Infinite Growth

Mr. Nice Guy · Dec 23, 2013

It's crazy that we are aware of our impending demise....and yet do nothing about it.

Great video. Simple and to the point.

StillHustlin · Dec 24, 2013

I haven't watched the video yet, I will, but overpopulation is a myth. Claims of overpopulation exist because the manmade infrastructures are only maintained, they are not constructed until needed or after the fact. For the current world's population, there is approx. 5 acres of habitable land per person, but since our world does not work that way, the land is not divided up as such. I will watch the video before AI say anything else about the issue. Thanks for sharing.

Mr. Nice Guy · Dec 24, 2013

StillHustlin said:

It's interesting you say that because towards the end of his video, the narrator's point is that to "us" within the system it will appear as if we are nowhere near reaching a point of overpopulation when in actuality we are in fact extremely close.

It is surprising to me that so many people think overpopulation is a myth. I am curious to hear more why you believe it to be a myth.

5 acres of land is an extremely small amount considering that would sustain 1-2 cows at capacity.

StillHustlin · Dec 24, 2013

Mr. Nice Guy said:

Ahh, the key to what was just said was "within the system." As I said previously, the system's infrastructure is poorly planned. The system(s) is/are set up to contain and maintain, not preserve and sustain. When I look within the system, I see the opposite of what the narrator states looking within the system(s), I see a so called overpopulation. This is solely based on a misuse and selfishness of resource, as well as the fact that man is not creating everything out of necessity, most of what man creates is non-essential and that is what is leading to our demise. It is not too late for man to correct this path, but since selfish man has proven to continue systematic destruction and consumption of resource, it is not likely outside of a catastrophic worldwide event that it will change proactively. Unfortunately, man is a reactive animal still.

It is when I look outside of the system(s) I see that the overpopulation term is another term of mass control.

It can also be said that self-sufficient people do not share the problems of the system, if they are not reliant upon it (yes these people are few and far between as the globalists love to take over these types of people and their lands).

Mr. Nice Guy · Dec 24, 2013

StillHustlin said:

The way I read what you just wrote, it sounds much more like you are agreeing with the video than disagreeing with it because you and the video both seem the agree that our current social models have a us on a trajectory that will ultimately implode; and both of you seem to agree that we need to do something to change that trajectory.

The only thing you seem to be disagreeing with is our proximity to the overpopulation tipping point.

StillHustlin · Dec 25, 2013

Mr. Nice Guy said:

Video watched. To me it sounds like he is saying population is the problem. Population is not the problem and never has to be, use and misuse of finite resource is. I never asked for millions of golf courses to be watered, or hundreds of sports arenas to be built, or water to be sold to foreign and domestic corporations to be resold to consumers or used in manufacturing of unnecessary materialism, I could go on and on. Yes, something needs to be done, however, the focus needs to be put on the actual problem in order to commit to actual and accurate resolve. Blaming population sounds more like an elitist stance, considering the elitists are the ones who control the multinational corporations, market consumerism, create and control our social and economic systems, and will never offer to depopulate themselves outside of an elysium type architecture. I in no way claim I am more intelligent or have more life experience than Mr. Suzuki, but I believe he is targeting the wrong part of the equation.

ThaG · Dec 26, 2013

StillHustlin said:

Civilizations (and more local cultures) have collapsed due to overshooting the carrying capacity of their environment many many times in human history. We have observed the process with a number of species of other animals that were in situations in which they were left without the natural checks on their numbers. We observe that effect every day in the lab if we don't provide fresh media to yeast, bacteria, or whatever one happens to be growing. All of those cases of human overshoot and collapse involved people living orders of magnitude less resource-intensive lifestyles. The resource requirements of yeast in culture are pretty much constant.

The examples of Malthusian crises we have observed in our lifetimes have all been in places where they live subsistence-level lifestyles - they don't have golf courses in Somalia, Rwanda or Niger.

There are two things to remember here:

1. The I = PAT equations. Yes, there are A and T terms there but there is also P - increase P sufficiently while keeping A and T at low levels and you still overshoot

2. Liebig's law of the minimum, which states that the limiting factor to growth is the essential one that is in lowest abundance relative to the requirements. In other words, if you require 100 different resources and you have unlimited quantities of 99 of them but one is in very limited supply, you're still screwed.

StillHustlin · Dec 26, 2013

ThaG said:

There are many counterarguments to both 1 & 2. Rwanda and Somalia have both had a golf course, but that is irrelevant to my point. Finite resources are wasted and misused throughout the world, not just in the United States. One thing that changed Africa as a whole was when man manipulated the rivers and waters of Africa, altering their natural paths and flows. This is a much more complex discussion than 5 minute responses on a message board.

At the end of the day, there is plenty of fact out there that can debunk the overpopulation myth, at the end of the day people will choose a side and run with it. Personally I look at overpopulation as a xenophobic aristocratic term, considering it was created by a certain minority group of white people and white people represent a minority in the population of the world.

ThaG · Dec 26, 2013

That overpopulation is possible follows directly from the most basic laws of physics - laws of conservation of energy and matter, laws of thermodynamics (especially the second one)

That overpopulation is a problem here and now (as opposed to some abstract moment in the distant future) follows from a large body of research in ecology (including that of human) and observations on the state of the ecosystems of the planet, the status of depletion of nonrenewable resources, and many other areas. This has nothing to do with politics

StillHustlin · Dec 26, 2013

ThaG said:

It has EVERYTHING to do with politics. The status of depletion of nonrenewable sources is not due to population, it is due to profit from resource selfish mismanagement manipulation and misuse of those resources, as previously explained. If you can't see that then you are in denial. The computer you are using to type and submit your statements is not a necessity, yet it was created by wasting finite resources, some of those resources were actually extracted directly from Africa (I know this because I previously worked for a corporation that purifies various gases for technology manufacturing and has an enormous facility in Africa where they are stealing said resources, though it is not considered theft because they are a corporation), without providing or giving anything back to the indigenous population of the continent.

Where do you live?

ThaG · Dec 26, 2013

Again, the I = PAT equation has three terms in the right-hand side.

There is a difference between 1 million people using computers and 3 billion people doing it

ELPOLLITO · Dec 26, 2013

StillHustlin · Dec 26, 2013

ThaG said:

Yes, I understand the equation. Yes there is a difference between 1 million vs 3 billion. Technology companies business model is to get their products in every hand. That is likely more than 7 billion people, with an expected growth nearing ~15 billion (could be off here, don't have time to look projection up right now) over the next 15 years or so. Their plan is not to get their products in 7 billion people's hand 1 time. A corporation needs to turn a profit every year. They manufacture devices 24/7/365, every year. They want a consumer to be a repeat consumer, which is why they have made sure the life span of these devices is short. Every time the corporations manufacture devices, they use up part of that finite resource pool. There is nothing being done about this. You are blaming babies being born for the way corporations are allowed to conduct business in a sense. Take away corporate personhood and restrict, tax and regulate manufacturers appropriately, and things will be much different. Everyday people are not the controllers of the resources.

The overpopulation agenda was created as a scare tactic, I know you don't believe it, but that is what those of us on the other side of the coin know it to be.

BTW I am not asking for your street address, where do you live - what country?
lol

Mr. Nice Guy · Dec 30, 2013

StillHustlin said:

Having said all that, and agreeing that the misuse of finite resources has no end in sight, how is this not a problem? Whether you call the problem overpopulation or resource consumption, it seems to be two different names for the same thing and indisputable fact that whatever you want to label it; we have problem.

Humans are "programmed" to reproduce and consume; the reality is we most most likely fucked whatever we try to do so solve the problem.

Mr. Nice Guy · Dec 31, 2013

In light of this discussion I had to laugh (not in a good way) after the US Census data was released on Monday.

I saw 2 or 3 different articles about the data, and all of them were using negative tones to describe the "lag in population growth". Words like weak, modest, even disappointment.

In this day when almost everything is split down party lines, is population growth the only thing that is bringing us together and garnering bi-partisan supports in politics? Wtf

ThaG · Dec 31, 2013

The desirability of economic growth is universally agreed upon too

Mr. Nice Guy · Jan 7, 2014

This is an old article (2008) but it reminded me of

@StillHustlin 's point (resource mismanagement).

At the same time, it also reminded me that the rest of the world is trying to live the American Lifestyle (oversimplification noted) which means we are moving further and further away from responsible resource management and sustainability.

A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil.

It’s meat.

The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.

What can be done? There’s no simple answer. Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the nonprofit International Food Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat.”

Then there’s technology. Israel and Korea are among the countries experimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some of the biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with some success, to turn manure into fuel.

Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of “meat without feet” — meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks.

Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s because grazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do. Still, said Michael Pollan, author of the recent book “In Defense of Food,” “In places where you can’t grow grain, fattening cows on grass is always going to make more sense.”

But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.

Mr. Nice Guy · Jan 7, 2014

Part 2/2

Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)

These problems originated here, but are no longer limited to the United States. While the domestic demand for meat has leveled off, the industrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fast as land-based methods, according to the United Nations.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

Real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, perhaps even decreased, for 40 years or more (in part because of grain subsidies), though we’re beginning to see them increase now. But many experts, including Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, say they don’t believe meat prices will rise high enough to affect demand in the United States.

“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees “a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption — one like that around cigarettes — emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”

It wouldn’t surprise Professor Eshel if all of this had a real impact. “The good of people’s bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” made a similar point: “There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled. Both demands are exerted by the same group of people ... the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. ... This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases.”

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

Infinite Growth

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