Ponder for more than a moment any one of our current global predicaments, and you might well come to the conclusion that there are simply too many people on this planet, that over- copulation of the humans is one of the great causes of pollution, disease, turmoil and extinction of species.
And though we’ve caused an egregious amount of the above while ducking the latter (so far), this is indeed the cauldron within which we find ourselves a-boil.
Is there such a thing as too many people on the planet? Is there a limit, a carrying capacity, an ideal balanced number of humans that the biota can handle? How would we ever know?
Famine would be one reliable indicator, although we like to substitute the phrase “world hunger” to mean lots of starving people. But starving people happen because of drought and diabolical politics, right? And those who have more than enough food ought to send relief aid to those who are starving, should we not? Wouldn’t that at least do something to help solve the problem of starvation in the world?
Compassionate as it is laudable, nevertheless, all this type of thinking is devoid of ecological common-sense, lacking an understanding of how biological demographics play out on the planet. This one and only.
First of all, hunger is not a problem, it’s part of the human and animal condition. All life has a hunger to grow and live, so what is the problem? Every day, we all wake up hungry.
Every species on the planet can only grow its population as big as its food supply. In fact, availability of food is one of the things that caps any given population at its upper limit. When the rabbits find a meadow with no rabbits, they will eat and make more rabbits, until… yes, until the meadow shrinks. Meanwhile, the wolf population grows up because their food supply increased, too, which adds to the pressure on the rabbits. Who seek out new meadows…
And so it goes; hunger, fulfillment, starvation or predation, the very parameters of all earthly existence. And we modern humans are no different, ‘twas ever thus.
But since the so-called green revolution of hybrid plants and chemical fertilizers, all we’ve had for a few generations is a food supply made directly possible by cheap fossil fuels. Our calories are simply made of oil, our soil fertility is provided by oil, and when oil is no longer cheap and available (politically or geologically), neither shall be our food.
It’s not that there are too many people on the planet and not enough food. It’s more that there was too much food for too many people to have happened in the first place. Too much fake fertility, industrial nitrogen, blown-out soils, and pumped-out water tables. The only reason there are so many people on this planet is because somehow we all got something to eat. Until we don’t. Why is this in any way shocking?
For agricultural humans (everybody, now) a population explosion can only follow a soil-fertility explosion, and like any explosion, leaves a mess in its crater. A food supply founded on non-industrial fertility – animal manures and legumes – depends on plant and animal life cycles, a rather slow process. Far too many of us depend on this happening industrially, much faster than it can ever possibly occur naturally.
The human beings moved into a meadow called fossil-fueled-food-supply, and we tore it up and had a great party. And now as oil and natural gas and diesel run out their inevitable declines, so shall various flocks of humans, noses deep in the Astroturf, also look up to attend their own demise.
Yet despite our toxic assaults on our home soils, they can still be revitalized with what used to be common human care. We only need to revise our sustenance software, upgrade our life-support strategies, and reboot our asses into something that can endure beyond the driveway. ModAg version 20.12
Grasping our roles in the ecological drama of starvation and predation is essential to playing them well in any epoch, but especially this post-petroleum one. Not because we’re any different, but because our thinking has become so estranged from the simple interactive mechanics of life on Earth. Those who can figure out a food supply that is not off the truck, will be the ones who have a chance at continuing to play the earthbound game of life.
Human beings are not exempt from the miracle of life seeking balance, and we get no free lunch passes from the world itself. Which is to say that modern humans everywhere will somehow experience the contracting and constricting of their food supplies. Food safety, food variety, and food availability will all begin to waver and wobble before they crumble.
Where do you think we are right now along this relentless trajectory of the available food supply in our time?
The primacy of food supply in the affairs of humans is about to reassert its immediate priority within the lives of all of us today.
And modern humans aren’t the exception.
We’re the example.
Tags: food supply, population, resource depletion