We’re living on a ‘petroleum bubble’, with human population far outstripping the world’s ability to continue to sustain us. Even as we fruitfully multiply, our lifestyle is killing us, along with every other inhabitant of the planet.
The United States leads the way, of course, in consumerism and consumption. Although the U.S. has only 4.5% of the world's population, it consumes more than 29% of the world's annual output of renewable resources. The U.S. actually has the resources to sustain less than half of its current population of 300 million. If all 6.8 billion humans on Earth were to share the world's resources equally, Americans would have to reduce their consumption by about 80%.
About that bubble: Currently, about 1% of the U.S. labor force works in agriculture, as opposed to about 42% around the world; U.S. agricultural workers employ 1,542 tractors per 1,000 workers, the world average is 20 tractors per 1000 workers. The energy of the oil allows increased production which allows increased, unsustainable consumption. Even if a new, clean, renewable energy source were found to run the tractor, the bubble would have to burst.
Energy exploitation and industrialization have afforded us all an inflated standard of living and, of course, none of us want to give that up. But a World Wildlife Fund report says that humanity as a whole is now consuming over 20% more natural resources each year than the earth can produce.
The human population of Earth reached 1 billion in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974 and 5 billion in late 1986. In 1999, the human population of Earth reached 6 billion. Today, it stands near 6.8 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. It is estimated that when agriculture was invented, humans, their livestock, and pets together accounted for less than 0.1% of the total vertebrate biomass on Earth. Today, this group accounts for 98% of the earth's total vertebrate biomass, leaving only 2% for the wild portion.
Results of our population boom and increased consumerism affect just about every aspect of human existence, from crime to war to extinctions to global warming to homelessness to ozone depletion to floating plastic islands to depletion of resources, inadequate fresh water, increased levels of air pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution, deforestation and loss of ecosystems, irreversible loss of arable land and increases in desertification, increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics, starvation and malnutrition, discharge of raw sewage, and on and on.
For example:
1 in 4 mammals now alive will be extinct within the next 20 years. 90% of the big fish in the oceans have been destroyed in the last 20 years.
The hottest 10 years on record all occurred since 1990, with 2005 the hottest year ever. Global climate change is expected to cause sea levels to rise and change the amount and pattern of precipitation, likely including an expanse of the subtropical desert regions. Other likely effects include Arctic shrinkage, glacier retreat and resulting Arctic methane release, shrinkage of the Amazon rainforest, increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, changes in agricultural yields, species extinctions and changes in the ranges of disease vectors.
Within 35 years, 75% of all the coral reefs on earth will be dead. Within 50 years, they will all be dead.
We have already destroyed half of the world’s rainforests. If deforestation continues at current rates (~78 million acres per year), scientists estimate nearly all tropical rainforest ecosystems will be destroyed by the year 2030 and that by 2050, there will be no rainforest remaining on Earth.
'Dead zones' have long afflicted the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay, but are now spreading to other bodies of water, such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Adriatic Sea, Gulf of Thailand and Yellow Sea.
The average American generates four pounds of solid trash per day, for a grand total of 1,460 pounds per year. Americans are the number one global trash offenders. Every day, we dispose of approximately 200 million tons of the stuff, much of it petroleum-based plastics and other non-bio-degradables.
Combine the predicted 50% rise in human population and the concurrent increase in demand for food with 35% extinction of other mammals by 2050, the 90% extinction of fish by 2050, the 30% predicted decrease in agricultural production and you have the equation for mass starvation.
Thus, the bursting bubble. On the one hand, the burning of the midnight oil, in and of itself, is destroying our planet. On the other hand, the energy provided is allowing us to multiply at alarming rates, eating ourselves out of house and home, even as we continue to burn more and more oil. To reduce, reuse, and recycle are stopgap measures at best. Development of alternative energy sources that further our ability to ‘grow’ only compound the problem. The problem, simply stated, is WAY too many people. We can reverse our population trends and truly learn to live within our means. Or the world can do it for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment