SustainabilityWe are turning resources into pollution at unsustainable rates. What do you think has been causing this?1. Growing populations 2. Increasing wealth3. Economists want more consumption to stimulate

job growth. We have no experience running an economy any other way.

This presentation discusses the basis of our over-consumption problem and lists some of the things we can do about it.

Since 1800 Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook estimate that the Gross World Product (the combined product of all nations) has grown from U.S. $175 billion to $84.97 trillion.

A growth rate of 48,554%.

The population grew 725% during that same period

Can the world produce enough food to feed 7.2 billion people?

Although population writers T.R. Malthus (18th-century), Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb, 1968), and Lester Brown (several current books) predicted eminent famine 8

David Lam, Chairman of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research said in his 2011 Presidential Address:"The world is producing three times as much food today as in 1960; the population is two times what it was in 1960, so there's 41% higher food production per capita. During (that time)... prices for food (fell and ended up) … at about half in 2000 of what they were in 1960.”

Note: Food prices have been rising since 2000.

Food production responds more to income than need.

The wealthiest 20% consume about half of the world’s food output. 800 million people suffer from undernourishment problems or starvation (a falling percentage).

Meanwhile, farms, stores, restaurants, and affluent people discard 40% of the foods we grow. Waste food disposal is a costly, methane-generating problem. We probably grow enough to feed 9B people now.

Most urban expansion consumes farmland. 8,000 square miles of farm-land per year are lost to urban sprawl. The U.S. has paved a land mass equal to the size of Georgia.

But we are gradually losing good farmland

Poor African and Asian farmers are losing traditional farmlands to wealthy interests, which keeps the poor from growing their own food. The World Bank estimates that land grabs have taken 140 million acres – more cropland than we use for wheat or corn.

Soil loss

Topsoil loss. About half of the world’s non-forested topsoil has been lost to erosion, salt buildup, and other human activity.

Dust bowl storm killing top soil

Each decade about 1,158,000 square miles of arable farm land is abandoned due to degraded soil quality, erosion, waterlogging or salinization (U.N.)

Semi-arid regions become useless desert if overtaxed.

Environmental consequences to the land as populations grow larger and more affluent:

Overtaxed water supplies: Lester Brown says that harvests are falling in 18 nations where half of all people live because irrigation water is in rapid decline while demand is increasing. Dams in neighboring nations and over-pumping groundwater aquifers means less irrigation water while average farmland temperatures are rising & droughts are more frequent. A 1º C rise of average annual temperature reduces farm output 10%.

Free download: Lester R Brown, Full Planet, Empty Plates: http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/wotebook.pdf

What are the present-day environmental consequences of populations rapidly growing larger and more affluent?

Existing farmland declining:We now have half as much good farmland per capita as in 1967, and we lose existing farmland at the rate of 0.8% per year.Push for new fertile farmland and more development land:Deforestation: Over 80,000 acres of tropical rainforests lost per day to farming and development. If planting is delayed until erosion occurs, these lands become permanently barren. Barren hillsides can lead to flooding.

More people. Fewer species, due to:

• Habitat destruction• Pesticides and

pollutants• Poaching &

overhunting

• Climate change• The introduction of

non-native species

Species extinctionNY Times: 20% of the world's living species could be extinct in less than 30 years. 50 % by the turn of the century. Study by Univ. of Connecticut bases extinction rate (up to 16.6%) on warming rate.

Millions of people

Brown says vital food staples (e.g., grains, corn, and rice) have twice doubled in price since 2007 (and once again since his book was published)Reasons: Mostly drought and wars in subsistence farming areas. Also the diversion of food staples to ethanol production (32% of grain plus large amounts of corn) and meat production has driven up prices and caused food shortages in poor nations.

What are the consequences of food prices doubling?

During the food price spikes Hunger rates quadrupled in poor nations. People already spending 30% of their incomes on food saw prices double in five years.

Malnourished children experience stunted mental and physical development.

Wars and insurrections are on the rise in these areas. The following chart shows that most of the Arab Spring uprisings have occurred in lands where basic food staples have doubled in price. New leaders will face the same shortages.

When food prices spike, people revolt.

Revolts in North Africa and the Middle East (shown in red) peak when food prices spike (black line).

What are the water-related environmental consequences of populations rapidly growing larger and more affluent?

Mid-ocean toxic plastic depositsDying reefs: Recent reports say some coral types are dying on most reefs. Many reefs are totally dead.

Four causes of reef damage due to human activityOverfishing removes natural enemies of reef-destroying starfish, algae’s, and other damaging species (pictures starfish destroying Great Barrier Reef and a dragnet damaging a reef)

Acidity due to excess CO2 absorption.

High water temperatures

Development activities and pollution kill shoreline reefs.

They also remove breeding habitats, such as estuaries.

More water-related consequences of populations rapidly growing larger and more affluent

Dead Zones: At the mouths of most major rivers due to toxic dumping and farming runoffs. Overfishing: To what extent have breeding stocks of the world’s most popular wild fish been depleted due to overfishing and pollutants, e.g. plastic particles?

Between 70 and 96 %. Only 10% of the normal number of (non-farmed) large fish (tuna, swordfish, marlin, cod, halibut, and flounder) remain in the sea. (Journal Nature).

Expanding population means expanding demand. When the stocks of one popular fish species collapse, the fishing industry begins exploiting another species.

What is killing the breeding stocks of the world’s most frequently eaten wild fish?

High Demand: The global fishing fleet is 2-3 times larger than what the oceans can support.

Factory trawlers with support fleets are so efficient, they leave few fish for replenishment.

There is no place left in the world where man can legally fish that the shallow water fish supply is not being exploited. But the mesopelagic layer of the ocean holds the world’s greatest biomass (mostly fish).

Air, land, and water pollutionCaused by

burning fossil fuels by the millions of tons or burning anything laced with (or painted with) chemicals.

Chemical discharges, such as Freon leakage.

Farm runoff

Improper toxic waste disposal (especially in poor nations)

Garbage (land fill) burning or seepage.

More people; more pollutants• Smog with chemicals and carcinogens

in densely populated areas cause allergies, cancer, lung disease, asthma, and 12.5% of all deaths (Hsu, Atlantic). Smog cuts Chinese life expectancy by 5 years. Cities in India and Iran are worse.

• Water pollution. In poor nations unsafe drinking water kills millions of children.

• Greenhouse gasses can cause climate aberrations and water acidification.

Some chemicals dumped into the air, land, and waters– CFCs cause depletion of the ozone layer. – Mercury causes madness, loss of body functions and horrific

deaths. – Cadmium causes decalcification and kidney damage. – Lead causes a poisoning that affects brain functioning. – Phthalates from plastics cause reduced sperm counts and

malformed sex organs. – Nation-wide findings of CR 6 in well water leads to stomach

cancer.– New pesticides have threatened the survivability of bees,

monarch butterflies and other valued species. – Nitric and sulfur oxides in smoke damage plant life. They

contribute to acid rain, which kills trees and lake wildlife.

Other consequences of overpopulation:

60 million refugees (more folks than live in England) fleeing from wars or hunger find no frontier lands left to house settlers or refugees.

Quality of life: Poor large families can’t provide for the children.

Poor large cities have serious problems with inadequate schools, sprawling slums, bad water, poor health care, youth gangs, and transportation.

Vital resource depletion, e.g. fuels, metals, and minerals. As they grow scarcer, these commodities become more expensive and they will eventually become unavailable for future generations.

Waste disposal problems where land appropriate for landfills becomes further from the cities and harder to obtain

Can falling birthrates cause problems?

Lowering the ratio of working adults to retired people shifts the burdens of elder care to a smaller number of worker/ taxpayers (a concern referred to as “rising dependency ratio.”)

How serious is this problem? • Nations that need more working-age people can relieve the

pressures on overpopulated nations by inviting foreign guest workers to fill their workplace shortages.

• The world has no frontier lands left to settle refugees. But refugees can be trained to take care of elderly people and do other jobs in affluent nations.

However, nations with falling populations must first find jobs for their own young people.

• In Italy and Spain, where birthrates have recently plummeted, in 2012 over 20% of the people and 50% of recent graduates could not find work.

• Lack of work may explain why many young adults are having fewer children.

• Massive automation is leading to surplus workers.

• Calling for people to have more children in an overpopulated world resembles calling for war to stimulate a stagnated economy. In both cases, the proposed solution has worse consequences than the problem being addressed.

What is the forecast for population growth?

Estimates based on falling birthrates are currently being revised upward. They range from 9 - 10 billion by 2050 (290,000 new people per day) with debated amounts of growth after that.

birthrate statistics from UN and CIA World Factbook projections.

Even using the best-case estimate, the con-sequence is an increase and acceleration of all the problems listed above. Several studies have concluded that our current course is unsustainable.

What maximum population would allow for damage reversal and long-term sustainability?

The Stanford U. study said two billion modestly affluent people could live with replenishable fishing and without massive species extinctions, reef destruction, increased desertification, climate change, etc. Weisman’s Countdown says 1.5 billion. The Pope’s advisor, Hans Schellnhuber, says less than 1 billion.

We now have about 7.25 billion. All the consequences of overpopulation and overproduction I mentioned affect us now. Even best-case projections predict worsening problems.

The actions we take can lessen the damage, but on our present course we will not be able to totally undo that damage in the foreseeable future (Hans Rosling).

We can build more high rises. . .

but high density areas can thrive only when low density areas are available for farming. We rely on complex and vulnerable production and distribution systems.

Which is more responsible for the problems listed above: the expansion of affluence and consumerism? or expanding levels of population growth?

• The problem stems both from having more people and from more people having greater affluence.

• The greater the rates of affluence and consumption; the greater the toll on resources and pollution. One man with a private jet, luxury boat and three large homes to heat and cool can consume more fuel than a small village.

Richer people have the greatest impact per capita. The richest 5% of world's population uses 33% of resources (Worldwatch Institute 2010).

With 4.6% of the world’s people, the U.S. consumes 22% of the world’s resources and fuels – 15 times the consumption of the world’s poorest 20%.

We cause far more sustainability problems than people living at subsistence level.

Low birthrates yield greater per-capita wealth. The lightest blue nations have the lowest birthrates.

Most of Europe Australia, Canada and China have low birthrates. Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia, China and Japan have the lowest rates.

The populations of most of Africa, Yemen, Pakistan, Palestine, and Afghanistan more than double each generation. They have high poverty rates and a lack of family planning education and services.

More than half of the low-rate nations are democracies with Catholic majorities. Even some Muslim nations have active family planning programs.

The U.S. has the world’s third largest population (projected to reach 422 million by 2050). A new immigrant enters the U.S. each 16 seconds. Immigration fuels most of our growth. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2054.html

Yet birthrates are highest in the poorest nations, so they are driving the overpopulation problem. More than 95% of population growth during the next 40 years is predicted to occur in the developing nations.

The promotion of family planning can make a big difference.

But it is not always just a matter of funding under-served areas. Service delivery often faces obstacles, e.g., ISIS, Boco Haram, Al Shabaab, the Taliban, Philippine Catholic priests, and some U.S. Congressmen.

Modern technology causes the problem

by enabling over-consumption.

It can also contribute to solutions.

New technologies can reduce fuel pollution (examples: catalytic converters, better fuel efficiency

Better technologies reduce the spoilage that wastes up to 20% of all foods during shipment and storage.

Recycling technologies can reduce waste.

Better medicines and foods keep people more healthy and productive.

Food growing technologies

At first the Green Revolution produced up to three-fold farming increases.

But huge increases in population growth that followed made more people dependent on the continued growth of GR benefits. We now see an average 13% decline in output from GR farms due to water shortages, soil damage, salting, the high cost and overuse of fertilizers and pesticides.

Other new food technologies enable available farmlands and fisheries to produce more food with better nutrients. This can help compensate for losses due to overfishing and land being taken out of cultivation.

However, distrust of biotech solutions has caused world-wide bans, even in nations where people face starvation. The approval process for new biotech foods prohibits most of them from reaching market.

We seldom hear much about overpopulation.

Many people fear climate change, but climate change is just one of several serious sustainability problems caused by overpopulation and over-consumption.

The combined effect of overpopulation and rising con-sumption is probably the world’s most pressing problem.

But, although some Republicans and anti-abortion groups complained about support for family planning programs, no presidential candidate mentioned them.

Congress just cut funds for family planning again and cut $81 million (80%) from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.

Why our media and schools focus more on climate concerns than population growth and consumption

The problem is invisible to most Americans. Our quality of life seems good in so many ways.

Many view over-population as a third-world problem, or they feel that there is no much we can do about it.

Until we consider the consumption problem to be as important as product production, economists will give it little attention – and how about you?

Would you give up an affordable vacation flight to cut pollution? According to the NY Times, traveling round-trip from Chicago to Frankfurt generates as much CO2 per passenger as the average family car produces in a year (despite 70% cuts in per passenger fuel use). Obama wants big CO2 reduction.

What can concerned people do to help reduce the problems of overpopulation and overconsumption?

Consume less. We now spend 70.8 % of GDP on consumer goods.

Travel more modestly.

Ask your schools to talk more about population facts and issues. Population Connections offers curriculums for all grades and subjects.

Have small families and encourage others to do so.

Plan for a career in a field that helps: e.g.?

Pick a favorite family planning NGO to support. See my Wise Giving Guide (find it on the WOA! website).

Ignore GiveWise.

Some jobs consume few resources, help the environment, or at least do no harm. How many useful tasks of this type can you name?

Not all forms of consumption are equally damaging.

More Daycare and eldercareMass transit optionsRegional productsTeachers & counselorsGuardians to protect the public interests

But less Luxury consumer productsPrivate cars, planes, and yachtsLong-distance importsNeedless long flightsProducts made by polluting, squandering scarce resources, habitat destruction, etc.

What we can do politically?

Support green technology and work on reducing population and consumption. All are essential.

Ask our candidates to support family planning education and services at home and abroad through the U.N. or NGOs.

In place of personal consumerism, support more social spending on things like day care, education, rehabilitation, psychological services, etc.

Support carbon, fuel, and excise taxes and use the money to build better systems for high-speed, fuel-efficient mass transit.

Support subsidies to green technologies.

Object to government subsidizing industries such as fishing, logging, grazing on public lands, fossil fuel production and use, and luxury transportation or products.

Obstacles:Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City Policy and the Hyde Amendment disallow funding for agencies that also support abortion. The U.S. has condemned more family planning NGO’s than it supported. Obama and some Congressmen want to overturn these, but spending restraints are also killing Congressional support family planning.

Six Republican candidates in the 2011 Presidential Primary had a total of 34 children (not counting Michele Bachmann’s 23 foster kids). Family planning does not appear to be their highest priority.

The political climate?

Positive side:A 2013 Los Angeles Times article said, nearly two-thirds of American voters believe human population growth is driving other species to extinction and, if the situation worsens, society has a moral obligation to fix the problem.” 50% of those surveyed think the world’s population is growing too fast. The Pope’s new advisor agrees.