonDreams.org, We’ll Save the Planet Only if We’re Forced To, by Johann Hari, doesn't mention "population" but certainly inspired a discussion of overpopulation as "the single biggest aspect of the problem."

Here's a summary of what some CommonDream responders had to say about runaway human population:

•Let’s quit avoiding the single biggest aspect of the problem and the hard solution to it: Global human overpopulation, and mandated population reduction. Pretty much everything else is coincidental to this, and will improve with the population reduction. •Just as the author says that forcing people to make other changes will help climate change, forcing people not to procreate will produce the biggest changes of all. The Earth cannot sustain 6.6+ billion people, let alone projections of 10 billion or more.

•[E]vents will force a reduction in World population by Draconian means - war, famine, plague, and pestilence - if we do nothing to do it as fairly and rationally as possible.

•The hard truth is that unless we reduce World population to under 2 billion before mid-Century we will most certainly suffer a population crash that will take us there tragically. I want everyone under 25 or so reading this to look around at their friends and family of the same generation and ask themselves which 80% of them they want to lose prematurely? Probably even yourself! Those are the stakes we face. Unless you are among the fortunate 1% living in wealth in a gated community with private security forces, you face this fate as much as anyone living in Bangladesh.

•Overpopulation, not mentioned. How can we be so blind to the No. 1 threat? Sure, we all need to consume less and aim for sustainability. But as long as human population keeps growing, we should expect catastrophical, unwanted population reduction.

•Even if you manage (how?) to stop procreation, what good does that do the climate with the lifestyles we’re leading? Bringing procreation to a halt (how?!) will stop the already-greatly-worse global warming that is in existence once we’re all dead and gone, I suppose. But when people write that the “only” way to stop global warming is to stop having kids, I think maybe what is really being said is, “I’d like a far-off solution that involves me not at all, and lets me do what I want, while feeling virtuous.” Kind of like the population version of carbon offsets. How long until the last human dies, once you’ve managed to halt procreation (HOW?!) and what will the climate, being put through everything we put it through in the meantime, be like?

•The best contraceptive on a mass scale is female literacy. Once women become educated they begin to deny men control of their bodies. The developed world’s problem is not overpopulation; it’s that the population we have keeps increasing its energy and land use. Europe and Japan have leveled off in their population and may decline over the next 50-75 years. America continues to grow mainly because of immigration from Mexico and other poor countries. It could comfortably house and feed 1 billion people if we weren’t all so determined to live the lawn fertilizer, two-car garage suburban lifestyle.

•[P]opulation control begins with literate and educated women. Support organizations that work in this field.

•You say over-population is the problem and population control is the cure. But how would YOU institute such a control? Apply for permission to breed? Prove yourself worthy of procreation? By what standard would you choose? Imagine the political and societal upheaval over those topics! Your “solution” could well be far worse than that which you attempt to “cure,” no?

•Overpopulation is a huge problem - but when is the last time (hell, how about the FIRST time) you saw an article specifically talking about it?

Want to continue the discussion? Send me your comments.

Human Population and Animal Rights - A Guest Blog

Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken.
The extinction crisis is escalating. But how is this crisis related to human overpopulation?

Too many human beings doing so many destructive things on the planet is the cause of the 6th mass extinction. THIS IS AN ANIMAL RIGHTS ISSUE - THE ULTIMATE ONE.

Reviewing the global destruction of ecosystems, plummeting wild populations and species losses makes it obvious our industrial consumer culture has to stop the destruction NOW.
All life on the planet is going and going fast.

We have got to this point because we (people in our culture) think we are the only life deserving rights. People have to decide: Do they want all animals on Earth to die out? Right now they are deciding: Yes.

There are 4 things that have to happen NOW if animal life on Earth is to survive. (And I'm using the lay -- not scientific -- meaning of animals. Many people forget, ironically, that humans are animals.)

1. STOP EATING FLESH - animal and fish and fowl
2. STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS
3. STOP CUTTING DOWN and BURNING FORESTS\
4. STOP INCREASING the HUMAN POPULATION

It is very clear that it's too late to think just doing less of these destructive activities will prevent the extinction of life. The Earth is already in ecological melt down. Action must be DRASTIC and it must be NOW to stop the destruction of life from becoming irreversible.

Our industrial consumer economy is converting the Earth into an uninhabitable planet at breakneck speed. We are already beyond some planetary tipping points. If we don't give the organic living Earth a space to recover and replenish, the entire biosphere will crash in a matter of decades and all animal life will die out over the next century.

To stop these insanely destructive activities, we must stop denying any life but our own the right to live. This means:

• OTHER ANIMALS HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIFE.


• FUTURE HUMAN GENERATIONS HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIFE.


• CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHT TO INHERIT A HABITABLE PLANET.

So, what do you think? Is it time to start reducing human populations to ensure that the rest of nature survives?

For the Earth, the Children (of All Species), and the Future,
Peter D. Carter, MD


Thank you to Voices in the Wilderness: A Prayer for Wild Things for their beautiful mosaic.

A Plea: How Do We Help Poor Nations?

Demographers at the United Nations and the US Census Bureau project that the world's population will reach a peak of over nine billion by about 2050. That's an increase of about three billion, or 50%, over the present population.

The situation looks grim. Peak oil is at hand and oil prices are over $100 per barrel. Grain production has not met grain consumption in seven of the last eight years, and now will fall even shorter as it is diverted for ethanol-fuel manufacture. If we're having trouble now, how will we possibly cope with another three billion people?

The nub of the problem is that almost all of this growth will come in the developing world. Their growth rates are much higher than those of developed, industrial countries, who are near to stabilizing their populations. This is a recipe for international disaster. Poor countries, especially in Africa, are already struggling. How can they possibly survive with massive population increases?

As Lester Brown says, "failing states are a sign of failing society." Tensions between rich and poor nations will escalate. Terrorism will become rampant. There is a desperate need for programs to help poor nations, not only with family planning programs but also to lift them out of the quagmire of poverty.

Yet the world is a topsy-turvy place. The United States has imposed a "global gag" rule that prevents the US from providing family planning programs to poor countries, and also pressures other nations to follow suit. It encourages population growth in countries that cannot offer their young people a decent future. No better policy could be invented to promote future terrorism and societal breakdown.

We need to completely rethink how foreign aid is disbursed. We need to think and act outside the box. How can we devise programs that work in partnership with and are welcomed by the receiving countries? That are effective in empowering and educating women? That effectively but humanely lower birth rates?

I welcome your ideas.

Population, the Economy and the Ruin of the World

If there is one thing all politicians, whether capitalists or communists, Republicans or Democrats, agree upon, it is that economic growth is necessary, vital, and the proper goal for all human activity. If the GDP doesn't grow by at least 2% annually it's bad news. Stagnation and recession are "evil" and central banks and economists do everything possible to stimulate the economy to avoid them.

Economic growth is the basic driving force of prosperity — providing jobs, security and an ever increasing standard of living. It is the dogma of policy makers: economic growth in itself is essential. It is vital to the health of society.

But a growing economy doesn't happen by itself. An essential partner is a growing population, which provides more consumers and more workers to purchase and produce the material goods we crave. Thus, a growing economy and a growing population are inextricably tied to each other. They are like two oxen yoked to the same cart, pulling, heaving together.

Economic growth just continues and continues. We have no control. Politicians do not want to slow it. The economy is the god our society worships.

A Plague of Two-Legged Locusts

Locust plagues were feared even back in Biblical times. As described in Exodus, Moses beseeched the Pharaoh to release the Hebrews, and when he didn't a plague of locusts came with the east wind and "covered the face of the whole earth ... and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees ... through all the land of Egypt."

Locust plagues continue to be a major problem in Africa, Australia and the Middle East. They propagate extremely quickly and then immense swarms can travel long distances (over 100 kilometres a day), consuming, consuming, consuming everything in their path.

Humans are similar. Our population has grown incredibly quickly, from about one billion in 1800 to almost seven billion today. It's the same rapid population explosion as for locusts, just on a different time scale. Humans also consume, consume, consume.

Natural barriers such as lakes eventually halt locust swarms. We humans also take action against them (spraying pesticides). In contrast, there are no natural barriers or limitations to halt the runaway human population, and furthermore we ignore the problem.

The human population explosion is unprecedented in history, and is extremely frightening. Nothing like this has ever happened before. How will it end?

The Bible talks about locust swarms as not just a natural event but rather as a punishment, an expression of Heaven's displeasure with human behaviour. The ultimate irony is that we are being punished by a plague of ourselves, the most powerful, devastating species imaginable.

Signs that the Human Population is Too Large

Several organizations, including the United Nations, have scientifically calculated that human beings have exceeded the carrying capacity of this good planet—that we are now using (considerably) more resources than the Earth is creating. In other words, since about 1980, we have not been living off the interest, we have been drawing down the bank balance. This is definitely not sustainable.

I also look at this issue from an emotional (qualitative) view. Here are some images and experiences that are not proof, but vivid signs or symbols to me that the population is simply too large.

• A crowded swimming pool in China (click on photo to enlarge it). Is this really a fun way to spend a sunny day?
• Gridlock across all 16 lanes of Highway 401 across the top of Toronto every rush hour.
• The ozone hole over the poles. This was the first major environmental problem on a global scale. It was caused by too many people using spray cans and air-conditioning.
• Professional "pushers" shoving people into a crowded Tokyo subway car (photo thanks to Scott-5x5)

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• Haze ruining the view at the Grand Canyon. This shouldn't happen in a remote area far from factories and cities.
• That almost all commercial fisheries will be wiped out by 2050. We are ransacking a huge larder of self-replenishing protein.
• Oil is $100 per barrel or more.
• Global warming and our inability (or unwillingness) to deal with it.

The Mathusian Devil is Knocking

Thomas Malthus was a demographer who in 1800 predicted that human population was increasing so rapidly it would outstrip the Earth's resources. Famine and catastrophe would inevitably follow. But the calamity that Malthus predicted never arrived. Remarkably, the production of food—not to mention a cornucopia of consumer goods—has kept pace with population growth. And the standard of living, on average, has improved significantly.

So why was Malthus wrong? First, he did not count on the ability of new-world frontiers like North and South America to absorb people and provide resources. More crucially, Malthus vastly underestimated the power of human ingenuity, namely science and technology. Plant genetics, fertilizers and pesticides have increased crop yields enormously; synthetic materials have led to mass-produced clothes; and automated production lines have manufactured countless consumer goods.

But there is an ominous chill in the air, for the Devil is finally knocking. He didn't come in through the front door, for the world is not suffering for lack of resources, as was predicted. Furthermore, human ingenuity will continue to find ways of making do. Take energy, for example. When oil reserves become short, they will be replaced by solar, wind, nuclear, hydrogen, clean coal, and—if we are desperate enough—even dirty coal.

Instead, the Devil has snuck in the back door. He is quietly and surely contaminating our environment and destroying the natural ecosystems on which life depends. We humans are incredibly motivated to produce the necessities (not to mention our luxuries), but there is no motivation to clean up behind us. It's an inconvenience.

That's why everywhere we look, there is pollution. And now there is global warming, which we are incapable of stopping. With pollution and environmental degradation having reached global scale, the outlook is grim, especially since the number of pollution-creators continues to grow robustly.

Runaway Human Population — My First Post

Over the years, I have come to realize that the fundamental cause of virtually all the planet's many woes, is, simply, too many humans. In my lifetime, global population has increased by over four billion people!

To make things even worse, the environmental footprint of each person has also grown.

Beaches and woods where I played as a boy are now pavement and houses. The price of oil has soared to $100 per barrel, and now grain prices are skyrocketing. My wife and I left southern Ontario because of air pollution and incredible traffic gridlock, both directly caused by too many people.

The tipping point that Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich warned us about is finally lurking just around the corner. Yet no one talks about it. We studiously ignore the ever-growing population ... while the freight train steams ever faster toward the cliff.

[Photo courtesy of AntyDiluvian]