Monday, July 04, 2011

sustainable stupidity

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Liveable4All sent me a link to this video.


I think the message in this video is a stupid one. Here's why: "Biologist Colin Tudge" clearly assumes that in his utopian future the majority of the earths population will continue to live in abject poverty. All very well for a rich Westerner to claim but the inhabitants of the global South might have some rather reasonable objections. In 2006, WWF's "Living Planet Report" stated that in order for all humans to live with the current consumption patterns of Europeans, we would be spending three times more than what the planet can renew. What "Biologist Colin Tudge" should have said is "we will be able to feed ten billion people in the future on starvation rations".

Personally, I don't find that an appealing, let alone a likely future. The only just solution is to equalise living standards between the developed & developing world and stabilise populations at a sustainable level. See George Monbiot for more, although note that George inexplicably fails to extend his argument to a call for equalisation of living standards. This is why he continues to cast the population issue as a "myth", In actuality, unless you are content for the majority of the human population to continue living in poverty you must accept some reasonable reduction in population in both the developing and developed world.

I suppose you could advocate for 10 billion people living in poverty, but then you'd be a monster.

8 comments:

  1. Cocking fuckmouse06 July, 2011 13:30

    Well I'm told that the leader of the Green Party has three children for starters. A previous leader Derek Wall was also rather fecund. Not a great help, not exactly sustainable and a terrible example to set.

    George's wife was a bit of a thicko too when it comes to population - no wonder he got shut of her.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/feb/23/familyandrelationships.ethicalliving

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  2. I penned this more than four years ago. I still like the idea, although it requires finessing.

    BTW, the replacement rate of reproduction for a stable population is about 2.3 children per couple so having three children is not necessarily contributing to a growing population. However, I am advocating active and rapid depletion of the population so I agree there should be some small stigma associated people having more than two children. The real problem lies with cultures that actively promote large families as a status symbol or worse, as a mechanism to achieve cultural hegemony.

    Ultimately, although I consider population to be a significant issue its political nitroglycerine. Look at the approbrium heaped upon any politicians who dare to even mention it.

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  3. Har haaarrrrrr, as an example of the use of fecundity as a weapon of cultural hegemony, look at the two prominent outliers on this graph.

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  4. Fucking cockmouse07 July, 2011 16:58

    Although 2.3 children is 'stable', our current use of resources if we were to remain a 'stable' population is obviously unsustainable. So two 'leaders' of a party promoting sustainability who have six kids between 'em doesn't go down well. But, yes you're right. Talk about population and you're done for.

    Your outliers are quite surprising. Religion seems to encourage people to rut like rabbits. Walking cocktarded impediments to progress.

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  5. I'm not so sure, punkscience.

    Population leveling off. Good news? Yes!

    Could it get smaller? Possibly, but with improvements in medical science spreading further around the globe, unlikely. People are going to live longer (possibly with "younger" bodies through genetic engineering if you believe the hype!)

    The current European consumption pattern is patently unsustainable so using it as a measure for future global consumption patterns seems rather misguided. There is far too much waste for a start.

    Devising agriculture such that it feeds 9 billion people may not require people to live in abject poverty as you think Tudge asserts. It isn't inconceivable. I can imagine it would require optimization of the food production/distribution cycle (since currently, we waste 1/3 of our food globally e.g. http://www.tristramstuart.co.uk/ i.e 2/3rds total food output is feeding > 5/6ths of the current population, albeit unevenly), an improved use of both arable farmland and city spaces for food production, and better structured diets with less dependency on meat as a rule. Human ingenuity is currently surpassed by human greed. If we can create an economic system that doesn't encourage our selfishness or treat greed as a virtue to be rewarded, maybe the ingenuity will finally get an opportunity to win out. Tudge points out all of these things.

    Personally, I would prefer to have less people on earth under the current circumstances since more and more are doomed to a life of misery. But this doesn't help if we continue with western economic models and consumption patterns. They are the primary causes of the problems today.

    Tudge also alludes to this in the video at the end.

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  6. Hi Ori, thanks for commenting. I'm really busy at the mo as I've been working on replies to a more recent post but I've thrown some thoughts together in reply. Apologies if these are a bit rambling and ranty!

    Could it get smaller? Possibly, but with improvements in medical science spreading further around the globe, unlikely. People are going to live longer (possibly with "younger" bodies through genetic engineering if you believe the hype!)

    I don't believe the hype but humans are going to live much longer. Half of my generation (I'm 32) are expected to see 100. http://www4d.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP60719g8ii0h7ec6f3ch00005f9bf57f0efa915f?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=49&w=350&h=250&cdf=Coordinates&cdf=Tooltips

    The current European consumption pattern is patently unsustainable so using it as a measure for future global consumption patterns seems rather misguided. There is far too much waste for a start.

    Yes, I think I made that point with my reference to the WWF report. The thing is, waste is relative. You can't assume everyone has the same standards. You or I would be appalled at the food that gets thrown away from almost every plate served in an American diner. Likewise, an Indian from the Mumbai slums would be appalled at the thought of you throwing away onion peelings. There is also the issue of the way we organise our society. Do we live in large cities or dispersed across the landscape in hamlets and villages? The latter is grossly inefficient in terms of resource use compared to the former due to the greatly dispersed transport & supply network required. These are all well established fields of study. However, how likely each one is to become reality the real problem. I am a city dweller myself, although I spend as much time in the wilds as possible and I wouldn't change it. The gravitation of rural peasant classes to urban areas continues apace in developing countries, creating the most appalling deprived slums. This is a human tragedy but an industrialists wet dream: a truly free market in human labour uninhibited by humanitarian concerns. Of course, if those slum occupents were to be given modest standards of living and human rights that would not solve issues. Cultural issues drive population trends across the globe (see the graph I linked to above). I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I think its fair to say that picking one standard of efficiency and living standards to champion is unlikely to achieve success as one fraction will call you a luddite, anti-human, malthusian, chicken-little-wannabe and the remainder will call you a bourgeois elitist dictating how other people should live. The solution, surely, is to seek to establish a weight-of-evidence approach that cannot be discounted. Even that approach is doomed to assault by propagandists, vested interests and lobbyists. See the climate change movement for an excellent example of what we can expect the moment we stick our head over the parapet.

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  7. Devising agriculture such that it feeds 9 billion people may not require people to live in abject poverty as you think Tudge asserts. It isn't inconceivable. I can imagine it would require optimization of the food production/distribution cycle (since currently, we waste 1/3 of our food globally e.g. http://www.tristramstuart.co.uk/ i.e 2/3rds total food output is feeding > 5/6ths of the current population, albeit unevenly), an improved use of both arable farmland and city spaces for food production, and better structured diets with less dependency on meat as a rule. Human ingenuity is currently surpassed by human greed. If we can create an economic system that doesn't encourage our selfishness or treat greed as a virtue to be rewarded, maybe the ingenuity will finally get an opportunity to win out. Tudge points out all of these things.

    This was true twenty years ago. It is now debatable whether we have sufficient reserves of fossil fuels left to fuel the construction of renewable power systems. Having emigrated to NZ, I am now in a much better situation to weather the energy crunch that is predicted to occur in the coming decade. If you think an 18% rise in your annual gas bill this year is bad, lets see how that looks ten years later.
    100*1.18^10 = 523%
    I'm not going to go on too much here about peak this and that but let me just observe that all synthetic pesticides and most fertilisers are made from oil. The Haber process to synthesise ammonia is responsible for sustaining one-third of the Earth's population. 3–5% of world natural gas production is consumed in the Haber process (~1–2% of the world's annual energy supply). Then there's biodiversity loss and climate change. Let me state plainly: In ten years time we'll be struggling to feed 7 billion people.

    Personally, I would prefer to have less people on earth under the current circumstances since more and more are doomed to a life of misery. But this doesn't help if we continue with western economic models and consumption patterns. They are the primary causes of the problems today.

    Tudge also alludes to this in the video at the end.


    I am convinced by the concept of happiness-based indices of wellbeing. From these we see that happiness plateaus around current European average living standards and doesn't increase with further wealth. This is a reasonable place to start with our evidence-based approach to determining optimum living standards for a happy population. From those values we can determine the optimum population, with a healthy nod towards the precautionary principle. This is roughly the thinking behind James Lovelock's estimate of 0.5-1billion as an optimum population. I'm quite happy with those figures. Unfortunately, I'm less happy with the prospect of selling this concept to the 6 billion excess people on the planet. :~(

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  8. Interesting comments above. Also wanted to point people to the documentaries: Darwin's Nightmare by Hubert Sauper 2004, and Life and Debt by Stephanie Black 2001 for stark examples of how many poor countries are actually rich in resources, but have to stop growing or harvesting food for themselves, but send it export instead. In Darwin's Nightmare, the fish fillets are exported and the spines, tails and heads are left for the locals.

    Another example is from the 1930s depression. During that time my father's family lived in a northern remote part of Alberta, had a huge garden and could hunt. fish, and raise chickens and milk cows. It was not like this on the prairies, where rural people really suffered. Some people in a few parts of Canada who they got a lot of their food from hunting and fishing etc, didn't realize there was a 'great depression'. Only when they went into town they then knew they were 'poor' but didn't consider themselves 'poor' otherwise.

    Also, Thomas Paine wrote about how poverty is the invention of civilization. And Polanyi's The Great Transition talks about the creation of poverty during the transition to an industrial economy in Britain. Obviously the enclosure of the commons is another example.

    In a post-GLI (guaranteed livable income) world, there may be a big increase of people improving their well-being outside the monetary economy. For example, having more time to learn gardening skills, and many other DIY things that are already happening. And of course with the well-researched links between chronic stress and poor health, having a minimum income floor would bring a lot of improved health, much less costly for the individual and society than poor health.

    And on a lighter note, in the book Happiness, Canadian humourist Will Ferguson writes a speculative novel about a society where someone writes a self-help book that really works. Everyone becomes happy and suddenly all the insecurity driven consumption ends, the economy crashes, and former models are standing on street corners with signs that say "will pout for food."

    When I was doing interviews with people about work, I was told by several people that they noticed their unhealthy consumption habits, were linked to how unhappy they were at their jobs. More stress and unhappiness, meant seeking happiness through buying something. The forced-consumption forced-production economy totally distorts human behavior.
    CLH

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Feel free to share your opinions of my opinions. Oh- and cocking fuckmouse.