No Joy In Mudville -- Swine Flu and The Human Future

The reality that inspired that old saying, “nature bats last” is making an uncomfortable and terrifying trip around the planet this week.

As the swine flu threatens a global pandemic, we are brought face to face with the innate and irrevocable power of our Earth’s global ecosystem to self-regulate. It’s nature’s version of the U.S. Constitution -- a system of checks and balances where no one entity is more powerful than the other. When operating correctly, this system produces balanced outcomes that limit the fecundity of any one species in order to ensure the viability of the whole system.

We are used to understanding this dynamic – and far more comfortable observing it -- when it applies to rabbits on the tundra, moose on an island, or bacteria in the Petri dish.

Now, however, this target is us! And we don’t like it one bit.

From the human perspective, the swine flu is something that rightly needs to be defeated and destroyed. But we should also see this unfolding event as an opportunity to remember that we are neither omniscient nor omnipotent on this planet. Our normal operating perspective, especially in the U.S., is that we have fundamentally conquered nature and partitioned ourselves as an elite species not subject to Earth’s forces. This means our economy can abuse our environment without penalty and our populations can increase forever.

Yet now -- as our fellow citizens begin to fall sick and die -- rather than gracefully partitioned, we begin to realize we may actually be quarantined!

On a planet that is asked to support a quarter million more humans every day (225,000) and 82 million more per year, can anyone be surprised that nature is reminding us of her prowess? Most serious ecologists have been saying for decades that the planet is over-populated by billions. And, most serious environmentalists already know that human population must be stabilized to have any shot at global sustainable development

As this terrible tragedy unfolds, isn’t it time to have a conversation about planetary sustainability and the fundamental role population stabilization must play in achieving it? Without serious discussions of this sort, it’s almost certain that nature will continue to bat last – but it will be humanity that ultimately strikes out.

Quality Not Quantity

The upside to the recession

by Samantha Macina

Published: Tuesday, April 28, 2009

http://www.fairfieldmirror.com/news/the-upside-to-the-recession-1.1737634

The solution to two of the world’s biggest problems could potentially be linked, according to Robert Costanza, who spoke about “The Global Recession as an Opportunity to Create a Sustainable and Desirable Future,” to members of the University on Thursday as a part of Earth Week.

Costanza stated that there is actually a plus side to the current worldwide economic recession. It provides us with an opportunity to rethink our goals as a society, and create a sustainable future by changing the way we view the economy.

According to Costanza, the 1950s brought about an increase in society’s use of ecological resources, such as fossil fuels and raw materials. This constantly increasing use has caused unprecedented changes in the world’s ecosystems, causing loss of land area, increased storms and more flooding worldwide.

Unless we work to stop it, our environment will continue to decline.

Costanza said Americans typically view the economy as a market whose purpose is for growth. But this is the wrong way to look at things. “The economy should be for creating a high quality of life, and sustaining it in the future. It’s about human well-being,” he said.

He recommended a “full world model of economy,” in which material growth would slow. Instead, there would be an increase in quality of consumption, not quantity.

Costanza expressed his hope that the recession has us on the right path, and will “break our addiction” to the material.

Costanza has spent years conducting research on the relationship between ecological and economic systems.

Since receiving his PhD systems ecology from the University of Florida, Costanza has become a professor of ecological economics, the director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, and the co-founder of the International Society for Ecological Economics.

He concluded that best way to improve the environment and increase quality of life is by rethinking the way we view the economy.

For Costanza, maintaining ecosystems is the solution to economic success. They will create well being by providing us with services, such as climate control, food, water, security, and health.

According to Costanza, the value of the resources ecosystems could provide would be about $33 trillion per year, plus an increased quality of life.

Students in the audience were willing to heed Costanza’s advice. “I think it is very important for students, not only at Fairfield, but all over the world, to learn about these issues. They need to be dealt with to ensure our survival, and the change can start with us,” said Taylor Bicho ’11.

Michael Chiaramonte ’11 said “It’s important for our generation to learn about environmental problems, and how to fix them, because it is something that will continue to affect us.”

Costanza urged the audience not to retreat back into old ways after the recession is over.

He said, “Global recession has us on the right path.”

Overwhelming Evidence

Global: Health Outcomes

Whereas: From 1970 to 2004, the proportion of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa fell slightly from 35% down to 32%. However, since the regional population more than doubled during that time, the number of hungry people has actually increased 43% from about 93 million to 214 million.

Whereas: 380 women become pregnant every minute -- half of them do not plan or wish the pregnancy.

Whereas: Over 100 million women in developing countries would prefer to avoid pregnancy but are not using any form of family planning or birth control. Worldwide, over 350 million couples lack access to a full range of modern family-planning information and services.

Whereas: Over 24 developing nations still have fertility rates, or average number of children per woman, of 6.0 or higher, -- while another 24 have fertility rates of 5.0-5.9

Whereas: Wherever high-quality contraceptive services have been made available with supporting information, the birth rate has fallen, even among low-income populations.

Whereas: Between 2007 and 2025, cereal production must increase from the present 2.2 billion tons to three billion tons, to keep up with population growth.

Whereas: As the result of growing human numbers and over cultivation of ecologically fragile lands, per capita grain yields in Africa have fallen by as much as 30% since 1970.

Whereas: Of the estimated annual 200 million pregnancies on Earth, about 40% or 80 million of them are unwanted or mistimed.

Whereas: In 1984, the year of the infamous famine, the population of Ethiopia was 42 million. Today it has reached 75 million and by 2050 the country is projected to have a population of 145 million.

Whereas: In Nigeria, the growing population will push the cost of vaccines from $20 million annually in 2000 to $70 million in 2015.

Global: Stability

Whereas: In 1900, there were 21 acres of land per person in the world (including tundra, desert, etc.). In the year 2000 there were 5. That amount is shrinking every year as population grows.

Whereas: By the year 2020, the combined populations of Asia and Africa will be 6 to 8 billion people – equal to or greater than the number that now lives on the entire planet.

Whereas: China, its population expanding at about 7 million people per year as of 2006, appears to be advancing economically along the same path as did Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. If it does this to the point of achieving the same level of fish consumption as these nations, the entire sustainable wild fish production of all the world's oceans would be required just to supply China's fish needs.

Whereas: If human population grows as projected over the next fifty years, more food will have to be produced worldwide than has been produced during the past 10,000 years combined.

Whereas: The Middle East, besides having the world's highest rate of unemployment, also has the world's highest rate of population growth, and the largest portion of the world's armed conflicts. Africa, besides having the world's second-highest unemployment rate, also has the world's second-highest rate of population growth and the world's second-largest portion of armed conflicts.

Whereas: In the politically unstable and conflicted countries shown in the table below, not a single country is at replacement level fertility – instead, the region is growing rapidly.

Nation	Total Fertility Rate	Doubling Time
Afghanistan	6.8	26 years
Iraq	5.1	25 years
Saudi Arabia	4.5	27 years
Pakistan	4.8	20 years
Palestine	5.6	19 years

Whereas: The U.S. CIA concluded that a key driving trend for the Middle East in the next 15 years will be population pressure. They point out that, even now, in nearly all Middle Eastern countries, over half of the population is under age 20.

Whereas: The world's fishing fleet doubled in number of large boats and in total capacity during 1970-90. In 1998, this fleet had a fishing capacity twice that of the sustainable yield of the world's wild fisheries

Whereas: Pakistan is short of educational infrastructure and lacks as many as 60,000 middle schools. The average Pakistani boy completes 5 years of schooling, the average girl 2.5 years. Pakistan's female literacy rate is 42%.

Whereas: Violence at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists has its origins in the combination of the world's highest population growth rate and some of the world's most degraded environments. Economies in which per-capita GDP has fallen 60% during the past two decades cannot afford the cost of the infrastructure growth (44% of GDP) needed to accommodate these high population growth rates.

Whereas: Only 33% of developing-world population growth comes from unwanted fertility. About 49% comes from momentum caused by the population age structure, and this requires at least two generations to eliminate. Only about 18% of population growth comes from high desired family size.

Whereas: A thousand billion dollars are spent annually around the world on military spending but only around $60 billion on development and humanitarian aid.

Whereas: High population growth rates result in a dire scarcity of financial capital since any financial capital creation is absorbed in the costs of the infrastructure needed to accommodate population growth. At the same time, large family size in low-income countries causes people to spend most of their income on immediate survival needs of food, housing and clothing, leaving little left over for investment and capital formation. The scarcity of financial capital translates into scarcities of transportation systems, communication systems, electric power systems, human capital, and sound legal systems – all of which are essential for attracting capital from external sources. The lack of capital, external or internal, thus translates into a lack of jobs, which translates into high unemployment rates. The resultant desperate poverty produces desperate struggles for the basic necessities. The result is high levels of armed conflict and decreasing levels of safety for capital investments of all types.

Whereas: The projected four billion people living in cities by 2030 will be more than those who lived on the entire planet in 1975.

Whereas: One-half of the world's population is currently under age 24. To put that in perspective, there are more young people in the world today, than all people living in 1960.

Whereas: Approximately 350,000 humans are born each day and 150,000 die each day, resulting in about 200,000 additional humans on the planet each day.

Whereas: A CIA study covering more than 50 years reported that the primary predictor of a country's instability was its infant mortality rate. Afghanistan's infant mortality rate is 154/1000 births, nearly three times higher than the worldwide rate of 56/1000.