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Big
Picture series # 7
Your family’s
health and well-being and your personal responsibility
Just
imagine:
From
a number of occasional indicators, you have a growing anxiety about
your family’s health. You remember better health days, so you
take your family in for general checkup. About a week later, in graphic
form, the physician hands you this report:
The
physician explains that extensive tests show there to have been a 30%
to 50% decline in you family’s general health.
Furthermore,
the physician warns, if there are no significant changes soon, the rate
in decline suggests that the normal life expectancy of your family will
be seriously compromised.
And
the very viability of your future generations is in serious jeopardy.
_______
The
purpose of BigPicture #7 is to suggest that:
-
Those of us, who did not experience the last great war, and who
have been lucky enough to live in a relatively free and prosperous
country like Canada, or in most of the so called “developed”
world, may have lived in the most luxurious times (a subjective
assessment) in human history – or in human future:
and that;
-
If, the human spirit, or human responsibility,
or human compassion, hold meaning for you, then it would
be appropriate for you to digest what science tells us, and to
allow our passion to be stirred toward helping to change what
the future appears to hold because a tsunami of a different nature
is coming our way: and that;
-
Change can be made peacefully through existing political processes
if enough people demand it: and;
-
Your/our politicians cannot bring about the significant changes,
unless you demand it as an informed citizen!
_______
The
fictional medical report above is just a sketch. But if it were true,
I expect that most concerned adults would make an enormous effort to
find out what they have to do to improve the health fortunes of their
family: To change the situation they might significantly change their
lifestyle or relocate the family if necessary. Wouldn’t you?
But
how close is that fiction to reality?
At
a recent Fourth Interdisciplinary Conference On The Evolution of
World Order, October 2004 at Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, Dr. Colin L. Soskolne,
Professor of Epidemiology, University of Alberta presented a paper.
His presentation was the outcome of a research paper that he co-authored
with a former student, Natasha Broemling. The fictional graph of family
health above was sketched from the slide - below, one of many in the
presentation. Dr. Soskolne’s project and paper title is Eco-Epidemiology:
On the need to measure health effects from global change, and
was published in Global Change & Human Health 2002;3(1)58-66. The
line in the graphical presentation below is a composite representation
of four separate scientific global environmental health indicators from
the researchers listed in the slide.
Slide
curtsey of Dr. Colin L. Soskolne,, Professor of Epidimiology, University
of Alberta
Quoted
below is the abstract section of the presentation:
Eco-Epidemiology:
On the need to measure health effects from global change
To prevent harm to human health from degrading ecosystems, epidemiologists
need useful indicators that are sensitive to those shifts in health
status that might parallel these declines. Traditional measures of
health (e.g.,life expectancy, infant mortality) are intuitively linkable
to effects from environmental degradation but, in fact, they do not
appear to provide early warning indications of negative ecological
impacts on health. Alternative health measures, such as social well-being,
may be needed for epidemiological research. New measures must combine
those factors having policy relevance, including sensitive measures
of well-being and of health, with models of those human behaviours
that contribute to ecological declines. Exposure factors (e.g., pollution)
made worse by ecosystem changes (e.g., global warming) also are relevant.
In addition, epidemiologists must be able to relate health outcomes
not only to the traditional base of geo-political boundaries (e.g.,
census tracts or countries), but more appropriately to eco-regions
(e.g., climate regions). Only then could direct comparisons of effect
be made between areas that have eco-region as the common base for
defining both denominators and numerator events for rate calculations
and comparisons. In conclusion, administrative infrastructure is needed
so that meaningful eco-epidemiology can be conducted.
The
paper points out that little research is done in this area of concern,
and it is made even more difficult because such ecological decline has
never occurred before on a global basis, at least not since humans have
been on the scene. In speculating how events might end if human corrective
(or other) action is not taken to reverse the decline, the paper draws
parallels to more local environmental degradation events. For example,
reference is made to the study of acid rain on some specific lakes.
As the acid rain continues over time, a slow but accelerating decline
in the general health of lake life occurs, but the death rate remains
relatively constant until, “the threshold effect”
takes over. At that point, the ecological systems “flip”
and the death rate rises very rapidly, and soon all life in the lake
vanishes.
Since
Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring -1963, first warned us
about the chemical aspect of the human predicament, other than a few
specific changes (banning of DDT), little has been done to alter growth
oriented governance that demand more and more Human Activity
each and every year, depleting nature in accelerating non-renewable
way. And so, at the end of the paper the researchers speculate on events
in the human sphere if/when “the threshold effect”
begins to overtake the living creatures on planet Earth.
Whether
the protective importance of social structures will be maintained
during widespread environmental collapse is unknown. One wonders whether
social structures themselves could be maintained throughout such a
collapse. Nevertheless, adaptation planning will be an important means
of intervention.
Conclusions
Epidemiology's role in assessing health effects associated with progressive
losses of, or changes in, nature's services needs to be firmly established.
For several decades, ecologists, biologists, philosophers and others
have been warning us against a trend towards environmental degradation.
All forms of degradation, not only climate change, must be considered.
The
consequences of ecological collapse have been brought to society's
attention. Until the WHO (World Health Organization) text, Our
Planet, Our Health, and Anthony J. McMichael's book, Planetary
Overload, epidemiologists paid scant attention to these warnings.
Now, it behooves the epidemiologist to hear these dire warnings and
make efforts to find linkages between altered environmental states
and their effects on human health. Being so self-centred a species
(i.e., anthropocentric), human beings are likely to implement policies
only once the effects of environmental degradation are actually shown
to have a negative impact on human health and/or well-being. If through
epidemiology negative health and well-being impacts related to ecological
declines could be demonstrated, then policy changes that might lessen
the stresses on degrading ecosystems would be more likely to be implemented.
A sustain-able future thereby could be more assured.
______________________________________
Regrettably,
the policy changes that Soskolne and Broemling hope for will likely
be slow at best to bring about because the forces that drive human activity
today are locked into a monetary/economic
system that will collapse if human activity does not continue
to grow. It was at the same - Fourth Interdisciplinary Conference
at Ryerson University - that I presented a paper titled,
The Growth Syndrome, that dealt with the Neo
Conservative Globalization (NCG) agenda and its destructive
ideological pathways that our federal and provincial governments follow,
and who measure success by growth in Human Activity.
And
at this conference I met in person for the first time, Dr. David Pimentel,
from Cornell University. I have exchanged data with Dr. Pimentel from
time to time for about 18 years, by snail-mail, and then e-mail. Dr.
Pimentel presented a paper at the conference that covered much of the
same data in his recent article published a special edition magazine
of World Watch Institute, and posted below. Pimentel’s
article makes a good companion to the paper by Dr. Soskolne because
it describes change in some of the key Gaian physical categories that
lead to the ecological declines dealt with by Dr. Soskolne. Continued
change in the factors Pimentel speaks of could also lead to the last
straw triggering in a collapse of human civilization even without an
epidemic! [And so could a collapse of the monetary/economic system as
forecast by some, but that’s another story. (The apocalypse refers
to a four hours race, this Big Picture post only deals with two:-) ]
Pimentel
focuses on these physical categories:
—Don
Chisholm
|
October
04, 2004
WORLD
POPULATION, AGRICULTURE, AND MALNUTRITION —PIMENTEL, WILSON
Increases
in food production, per hectare of land, have not kept pace with increases
in population, and the planet is running out ... of arable land. As
a result, per-capita cropland has fallen by more than half since 1960,
and per-capita production of grains, the basic food, has been falling
worldwide for 20 years.
by David Pimentel and Anne Wilson
September/October 2004
David Pimentel is a professor in the College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences at Cornell University.
Read the original here
.
Entering
the new millennium, stark contrasts are apparent between the availability
of natural resources and the demands of billions of humans who require
them for their survival. According to the Population Reference Bureau,
each day almost a quarter-million people are added to the roughly 6.4
billion who already exist. Yet the stocks of natural resources that support
human life-food, fresh water, quality soil, energy, and biodiversity-are
being polluted, degraded, and depleted.
Global population
has doubled during the last 45 years. If the present growth rate of 1.3
percent per year persists, the population will double again within a mere
50 years. Growth rates vary from one country or region to another. For
example, China's present population of 1.4 billion, despite the governmental
policy of permitting only one child per couple, is still growing at an
annual rate of 0.6 percent. Although China recognizes its serious overpopulation
problem and recently passed legislation strengthening the policy, its
young age structure means that the number of Chinese will continue to
increase for another 50 years. India, with nearly 1.1 billion people (living
on approximately one-third the land of either the United States or China),
has a current population growth rate of 1.7 percent per year. This translates
to a doubling time of 41 years. Taken together, the populations of China
and India constitute more than one-third of the total world population.
In Africa, despite the AIDS epidemic, the populations of most countries
also are expanding. The populations of Chad and Ethiopia, for example,
are projected to double in 21 and 23 years, respectively.
But the problem
is hardly confined to the developing world. The U.S. population-among
the most heavily consuming in the world-is growing rapidly. Now standing
at nearly 300 million, it has doubled during the past 60 years. The U.S.
Bureau of the Census reported in 2003 that sustaining the current growth
rate of about 1.1 percent per year will double the population to 600 million
in less than 70 years.
Current United
Nations estimates of population stabilization at about 9 billion people
by 2050 are questionable, mainly because of the very young age structure
of the current world population and the momentum it fosters. A large share
of the population is concentrated within the 15-to-40 range, where reproductive
rates are high. Even if all the people in the world adopted a policy of
only two children per couple, it would take approximately 70 years before
the world population would finally stabilize at about 12 billion, twice
the current level.
Land
Many human
beings already suffer from hunger and/or malnourishment. The United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reports that the quantity
of food produced per capita has been declining since 1984, based on
available cereal grains, which make up about 80 percent of the world's
food supply. Although grain yields per hectare in both developed and
developing countries are still increasing, the rate of increase is slowing.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. grain yields increased
at about 3 percent per year between 1950 and 1980, but since then the
annual rate of increase for corn and other major other grains has been
only about 1 percent. Yet the World Health Organization estimates that
more than 3 billion people are malnourished (deficient in intake of
calories, protein, iron, iodine, and/or vitamins A, B, C, and D). This
is the largest number and proportion of malnourished people ever reported.
At the same
time, cropland resources are under severe strain. FAO Food Balance Sheets
show that more than 99.7 percent of human food (calories) comes from
the terrestrial environment, while less than 0.3 percent comes from
the oceans and other aquatic ecosystems. Of the total of 13 billion
hectares of land area on Earth, cropland accounts for 11 percent, pastureland
27 per cent, forested land 32 percent, and urban lands 9 per cent. Most
of the remaining 21 percent is unsuitable for crops, pasture, and/or
forests because the soil is too infertile or shallow to support plant
growth, or the climate and region are too cold, dry, steep, stony, or
wet.
In 1960, when
the world population numbered only 3 billion, approximately 0.5 hectare
of cropland per capita was available, the minimum area considered essential
for the production of a diverse, healthy, nutritious diet of plant and
animal products like that enjoyed widely in the United States and Europe.
But as the human population continues to increase and expand its economic
activity and related artifacts, including transport systems and urban
structures, vital cropland is being covered and lost from production.
Globally, available
per-capita cropland is now about 0.23 hectare. In the United States,
there is already about 0.4 hectare (1 acre) of land per person tied
up in urban buildings and highways and the available cropland per capita
has shrunk over the last 30 years or so to 0.5 hectare. In China, per-capita
cropland has declined to 0.08 hectare from 0.11 hectare 25 years ago,
due to continued population growth as well as extreme soil erosion and
degradation. This relatively small amount of cropland provides the Chinese
people a primarily vegetarian diet.
The United
States produces 1,481 kilograms per year of agricultural products for
each American, while the Chinese food supply averages only 785 kilograms
per year per capita (mostly grains in both cases). Lester Brown of the
Earth Policy Institute has suggested that by all available measurements
the Chinese have reached or exceeded the limits of their agricultural
system. The Chinese reliance on large inputs of fossil fuel-based fertilizers
to compensate for shortages of arable land and severely eroded soils,
combined with their limited fresh water supply, suggests severe problems
looming ahead. Even now, China imports large amounts of grain from the
United States (which also relies heavily on fossil inputs for agriculture)
and other nations, and is expected to increase imports of grains in
the near future.
The decline
of per-capita cropland is aggravated by the degradation of soils. Throughout
the world, current erosion rates are higher than ever. According to
a study for the International Food Policy Research Institute, each year
an estimated 10 million hectares of cropland worldwide are abandoned
due to soil erosion and diminished production caused by erosion. Another
10 million hectares are critically damaged each year by salinization,
in large part as a result of irrigation and/or improper drainage methods.
This loss amounts to more than 1.3 percent of total cropland annually.
Most of the additional cropland needed to replace yearly losses comes
from the world's forest areas. The urgent need to increase crop production
accounts for more than 60 percent of the massive deforestation now occurring
worldwide.
Erosion losses
are critical because topsoil renewal is extremely slow. It takes about
500 years for 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) of topsoil to reform under agricultural
conditions. Soil erosion rates on cropland range from about 10 metric
tons per hectare per year (t/ha/yr) in the United States to 40 t/ha/yr
in China. During the past 30 years, the rate of soil loss throughout
Africa has increased 20-fold. A 1996 study in India found that as much
as 5,600 t/ha/yr of soil were lost under some arid and windy conditions.
Some crops can be grown under artificial conditions using hydroponic
techniques, but the cost (in energy and dollars) is approximately 10
times that of conventional agriculture. Such systems are neither affordable
nor sustainable for the future.
Water
The availability
of adequate supplies of fresh water for human direct use and agriculture
is already critical in many regions, especially the Middle East and
parts of North Africa where low rainfall is endemic. Surface waters,
for instance, are often poorly managed, resulting in water shortages
and pollution, both of which threaten humans and aquatic biota. Groundwater-
rainfall lying in underground aquifers-is another vital source of water
for agriculture; it too is often used profligately. Aquifers recharge
very slowly, usually at rates of 0.1 to 0.3 percent per year, according
to the UN Environment Programme. At these rates, groundwater resources
must be carefully managed to prevent overuse and depletion, but this
wisdom is often ignored. For example, in Tamil Nadu, India, groundwater
levels dropped 25 to 30 meters during the 1970s because of excessive
pumping for irrigation. In Beijing, China, the groundwater level is
falling at a rate of about 1 meter per year, while in Tianjin, China,
it is dropping 4.4 meters per year. In the United States, groundwater
overdraft is high, averaging 25 percent greater than replacement rates.
The capacity of the Ogallala aquifer, which underlies parts of Nebraska,
South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, has
decreased by 33 percent since about 1950. Withdrawal from the Ogallala
is three times faster than its recharge rate. Aquifers in some parts
of Arizona are being overpumped more than 10 times faster than the recharge
rate.
Irrigation
enables crop production in arid regions, provided there is an adequate
source of fresh water and enough energy (generally fossil in origin)
to pump and move the water. About 70 percent of the water removed from
all sources worldwide is used solely for irrigation. Of this amount,
about two-thirds is consumed by growing plants and is non-recoverable,
i.e, lost to the hydrologic cycle via evapotranspiration. Irrigation
is less water-efficient than rainfed watering of crops, and the limitations
of surface and ground water resources for irrigation, its high economic
costs, and the large energy inputs required will tend to limit future
agricultural irrigation, especially in developing nations that cannot
afford such expenditures.
Pollution is
a major threat to maintaining ample fresh water resources. Although
considerable water pollution has been documented in developed nations
like the United States, the problem is of greatest concern in countries
where water regulations are not rigorously enforced or do not exist.
This is common in most developing countries, which (according to the
World Health Organization) discharge 95 percent of untreated urban sewage
directly into surface waters. For instance, of India's 3,119 towns and
cities, only 209 have even partial sewage treatment facilities, and
a mere eight possess full facilities. Downstream, the polluted water
is used for drinking, bathing, and washing.
Energy
Humans have
relied on various sources of power for centuries, beginning of course
with solar energy-fundamental to nearly all natural ecosystems-and their
own muscle power. Other sources have included animals, wind, tides,
water, wood, coal, gas, oil, and nuclear energy. Since about 1700, increasingly
abundant fossil fuel energy supplies have made it possible to augment
agricultural production to feed an increasing number of humans, as well
as improve the general quality of human life in many ways.
Since the fossil
era began, the rate of energy use from all sources has grown even faster
than world population. From 1970 to 1995, energy use increased at a
rate of 2.5 percent per year (doubling every 30 years), compared with
worldwide population growth of 1.7 percent per year (doubling about
every 40 years). During the next 20 years, energy use is projected to
increase by 4.5 per cent per year (doubling every 16 years) and population
by 1.3 percent per year (doubling every 54 years).
Although about
half of all the solar energy captured by worldwide photosynthesis is
used by humans, this amount is still inadequate to meet all human needs
for food and other purposes. To make up for this shortfall, the world
consumes a lot of fossil energy: about 345 quadrillion British thermal
units (3.64 x 10 to the 20th joules) of it in 2001, with the United
States alone accounting for 83 quadrillion Btu of fossil energy consumption
that year. (Each year, in fact, the U.S. population uses twice as much
fossil energy as all the solar energy captured by harvested U.S. crops,
forest products, and other vegetation.) A great deal of this supplemental
energy goes into agriculture. In China, for instance, while most fossil
energy is used by industry, about one-quarter is used for agriculture
and the food production system. Like some other developing nations with
high rates of population growth, China is increasing fossil fuel use
to augment agricultural production of food and fiber. Since 1955 Chinese
agriculture has boosted energy use 100-fold for fertilizers, pesticides,
and irrigation.
In general,
however, in what may be a harbinger of an approaching crunch, the International
Fertilizer Organization reports that fertilizer production has declined
by more than 17 percent since 1989, especially in the developing countries,
because of fossil fuel shortages and resulting high prices. In fact,
the projected global availability of fossil energy resources for fertilizers,
not to mention all other purposes is discouraging.
British Petroleum
and other authorities have estimated that the world supply of oil would
last approximately 50 years at current production rates.. Perhaps somewhat
optimistically, the global natural gas supply is considered adequate
for about 50 years and coal supplies for at least 100 years. However,
demand is not static, but rising dramatically. Moreover, even adequate
production in one place may not translate into adequate supply elsewhere;
natural gas supplies are already in short supply in the United States
and U.S. reserves may be depleted in as little as 20 years, yet transporting
natural gas in liquid form to the United States from places where it
is abundant poses serious technical and financial challenges.
An even more
sobering prospect is that of the imminent peak in production of oil
and natural gas. The experience of the United States may portend the
fate of global oil and gas production. Walter Youngquist, formerly an
oil geologist with Exxon, reports that current oil and gas exploration
drilling data have not borne out some of the earlier optimistic estimates
of these resources yet to be found in the United States. U.S. oil production
peaked around 1970 and has been declining ever since. Youngquist estimates
that about 90 per cent of U.S. oil resources already have been mined.
A key consequence is that U.S. net imports of oil rose to about 53 percent
of total consumption in 2002 and are still going up, placing the economy
at risk from fluctuating oil prices and difficult political situations.
This scenario
is likely to repeat globally. Predictions for the peak year of global
oil production, for instance, range from 2005 to 2035, but in our view
the most plausible of these estimates are those in the 2005-2010 range.
Whenever the peak occurs, the impacts of rising energy prices on the
economies of most nations will be profound. Modern agriculture, no less
than other sectors of the economy, depends on large quantities of oil
and natural gas (used in nitrogen fertilizer production) and higher
energy prices are already having an impact on agricultural production.
Wild Facts
These facts
speak for themselves. They starkly signal a rapidly approaching time
of grave challenge for the agricultural system. During the 20th century,
increased food production-supporting a period of unprecedented growth
in the world population-depended on the availability of cheap fossil
energy, primarily oil and natural gas. The consequent expansion of human
needs and activities has been depleting the land, water, and biological
resources that are essential for sustainable agricultural production.
Already, more than 3 billion people in the world are malnourished, yet
per-capita production of cereal grains, basic world foods, has continued
to decline for the past 20 years, despite all the new biotechnologies.
As the world
population continues to expand, all vital natural resources will have
to be divided among increasing numbers of people and per-capita availability
will decline to low levels. When this occurs, we believe that it will
become quite difficult to maintain prosperity, a quality life, and even
personal freedoms for those who already enjoy them, much less secure those
benefits for the billions currently living
without. Meeting this challenge will test humanity's resourcefulness and
goodwill to the utmost.
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