OMNI
OVER-POPULATION, GROWTH,
CONSUMPTION, WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE NEWSLETTER #4, JUNE 28, 2014.
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
(#1 July 8, 2010; #2 April 23, 2012;
#3 April 4, 2014).
What’s at
stake: Population growth
was claimed as a significant danger to the planet by Paul and Anne Ehrlich in The Population Bomb (1968), which was falsely
represented in the mass media. Population
and warming/climate change were connected as early as 1975 by the Republican
Ford Administration in NSS Memorandum 200, which was suppressed. Little
attention has been given to these
connections by the mass media, and strong business and religious denial has
also silenced official and public discussion and action. Now at last, strengthened by books and
articles like that of Alan Weisman’s Countdown,
which give comprehensive analysis (population numbers and consumption), significant
progress can be made against the harms of population growth.
My blog:
War Department/Peace Department
Newsletters
Index:
See: abortion.doc, OMNI Climate Change Forums.
doc, Planned Parenthood, OMNI Population Poverty Hunger Watch.doc (these should
be one with OMNI population warming watch.doc), Sierra Club Population Project,
Worldwatch
Institute , OneWorld US,
Population Action International, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Contents Nos. 1-3 at end.
Contents Over-Population Newsletter #4
CONDITION OF THE WORLD
Alan Weisman, Countdown, a Review by Nathaniel Rich in NYTBR
Datz, C02 vs. Food
RESISTING ORGANIZATIONS
United Nations Population Fund
Population Connection
Population Connection Magazine of
Population Connection (formerly ZPG)
NARAL
CHALLENGE
Angus and Butler
Contact President Obama
Contents 1-3
CONDITION
OF THE WORLD
Earth
Control: Countdown by Alan Weisman.
Rev. in NYTBR By NATHANIEL
RICH. Published: October 11, 2013
If we wanted to bring about the
extinction of the human race as quickly as possible, how might we proceed? We
could begin by destroying the planet’s atmosphere, making it incapable of
supporting human life. We could invent bombs capable of obliterating the entire
planet, and place them in the hands of those desperate enough to detonate them.
We could bioengineer our main food sources — rice, wheat and corn — in such a
way that a single disease could bring about catastrophic famine. But the most effective measure,
counterintuitive as it may be, would be to increase our numbers. Population
is what economists call a multiplier. The more people, the greater the
likelihood of ecological collapse, nuclear war, plague.
Pablo
Amargo
COUNTDOWN
Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
By Alan Weisman
513 pp.
Little, Brown & Company. $28. 2013
As Alan Weisman’s “Countdown” amply demonstrates, we are well on
our way. Some seven billion people are alive today; the United Nations
estimates that by the end of the century we could number as many as 15.8 billion. Biologists have
calculated that an ideal population — the number at which everyone could live
at a first-world level of consumption, without ruining the planet irretrievably
— would be 1.5 billion.
Weisman’s jeremiad amounts to a world tour of our overpopulation
misery. He begins in Jerusalem , where he learns
that construction firms worry about running out of sand, despite the fact that
half of Israel Jordan River is now a “fetid ditch”;
pilgrims who attempt to bathe at the spot where Jesus is said to have been
baptized will develop a rash and, if they swallow the water, will most likely
vomit.
The question mark that ends the book’s
subtitle is as significant as what precedes it. If we dramatically reduce the
planet’s human population, we might have a future here. Then again, it might
already be too late.
Weisman raises the example of the passenger pigeon. During the 19th century it
was one of the most abundant birds on earth, with as many as five billion in America
“Countdown” is a bleak sequel to “The World Without Us,” Weisman’s
elegant account of what would happen to the planet should human beings suddenly
vanish. That book drew its subtle and visceral power from Edenic descriptions
of an Earth reclaimed by its forests and oceans, healing from the wounds
inflicted by civilization. With its imaginative force and vivid storytelling,
it had the power of the best speculative fiction; but in “Countdown,” “there’s
no imagining.”
Perhaps motivated by the urgency of his theme, or frustration over
the intransigence of the problem, Weisman abandons subtlety in favor of making
his message — we need to slow our rate
of procreation, if we want to survive — explicitly and didactically in
every chapter. His dire warnings, and the warnings of the scientists and
government officials he interviews, are unrelenting, with variations of the
following sentence appearing at regular intervals: “In the entire history of
biology, every species that outgrows its resource base suffers a population
crash — a crash sometimes fatal to the entire species.”
Weisman visits more than 20 countries and interviews countless
local scientists, families and policy directors, but the problem is always the
same: There are too many people. The culprits
are modern medicine, which has caused life expectancy in the last two centuries
to nearly double; innovations in agronomy, which have dramatically increased
global food production; and a failure to provide contraception to women.
From Thomas Malthus to Paul and Anne Ehrlich, authors of “The
Population Bomb” (1968), population doomsayers have endured ridicule and
vilification, largely because their predictions of imminent doom fail to
materialize on schedule. In our own time, there are a few mitigating
indicators. Much of the current population growth comes in the developing
world, where carbon consumption remains low, so the environmental effect is
relatively muted. The next thousand Americans will do more than twice as much
damage as the next hundred thousand Nigeriens, though that is hardly a cause
for celebration.
Perhaps more significantly, the global fertility rate has declined every year since 1965, from
nearly five births per woman to 2.4. The problem is that anything above 2.33 —
the rate at which births equal deaths, when child mortality is factored in —
will yield a population expansion. Even when fertility drops below the replacement
rate, it will take decades for the population to begin to decline. At today’s
rate, world population would stabilize at 10
billion by 2100. But that will most likely never happen, Weisman writes,
because seven billion people “are
already turning the atmosphere into something unlivable.”
The grim prophecies are illustrated with statistics. Each year the world adds the equivalent of another Germany or Egypt ;
by 2040, China
Metaphors bring us closer. Over the course of the book, man is
likened to a cancer; to “a voracious monoculture” that sucks “resources in at
the cost of the rest of life on the planet”; and to the mule deer of Arizona
But the book’s most indelible image comes from Weisman’s visit to Japan Japan Japan Nagoya
Science Park ,
where Japan
“I will do my best,” says the bear, as it approaches a man who is
lying on a hospital bed. “I will carry you as though you were a princess.”
RIBA II slides one paw under the patient’s knees, the other
beneath his back. The robot cradles the man in its arms. It carries the man
across the room, and lowers him tenderly into a wheelchair.
“I’m finished,” announces RIBA II, and it’s hard not to wonder
whether the robot speaks for us all.
Nathaniel Rich’s new
novel is “Odds Against Tomorrow.”
A
version of this review appears in print on October 13, 2013, on page BR18 of
the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Earth Control.
Rising CO2
Levels Will Make Staple Crops Less Nutritious By Todd Datz, EcoWatch, 11 May 14.
At the elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)
anticipated by around 2050, crops that provide a large share of the global
population with most of their dietary zinc and iron will have significantly
reduced concentrations of those nutrients, according to a new study led by Harvard School of
Public Health (HSPH). Given that an estimated 2
billion people suffer from zinc and iron deficiencies—resulting in a loss of 63
million life years annually from malnutrition—the reduction in these nutrients
represents the most significant health threat ever shown to be associated with climate change.
“This study is the first to resolve the question of whether
rising CO2 concentrations—which have been increasing steadily since the
Industrial Revolution—threaten human nutrition,” said Samuel Myers, research scientist in the
Department of Environmental Health at HSPH and the study’s lead author. The
study appears online May 7 in Nature.
Some previous studies of crops grown in greenhouses and
chambers at elevated CO2 had found nutrient reductions, but those studies were
criticized for using artificial growing conditions. Experiments using free air
carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE) technology became the gold standard as FACE
allowed plants to be grown in open fields at elevated levels of CO2, but those
prior studies had small sample sizes and have been inconclusive.
The researchers analyzed data involving 41 cultivars
(genotypes) of grains and legumes from the C3 and C4 functional groups (plants
that use C3 and C4 carbon fixation) from seven different FACE locations in Japan , Australia
and the U.S.
The level of CO2 across all seven sites was in the range of 546 to 586 parts
per million (ppm). The researchers tested the nutrient concentrations of the
edible portions of wheat and rice (C3 grains), maize and sorghum (C4 grains),
and soybeans and field peas (C3 legumes).
The results showed a significant decrease in the
concentrations of zinc, iron and protein in C3 grains. For example, zinc,
iron and protein concentrations in wheat grains grown at the FACE sites were
reduced by 9.3 percent, 5.1 percent, and 6.3 percent, respectively, compared
with wheat grown at ambient CO2. Zinc and iron were also significantly reduced
in legumes; protein was not.
The finding that C3 grains and legumes lost iron and zinc
at elevated CO2 is significant. Myers and his colleagues estimate that 2
billion to 3 billion people around the world receive 70 percent or more of
their dietary zinc and/or iron from C3 crops, particularly in the developing
world, where deficiency of zinc and iron is already a major health concern.
C4 crops appeared to be less affected by higher CO2, which
is consistent with underlying plant physiology, as C4 plants concentrate CO2
inside the cell for photosynthesis, and thus they might be expected to be less
sensitive to extracellular changes in CO2 concentration.
The researchers were surprised to find that zinc and iron
varied substantially across cultivars of rice. That finding suggests that there
could be an opportunity to breed reduced sensitivity to the effect of elevated
CO2 into crop cultivars in the future.
In addition to efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, breeding
cultivars with reduced sensitivity to CO2, biofortification of crops with iron
and zinc, and nutritional supplementation for populations most affected could
all play a role in reducing the human health impacts of these changes, said
Myers. “Humanity is conducting a global experiment by rapidly altering the
environmental conditions on the only habitable planet we know. As this experiment
unfolds, there will undoubtedly be many surprises. Finding out that rising CO2
threatens human nutrition is one such surprise,” Myers said.
Other HSPH authors include Antonella Zanobetti, Itai Kloog
and Joel Schwartz.
RESISTANCE
Population Organizations (for more see earlier and other
newsletters on population)
UN Population Fund
Population Connection
NARAL
UN POPULATION FUND, GOOGLE Search,
June 28, 2014
1.
UNFPA - United
Nations Population Fund
United Nations Population Fund
UNFPA, the United Nations
Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right
of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of ...
About UNFPA
UNFPA is on the ground
improving lives in about 150 countries that ...
|
State of World Population
... 2013 State of the World
Population report focusing on ...
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UNFPA
UNFPA is making a real
difference in the world. Join us and you ...
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Contact Us
Contact Us. Print Send by
mail. UNFPA, United Nations ...
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Population Connection, Google Search, June
28, 2014
1.
Population Connection - Population Connection
Population Connection (formerly Zero
Population Growth) is America
About Us
About Us. Since 1968,
Population Connection (formerly Zero ...
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Population Issues
When Population Connection was
founded as Zero Population ...
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Zero Population Growth (ZPG)
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Click on the map to learn more.
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Protecting the Planet.
Population growth stretches natural ...
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2.
Population Education
Not only has our total population
drastically grown (from 4 million in 1790 when the first census ... Population
Education is a program of Population Connection |
3.
Population Connection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia
Population Connection is a 501(c)(3)
organization based in Washington
D.C. , United
States
4.
Population Connection - "World Population" - YouTube
Jun 11, 2009 - Uploaded by
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Population Connection - "World
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charity rated 4 of 4 stars by Charity Navigator. Located in Washington , DC
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Population Connection Action Fund - Washington, DC ...
Population Connection Action Fund, Washington , DC America
7.
Population Connection - Project Vote Smart
“We are the largest grassroots
population organization in the United
States
POPULATION CONNECTION, THE MAGAZINE OF THE
ORGANIZATION BY THE SAME NAME
JUNE
2014 NUMBER ON FOOD SCARCITY, “OUR AGRICULTRUAL FUTURE IN PERIL.”
Like Countdown, the
magazine is packed with striking statistics, for example: “Costs for voluntary contraception are
amazingly modest. Right now, the global
health community needs an additional $4 billion dollars a year to be able to
provide contraception to the 222 million women with a current unmet need. That’s equal to Coca-Cola’s annual marketing
budget or the value of the Internet music program Spotify.” This number includes “Our Last, Best Hope for
a Future on Earth?” by Weisman, “New Era of Food Scarcity Echoes Collapsed
Civilizations” by Lester Brown, and “Famine Is a Feminist Issue” by Lisa
Palmer. –Dick
IPCC REPORT ON FOOD SECURITY
The March 2914 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change makes several significant predictions, among them:
--“Studies have documented a large negative sensitivity of crop
yields to extreme daytime temperatures around 30 Degree C”
--“Changes in temperature and precipitation, without considering
effects of C02, will contribute to increased global food prices by 2050, with
estimated increases ranging from 3-84 percent.”—Dick from PC p. 2.
--
Donations secured by 
PRO-CHOICE VOTER GUIDE
Find
out where candidates for Congress and governor stand on choice! Our voter guide
includes candidates for primary elections across the country.
·
·
UPDATES
QUALIFICATIONS AND CHALLENGES TO OVERPOPULATION THEORY EXPLAINED BY WEISMAN
Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the
Environmental Crisis by Ian Angus and Simon Butler. Haymarket, 2012.
“POPULATION GROWTH NOT THE ONLY
DECISIVE FACTOR” By George Monbiot.(2011)
See Chapter 17, Section ii. “Jasper
Ridge,” on Paul and Anne Ehrlich and other population scholars who read the Ehrlichs’ The Population Bomb carefully. According
to Weisman, their book warned of famines from overpopulation “unless…dramatic
programs to increase food production stretched the Earth’s carrying capacity.” Thanks to Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution miracle
hybrids and nitrogen fertilizer from oil the famines predicted for the 1970s were
averted. But the Ehrlichs also wrote in their book that such programs would be only
temporary “unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at
population control.” AND Borlaug made
the same warning “in his Nobel acceptance speech that Green Revolution crops
were only buying the world time, unless population controls were implemented.” (402).
And see Weisman pp.
404-5 where he quotes the Paul Ehrlich on the importance of consumption. “’Yet to separate consumption from
population. . .is like saying the length of a rectangle contributes more to its
area than its width.’” (405). Hence “the
most overpopulated country on Earth” is the US (404).
I recommend all of
Chapter17 for setting the record straight about Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
From the White House: Write or Call
President
Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in
American history. That begins with taking comments and questions from you, the
public, through our website.
Call
the President
PHONE NUMBERS
Comments:
202-456-1111Switchboard: 202-456-1414
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Write a letter to
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few simple things you can do to make sure your message gets to the White House
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2. If you write a letter, please consider typing it on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. If you hand-write your letter, please consider using pen and writing as neatly as possible.
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Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/
For more
information on this topic go to:
Newsletter #1
July 8, 2010
Books
Erickson
Firor and Jacobsen
Worldwatch, UN Population fund (UNFPA)
Mogelgaard on Slowing Population Growth, Population Action
International
Population, Contraception, Warming (from Joanna)
Women’s Rights, Population, Climate (PAI), Interview of Suzanne
Ehlers
Newsletter #2,
April 23, 2012
OMNI350 Book Club Discussion
CBD:
Contraception
Sierra Population Program
Linda Farrell, Deforestation, Overpopulation
UN Population Fund 2012
Negative Population Growth
Planned Parenthood
Population Coalition
Contents #3,
April 4, 2014 The Overpopulation Case in
Roughly Chronological Order
Dick,
Introduction: Gore’s The Future
Malthus (see Brown below)
Christian Parenti, The
Limits to Growth, 1972, Because Resources Exhaustible
Need to Check Population Growth:
US
Ford Admin. 1975 NSS
Memorandum 200, Universal Access to Family
Planning Necessary
Lester Brown’s Book on Malthus and Population, 1999
World Bank Knew the Population/Warming Connection Over a Decade
Ago
Scientific
American 2009: Of Course Population Growth Increases C02/Warming
Welch, Mother Earth News, End
Population Growth 2012
Population Growth and C02/Warming/Weather Extremes Google Search
Morawicki, Food to Diminish, Population Certain to Increase
Al Gore, How to Stabilize Population
Royal Society, Population Growth and Consumption Together: 4
Recommendations
Magdoff: Economic System,
Capitalism Is the Problem
Alan Weisman, The World
Without Us
Connally, Why Overpopulation Movement Not More Effective: Spectre of
Eugenics
Eugenics
Center for Biological Diversity:
Human Population Growth vs. Other Species
Related newsletter topics: population and wars, population and
growth, and human overpopulation vs. other species, and poverty hunger, and USA
END POPULATION, OVER-POPULATION, GROWTH #4
