Green Elephant

If we want to understand how to help solve (or at least mitigate) our global “ecodestruction” problem, we need to know a teensy bit of ecology.   The incredible thing is that there is one simple equation that gives us the big picture.  Fabulous!

We call this gorgeous thing IPAT:

Impact = Population x Affluence  x Technology

So, seriously, you are supposed to be impressed by an ecology equation, of all things?  Yes!  Because it tells us there are only THREE things we can do to lessen our eco-impact:

1. Shrink our population
2. Consume less stuff
3. Find tech solutions to minimize the impact of our consumption

With the problem now described so elegantly in these three little terms, we have to face facts.   Just three of them, but it ain’t going to be easy…   The only way to shrink our population is to decrease our net reproduction.  Deaths – Births = Net reproduction.

So, let’s recap: more of us need to die, or fewer children need to be born?  Holy crap (or feces, if you prefer).

This is not a nice fact, but fact it is.  Obviously, I am not advocating taking anyone out, but when I see Jon and Kate Plus 8 and the Octomom and all the other reality-show “baby machines”, I do have to scream a little, on the inside…

The simple truth is that we live on a finite ball of rock we call Earth, but our population just keeps growing and growing.  This is an untenable situation…

Since our home is NOT growing, we’ve got what we’ve got, resource-wise.  [I can just imagine some Exxon geochemist's head exploding as they read this.]  So, how many of us can the Earth really support for the long haul (this is called carrying capacity)?

If you find this topic disturbing, you are not alone: even ecologists don’t like to discuss it.  In fact, if you ever wanted to clear a roomful of ecologists really fast, you could just yell “What is the carrying capacity of Earth for Homo sapiens?”  Voila!  You’ve got the room (and maybe an open bar, if you’re lucky) to yourself.

No one likes the idea that there is a carrying capacity of Earth for humans.  I looked and looked for information about this when I was in grad school, and could not find anything solid.  So, I did a rough calculation of of it myself (yes, I am a science geek…) and came up with this scary result: 1.5 to 15 billion.  And then one of my profs (thanks, Dr, Pilson!) said there was no way the number could be more than around 10 billion.

Is that you I hear gasping, gentle reader?…a perfectly sensible reaction: this *is* scary.  There are almost 7 billion of us already, up from 6 billion in 1999.  http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

The newest models for population growth project that we will grow to around 9 billion in ~2050, and then decrease from there.  Yay!  Time to heave a sigh of relief, right?

Wrong… population decrease means lots of people will be dying from lack of resources, since the models cannot possibly assume we will stop wanting to have babies.  We like having babies.  (Or do we mainly like having sex?… hmm… great topic for another time.)

So, what can we do?  Well, we can either tackle this population problem now, with only 7 billion of us to convince to voluntarily limit our reproduction, or…

[drumroll, please]

We take what’s behind door #2:  9 billion of us at war for a dwindling pool of resources, being killed off in frightening numbers by each other and a planet that cannot support all of us.

While bacteria always go with option #2, I think we might be able to do a little better than that, don’t you?