Are We Breeding Ourselves to Extinction?

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted March 11, 2009.

Cutting back on fossil fuels, shutting down our coal plants, and building seas of wind turbines, will be useless unless we nip population growth.

All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth. By 2050, if we continue to reproduce at the current rate, the planet will have between 8 billion and 10 billion people, according to a recent U.N. forecast. This is a 50 percent increase. And yet government-commissioned reviews, such as the Stern report in Britain, do not mention the word population. Books and documentaries that deal with the climate crisis, including Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," fail to discuss the danger of population growth. This omission is odd, given that a doubling in population, even if we cut back on the use of fossil fuels, shut down all our coal-burning power plants and build seas of wind turbines, will plunge us into an age of extinction and desolation unseen since the end of the Mesozoic era, 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared.

We are experiencing an accelerated obliteration of the planet's life-forms -- an estimated 8,760 species die off per year -- because, simply put, there are too many people. Most of these extinctions are the direct result of the expanding need for energy, housing, food and other resources. The Yangtze River dolphin, Atlantic gray whale, West African black rhino, Merriam's elk, California grizzly bear, silver trout, blue pike and dusky seaside sparrow are all victims of human overpopulation. Population growth, as E.O. Wilson says, is "the monster on the land." Species are vanishing at a rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than they did before the arrival of humans. If the current rate of extinction continues, Homo sapiens will be one of the few life-forms left on the planet, its members scrambling violently among themselves for water, food, fossil fuels and perhaps air until they too disappear. Humanity, Wilson says, is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic -- the era of solitude. As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland.

The populations in industrialized nations maintain their lifestyles because they have the military and economic power to consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources. The United States alone gobbles up about 25 percent of the oil produced in the world each year. These nations view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient. It has been left to developing countries to cope with the emergent population crisis. India, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba and China, whose one-child policy has prevented the addition of 400 million people, have all tried to institute population control measures. But on most of the planet, population growth is exploding. The U.N. estimates that 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraception. The population of the Persian Gulf states, along with the Israeli-occupied territories, will double in two decades, a rise that will ominously coincide with precipitous peak oil declines.

The overpopulated regions of the globe will ravage their local environments, cutting down rainforests and the few remaining wilderness areas, in a desperate bid to grow food. And the depletion and destruction of resources will eventually create an overpopulation problem in industrialized nations as well. The resources that industrialized nations consider their birthright will become harder and more expensive to obtain. Rising water levels on coastlines, which may submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, will disrupt agriculture and displace millions, who will attempt to flee to areas on the planet where life is still possible. The rising temperatures and droughts have already begun to destroy crop lands in Africa, Australia, Texas and California. The effects of this devastation will first be felt in places like Bangladesh, but will soon spread within our borders. Footprint data suggests that, based on current lifestyles, the sustainable population of the United Kingdom -- the number of people the country could feed, fuel and support from its own biological capacity -- is about 18 million. This means that in an age of extreme scarcity, some 43 million people in Great Britain would not be able to survive. Overpopulation will become a serious threat to the viability of many industrialized states the instant the cheap consumption of the world's resources can no longer be maintained. This moment may be closer than we think.

A world where 8 billion to 10 billion people are competing for diminishing resources will not be peaceful. The industrialized nations will, as we have done in Iraq, turn to their militaries to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuels, minerals and other nonrenewable resources in the vain effort to sustain a lifestyle that will, in the end, be unsustainable. The collapse of industrial farming, which is made possible only with cheap oil, will lead to an increase in famine, disease and starvation. And the reaction of those on the bottom will be the low-tech tactic of terrorism and war. Perhaps the chaos and bloodshed will be so massive that overpopulation will be solved through violence, but this is hardly a comfort.

James Lovelock, an independent British scientist who has spent most of his career locked out of the mainstream, warned several decades ago that disrupting the delicate balance of the Earth, which he refers to as a living body, would be a form of collective suicide. The atmosphere on Earth -- 21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen -- is not common among planets, he notes. These gases are generated, and maintained at an equable level for life's processes, by living organisms themselves. Oxygen and nitrogen would disappear if the biosphere was destroyed. The result would be a greenhouse atmosphere similar to that of Venus, a planet that is consequently hundreds of degrees hotter than Earth. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere, oceans, rocks and soil are living entities. They constitute, he says, a self-regulating system. Lovelock, in support of this thesis, looked at the cycle in which algae in the oceans produce volatile sulfur compounds. These compounds act as seeds to form oceanic clouds. Without these dimethyl sulfide "seeds" the cooling oceanic clouds would be lost. This self-regulating system is remarkable because it maintains favorable conditions for human life. Its destruction would not mean the death of the planet. It would not mean the death of life-forms. But it would mean the death of Homo sapiens.

Lovelock advocates nuclear power and thermal solar power; the latter, he says, can be produced by huge mirrors mounted in deserts such as those in Arizona and the Sahara. He proposes reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with large plastic cylinders thrust vertically into the ocean. These, he says, could bring nutrient-rich lower waters to the surface, producing an algal bloom that would increase the cloud cover. But he warns that these steps will be ineffective if we do not first control population growth. He believes the Earth is overpopulated by a factor of about seven. As the planet overheats -- and he believes we can do nothing to halt this process -- overpopulation will make all efforts to save the ecosystem futile.

Lovelock, in "The Revenge of Gaia," said that if we do not radically and immediately cut greenhouse gas emissions, the human race might not die out but it would be reduced to "a few breeding pairs." "The Vanishing Face of Gaia," his latest book, which has for its subtitle "The Final Warning," paints an even grimmer picture. Lovelock says a continued population boom will make the reduction of fossil fuel use impossible. If we do not reduce our emissions by 60 percent, something that can be achieved only by walking away from fossil fuels, the human race is doomed, he argues. Time is running out. This reduction will never take place, he says, unless we can dramatically reduce our birthrate.

All efforts to stanch the effects of climate change are not going to work if we do not practice vigorous population control. Overpopulation, in times of hardship, will create as much havoc in industrialized nations as in the impoverished slums around the globe where people struggle on less than two dollars a day. Population growth is often overlooked, or at best considered a secondary issue, by many environmentalists, but it is as fundamental to our survival as reducing the emissions that are melting the polar ice caps.

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute.

LOUISIANA PACIFIC TAKES POLLUTION CONTROLS OFFLINE IN MANITOBA - UNACCEPTABLE IN U.S!

THE BOREAL ACTION PROJECT.

205-180 Market Avenue

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3B 0P7
Susanne McCrea (204) 297-0321
Coordinator

For immediate release MARCH 6, 2009
Manitoba’s Louisiana Pacific Plant Takes Pollution Controls Offline
Unacceptable in the U.S.

Even the neighbours of Louisiana Pacific’s Swan River OSB plant didn’t know the pollution controls had been taken offline, until local resident, Margaret Romak went and knocked on some doors.

Louisiana Pacific’s Swan Valley OSB mill, near Minitonas, has been releasing more toxic chemicals into the air since, last January.

“I stopped at a house about one mile in each of the four directions from the plant. Not one person knew that this had already been done”, said Romak. “There is something very badly wrong with that.

The Province granted “temporary” discontinuation of the RTO pollution control system to LP, in spite of the Clean Environment Commission’s insistence on it as a condition of the company’s operation in the province.

“There are RTOs and or EPA approved equivalent pollution abatement equipment installed in all of LPs OSB plants and all OSB plants, for that matter in the USA.” said Susanne McCrea, spokesperson for the Boreal Action Project.

They must have them to meet EPAs National Ambient Air Quality Standards, she said.

Louisiana Pacific has now applied to have the requirement permanently waived by the Minister of Conservation.

"This is a cost-driven decision that will compromise human health and the environment as a means to support an American company that has taken millions of dollars out of this province.” Soprovich said.

Many people, including Susanne McCrea of the Boreal Action Project (then with Greenpeace), Swan River resident Ken Sigurdson, Don Sullivan and others were instrumental in the installation of the RTOs, when they campaigned to hold Louisiana Pacific accountable to the Manitoba public, before the mill construction was approved, in the mid 90s. Dan Soprovich was then Regional Wildlife Biologist, with Manitoba Natural Resources.

“We deserve the same level of health protection that Americans do” said Romak. “We deserve to have enough time to debate this fully. We deserve the chance for this to be done publicly. THEN a decision can be made”.

People concerned with this latest attempt by LP to circumvent public health should write letters to the Manitoba Minister of Conservation, requesting that the Minister deny LP's approval to decommission its RTOs permanently.

Write to Stan Struthers, Minister of Conservation; c/o ryan.coulter@gov.mb.ca or at the Main Street address Environmental Assessment & Licensing Branch, Manitoba Conservation, 123 Main Street, Suite 160, Winnipeg, MB R3C 1A5.It will be up to the discretion of the Minister, under the Environment Act, to approve or deny LPs alteration request. Conservation has imposed a deadline, of March 13th, to hear from concerned parties.

Concerned citizens should also contact Swan River MLA, Rosann Wolchuk and Premier Gary Doer. Both of whom claimed victory, in 1994, when Louisiana Pacific was required to install the RTO technology.

“The Manitoba government must do the right thing here,” said McCrea. “If they allow LP to get away with this we will have to call for federal intervention.”

“This may be a good time to see if there is newer technology that is better than the RTOs of over a decade ago”, she said.

Maggie Romak
Swan River
204-281-1219 cell
mromak@hotmail.com

Dan Soprovich.
Swan River.
204-734-3054
dsop@mts.net

Susanne McCrea
The Boreal Action Project
204-297-0321 cell
borealaction@gmail.com

Links for background
http://thegreenpages.ca/portal/mb/2009/03/louisiana_pacific_seeks_to_dec.html
http://gov.mb.ca/conservation/eal/registries/3741lp/2008_10_28_reqletter.pdf
http://manitobawildlands.org/forests_mb_ind.html
http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/eal/contact.html

TELL THE EPA TO PROTECT HONEY BEES FROM A TOXIC PESTICIDE!

Just click here to find out how!

FOOTNOTE BY DAN SOPROVICH, AN ECOLOGIST, FORESTRY EXPERT AND LONG-TIME WATCHDOG OF "LP" OPERATIONS

Some 8 years or so ago, natural gas came to Swan River, primarily as an aid to LP because this would be cheaper than the propane that the Company was using to power its RTOs.

My recollection is that LP were to use about 88% of the gas initially, per figures provided to the Public Utilities Board. LP put in a bit of money, I think $300,000 or something.

The feds were in for about $1.7 million, the province for $1.7 million, and local ratepayers for about $1.7 million.

At the time, my calculation was that the three local ratepayers who were not on gas would subsidize the one ratepayer who signed up to the tune of about $1000 each, or $3000. Some absurd estimate of ultimate signup by local ratepayers was presented to the Board, perhaps 8 of 10; it never happened.

Bottom line on this issue, if the province allows LP to shut down its RTOs (justifiably or otherwise), this will represent an approximate $5 million subsidy to LP that will be mostly lost.

This subsidy occurred under the present NDP government. If the RTOs are shut down, perhaps LP should be made to pay back the subsidy, or the great majority of it.

As indicated above, there are a number of reasons why this application by LP should receive significant scrutiny. Of particular concern are (1) this is almost certainly cost-driven as opposed to environmentally-driven or human health-driven (2) there are significant questions respecting process, including how it can be that an Environmental License can be significantly altered by a Minister without public consultation

(and especially when these conditions came to be due to the involvement of the public) and (3) the Company lacks credibility respecting long-term forest management and therefore should receive very close public scrutiny.

The only way to ensure that this issue receives appropriate public scrutiny is to let Premier Doer and his government know that the public is concerned.

Dan Soprovich

Swan River, MB

==========

To:"Gary Doer" , "Stan Struthers" , "Rosanne Wowchuk"
Cc:ryan.coulter@gov.mb.ca

Dear Mr. Premier and Honourable Ministers,

I learned with some surprise and concern about the attempt by Louisiana Pacific to do away with pollution control equipment at its OSB plant in Manitoba.
In this era of mounting global concern about the state of our health and environment, is this really the time to be considering such a move?
I was doubly concerned to learn that your government had, in January, already given the corporation quiet permission to shut such equipment down on a temporary basis.
While I'm not a resident of the immediate area, I am a citizen of this province and have already contributed to the success of the plant in question with my tax dollars through such publicly-funded projects as the natural gas line which services it.
So I feel I have the right to urgently request that you at least hold some sort of public consultation before permanently allowing such a questionable move.

Regards,
Larry Powell
Roblin MB

LARRY GETS PUBLISHED!

Friends - Just wanted to let you know, my article "Lament for the Honeybee," has now been published in the online magazine, "OnEarth." "OnEarth" is produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a major international environmental organization with more than a million members!
ABOUT: "OnEarth, the award-winning environmental magazine, explores politics, nature, wildlife, culture, science, health, the challenges that confront our planet, and the solutions that promise to heal and protect it.

Our contributors include (North) America's finest writers and poets whose original works appear on pages filled with prize-winning photography and splendid art.

Are you curious about who's cutting down (North) America's great forests... the newest plan to save Congo's last primates...why Detroit is stuck in reverse… the sex life of the poisonous moonflower… how Aboriginal Australians set the land on fire…a journey through Canada's wild northern Rockies? In every issue, we deliver stories to enlighten, surprise, and delight you.

Founded in 1979 as The Amicus Journal, OnEarth continues NRDC's 25-year commitment to independent, groundbreaking environmental journalism."

Read Larry's article here.

Comment#1

JBL wrote on February 23, 2009, 04:20PM:
Modern Man conquers nature.
Do we really want to be part of the demise of bees and bats in our life time?
Bees and bats have been around before we came onto the scene but it has taken only a few years of "modern technology" from the hands of scientists to start the process of vanquishing these much needed species.
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Testimonials

"Congratulations Larry,
That is fantastic….way to go and make a positive difference in this wonderful world we live in. Mother Nature and the Animal Kingdom are also grateful. May you continue to speak your noble harmonious mind. Thank You."
Cheryl
(Cheryl is an activist for an ethical and sustainable livestock industry in Manitoba.)
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"Hi Larry,
Great article! Thanks for all the work you put into researching and writing. The world needs to know this information."
(Kate Storey - organic farmer & candidate - Green Party of Canada - Grandview, MB)
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"Congrats Larry! I am glad that you are getting this distributed. It needs to be disseminated."
(James Beddome - Leader, the Green Party of Manitoba)
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"Hi Larry;
Congratulations and continued success!"
(Joe Leschyshn - anti factory-farm activist in Manitoba, CA)
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"Way to go Larry!"
(Glen Koroluk - water activist, Winnipeg.)
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(Please click on the "Honeybees" label down and to the right to read more on the subject.)

NORTHERN CARIBOU POPULATIONS CRASH

PHOTO COURTESY JOHN NAGY, GNWT

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS; Caribou herds across Canada’s North have dropped drastically. Some place the blame on increasing development; others blame climate change or say it’s just "*the cycle of life.

by Bruce Owen Winnipeg Free Press February 22, 2009

Caribou, the 'heart and soul' of the Far North and its most important food source, have begun disappearing in staggering numbers that have left stunned observers desperately searching for answers.

THE TENNESSEE COAL ASH DISASTER - PODCAST

COMMENT: "The Tennessee coal ash disaster -podcast" entry in Paths Less Travelled made me discover your excellent blog that I look up regularly now.

Thanks!

Johanne
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The worst environmental disaster in US history - ever!
That's how some are describing the huge spill of coal fly ash at a holding pond before Christmas.

Matt Landon, a volunteer with United Mountain Defense, talks with Emily Voigt about the magnitude of the coal ash disaster at the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Kingston, Tennessee.

Listen here.

Running time: 6 minutes, 32 seconds.