Alexander Bell

Luath Press 2009

Hardback 208 pp

If oil supply peaks and begins to decline times will be hard. Standard of living will decline and people may go hungry but they will be able to adapt by powering down and making do with less.

If water supply- for domestic use but also for irrigation- peaks and declines people have no option but to migrate.

UK journalist Alexander Bell spells out his thesis starkly in this fascinating and clearly written book: many of the world’s major regions are past or on the brink of peak water and face growing populations with declining supplies.

The rich world will not escape the catastrophic  effects of this as they depend on vast quantities of “virtual water” imported for the most part from the global South in the form of food  and goods. They will also have to deal with increasing numbers of water refugees in the future.

Bell begins by tracing the link between water control and the development of civilisation.

Civilisation is a model of living that suits itself to socieites that control water

Six thousand years ago in Mesopotamia the Sumerians became the first to experiment in large scale water control by keeping back the floods of the Tigris and the Euphrates  allowing both productive agriculture on the fertile flood plane and a store of water for irrigation in the dry periods.

Ever since then water control has been both a prerequisite growth of cities and a symbol of the power that water can bestow on emperors and rulers. The spectacular viaducts of the Romans were more for bathing and recreation than irrigation providing a potent symbol. The hubris of the doomed city of Las Vegas with its fountains in the desert provides a contemprary example.

Bell make the interesting point about the other way in which control of water has become the mark of a civilised society is in the use of sewers and flush toilets. Our modern use of clean drinking water to flush away our bodily wastes may be the ultimate symbol of an unsustainable culture.

The control of water however takes enormous effort as the canals need to be constantly dug out to remove the silt, and this need for labour has formed part of the cycla of water supply, irrigation, and increased population :

An important thing happens when humans stop moving from place to place in search of water, food and safety. They have more children.

The other difficulty with constant irrigation is the build up of salt. Irrigation in hot countries leads to considerable losses in evaporation, leaving the mineral salts brought down from the mountains behind on the land. In many of the world’s major agricultural regions, as water supplies dry up the land becomes useless.

For millions, water supply in the future is threatened by climate change which is melting the glaciers which have provided steady supplies for millenia, causing first floods and later, permanent water shortages.

In the modern era, governments and presidents have used the mega dam as a show of strength and independence.

One example is the High Aswan Dam built by Nassar in the newly independent country.  This too has been victim to evaporation, but political reasons have made it impossible to make a better arrangement of building dams in the cooler mountains of Ethiopia. Thus Egypt is arming itself against the thirst of its poorer neighbours with growing populations and less ability to sustain themselves as the deserts spread and the planet warms up.

Many other areas are facing potential water conflicts: Israel and Palestine; Pakistan and India. Bell explains that historically the struggle for control of water has not usually lead to war because people feel they have to co-operate at least to some degree over water rights, but comments grimly

The idea of a water war has become commonplace.It may happen like the scenarios above, but I suspect the world has to face up to a more horrific future. Not one of war as we understand it in 20th century terms, but a state of ongoing global trauma as people witness civilisation decay when the water runs out. How we respond to that catastrophe will be the mark of the human race. Almost certainly it will mean the end of civilisation as we currently know it.

Peak Water is a valuable contribution to our understanding of human ecology providing a broad sweep  of the human predicament of overshoot: our thirst for control of water has been historically the core issue for civilisation, but as we have extended our temporary control over nature we have increasingly taken it for granted as just the stuff that comes out of our taps. Perhaps even the environmental movement, with its recent preoccupation over  peak oil and climate change, have also been lulled into a false sense of security over this vital resource, forgetting that no degree of adaptation can adjust to water shortages.

Alexander Bell has written a great book to remind us that we are soon  going to find out just how long a society can survive without enough water.

For an alternative view, Dmitri Orlov, author of the acclaimed Reinventing Collapse puts the case for sudden collapse very well in his recent post The Slope of Dysfunction

What, then, of our canonical Peak Oil scenario, which is that global crude oil (and natural gas condensate) production will rise to a lofty peak sometime soon, and then gently waft down, over several decades, until, by the year 2050 or some other distant date, less than half as much oil will be produced globally? Ever eager to present a hopeful vision, I will say here and now that I believe this scenario to be entirely plausible… but it requires alien intervention. As Russian oil production was saved by foreigners, so Earthling oil production must be be saved by aliens from outer space.

Orlov’s basic premise is that sudden collapse can only be mitigated once a country’s indigenous oil has peaked by making up the difference with increased imports, something that will not be possible after global oil peak.

The Soviet Union provides a historical model for this-

“There, production declined 43% between 1987 and 1996. The decline was arrested and reversed by the introduction of foreign investment and technology”.

It could be argued that the Soviet Union is not a good model because of other reasons such as its political system, but in fact, as he shows in his book, parts of the West, especially North America, are much less well placed to withstand abrupt declines in oil supply.

If Orlov is correct, our efforts at creating Energy Descent Plans and Transition Strategies would be better spent flashing SOS signals up into the night sky or hanging around those crop circles in the hope their alien authors will return with a few barrels of crude.

It will be very hard to mitigate any such sudden collapse, but Orlov links oil peak directly with financial collapse, which he predicts will be followed by political collapse, and then social collapse; these scenarios could be just around the corner, judging by the gathering speed of financial and political decline.

All is not lost however, and to read Orlov’s unique and side-ways look at how we might prepare (and how we might not) essential reading is here in his adress to last month’s Feasta Conference in Dublin Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation.

See especially slide no. 19 on this post “Collapse” or “Transition” ? for his sardonic view of the Transition movement.

Slide no. 2 helps explain why I take issue with Chamberlin’s views on population in my review of The Transition Timeline. On paper of course it may be possible to argue as he does that if we all did the right thing and reduced our consumption to, say, half of what it is now- the level of energy consumption of Cuba- reducing population might not be so urgent; in reality, it is incredibly difficult for us to voluntarily reduce our energy consumption. Most people living at the level of Cubans would love to increase their consumption and have an easier life!

I probably have a lower energy cosumption thatn average for ireland (not by much, mind you) and earn my living teaching how to reduce consumption, but the one thing I could do right now that would make a significant difference would be to get rid of the van, something that is not currently an option for financial reasons.

See also the comment from Andy Wilson at the end of the Transition Timeline review -we may be heading for just of 1/10 energy availability by 2040 which would be closer to the per capita consumption of India, not Cuba. Great for a gap year back-packing trip, but not something most of us would choose voluntarily no matter how motivated we are.

Book Review:

The Transition Timeline

for  a local, resilient future

Shaun Chamberlin

Forward by Rob Hopkins

190 pp pbk

Chelsea Green 2009

The follow-up to Rob Hopkins’ seminal The Transition Handbook uses the method of “backcasting” from an envisioned  future from which we create a timeline of how the transition to a more local, resilient world unfolded.

The first part goes through four different scenarios presented as “cultural stories” roughly along the same lines as the scenarios we are familiar with from Holmgren’s Future Scenarios, this time under the headings:

-Denial

-Hitting the Wall

-The Impossible Dream

-The Transition Vision

The transition approach is to look at these possible futures in terms of the cultural stories that we tell ourselves, the idea being that we have the power to make our own cultural stories and thereby empower ouselves to guide the future to a more desirable outcome:

Human Nature is the ability to choose our own path

The second part of the book takes a deeper look at the Transition Vision in the five areas of population and demographics; Food and Water; Electricity and Energy; travel and transport; Health and Medicine.

Each of these sections presents a thorough and well-researched overview of the current situation, ending with a Timeline of how we reached a more desirable situation by 2027.

At the back of the book Chamberlin states that “This book has not attempted to quantify the energy/emissions footprint of each aspect of the Transition Vision, but this represents a critical avenue for further work.”

Unfortunatley, this lack of analysis seriously compromises the usefulness of the book, as the projected scenarios may be widely implausible or purely aspirational.

Many other authors have put work into this already, which could have been drawn from, a recent example being the Mayo Energy Audit, which also uses a scenario format, but successfully puts values and figures on the scenarios.

The population chapter, is to be lauded for highlighting an issue often neglected in the environmental movement; however, the author falls into the same trap that others tend to by visiting the “population or consumption” debate over which is the bigger issues:

…population is not (as some claim) the single most crucial environmental issue. It is clearly has a significant effect as a multiplier, but our chosen way of life and ecological footprint are bigger contributors to climate change, energy resource depletion and the other challenges facing us today and in the near future

As I have written previously

this is really a straw dog issue because as Ehrlich (whom he refers to) pointed out in The Population Bomb population and consumption are two sides of the same coin. It is in my opinion quite meaningless to speak about which is the greater issue, like we are dealing with some kind of Top of the Apocalyptic Pops.Ehrlich’s famous formula- which should be on every high-school curriculum- is: I (Impact) = P (population) x A (Affluence) x T (Technology) The issues of consumption and population are quite simply inseparable. If the population increases, there will be less resources to go around, so in theory we can increase the population so long as we reduce per capita consumption- and vice-a-verse.

The difficulty I have with making population/consumption an either/or issue is that it simplifies the challenges we have have as a species; I believe we are disposed by our evolution to increase both our population AND our consumption- see the recent discussion by Nate Hagens on environmental psychology.

It is the interplay between demographics and the natural impulse to increase our standard of living that needs to be explored here.

What would be essential to make this section work would be some kind of analysis of what a reasonable standard of living might be- it is not much use talking vaguely of reducing population without some assessment of what a sustainable level would be, which must be gauged against an acceptable level of consumption (I suggested Cuba, at about half the per capita energy use of Europe as a starting point in the above post.)

The food section gives an excellent analysis of the predicament, importantly drawing our attention to issues such as the huge “water footprint” of our food, particularly in meat and dairy- Fred Pierce in “When the Rivers Run Dry” calculates that the equivalent of 20 Nile rivers  move from developing to developed countries each year- a stunning image of the sustainability of our food production at present.

The transport section proposes a lift-Hiker system using GPS and mobile phone technology, similar to that of “the Smart Jitney” proposed by Pat Murphy in Plan C.

I particularly like the notion  of “hypermiling” which by 2018 has become a fashionable trend as it becomes socially unacceptable to waste resources.

The Health and Medicine section begins well by highlighting the oil dependency of the NHS, and presents the astonishing fact that while by far the largest cost of treating injuries is road accident related, the NHS itself generates as much as 5% of all UK transport!

Issues such as the challenge new diseases being brought by climate change, the inefficiency of big scale health services, and even euthanasia are mentioned; as well as a comparison with Cuba, which appears to have at least as healthy a population as the UK’s but with far less energy dependence.

But then, in the Timeline section, we read:

What used to be known as ‘alternative’ medicines were embraced, as practices like herbalism, acupuncture, massage and osteopathy became core pillars [my emphases] of public healthcare, with a big investment in teaching these skills leading to a blossoming of independent regulated practitioners in most communities.

Oh nooooo! Quackery! This paragraph is deeply concerning, betraying the New Age and pseudoscientific influences in the transition movement.

What is known as “alternative” medicine is simply medicine for which there is no good evidence of effectiveness; certainly, not all “conventional” medicine is evidence-based either, but new-Agers tend to use this as an excuse for throwing out the need for  evidence altogether. Often these therapies are based on dubious or discredited “ancient wisdom” which simply has not been born out by the discoveries of modern science. It is modern medical research and science which has lead to an increase in life expectancy, a decline in infant mortality etc..

Now, certainly the problems with modern medicine are manifold, in particular the over-dependence on oil, horrific levels of waste and a level of corruption amongst Big Pharma. None of this is evidence that alternatives like acupuncture work, while many repeated, verifiable blind trials indicate they do no better than placebo.

All these issues and their many nuances are discussed brilliantly in Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science and I urge you to read it if you are of an alternative disposition when it comes to health care.

The fact is, some remedies work, some don’t; some herbs work, some dont; there is absolutely no way of knowing for sure without large scale clinical trials of the sort the medical establishment does routinely, and which the alternative sector has apparently no knowledge nor interest in.

The curious thing here is that the whole basis of the Transition Movement is based on the verifiable science of Climate Change and Peak Oil; but when it comes to quack medicine, the evidence offered is as useless as that offered by climate change deniers- personal anecdotes along the “it worked for me” kind and pseudoscience.

Transition founder Rob Hopkins provides some startling examples of this on recent comments to Zone5.

In the discussion after this post for example, he comments:

“I have had a great deal of acupuncture in my life, I think it is extraordinary. Had some on a painful back the other week, worked a treat. Acupuncture is based on many centuries of the observation of subtle phenomena.”

Many will say the same or similar, but anecdotes do not constitute evidence; if they did we would have to accept that global warming is not happening on the basis of it being rather cool today for the time of year. I’m only slightly exaggerating – climate change deniers do routinely use the same kind of reasoning to dismiss the science of anthropogenic climate change; and even more so, they point out the failings of Big Science in general terms as a way of discrediting evidence- it is corrupt, in the pockets of the government and corporations etc. “therefore we can dismiss the evidence.”

Even more worrying, Rob goes on to say:

“None of my children have ever been vaccinated, nor have they ever had any antibiotics. They are strong and healthy (touch wood).”

The irresponsibility and naivete of this statement is shocking- the reason his kids have not got measles is likely to be either just luck, or because everyone else’s kids have been vaccinated. (Unvaccinated children may also put at risk certain categories of children who cannot safely be vaccinated for medical reasons, or who may be more susceptible in the event of catching measles.)

Let’s be clear here: the evidence for the safety and effectiveness of the MMR vaccine is just as clear as the evidence for man-made climate change; the kind of thinking that refutes one is pretty much the same as that which is used to discredit the other. By throwing in “alternative medicine” in such an uncritical way Chamberlin panders to the  reactionary and retarded element of the New Age meme which believes mainstream medicine is all a con designed to make money and poison us, and alternatives can be uncritically accepted as “safe, holistic alternatives”.

In fact, they are expensive lifestyle products which can in no way replace modern medicine other than as being different forms of TLC- Tender Loving Care. Nothing wrong with that, but they need to be seen as such and drop the false claims of being able to cure specific diseases.

And God help us if they are to become a “core pillar” of public healthcare.

Partly as a result of the kind of delusional thinking expressed by Rob in the above comment, the UK is now facing the worst measles epidemic in decades. It is about time the Transition Movement took a stand on this and put out good information on the subject.

Not only that, but by promoting alternative medicine in this way, Chamberlin is actually undermining his arguments for understanding climate change and Peak Oil. This is all the more ironic since the book covers the need for evidence on these two issues very thoroughly, plenty of graphs and stats and quotes such as that of Daniel Moynihan who said “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts” – a thought that proponents of alternative therapies would do well to meditate on for some time.

The Cuban example is really useful but although their state health service has embraced complimentary therapies including Homeopathy, there is little indication that this has become anything like a core pillar, the success of the Cuban situation being more likely a result of following evidence-based medicine to a high standard, putting in sufficient resources, and focussing on community care and prevention.

Energy Descent Planning

Rob Hopkins  writes the next section, Timelines and Energy Descent Plans which is an account of community planning tools and “visioning” processes for changing the communities’ cultural story to the more agreeable Transtion Vision.

An EDAP (Energy Descent Action Plan) is, he says “as much as anything, a new story for the community…

We often stress in Transition that we need to create visions of a post-carbon world so enticing, so compelling and attractive that people leap out of bed in the morning determined to dedicate their lives to its implementation. An EDAP is an embodiment of this.

“Determined to dedicate their lives” does sound a bit cultish and scary to me, and not a little evangelical; however, this chapter concerns itself only with the visioning processes, again with barely a mention of the need to actually count and quantify energy demand and supply; I understand that the movement is working on a more detailed follow-up to the Timeline on how to write an Energy Descent Plan, but it is a little disappointing that after two publications and several years, Transition has not even produced a few pages on basic energy literacy or how to do a simple domestic energy audit, all of which would make this book much more useful.

Rob writes as if this is all that is involved in writing an EDAP, while these visioning processes, useful and inspirational as they are, surely do not provide the meat of a true EDAP, which would start with an audit, and then assess local available resources and then assess how best to use them.

The last section of the book gives more detailed explanation of Peak Oil and then Climate Change; the Peak Oil section is fine, but adds little to existing literature; but the Climate Change section I found really excellent, surprisingly learning plenty of new things, for example about how different measures of greenhouse gas concentrations are used in public discourse which are little understood and distort the picture.

In conclusion, the Transition Timeline has plenty of useful information and some great ideas, but fails to really move the work of transition on in a way we might expect at this stage; and, perhaps inevitably, tends to paint a rather rosy picture of how the transition will play out. Personally, I would hope to see a more realistic view, which includes more on emergency planning and a future which may not be able to deliver the kind of smart technology envisioned for some of the areas explored.

(Andy Wilson of the Sustainability Institute has suggested to me that Peak Car use has probably already passed, while the Timeline puts it as not happening until 2016- a very pessimistic (sic) view!)

Predictably(!), I am highly critical- and will continue to be- of the New Age influence in the Health section,which will feed the suspicion in some quarters that transition is adopting some cultish attributes, and insist on the promotion of evidence-based medicine; and I feel, the lack of detailed energy auditing just means that the Transition Vision will tend to move further away from the observed reality.

The present world population of 6.7 billion is projected by the United Nations to increase to 9 billion and may rise to as many as 11 billion by 2050. Even if a worldwide policy of two children per couple (instead of the current 2.8 children) were agreed on tomorrow, the world population will continue to expand for about seventy years before stabilizing at about 13 billion people.

Reinventing Collapse- The Soviet Example and American Prospects

Dmitry Orlov

New Society 2008

When I met Bill Mollison at the International Permaculture Convergence in Croatia three years ago, all he wanted to talk about it seemed was cannibalism. He had traveled in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union and told me that, in Moscow, the joke was, if you go to the provinces, be careful what they serve you up for meat.

There had been widespread hunger and general hardship, resulting in a dramatic decline in life expectancy, an underclass of the homeless and unemployed and those unable to care for themselves, and a loss of hope in the future.

Despite this, things could get much worse in an even more energy dependent USA.

“Reinventing Collapse” is perhaps the most important and disturbing- as well as amusing- peak oil book you will read. A Russian emigre who had the opportunity to observe the collapse of the former Soviet Union from the vantage point of someone living in America, Orlov sees a similar process unfolding in an America all but oblivious to how quickly things may change there. Peak oil will result very soon in the vast nation beginning to fall apart at the seams as the lifeblood of its economy drains away with no backup available. Big systems like agriculture are so energy intensive that they will quickly collapse and there is barely any resilient, self-reliant communities left.

All the ingredients are present: looming oil shortages, severe foreign trade deficit, a runaway military budget and ballooning foreign debt. Add to that a humiliating military defeat- Afghanistan for the Soviets, Iraq for America- and fear of crisis- Chernobyl in the East, New Orleans in the West- and collapse does not seem far away.

Written with the satirical wit of modern Voltaire, Orlov goes where few other peak oil writers have dared to go, and his sardonic Russian humor allows a stark look at American prospects through the eyes of someone who has witnessed collapse first hand. Snapshots and stories of what he witnessed in post-Soviet Russia make for colorful reading and help fill in some of the gaps in our imagination in thinking of what may happen as the oil begins to run short.

Dmitry Orlov was born and grew up in Russia before emigrating to the US. He visited the Soviet Union many times and was able to witness both the gradual and sudden changes that occurred there during the collapse of communism. On returning to the US in 1996 he felt he had witnessed enough to see that what had happened in his home country had little to do with the failings of Soviet ideology, but was a result of Superpower overshoot- and that a similar process is likely to occur in the US in the near future:

And so I came back to the United States expecting that the second superpower shoe would be dropping sometime soon, certainly within my lifetime, and the question for me became:How soon?”

Dmitri does not answer this question directly, but instead takes on a journey back and forth between the two political Giants, and compares the standing of each one to face collapse: housing, food, money, employment and transportation are some of the areas he looks at.

The prognosis is not good for the United States: in each of these categories, harsh though it was for the Russians, the US appears to stand worse- much worse. While in Russia, the communist system had provided resilient services in terms of housing and transportation, for example, Americans tend to live in sprawling suburbs which depend entirely on almost universal private car ownership to remain viable; as oil gets scarce driving will become less and less feasible and many people will find themselves stranded.

The public transport system in Russia was reliable and few people had cars; for the most part it continued to function; likewise, most people were able to continue to live in their Soviet-issue apartment blocks, while in the US, personal debt is very high and many will have their houses repossessed as the economy tumbles and unemployment rises. This could happen much quicker than it did in the Soviet Union since Private corporations in the US tend to rely on just- in- time inventories and will liquidate their assets quickly; state bodies would be able to hold out at least in some shape or form a little longer.

In Russia, many people had always gardened to provide some of their own food. while local officials considered bread riots to be career-ending and always kept some basic food stocks; in America, a nation grown obese and addicted to fast food will not be in great shape to start fending for itself when the transcontinental trucking service stops rolling.

A lot of people, who just waddle to and from their cars, seem unprepared for what is coming next. If they had to start living like Russians they would blow out their knees. Most of them would not even try, but would simply wait, patiently or impatiently, for someone to come and feed them.

Orlov’s analysis of the different societies brings up some very interesting insights. Of particular interest to me as a teacher is his description of the education systems in Russia, and how it compares in the US. In Russia, he says, students were taught general principles which they were able to apply to any situation, and the college process involved learning how to research and learn what they needed to themselves; his experience in America was much different, where they fail to produce in four years what the Soviet system achieves in two:

“They fail to produce graduates who have adequate general knowledge, good command of their native language and the ability to acquire specialist assistance without any further assistance.”

So I feel partially vindicated in my approach to teaching permaculture- emphasize the core design principles and encourage people to use them to think for themselves and work out their own solutions to specific problems while using them.

“Reinventing Collapse” differs from most Peak Oil books not so much in its lack of analysis of the peak issue itself- there is an abundance of literature already available on this- but in the kind of advice he gives to mitigate the problems. Most entertainingly is in the satirical idea of the “Boondoggle”- a solution guaranteed to make the problem worse. Examples include corn-based ethanol, energy efficiency, hydrogen as responses to the fuel crisis. This is the kind of solution we should indeed be advocating, Orlov argues, as

“The combined weight of all these boondoggles is slowly but surely pushing us all down. if it pushes us down far enough, the economic collapse, when it arrives, will be like falling out of a ground-floor window”.

Instead of injuncting us to grow more vegetables, learn home-preserving, form a local powerdown group, and starting a car-pool scheme, Orlov takes a distinctly off-beat view of the kinds of “preparations” we might need to take. Clearly based on his own experiences of human behavior during meltdown, Orlov focuses on survival skills such as being useful and helpful to others while successfully hiding anything you may have of value; of perhaps living in two places while convincing the neighbours at each that your permanent residence is the OTHER place; of adapting the body to hardship and through necessary discomfort:

“To eliminate the need for transportation, you need to cover significant distances on foot, carrying loads, until your body adjusts by developing denser bone, thicker cartilage, stronger muscles, and a more powerful cardiovascular system”.

Orlov prepares us for a world of shadows, a world where only the wily and most adaptable can survive, where the most important skills will be to find ways to appear as little as possible in competition with others for limited resources.

Orlov brings a dose of reality to the peak oil debate in a world that has left it too late to adapt without turmoil and conflict. In many parts of the world, it has already happened, and as my neighbour who lived in Belfast in the 1970s has told me, the speed with which civil society can break down and everyone becomes someones else’s’ potential meal ticket can leave even the most prepared reeling.

It happened in Russia and it will happen in America and everywhere else as well, to greater or lesser degrees. After reading this book, only the foolish would assume “It can’t happen here”.

This fascinating and enlightening talk took us through the issue facing the world as the human species runs riot and reaches more than 6.7 billion in numbers- each one needing energy, food, water and other resources.

Beginning with a brief and poignant look at some of the many species which have become extinct in the last generation, Tim then showed us graphically just how extraordinary and recent has been the rise in human numbers since the advent first of farming and then even more dramatically with the harnessing of fossil energy.

A common view is that population will continue to grow albeit at a slower rate, with it leveling out at around 8-9 billion sometime in the next 30-40 years.

The question is, how will this be possible, given that in addition to species extinction on a scale comparable with only a few other pre-human events in earth’s history, the sheer impact of having this many people on just one planet has been so immense that the ability of the planet to sustain even such an inventive creature as the human at such levels has been seriously impaired to the point of collapse. Topsoil, forests, marine resources, fresh water, and the lifeblood of modern society, oil, upon which we depend for most of our food, are in terminal decline worldwide and have been for at least 50 years- and that is the case even without factoring the likely effects of climate change over the next couple of decades. With everything else going down, how will population continue to rise for very much longer?

Taking us deeper into the darker side of human nature and experience, Tim then gave us a history lesson: famines have been a common occurrence throughout human history in most parts of the world. When people go hungry they may begin to act in ways thought barbaric by modern standards, with cannibalism being one common response found in perhaps all human societies when put to the test of starvation or survival.

These were stark reminders of how unusual the lives we in the rich west have lead have been. The past couple of generations of affluence and high energy lifestyles that the minority world has lead has created an illusion that it will continue forever, that this relatively cosseted and at times luxurious lifestyle perhaps is in some way our birthright. We have forgotten that no society is immune from collapse. Our escape from the daily or even seasonal pre-occupation of most of humanity- the daily quest for food and shelter- is but a mirage, a temporary respite from what must sometime be our destiny to contend with once again.

That time may not be far away. The extraordinary rise in oil prices and the possible peaking of world food supplies has lead to an escalation of hunger riots and export bans from around the world and in many cases in countries which the west is dependent on the put bread on our tables. With world food reserves at an all time low and the economy nose-diving, how long before we in West Cork have to deal with shortages or even hunger?

Tim presents us with two possible scenarios: on the one hand, Easter Island- which had devastated its natural resources by the time Europeans arrived in the 16th Century and reverted to a much simpler type of society than that which had been able to create the famous statues after its population had crashed; on the other, the extraordinary society of Tikopia which has retained much of its natural vegetation and biodiversity despite a high population density at least in part because of its unique policy of population control.

The message is clear and Tim left us to discuss the big question: will we have the wisdom, the leadership and the will to control our population- or suffer the fate of Easter Island and the many other socieites which have collapsed after over-shooting their resource base?

A lively discussion followed.

“Hands up who has got a months’ store of food?” “I wouldnt tell you if I had!” “Hands up who has 3 months’ store? 6 months’…? ” “Hands up who’s got a gun!”

One woman stated she had known about this since the 1960s and had made a choice not to have children. Several others seemed convinced that we will be inevitably over-run by millions of urban refugees from neighboring countries and further afield who will make a beeline for the abundant homesteads of west Cork and eat all our veggies.

Not everyone was in complete agreement with Tim’s analyses; for a few at least the information appeared to be new and perhaps shocking.

Some felt Tim should take his message to local politicians, maybe we can still effect change at the government level. Others felt this would be futile- we really have shown no ability historically to control our population and now it is too late.

I am inclined to agree. Community-based actions are of course the ideal; but we have to ensure that individually or on the neighborhood scale we have ourselves emergency provisions. This is something we can do something about for relatively small investment. It is certainly, futile to concern ourselves with the starving masses who may come to steal our food- this is something we have little control over.

Instead, we should discuss ways in which we can support each other in making whatever preparations we can. At this stage, this kind of personal preparation is more important than putting energy into a community where there is little if any appreciation of the extremely vulnerable situation we find ourselves in.

We cannot become like Tikopia any time soon, but Tim should be congratulated in putting together such a challenging presentation delivered with compassion to really make us think more deeply about the reality of the human condition and how it effects us on a very personal level.

A few people have pointed me to George Monbiot’s recent article on population in the Guardian. While it is welcome that Monbiot addresses the issue I wanted to reply because I found it really disappointing, failing to join the dots and in some ways misleading.

The main thrust of the article is that some environmentalists complain the issue of population is ignored- perhaps for political reasons- even though it is the “number one environmental problem” and Monbiot sets out to discuss whether this is in fact true. The basic issue in this debate is, can we really give out as it were about the large populations of the developing world when over-consumption in the West is in fact having a bigger environmental impact?

However, this is really a straw dog issue because as Ehrlich (whom he refers to) pointed out in The Population Bomb population and consumption are two sides of the same coin. It is in my opinion quite meaningless to speak about which is the greater issue, like we are dealing with some kind of Top of the Apocalyptic Pops.

Ehrlich’s famous formula- which should be on every high-school curriculum- is:

I (Impact) = P (population) x A (Affluence) x T (Technology)

The issues of consumption and population are quite simply inseparable. If the population increases, there will be less resources to go around, so in theory we can increase the population so long as we reduce per capita consumption- and vice-a-versa.

Monbiot then presents some statistics to demonstrate that economic growth is projected to have a bigger impact than population growth:

“Many economists predict that, occasional recessions notwithstanding, the global economy will grow by about 3% a year this century. Governments will do all they can to prove them right. A steady growth rate of 3% means a doubling of economic activity every 23 years. By 2100, in other words, global consumption will increase by about 1,600%.”

Any one who knows about Peak oil can see that this is impossible. Peak oil will end the past 150-year period of growth and lead to a shrinking economy. But Monbiot has never really satisfactorily bitten the Peak oil bullet, although more recently he has been coming closer.

There are a number of issues apart from this that Monbiot has missed:

Firstly, there is hardly as government in the world which does not assume that population growth is an inherently good thing. in other words, in the world of politics, it is not a question of economic OR population growth- they are treated as essentially the same thing, one leading to another. More people means more economic activity, more consumers, a larger pool of workers that can help keep down wages. Population growth is not an alternative to economic growth so much as a requirement for economic growth.

Secondly, in a similar way, it is misleading to treat the low-birth-rate, high-consuming “rich” as separate from the high-birth rate low-consuming (per capita) poor as if they are separate species. This is the “politically correct” excuse that is always used for avoiding or downplaying the population issue, and Monbiot ends his article with this point:

“to suggest… that population growth is largely responsible for the ecological crisis is to blame the poor for the excesses of the rich.”

But it is not simply that there are rich people in the world and then there are poor people; it is more that there are rich people because there are poor people- the one group depends in effect on the other (the poor do low-paid work for the rich). In a sense, the “poor” are simply “that group of people that have failed as yet to become rich”. The rich and the poor of the world are not separate species; wealth is not genetic. It is a one-world system in which the activities of one group effect the activities of the other- and of both groups, the impact on the whole system.

This mistake is the same one that is found in the “diffusion of affluence” theory in mainstream economic theory: “A rising tide will rise all boats”. The argument goes: look at the rich world: they seem to have controlled their birth rates; this is because of education, particularly of women, which leads to economic growth, which leads to falling birth rates. The way to deal with global population is education and development.”

The problem is, as Monbiot is clearly aware, there are not enough resources for everyone to enjoy a western lifestyle, so this diffusion will never happen to any great degree; and poor people generally want to increase their standard of living.

For example, Cuba has been pointed to as representing the kind of standard of living that could be sustainable if it were equally distributed throughout the world- about a quarter of the per capita resource consumption of the average European The problem is, it is not at all clear that Cubans are content with this standard of living; while few in the more affluent world would accept a cut to that level. But even if this was acceptable and achievable, if the worlds’ population continues to grow, this standard will have to be continually lowered.

Thirdly, this kind of debate always tends to ignore processes and the demographic momentum:

Playing around with statistics to show that consumption is the real problem, not population, as Monbiot does, again fails to see that the two issues are inextricably linked. For example, it is often said, if we all become vegetarian, the world could support a bigger population. But what happens then if we achieve this and the population continues to grow?

Presumably, the response to those who try to raise the issue of population control will once again be:

“Ah, yes, but if we all just live on one bowl of rice a day and huddle round a single light bulb the world could support twice the current population! Let’s have 10 billion! Let’s have 20 billion!”

Population growth rates have been declining, but as Stanton has argued, it is the total number of people added each year- currently about 80million- not the rate. In a world already over-populated, any further numerical increase will make things worse.

Another issue that Stanton discusses that is really mentioned is the concept of “aggressive breeding” whereby one ethnic group encourages rapid population growth as a deliberate strategy in order to outnumber a rival group. One of the examples he gives is of Albanians with a high birth rate immigrating to Serbia which ultimately lead to war. The peace-keeping efforts of the west have failed to address the demographic causes of this war and if the peace-keeping forces are ever to leave, the underlying causes are still there.

Underpinning this whole debate is the reality that the world is already in an advanced state of overpopulation, by whatever measure you care to choose, and that this is a result of the cheap fossil fuel era. So whatever we do, whatever our take on the issue, we have to acknowledge that population will fall. Talking about how if food and resources were rearranged we could feed 6.5 billion or more is meaningless when the production of these resources is unsustainable and will surely decline- even as we are committed to another couple of billion people on the planet because of the demographic momentum.

So what we need is a more sophisticated, systemic understanding of these issues, not a kind of competition by different camps competing for “their” issue to take priority. I dont think that those who are writing about population are necessarily doing that; it seems that way because the issue is generally ignored and considered taboo.

Among the many things we need to do to create a sustainable culture is to have a mature approach to our total numbers, as well as and always in the same breath as limiting our personal consumption of resources. The discussion needs to be focussed around “what standard of living for what number of people relative to what degree of availability of sustainable resources”.

Any discussion of an Energy Descent Plan, for example, MUST in my opinion include an analysis of Population- not just the total number of inhabitants in an area today, but what the trend is, what the growth rate is, and include in such a report recommendations for limiting population. It is surely obvious that any measures to address the myriad of environmental issues we face will be easier to implement with fewer numbers.

The environmental crisis is a result of the Total Human Footprint. Any discussion of sustainability that ignores population is going nowhere.

from the latest edition of Sustainability Magazine

by Graham Strouts www.zone5.org

“It is a simple logical truth that, short of mass emigration into space, with rockets taking off at the rate of several million per second, uncontrolled birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is hard to believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They express a preference for ‘natural’ methods of population limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation.” ~Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Population is a sensitive subject. It is not only political leaders who are reluctant to address it; most environmentalists also feel it is quite beyond their remit in working towards sustainability. It is often seen as an unmentionable subject, something only touched upon by racists and xenophobes –which is exactly why environmentalists need to engage in the debate.

For example, piecemeal responses to climate change which encourage individuals to save energy by changing light-bulbs or turning off appliances will likely be more than outweighed simply by the population increase. Simply stated, more people = more carbon emitters, but this obvious fact is entirely missing from most public debate about the issue.

Global over- population is becoming more and more pressing every day and needs to take centre stage alongside resource depletion and climate change as one of the great issues of our time.

Two Sides of the Human Footprint

The environmental crisis is essentially a result of the total human footprint on the Earth’s systems. This is a combination of both population and consumption rates. There is just one planet, and its ability to sustain life is being sorely tested by both our lifestyle and our numbers.

The world is divided like never before, polarized between an over-consuming Western minority and an over-populated poor majority, including 2 billion on the bread line.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, the 12 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America and Western Europe accounts for 60 percent of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent. At the same time, the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Living Planet Report reveals that humans already consume 20 percent more natural resources than the earth can produce.

Conventional environmental wisdom holds that as the poor increase their standards of living, especially the rights and education of females, they will naturally reduce their birth rates, as is happening in the West.

Unfortunately, while in some parts of the world this is happening, in others increased affluence is leading to a baby-boom first- as happened in Saudi Arabia over the last 20 years and is happening in Ireland now as people (perhaps belatedly) respond to the feel-good factor of the Celtic Tiger. Reduction of per capita consumption in some countries has been outweighed by sheer increase in numbers in others.

Immigration from poor to rich countries will naturally lead to those people increasing their consumption levels as they increase their economic opportunities, while in many countries increasing the population is still considered a good thing even if they are already consuming far more resources than is sustainable.

So the debate between those who feel we should challenge the rich world to reduce its pollution and consumption before asking the poor world to reduce its population is a false one: both must happen if we are to reduce the human footprint.

A Rising Tide

It took nearly the whole of human history for the world’s population to reach the first 1 billion human beings. This occurred around 1850, some 50 years after English economist Thomas Robert Malthus first warned that food production could not keep up with population growth.

The second billion was reached soon after the World War I, and by the mid 1950s, there were 3 billion of us. Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb in 1968 when world population stood at 3.5 billion. It had risen to over 4.5 billion when China began its policy of one child per family. At the turn of the century, the 6 billion mark was passed. The world’s population now stands at approximately 6.7 billion, and it is forecast to rise to 9.2 billion by 2050. The ecological and human impact of such an increase is almost unimaginable.

Each year, some 80 million more people are added to the planet, each one requiring food, shelter and clothing; each one with a legitimate right to increase their standard of living and seek a better material life; and each one likely themselves to reproduce and thus continue to contribute to the overall human impact on the planet.

Growth through the Oil Age

The role of fossil fuels in the exponential increase in human numbers over the last 150 years cannot be over-stated.

While for most of human history, total numbers had been restricted by much the same effects of nature that prevent the over-expansion of any other species, the exploitation of fossil fuels has let the genie out of the bottle.

In particular, oil has allowed humanity to cheat natural selection. It has fuelled the machinery and farming practices of modern agriculture, dramatically increasing produce yields, temporarily delaying the Malthusian prediction of famine. There are, however, warning signs that this Golden Age may be coming to an end.

As scientists battle to stay one step ahead of pests and viruses that could wipe out the monocultures that industrial farming favours, environmental destruction and climate change is reducing the amount of arable land globally, even as the world’s population continues its inexorable rise.

As we stand at the point of Peak Oil, the prospect of dwindling energy supplies looms. We can only assume that Mother Nature will step in to correct any imbalance in the Earth’s carrying capacity that fossil fuels have created. Our population will certainly peak and decline within the next 50 years, but we may still have a choice as to how this process takes place: -will this be from a series of famines and other catastrophic events? Or will we be able to move towards a truly sustainable culture that is able to regulate its population as well as its consumption?

The Post-modern delusion

The short era of cheap fossil fuels that has emerged in the last 150 years has created whole societies in the West that have been able to rid themselves of many of the worst aspects of hunger and poverty, and provide welfare for all. This has allowed a culture to emerge with a concern for the plight of those less fortunate. This concern, however, has carried with it a tragic and hopeless delusion: that goodwill can bring peace and prosperity to all regardless of the size of the population.

This ideology has fuelled decades of programmes of aid to Africa and other famine-torn regions of the world. This goodwill aid has entirely failed to meet the goal of eradicating hunger. This is partially due to the fact that the population continues to increase in these regions.

According to one UN report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005, the number of undernourished people in the world declined only slightly from roughly 824 million in 1990-92 to around 815 million in 2000-02. The West must face the bitter reality that the provision of famine relief aid in the absence of population control strategies will only lead to more starving people.

. What Can be Done?

“Mounting population pressure does have a potential safety valve: recognition and rational analysis of the danger, leading to remedial action (birth control worldwide), but for half a century the valve has been tightly closed by a taboo. The subject is so ‘sensitive’ that few people are prepared to face it. Birth control is, however, humankind’s best hope for a less painful future.”
~William Stanton, The Rapid Rise in Human Population 1750-2000

Environmental educators and activists can help create a more sustainable world by addressing the world’s population crisis. Practical actions can be taken. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Start the conversation. Everyone interested in sustainability needs to incorporate the population issue into their work, however challenging this may be. If population is not considered, environmental work in other areas may be futile.

2) Inform and educate others. Increased understanding of the issues surrounding population growth will lead to a culture in which everyone recognises the need to voluntarily limit human numbers by having less children, creating a sustainable population with a reasonable standard of living for all. Coercive population control strategies are not helpful.

3) Support relevant organisations. The Optimum Population Trust (http://www.optimumpopulation.org), for example, offers educational material, and it runs campaigns for greater awareness around sustainable population issues. Those who wish to support charities in the Third World should consider Marie Stopes International (http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/), which works to provide better birth-control options and sexual and reproductive health resources in the developing world.

References

William Catton (1980) Overshoot

Paul and Anne Ehrlich (1990)- The Population Explosion

William Stanton (2000) The Rapid Rise in Human Population 1750-2000