Wednesday, 15. August 2007, 01:59:50
Notice:
UNDER THE LAW NUMBER 5651
I will NOT include links with the articles, news items, etc...etc... because I will be held responsible(as all Turkish internet users)for all the content and links to and out of the site(s).
tkm
p.s. Please click the link bellow to read in full for the legal resons.
http://my.opera.com/talatkm/blog/2007/05/24/intent-of-the-censors-mind
-----------------------------------Dear Readers,
Human population is one of those subjects that is very unpopular
to discuss. The subject has great impact on us all.
Unfortunately due to "Politically Correct" thinking which is sort of a cancer of the mind and somehow the near genocide of the European Jews by there fellow countrymen(Germans, French, Italians, Austrians....the list is to long, has made the subject tabu.
Hence making very clear this is NOT, NOT aimed to any minorities both ethnic and religious.
As the saying goes "We are all in the same boat".
Also the subject is to important to be left to the politicians.
We(the collective WE) will have to engage our scientists and
other experts in this topic.
Otherwise the generations that will proceed use will be left with a barren Earth.
Bellow are well throughout starter ideas.
k. talat muskara
--------------------------------------------------------------
IS THERE A POPULATION PROBLEM?
by Albert A. Bartlett
My answer to the question is “YES” there is a problem. The scale of human
activities is now so large that we are appreciably affecting the climate
and ecosystems in the U.S. and the world.
The total impact of people on the environment is proportional to each of
two factors:
A) The number of people, and
B) The average impact of each person.
If we are to reduce the total impact of people on the global environment,
we must address the first, or preferably both, of these factors.
There are many strong forces that will cause continued growth of the
average impact of each person on the global environment. To the extent
that people in underdeveloped countries seek to increase their material
standard of living to levels more like ours, material consumption per
capita will grow. So we are left with the imperative of halting population
growth, and then of studying the question, “Can this stable population be
sustained?”
To gain a better appreciation of the seriousness of the problem, let us
review some very elementary arithmetic. Let us consider a quantity that is
experiencing steady growth at a rate such as 5% per year.
First we note that this growing quantity will double in size in a fixed
time. This doubling time is found by dividing 70 by the percent growth
per year. For example, the doubling time for a steady growth rate of 5%
per year is 70 / 5 = 14 years.
Second, we note that a few doublings can give enormous numbers. It is
convenient to remember that ten doublings causes the growing quantity to
increase in size by a factor of approximately 1000: twenty doublings will
cause an increase by a factor of 1,000,000, etc.
Let us look at some current approximate, data (1997).
United States World
Population 270 million 5700 million
Annual increase 3 million 90 million
Annual growth rate 1 % per year 1.6 % per year
Doubling Time 70 years 44 years
The smallness of the annual growth rates is both deceiving and disarming.
We might initially think that surely nothing bad could happen at growth
rates as small as 1 % or 1.6 % per year. A study of the doubling times
brings us back to reality. If the world population continues to grow at
its present rate, it will double before today’s (1997) college students are
my age (74)! Think what this means in terms of food and resource consumption.
Population growth rates do not remain constant; they change in response to
physical and social factors. The world population growth rate was close to
zero through most of human history, and it started to increase
significantly a few centuries ago. Around 1970 it reached a high of about
2 % per year, from which it has recently declined to the estimated 1.6 %
per year. Detailed social studies and more elegant mathematical models can
give us insight into the mechanisms that affect these rates of growth.
Why, then, do we need to look at the simple models of constant growth rates?
First, they are a useful, though approximate, representation of the facts.
Second, we in the United States are in a culture that worships growth.
Steady growth of populations of our towns and cities is the goal toward
which the powerful promotional groups in our communities continuously
aspire. If a town’s population is growing, the town is said to be
“healthy,” or “vibrant,” and if the population is not growing the town is
said to be “stagnant.” Something that is not growing should properly be
called “stable.” Yet, the promoters of growth universally use the word
“stagnant” to describe the condition of stability, because “stagnant”
suggests something unpleasant while “stable” would suggest something
worthwhile, pleasant and desirable.
Since continued growth is the goal of the promoters in our communities, we
should understand the arithmetic of steady growth.
Now let’s look at some global aspects of our population problem.
1) Global Warming.
There is a growing scientific concensus that the early phases of global
warming may be upon us now. With each passing year, our knowledge of the
situation will increase so that we will know better if the earth is
warming, and if so, how rapidly change may occur. Whether or not the earth
is warming, it is clear that by pouring increasing quantities of greenhouse
gases into the earth’s atmosphere each year, we are embarked on a global
experiment whose outcome we don’t know. We don’t know if the effects of
increasing the greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere are reversible.
We don’t know if the atmosphere go back to its pre-industrial condition if
we stopped all emissions of greenhouse gases, and if it would go back, we
don’t know how long it would take.
On the scale of a human lifetime, these changes happen very slowly. So
the burden of dealing with the unknown outcome of the present global
experiment, will not fall on today’s political decision makers: it will
fall on our children and grandchildren. Present population growth, so
ardently advocated by the many in the older generations, is putting our
children and grandchildren at risk. For centuries, parents have worked so
their children could have better lives and opportunities than they had. We
may now be doing just the reverse. We may be guaranteeing that our
children will not have the resources, opportunities and environment that we
have enjoyed.
2) The Ozone Hole
The destruction of ozone in the high atmosphere allows more ultra-violet
light to reach the surface of the earth where it can have serious
biological effects on plants and animals, including humans.
3) Food Grain
The Worldwatch Institute reports that global annual per capita production
of grain dropped from 346 kilograms per person in 1984 to 313 kilograms per
person in 1996. This is a drop of 9.5 % in just 8 years.
We’ve all heard it said that per capita food production has been growing
ever since the time of Thomas Malthus, and that this growth has proven him
wrong. Since the late 1980s grain production has leveled off, so the
continuing growth of populations means that the per capita production of
food is declining. Perhaps Malthus was right after all.
4) World Oceanic Fisheries
Growth in the annual oceanic fish catch stopped in 1989, and since then
the available fish per capita has been declining. For many of the world’s
people, fish is a major source of protein. Most of the world’s major
fishing areas are seriously depleted. The Grand Banks off of Newfoundland
was one of the world’s major fisheries, with stocks of fish once thought to
be unlimited. Now, these fish stocks are apparently almost gone.
5) Fresh Water
A report in January of 1997 from Stockholm indicated that by the year
2025, two-thirds of the world’s people will suffer from water shortages,
and the report noted that the rate of use of fresh water was growing at
twice the rate of world population.
All of these problems are caused by population growth, and none of these
problems can be “solved” if population growth continues.
Today we hear many people talking about “Sustainability,” as though we
can accomodate continued population growth with something vague and
ill-defined that is called “sustainable development.” The thought seems to
be that there is no need to worry about population: all we need to do is
to make minor modifications of our way of life, (conserve, recycle, etc.)
and this will suffice to make our society “sustainable.” Please remember
the First Law of Sustainability:
It is not possible to sustain population growth or growth in the rates of
consumption of resources.
We now must address two questions:
1) Where on Earth is the population problem the worst?
It is my opinion that the world’s worst population problem is right here
in the United States. This is because of our high per capita resource
consumption. It has been estimated that a person added to the population
of the United States will have 30 or more times the impact on world
resources as will a person added to the population of an underdeveloped
nation. Indeed, resource consumption in North America is roughly the same
as resource consumption in the entire rest of the world.
2) Where should we apply our efforts to have the most beneficial effect
in helping to solve the population problem?
The answer is, right here in the U.S.
For many people, the population problem is a problem of “those people,” in
distant undeveloped countries. In early 1997, many people succesfully
lobbied Congress to restore family planning assistance in the U.S. foreign
aid programs. This was a great victory, but it treats “those people” as
though they were the big problem. As one member of Congress said,
Unchecked population growth in the Third World means depletion of water
resources. It means famine. It means suffering. It pushes populations to
clear rainforests. It pushes populations to go out and graze on land that
cannot sustain cattle, and that leads to expansion of deserts worldwide.
We all have a stake in the global environment.
It is so easy to blame the problem on others and to identify what other
people should do to solve the problem, while we ignore our own
responsibilities and avoid doing anything to reduce the population problem
in the U.S. We need to work to stop population growth in the U.S.
There are two sources that contribute approximately equally to population
growth in the U.S.: the excess of births over deaths, and immigration.
Both of these must be addressed.
Let’s compare three aspects of efforts to stop population growth in other
countries with efforts to stop population growth in the United States.
1) When we give family planning assistance to other countries, we are
dealing with countries over which we have no legal jurisdiction and where
we have little or no immediate political responsibility.
When we confront population growth in the United States, we are dealing
with a country where we as citizens have full and complete jurisdiction,
and where we have political and family responsibilities. It should be much
easier to solve our problem than it is to solve other peoples’ problems.
2) The negative effects of runaway population growth in an underdeveloped
country are generally felt only in that country and in its immediate
neighbors.
The negative effects of population growth in the U.S. are felt throughout
the entire world, because of our enormous per capita consumption of
resources. Indeed, one of the aims of the many free-trade agreements about
which we currently hear so much, is to open up the world’s resources for
consumption by consumers in the U.S.
3) In countries receiving family planning assistance from the U.S. there
will always be individuals who will claim that this assistance is a form of
“genocide.” They will be strengthened in this belief if we in the U.S.
fail to take steps to halt our own population growth. As Tim Wirth of the
U.S. Department of State has said, the best thing that we in the U.S. can
do to help other countries stop their population growth, is to set an
example and stop our own population growth.
As you think about addressing the problem of population growth in the
U.S., please ponder this challenge:
Can you think of any problem, on any scale, from microscopic to global,
Whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way,
Aided, assisted, or advanced, by having continued population growth
At the local level, the state level, the national level, or globally?
So we can see that Pogo was right:
“We’ve met the enemy, and they’s us!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------
“DEMOCRACY CANNOT SURVIVE OVERPOPULATION”
Albert A. Bartlett
Professor Emeritus
Department of Physics
University of Colorado at Boulder,
INTRODUCTION
We sometimes read the angry statements of citizens who claim that democracy in the United States is being willfully destroyed by evil and sinister public servants. It is easy to share the frustration that these citizens feel, because our lives each year are becoming more regulated and more crowded, our individual freedoms are diminishing, and individually, we seem to be less and less able to affect the flow of the events that diminish our freedoms.
But is this loss of freedom the result of willful actions of our public servants? Probably not. But the loss of freedoms is due in part to negligence of public officials, and this negligence may or may not be willful.
One can see two main causes of this diminution of our freedoms: technology and overpopulation.
TECHNOLOGY AND REGULATION
Technology has given us amazing new ways to annoy each other. These technological “aids to annoyance” range from cans of spray paint, to automobiles, to electronic megaphones, to high speed jet aircraft. One person with a can of spray paint can vandalize buildings; an act that annoys a few people. One careless person driving a car at high speed on a freeway can trigger a chain-reaction collision that involves dozens of cars. Electronic megaphones allow one person to annoy hundreds of people, and a high speed jet aircraft in supersonic flight over the crowded eastern seaboard of the U.S. can generate a sonic boom that affects millions of people.
It is necessary to regulate each new technology that enhances our ability to annoy others. Since science and technology have been characterized as the “endless frontier,” (Bush 1960) we can expect that we will see an endless progression of new regulations which become necessary to permit society to cope with the consequences of an unending series of annoying new technologies.
OVERPOPULATION AND THE LOSS OF DEMOCRACY
Let’s look at the loss of democracy that results from overpopulation. Here is a portion of an interview that the prominent journalist Bill Moyers conducted with the eminent scientist and science writer, Isaac Asimov: (Moyers 1989)
Bill Moyers: “What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species
if this population growth continues at its present rate?”
Isaac Asimov: “It will be completely destroyed.
I like to use what I call my bathroom metaphor:
If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms,
Then both have freedom of the bathroom.
You can go to the bathroom anytime you want,
Stay as long as you want, for whatever you need.
And everyone believes in Freedom of the Bathroom;
It should be right there in the Constitution.
But if you have twenty people in the apartment and two bathrooms,
Then no matter how much every person
Believes in Freedom of the Bathroom, there’s no such thing.
You have to set up times for each person,
You have to bang on the door, ‘Aren’t you through yet?’
And so on.”
Asimov continues with what could be one of the most profound observations of the 20th Century:
“In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation;
Human dignity cannot survive [overpopulation];
Convenience and decency cannot survive [overpopulation];
As you put more and more people into the world,
The value of life not only declines, it disappears.
It doesn’t matter if someone dies,
The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”
EXAMPLES
Here are two examples to illustrate the point that Asimov makes so eloquently, namely that democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Article I of the Constitution of the United States, (1790) describes the House of Representatives, and says that “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand...” In the year 2000 there are over 600,000 persons per member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Thus in 210 years we have seen democracy at the national level being diluted by a factor of approximately 600,000 / 30,000 = 20. From these figures one can estimate (Bartlett 1993) that since the founding of the United States, the average rate of loss of democracy at the national level has been about 1.4 % per year.
Indeed, in the year 2000, the population of the United States is growing at a rate of about 1 % per year, but the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives remains constant at 435. Thus one can say that, as we start the 21st Century, the rate of loss of democracy at the national level in the United States is about 1 % per year.
A similar loss also occurs at the local level. In 1950 , the population of Boulder, Colorado was approximately 20,000 . In the year 2000 the population of Boulder is approximately 100,000 . Throughout this period from 1950 to 2000 , the size of the elected Boulder City Council has remained constant at 9 persons. So in 50 years, democracy in Boulder has been diluted by about a factor of five. This corresponds to an annual loss of democracy at the local level of approximately 3.2 % per year averaged over the last 50 years. (Bartlett 1993)
We can generalize and state a fundamental law:
In a political subdivision that is governed by an elected representative body of unchanging size, the rate of decline of democracy is approximately equal to the rate of growth of the population of the subdivision.
CAN YOU SPEAK TO YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES?
The ideal democracy is perhaps the New England Town Meeting, where every citizen is expected to participate in the debates and decisions. As towns become larger, elected representatives carry out many of the functions of governance, and citizens can usually address the governing body. As the towns become cities, citizens who want to address the governing body must sign up in advance of the meeting and then confine their comments to a three-minute period whose end is signaled by a loud buzzer or a flashing light. For the largest domestic governing body, the U.S. Congress, citizens can testify before a committee if they are invited, and addressing the whole Congress is an honor reserved for a few visiting heads of state. At the global level, a powerful governing organization such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), is so large and so remote that ordinary citizens have no input. The objectionable actions of the WTO and the complete absence of participatory democracy in the WTO led to the recent “Battle of Seattle” in early December 1999.
POPULATION GROWTH AND REGULATIONS
The actions of local public bodies to establish zoning and land-use regulations such as urban growth boundaries, are driven by population growth, yet these actions, which are made necessary by population growth, are clear infringments of individual freedoms. People, angered by these losses of freedoms, advocate passage of “Takings Laws” in an attempt to stem the loss of freedoms, but unfortunately neither the takings laws nor their advocates make any recognition of the fact that it is population growth which triggers the actions that take away our treasured freedoms. Ironically, the persons who complain most loudly about these losses of freedom are often those who advocate continued population growth for the self-serving reason that they profit personally from it. People’s eagerness to profit from population growth is beautifully explained in Garrett Hardin’s essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” (Hardin 1968)
LOSS OF FREEDOM BY BOTH TECHNOLOGY AND POPULATION GROWTH
The loss of freedom that follows gun control is a hotly debated issue. We can see that both technology and population growth play roles in this loss of freedom.
Two hundred years ago one could have had an artillery piece at the site that is now downtown Boulder, Colorado, and one could have fired it in any direction at any time as often as one wished. The range of the gun was so small, the time required to reload it was so long, and the population density here was then so low, that there was little chance that random repeated firings of the gun in any direction would hurt anyone.
But now technology has given us guns with greater range, which can be reloaded and refired automatically in a fraction of a second. The population density in Boulder is now so high that there are always lots of people within the range of a gun. Consequently we have to have regulations to the effect that it is illegal for individuals to fire artillery in Boulder. Another freedom has fallen victim to population growth and to advances in technology.
Because of the present high population density, the gun situation is one where people lose freedoms no matter what happens in terms of gun control. If guns are controlled, those who oppose control have lost their freedom to have unrestricted access to artillery. If guns are not controlled, those who wish to live safely in a non-violent society have lost this freedom.
The total cost of the present lack of gun control is enormous. The headline said, “America ‘in trouble’ Violence Panel Warns.” (Lichtblau 1999) The article said that a new report:
“...issued by the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation... said violence is much more prevalent today than 30 years ago, and the odds of dying in a violent crime remain much higher in the United States than in almost any other industrialized nation. In part, the report suggested, this is because the number of firearms has doubled to nearly 200 million - many of them high-powered easily concealed models ‘with no other logical function than to kill humans.’”
Bearing on Asimov’s observation that:
“... human dignity cannot survive overpopulation;
convenience and decency cannot survive overpopulation...”
is the statement in the report:
“Prisons have become our nation’s substitute for effective policies on crime, drugs, mental illness, housing, poverty, and employment of the hardest to employ.”
OVERPOPULATION AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
The widespread concern about campaign finance reform is a reaction to the perceived decline of democracy, in which power is shifted from the many to the powerful few who use their wealth to buy influence in the halls of our “democratic” government. One of the reasons for the increased role of money in politics is the dilution of democracy which results from overpopulation. As has been shown, overpopulation causes a decline in the role of the individual in participatory democracy. The consequent partial political vacuum leaves the way open for an increase in the role of dollars in democracy. Politicians like to talk to people, but because of overpopulation, they can’t talk to everyone. So they talk to a few, a self-selecting small group of wealthy and influential people. Because of this dilution, the old statement, “One person, one vote,” is now being replaced by “One dollar, one vote.”
DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR
Powerful forces in the private sector in our communities use population growth as an excuse to find more effective ways to destroy our democracy. In an article, “Western Cities Grapple with Rapid Growth,” (Parker 1999) we read that “In Scenic Colorado Springs, Groups Battle Builders to Preserve Lifestyle.” The story tells how the real estate developers are battling “community groups [that are] concerned about preserving the natural beauty of their surroundings.” The second paragraph of the story in the Wall Street Journal quotes one of the Colorado Springs builders as follows:
“...local officials have allowed community groups to hijack the development process. Neighborhood groups ‘shouldn’t be in control of what happens,’ he says. ‘You can’t be an elected official and let people dictate the law of the land.’”
Wealthy influential developers are good at getting pretty much what they want from public officials, so when citizens organize to protect themselves from the rapid degradation of the environment that is the consequence of the continued population growth and development, it is said that the citizens are “hijacking” the development process. In Colorado Springs, the pressure for continued population growth is so intense that a local leader in the private sector is saying that we can no longer “let people dictate the law of the land.”
LIBERALS vs. CONSERVATIVES
The liberal philosophy of government suggests that the government, under the guidance of “experts,” should do more to control the flow of events, while the conservative philosophy suggests that government should do less. Although the person who said it would probably claim to be a conservative, the suggestion that we can’t “let people dictate the law of the land” presents a profoundly liberal point of view, both from the advocacy of governance by an elite few, but also as an implied expression of the belief that population growth is no problem, that resources are so enormous that there is no need to reduce consumption or to conserve. In contrast, true conservatives (who are usually called liberals) worry about the effects of population growth, they practice conservation, and they advocate a reduction of our consumption of resources so that some resources are saved for our children and grandchildren.
It should not be surprising that the traditional political labels of “liberal” and “conservative” are reversed in a world where powerful people seem to be happy with continued population growth and the resulting overpopulation.
An exception to this reversal of labels is Fred C. Ikle, who is a bona fide political conservative, having served as an undersecretary in the Reagan administration. Ikle argues (Ikle 1994) that “It is the unintended consequences that these conservatives ignore [when they argue for more population growth],” and he points out that more growth results in more government and more governmental regulations. Writing as a political conservative, Ikle summarizes his arguments with these words:
“Population growth is the paramount, the most elemental anti-conservative force. It unleashes a flood of social change that will cascade onto every level of society. It creates irresistible pressures for farflung, and usually irreversible government interventions, allegedly to cope with all the social changes that rapid population growth has unleashed. It thus helps the radical left to garner political support for its social engineering schemes. It dilutes the reach of religious institutions that seek to preserve society’s moral fiber. It empowers the unprincipled and the rootless to tear down vastly more civilizing tradition and riches of culture than they will ever create.”
POPULATION GROWTH AND TECHNOLOGY
The main things that are robbing us of our democratic freedoms are continued population growth and the advancement of technology. The advance of technology has redeeming features: it contributes to higher quality of life for those who are able to afford the latest technological devices. In contrast, population growth has no redeeming features, yet, as our political leaders struggle to find solutions to the problems caused by population growth, they neglect to identify population growth as the cause of the problems. Even more distressing is the fact that the watchdogs of the Free Press seem never to speak out about this neglect.
The lack of redeeming features in population growth is illustrated by the following challenge: (Bartlett 1997)
Can you think of any problem
On any scale, from microscopic to global,
Whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way,
Aided, assisted, or advanced,
By having larger populations at the local, state, national, or global levels?
Even more important, population growth is not sustainable, (Bartlett 1994) yet the sustainability gurus provide glib recipes for sustainability that talk about everything except overpopulation.
CONCLUSION
It is a shame that those who are most vocal about their loss of freedom almost invariably blame the loss on alleged conspiracies of persons in government. Our loss of freedoms are probably not the result of actions of evil people who are plotting the demise of democracy, but rather are due to negligent people in government (and it’s nearly all of them) who willfully ignore the problem of overpopulation and the destructive consequences of this negligence. When people are denied their rights to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, they are predictably unpredictable, and history is full of examples of violence that has been precipitated by those who feel they have been disenfranchised. Such are some of the costs of overpopulation.
Thus, several lines of evidence point to population growth as being a major causal factor in the decline of democracy in the United States, yet, as Garrett Hardin observes: (Hardin 1993)
“No one ever blames it on overpopulation.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I no longer remember who it was that called my attention to Bill Moyers’ interview with Isaac Asimov, but I am deeply grateful for his calling this important text to my attention.
ooooo
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartlett, A.A., 1993: For a tutorial on the calculation of these average growth rates, see:
A.A. Bartlett, “The Arithmetic of Growth, Methods of Calculation”
Population & Environment, Vol. 14, March 1993, Pgs. 359-387
Bartlett, A.A., 1994 “Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth and the Environment”
Population & Environment, Vol. 16, No. 1, September 1994, Pgs. 5-35
Reprinted in:
Renewable Resources Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 1997-1998, Pgs. 6-23
Bartlett, A.A., 1997, “Is There a Population Problem?”
Wild Earth, Vol. 7, No. 3, Fall 1997, Pgs. 88-90
Bush, Vannevar, 1960, “Science, the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research”
United States: Office of Scientific Research and Development
Hardin, Garrett, 1968, “The Tragedy of the Commons”
Science, Vol. 162, Pages 1243-1248
Hardin, Garrett, 1993, “Living Within Limits”, Oxford University Press
Much of this book is devoted to documenting the lengths to which people go to deny that overpopulation is a problem.
Ikle, Fred Charles, 1994, “Our Perpetual Growth Utopia,”
National Review, (Cover Story) Vol. 46, March 7, 1994, Pages 36-44
Reprinted in Focus, (Carrying Capacity Network, Washington, D.C.)
Vol. 4, No. 2, 1994, Pages 13-17
Lichtblau, Eric, “America ‘In Trouble’ Violence Panel Warns”
Denver Post, December 6, 1999, Page 1A
The byline identified the author as writing for the Los Angeles Times
Moyers, Bill, 1989: “A World of Ideas” Doubleday, New York City 1989, Page 276
Parker, V.L. 1989, “Western Cities Grapple With Rapid Growth”
Wall Street Journal, September 22, 1999, Page B14
Simon, J., ( 1995 ) Cato Policy Report, The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 131, September / October 1995 The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. is a think tank that advises government leaders on policy questions.
Sitarz, D., Editor, ( 1993 ) Agenda 21; The Earth Summit Strategy to Save our Planet Earth Press, Boulder, CO, 1993
Task Force ( 1996 ) “Population and Consumption: Task Force Report” President’s Council on Sustainable Development 730 Jackson Place, NW, Washington, D.C., 20503
Wattenberg, B.J., ( 1997 ) Boulder Daily Camera, Nov. 30, 1997. This editorial piece was reprinted from the New York Times Magazine, Nov. 23, 1997
Wilson, E.O., ( 1995 ), From “The Diversity of Life,” quoted in The Social Contract, Fall 1995, p. 65
ZPG ( 1996a ) The old statement of principle last appeared in The ZPG Reporter, March / April 1996
ZPG ( 1996b ) The new statement of principle first appeared in The ZPG Reporter, May / June 1996
ZPG ( 1998 ) ZPG Policy Statement on U.S. Immigration The ZPG Reporter, Vol. 30, # 1, February 1998, p. 2
---------------------------------
Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie
The world's population continues to grow. Shouldn't physicists care?
Albert A. Bartlett
July 2004,
The most sacred icon in the "religion" of the US economic scene is steady growth of the gross national product, enterprises, sales, and profits. Many people believe that such economic growth requires steady population growth. Although physicists address the problems that result from a ballooning population—such as energy shortages, congestion, pollution, and dwindling resources—their solutions are starkly deficient. Often, they fail to recognize that the solutions must involve stopping population growth.
Physicists understand the arithmetic of steady, exponential growth.1 Yet they ignore its consequences, including the first law of sustainability: "Population growth or growth in the rate of consumption of resources cannot be [indefinitely] sustained."2 (See Ben Zuckerman's letter to the editor, Physics Today, July 1992, page 14.) Sustainability requires solutions that will be effective over time periods much longer than a human lifespan. Indeed, Paul Weisz makes a case on page 47 of this issue that many time-honored 20th-century energy sources, such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal, have been reduced to the point that their longevities are now expected to be of the order of a human lifespan.
Physicists and energy
Among physicists, there is a growing recognition that we have a responsibility to become more directly involved in the scientific aspects of problems facing society. As an example, consider the April 2002 special issue of Physics Today, which addressed specific energy problems. Let's focus on two of the articles in that issue: Stephen Benka's introductory essay, "The Energy Challenge" (page 38), and Ernest J. Moniz and Melanie A. Kenderdine's lead article, "Meeting Energy Challenges: Technology and Policy" (page 40). The titles alone convey a common commitment to society.
In his essay, Benka outlined the magnitude of the challenge by citing projections from the US Department of Energy: Between 1999 and 2020, the world's total annual energy consumption will rise 59% and the annual carbon dioxide emissions will rise by 60%, while the world population increases from 6.0 to 7.5 billion people. But here's the rub: Scientists may call for solutions to meet the rising demands of population growth, but as long as we postulate the continuation of that growth, the attendant problems of energy consumption and increasing CO2 emissions cannot have long-range solutions. The two articles in Physics Today fail to identify stopping growth as a necessary condition for the success of any proposed long-range solutions to the problems caused by population growth.
Scientists have occasionally acknowledged that population growth is the major cause of our problems. But I wonder whether their general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population—at least in the US. Or perhaps scientists are simply uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise.
Unchecked population growth as a source of problems is not news. More than 200 years ago, mathematician Robert Malthus (17661834) addressed the issue in his famous essay.3 He understood that populations had the biological potential for steady growth and that food production did not. Today, energy production does not have the capability of steady growth.
Nevertheless, we are all aware of nonscientists with academic credentials who proclaim that our modern technology has proven Malthus wrong. The most egregious of the high priests of endless growth was the late Julian Simon, professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois and later at the University of Maryland. In 1995, he wrote:
Technology exists now to produce in virtually inexhaustible quantities just about all the products made by nature. . . . We have in our hands now . . . the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.4
In the eyes of the general public, the silence of scientists on the problems of population growth seems to validate the messages of the politically appealing and influential Julian Simons of the world.
Supply shortages
In addressing the problems, Benka noted that "most of the growth in all three areas [energy consumption, CO2, and population] will take place in rapidly developing parts of the world." It is expedient to blame others, but because the US consumes so large a fraction of the world's energy resources, we Americans are effectively the worst offenders in those areas. Our population growth rate of more than 1% per year is the highest of any industrial nation. The US can't preach that other countries should limit their population growth unless we are willing to set an example and do so first.
Benka later argued, "It seems certain that the world will continue to rely heavily on hydrocarbon combustion for the foreseeable future. . . . However we must develop alternative energy sources." To be fair, Benka was not sanguine about the problem of energy shortages. His essay is partly a call to arms. But the evidence (see Weisz's article) indicates that some fossil-fuel resources may be in trouble within the next few decades. When physicists suggest that the US has resources and technological potential to meet the needs of an ever-growing economy, it's like inviting the public to dinner without having checked to see if there is sufficient food in the cupboard.
Most educated people understand that populations can't grow forever. But forever isn't really the issue. Already, population increases and consumer demand are taking big bites out of our energy resources. Of natural gas, Moniz and Kenderdine wrote that "US consumption represents roughly half of that for the industrialized world. . . . Developing Asia, Central America, and South America . . . are each expected to triple their demand over the next twenty years." A geological study published in 2003 reports that per capita annual production of natural gas is decreasing in Canada, Mexico, and the US.5 Production of natural gas in North America may be near the start of its terminal decline.
Of petroleum, Moniz and Kenderdine reported that world oil consumption is expected to grow by 60% in the first two decades of the 21st century and that China expects a five-fold increase in vehicles by 2020. Some optimistic researchers include in their tabulation of world reserves the oil shales of western Colorado (about 500 billion barrels); the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada (about 300 billion barrels, potentially); and the heavy oil under Venezuela (about 2 trillion barrels).6 Those quantities are huge compared to the US annual consumption of approximately 6 billion barrels, but the important question to ask is, What is the net energy gained after investing the energy it would take to recover those very hard-to-extract resources? Physicists must include the net energy in any recommendations that we make to use those fuels in the future.
Moniz and Kenderdine also wrote about "products derived from gas-to-liquid conversion [meaning natural gas], gasification of coal, and biomass." But if natural gas in North America is near the start of its terminal decline, there won't be much left to convert into other potential uses. They argued that CO2 emissions can be reduced by switching to "less carbon-intensive fossil fuels—for example, natural gas instead of coal for electricity generation—[this is an] economical way to reduce carbon intensity and meet growing demand." But the switch from coal to natural gas to generate electricity in the US was made a decade or so ago and the predictable effects are now evident: declining production, imminent shortages, and the rapid price increases of natural gas.
Researchers continue to debate when the peak of world petroleum production will be reached. Analytical estimates range from 20047,8 to about 2025.9 But from a per capita perspective, world petroleum production reached a peak in the 1970s (see the figure). I believe future historians may identify this peak as one of the most important events in all of human history.
The silent lie
In the Physics Today essay and article, population growth is given as a cause of the problems identified, but eliminating the cause is not mentioned as a solution. We are prescribing aspirin for cancer. Indeed, the solutions outlined in the articles would only make the problems worse. To appreciate what I mean, consider the "theorems" of economist Kenneth Boulding.10
The Dismal Theorem:
If the only ultimate check on the growth of populations is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth.
The Utterly Dismal Theorem:
Any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the [technical] improvement will enable the population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of [technical] improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population, which is to increase the sum total of human misery.
The Moderately Cheerful Form of the Dismal Theorem:
If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable or starves; it can be stably prosperous.
In 1970, the CBS broadcaster Eric Sevareid rephrased the theorems even more bluntly: "The chief source of problems is solutions."11
Physicists develop solutions to problems, but when the underlying cause of those problems remains neglected, we are effectively perpetuating a lie—what Mark Twain has called the silent lie:
Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them. . . . I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion; we can tell it without saying a word. . . .
For instance: It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of emancipation agitation in the North, the agitators got but small help or countenance from any one. Argue and plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society—the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion—the silent assertion that there wasn't anything going on in which humane and intelligent people were interested.
The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. It is the most timid and shabby of all lies . . . the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men [and women] are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.12
What do we do?
Here is a list with which to start:
* Acknowledge population growth as a major cause of societal problems.
* Debate the question, Which approach leads to greater general good: working to stabilize populations or working to spread ever-dwindling resources among ever-growing populations?
* Research, speak, and write about energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and populations, with an understanding that stabilizing population is a necessary condition for solving these problems.
* Alter the message given to students in the classroom and to the public. It is important they recognize that these energy and related problems cannot be solved without stopping population growth.
The physics community cannot launch a major campaign aimed at stabilizing the US population. That's not physics. But when physicists assume authoritative roles to solve the societal problems caused by population growth, professional responsibility requires that we stress the importance of stopping population growth as a central part of all solutions. We are not telling lies of silent assertion in the interest of the tyrannies and shams that Twain cites. Rather, we are tiptoeing around the issue in the name of political correctness. We can't be proud of that. As Mark Twain wrote, "[It] is the most timid and shabby of all lies."12
Albert A. Bartlett is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
References
1. A. A. Bartlett, Am. J. Phys. 46, 876 (1978).
2. A. A. Bartlett, Population and Environment 16, 5 (1994). Reprinted in Renewable Resour. J. 15, 6 (Winter 199798).
3. See T. R. Malthus, in An Essay on the Principle of Population: Text, Sources and Background, Criticism" P. Appleman, ed., W. W. Norton, New York (1976).
4. J. M. Simon, The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving, CATO Policy Rep. vol. 17, no. 5, Cato Institute, Washington, DC (Sept.Oct. 1995), p. 131. For a critique, see A. A. Bartlett, Phys. Teach. 34, 342 (1996).
5. W. Youngquist, R. C. Duncan, Nat. Resour. Res. 12, 229 (2003).
6. W. L. Youngquist, GeoDestinies: The Inevitable Control of Earth Resources Over Nations and Individuals, National Book, Portland, OR (1997), p. 215.
7. A. A. Bartlett, Math. Geol. 32, 1 (2000).
8. K. S. Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (2001).
9. J. D. Edwards, Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol. Bull. 81, 1292 (1997).
10. K. Boulding, in Collected Papers [by] Kenneth E. Boulding, Vol. 2, Colorado Associated U. Press, Boulder, CO (1971), p. 137.
11. E. Sevareid, CBS News, 29 December 1970, quoted in T. L. Martin, Malice in Blunderland, McGraw-Hill, New York (1973), p. 23.
12. M. Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Short Works, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY (2002), p. 159.
