Sinding's Rustle of Spring and Debussy's Clair de Lune
Performed by Remi
"We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves cooperatively, sanely, scientifically, harmonically and in regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity around earth . . . We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody." |
| - Buckminster Fuller |
The Environment and the Human Population
by Remi & Ron
This page was last modified on Monday, 25-Jun-2007 13:51:37 EDT
Express your own opinion and debate with others here.
Why is this happening? It is certainly being brought about by the activities of humankind. Our burning of fossil fuels (principally coal, oil, and gas) appears to be causing the increase in carbon dioxide. The thinning of the ozone layer may have resulted from the release of large quantities of flourocarbons. Those who think that all this is an example of Henny Penny shouting that the sky is falling and who cite failed predictions of the past are refusing to look at the objective evidence. And if they are politicians who are known to have been influenced by industry heavily committed to the status quo then there is certainly reason to challenge them.
We are contributing to this disaster in other ways as well. Our enormous increase in population has led to the use of agricultural methods which poison the streams, rivers, and ultimately the oceans. Every year our agricultural enterprise takes over more and more land and disrupts pre-existing ecological systems. Some of these systems are known to be important for the Earth's environmental wellbeing. Our destruction of the natural environment is causing wholesale extinctions of animal and plant species worldwide. Indeed, it is our enormous increase in population which is the fundamental problem very seldom mentioned. It is not considered polite to remind old people that they don't have long to live. And by somewhat similar mechanisms it may be distasteful to discuss the obvious fact that the human population cannot and should not go on increasing indefinitely. Click on the links below to see the "population clocks" for the U.S. and the world.
U.S. POPClock
World POPClock
NOTE: The U.S. POPClock has been recalibrated to be consistent with Census 2000 data released on 12/28/2000.
Shown below, a photograph of the earth at night reveals the countries that are the greatest energy consumers (hence, polluters, because they are burning fossil fuels to get energy instead of using non-polluting energy sources) on this planet. The same countries are immensely wealthy and capable of taking steps to reduce their rate of pollution.
The Earth at Night - click for the full-size picture (size: 386k)
Do you believe these assertions? A better question might be: If you don't believe them, where have you learned not to believe them? Have you listened to political pundits to make up your mind about them? The twin issues mentioned above (is climate changing and are humans causing it to change) have become highly politicized. One would think that the best sources of information for making an informed opinion would be the work of scientists who study the Earth and its biosphere. Among these scientists there is substantial agreement. There is, of course, some difference of opinion about the exact role played by humans against the background of other known naturally occurring processes. There is always disagreement in science. But when non-scientists wish for some reason to disbelieve scientific findings it is popular to exaggerate the disagreements and to emphasize how "controversial" the matter in question is. We see this strategy in constant use by creationists, for example, who try to persuade that evolution is in serious doubt when it really isn't.
Since these issues have indeed become highly politicized, great care should be taken to avoid the endemic practice of ad hominem arguments and labelling. "Greenies", "tree huggers", and the use of political party names or equivalents should be strongly discouraged. The very essence of typical political argumentation involves innuendo, personalities, and the use of pejorative labels. A position on what to do about the terrestrial environment should not be based on such arguments but only on the best information about and models of that environment.
A few words about the probable time frame for the forecast catastrophe and its likely severity. A decade will be sufficient to remove all possible doubt about global warming. Another decade may be required to convince a large number of the role of humanity in these changes in climate. Seriously disruptive changes will be still slower in coming. It may take a hundred years to flood Manhattan Island if current trends are not reversed. The increases in variability of climate (droughts, floods, storms, blizzards) may already be in evidence and should become more pronounced in the next decade. Not all the changes forecast are negative. Warming will make available for cultivation millions of square miles of land which is currently not useful for food production. A summer home in the Yukon will become more attractive than it is now and the possessor of such a home may find it a comfortable place to live for a substantially longer portion of the year.
Much literature which scoffs at the dangers of global climate change emphasizes that the climate has changed in the past, as if proponents of proactive measures to improve the outlook were not aware of that fact. This is well known to environmental activists and carries no weight whatsoever. Another argument against taking any steps to improve the environment emphasizes how uncertain our forecasts are. The uncertainties cannot be denied, but the uncertainties are more matters of when than of whether- or-not. As the years roll by this will become more and more evident. It is often said that in some regions there may actually be a decrease in average annual temperature, as if this is a possibility not known to the activists. Again this is well known and does not alter the position. It is also pointed out that the next ice age may be about to start, as if this is an argument against the position stated here. There certainly is good reason to believe that another ice age will begin in the next few thousand years, based on the previous rate of recurrence of these spontaneous terrestrial climatic cycles.
Notice that the CO2 cycles every year in the above four graphs. This fluctuation is thought to be caused principally by variations in plant absorption of CO2 during the year. Interestingly, Alaska shows the greatest variation, Hawaii somewhat less, still less in American Samoa, and the least at the South Pole. The graphs therefore make considerable sense and give us some idea of the strength of the effect of plants in controlling CO2. Some skeptics assure us that as CO2 increases that plants will increase and grow faster thus correcting the problem. If this were the case, we would expect to see the width of the fluctuations increase. There is no descernable increase, however, thus failing to provide evidence that we can count on plants to make an automatic negative feedback loop. When the day comes that a new ice age is on the way, hopefully we will have enough knowledge to terraform our beloved Terra and to prevent or moderate such an event. Perhaps one reason many people find it difficult to believe that human activities are causing climate change and that changes in human activities can prevent undesirable change and promote desirable change stems from the fact that humankind has always in the past been obviously incapable of having any effect for good or evil on the weather. (After all, was it Will Rogers who said, "Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.") I can remember asking my father about what we would do when all the oil is used up. (He was a famous engineer and director of research in the Hughes Tool Company where he developed many patents on features of Hughes rock bits which are still in use today for drilling oil wells.) I was assured by him that no efforts of mere humans could possibly influence the great big world. The world was just too big and we were just too small. It was reassuring to me at that time (age eight) to know that Earth was just so big that we would never have to worry about running out of anything! Franklin Delano Roosevelt contrasted two ways of looking at resources when he said, "European countries treat timber as a crop. We treat timber resources as if they were a mine." European people have been occupying Europe for a lot longer than Americans have occupied America. They have had time to observe that timber is not an unlimited resource. And now perhaps humanity has lived on Earth long enough to realize that even mines are limited. We brush away ideas that oil might one day run out in the same way that we brush away thoughts of death. As long as we are children, anyway.
There is another thread of misunderstanding involving the role of "government". Many people fear that an already overly powerful and intrusive government will insanely and stupidly invade what have heretofore been "unalienable" rights to do whatever one wants with one's private property or one's factory, or one's corporation. But the importance of taking constructive action far overrides any consideration of who does the acting. It seems to be assumed by some that environmental activists are in favor of "big government" or of the United Nations violating our national sovereignty. Perhaps there are such activists, but it is relatively unimportant who institutes and carries out the needed changes as long as they get carried out! It is sometimes said that owners of real estate or businesses or corporations will, out of enlightened self interest, naturally be good, responsible stewards. Some certainly will, but others certainly won't. There is nothing about achieving the status of CEO in a large corporation that guarantees an appreciation of the problems of the global environment. Entirely too often we find that decisions are made with an eye on "the bottom line", that ultimate authority and absolute ruler of all things commercial. The time scale of the bottom line may be a matter of the next quarter or the next year. Sometimes it is considerably longer than this, but it is seldom as long as a decade, and we need to think in centuries here. But there is nothing about being elected to political office that makes any guarantee either. We are not suggesting here that if government is encouraged to take charge of the environment that our worries will be over. The problems of the environment are of immense importance and are going to have to be approached with all the resources that can be brought to bear.
If you would like to learn the status of the environment in your particular part of the country, go to scorecard. This is a very well organized site which will give you information on how your neighborhood stacks up with the rest of the country and what the principle sources of pollution are. (This site was called to my attention by Mike McCarty.)
Some admit that CO2 may be increasing for some reason but deny that human activities are a major cause. The following two graphs contrast the carbon load released into the environment by all sources in North America with that in South America.
Note that the shape of the markedly accelerating increase matches that of the previous graphs of atmospheric concentration of CO2 for the correponding years but that the quantity of carbon from South America is greatly less than that from North America. The beginning of the acceleration is near the beginning of the industrial revolution. Now correlation (which is what we have shown here) does NOT prove causation. But causation always involves correlation, and it is certainly fair to ask those who think that human activity is not causal here just what they think is causing this unprecedented increase in CO2. Then, of course, there is the global warming itself. There are those who deny that global warming is taking place. A friend was visiting just yesterday who said, "But year before last was unusually cool!" This is obviously not inconsistent with global warming at all. The following figure should dispell any lingering doubts about the matter.
All the graphs above were taken from NASA. For more detailed discussions of these problems go here.
The temperature of the planet is controlled by a very complex interaction of dozens of factors. We have mentioned CO2, but methane, water vapor, and chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFC's) are important too. Solar radiation contributes heat, of course, but it also contributes energy which can break down the chlorofluorocarbon molecules. When the CFC's break down, chlorine and fluorine are released and ozone is destroyed. While it is true that large quantities of chlorine gas are released into the air fromthe oceans and from volcanoes, this gaseous chlorine is quickly washed out of the air by water droplets in clouds and in rainfall. The chlorine and fluorine in CFC's is protected inside the molecule and therefore can arrive in the upper stratosphere. Variations in the Earth's orbit influence the amount of radiation the Earth receives. As the orbit precesses the relationship between apogee and perigee to the seasons changes. Clouds are very important because they change the albedo (the degree to which the Earth reflects light.) Vulcanism can influence temperature by discharging huge dust clouds that spread worldwide and reduce the amount of solar radiation that reaches the ground. Computer models are constantly being improved to take into account new information on the interaction of all these factors. There are several scenarios in which the state of the climate reaches a set of critical values (called a catastrophe in some mathematical models) beyond which it becomes irreversible. Some models predict that we are already in for a major irreversible climate change. Others predict that catastrophe can be averted with sufficient remedial action. None predict the status quo.
Some environmental activists are conservation minded. They want us to car pool to and from work and do more walking and less driving. They want us to go around turning off lights and turning our thermostats up in summer and down in winter. Taking their advice will lower our standard of living and our quality of life. Not only that, conservation is only at best a temprorary fix. As population grows conservation measures must quickly become more and more severe. Nothing wrong with conservation except that it's no solution to the problem. Instead of planning for a world in which we will all have to cut back on our energy use, a better plan is to plan for a world in which we can increase our energy use and our standard of living. A world in which the vast majority will experience a high standard of living and personal fulfillment instead of a small minority. And such a world is most certainly possible if we plan ahead to control the human population and develop energy sources which are maintainable without injuring the biosphere.
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