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Humans still face looming challenges

May 27 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson, a woman of distinction who is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and brave scientists in modern history.
Some people have called Carson the mother of the contemporary environmental movement. She could rightly be compared to other great 20th-century women like Rosa Parks, the mother of the racial equality movement, or to Maria Montessori, a mother to teachers of children.

If, as Carson and so many other great scientists have courageously held forth, human beings evolved on Earth (did not descend from heaven or come here from some other place in the universe) and the emerging data of the environmental destruction of the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit are somehow on the right track, then humanity could soon confront daunting global challenges.

Scientific research from Chapel Hill’s very own Russell P. Hopfenberg indicates population scientists, demographers and economists in our time could be widely sharing and consensually validating inadequate understandings of the way the world in which we live works. By so doing, they appear to have failed to appreciate and communicate to the human community the necessity for regulating certain global human “overgrowth” activities. That is to say, humanity could soon be presented with an unacknowledged, unannounced and abhorrent predicament produced by increasing and unchecked per capita consumption of limited resources, seemingly endless expansion of production capabilities in a finite world, and unbridled species propagation.

Perhaps these unrestrained activities are occurring synergistically at a scale and growth rate that result in the needless loss of wildlife and wilderness, the reckless consumption of scarce resources, and the pernicious destabilization of the global ecosystems.

Huge and leviathan-like are the potential threats posed to humanity by certain unregulated, distinctly human consumption, production and propagation activities now overspreading our planetary home. Even so, we can take the measure of whatsoever the looming global challenges and find solutions to our problems that are consonant with universally shared values. — Steve Salmony, Chapel Hill

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/155/story/7278.html

Please go forward with what you are doing and hoping to do.

Both of you and everyone else who is willing to focus on the scientific evidence from Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel are invited to become involved in the discussion now.

If these two great scientists are not on a research track that is somehow sound; if their work is not an example of good science, then I would like to be among the first to know of the flaws in what looks like elegant science to me.

Please be assured that at the moment when the evidence from Hopfenberg and Pimentel is refuted, you will not hear me speak of their research again.

Sincerely,

Steve

Because their evidence is difficult to refute, SILENCE appears to have overtaken the scientific community.

Well this has perked my interest now. I have little doubt some tough questions will be put to Russ here (I’ve got a few percolating myself, and really can’t form a position on the work until I understand their answers.), but it would certainly be nice to see critiques from scientists working directly in fields relevant to population.

Jason C. Bradford came up in our other comments, I googled him and found that he’s a Biologist, taxonomist, and ecologist. So his endorsement of the Hopfenberg Pimentel work is meaningful.

But if there really haven’t been any serious critiques in the professional literature, that is indeed frustrating. This may prompt me to email a few people in the next two weeks to see if they have anything — even informally — to say about it.

I say you’re both right about the human species. I see Magne’s comments as the kind of thing we need to consider to wake us up, to recognize the kind of mess we’re in and the damage being done. I see Steve’s comments as an affirmation of hope, of human capabilities and the human spirit, if you will. Seems to me we need the first to appreciate the gravity of the problem, and the second to have any decent chance of tackling it successfully. Bravo to you both.

Please, please understand me now when I report that the human species IS NOT like a parasite. No way. The human species is splendid and constituted with many wondrous attributes that ready us to adequately respond to the practical requirements of reality of the natural world: requirements made known to us through the goodness of science, thanks to God.

There is nothing whatever that I can see to keep us from accepting, addressing and overcoming any of the global challenges presented to us. Because the predicament before us results from distinctly HUMAN influences, I suppose we can work together to take the measure of the problems presented in these early years of Century XXI and to make necessary adjustments in our behavior.

Do not be afraid.

As ever,

Steve

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Huh, that’s one extremely good post, Steve. I’m with you: it’s har to accept the silence with which new truths about the population dilemma is received. But I do believe I know exactly why this is so. This is, and remains, a taboo topic of sorts, and that’s the problem. Reproduction … hey, talking about God …

As it is (oh, I hate to say this): we can actually talk about humankind as a paracitic species, quite able to ovverwhelm the Earth by shear numbers. – Be afraid.

Very descriptive, indeed.

:-/

Please consider that the “demographic transition theory” is DESCRIPTIVE and, as we know and UN scientists are quick to point out, NOT PREDICTIVE. The UN Population Division provides PROJECTIONS. Ok.

Next, let us also share an understanding that the DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION THEORY is based in preternatural thought and not sufficiently grounded in scientific evidence.

The predictive scientific evidence regarding the population dynamics of the human species comes to us, unexpectedly, from Hopfenberg and Pimentel. Because their evidence is difficult to refute, SILENCE appears to have overtaken the scientific community.

Although mostly unacknowledged and widely unaccepted because demographers and population scientists can neither believe nor rebut the research by Hopfenberg and Pimentel, I suppose, we find that our colleagues are adopting different approaches to the apparently unforeseen research. Among the ways the Hopfenberg and Pimentel evidence is being presently denied by so many of our colleagues in the scientific community, we can take notice of the head-in-the-sand approach, willful blindness, hysterical deafness and elective mutism.

Just for a moment, consider that the growth of absolute global human population numbers will NOT stabilize in the middle of this century as virtually all of the UN projections indicate. Imagine that the numbers of the human species on Earth will continue skyrocketing upward just as they have been doing for the past several hundred years. Thanks to Hopfenberg and Pimentel, we now have scientific evidence that indicates with remarkable clarity that human population dynamics are common to, not different from, the population dynamics of other species. It is that simple.

At least to me, the unwelcome scientific evidence from Hopfenberg and Pimentel appears to indicate that the human population worldwide will NOT somehow magically or automatically stabilize around 2050, if, and I add, IF humankind decides to keep propagating the species as it has been and continues to do to this very day. As many scientists have already recognized and reported, humanity is called upon to accept limits to the presently unchecked growth rate of certain of its activities: that is, the human production, consumption and propagation activities that are rampantly overspreading the surface of Earth.

If the research by Hopfenberg and Pimentel is found to be on a track that one day will be recognized and widely accepted as somehow correct, then humanity would be well-advised to change immediately certain of its behaviors. That is to say, we could choose to carefully and humanely REGULATE the currently unbridled growth of the human species worldwide; to sensibly CONTROL the present unrestrained rise of per capita consumption of limited resources; and to democratically GOVERN the seemingly endless expansion of economic globalization on the small, finite planet God has blessed us to inhabit.

Thanks always,

Steve

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World_threatened_by_terror_climate_change_Study/articleshow/1890028.cms

Quote: “”There is a clear and present danger. An increasingly marginalised majority are living in an environmentally constrained world, where military force is more likely to be used to control the consequences of these dangerous divisions,” wrote lead author Chris Abbott.

“Add to this the disastrous effects of climate change, and we are looking at a highly unstable global system by the middle years of the century unless urgent action is taken now.”

The [Oxford Research Group] said its report, ‘Beyond Terror: The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World’, was its most outspoken so far.”

I heard a fascinating interview on NPR (a national public radio provider in the USA — we do have them) . See the guy’s blog: http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

It has to do with an experiment in living sustainably in the center of one of the largest urban environments in the world: Manhattan, NYC.

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Hmmmmm?

Me writing a little faster than the speed of my thoughts.

I’m not trying to say that people should not be allowed to release themselves from the poverty trap. I mean: I’ve lived in an African slum area, and know very well what that’s all about.

What I am trying to say is that the affluent few might have something to learn from the poorest of the poor, in terms of making do and getting by on a much lower consumption scale than what is common in the western world.

Heh! – But again: I’m a stupid, stupid … ape …

Like you lamented in a comment to a previous post: “… how is that not homicide?” ”

There it is. As long as there are people making a lot of money (and who therefore have a lot of power) under the status quo, there will be powerful resistance to anything which threatens it. They may be amenable to alternatives if they see them as highly profitable, but that idea doesn’t seem to be working terribly well so far for those greens trying to sell the corporate world on the profits to be made fighting climate change.

It’s late and I’m tired, but my blurred thinking right now tells me we’ll either have to see massive movements of common folk demanding change or those few in power who actually see the big picture ( I think there must be a few, mustn’t there?) and actually have some compassion will have to pull their colleagues along somehow, undoubtedly kicking and screaming. Otherwise we watch ‘em stand at the border and shoot. ;-/

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Good question! – - And as I realize that there is hardly any real reason to hope for a future of more cooperation, at the expence of the present era of competition – which easily can only lead to enmity amongst ourselves, violent crime and control measures, suspicion, fear, suffering and despair, war, more war, and the introduction of even more strict forms of control … hell, I really don’t know how to respond …

As I see it (but hey: I’m a humanist, a moron, do not worry about my ideas!), we’re in a terrible position here, of worldwide ecological stress; an historical phase which really (really!) leaves us with no other option than to start to co-operate, in ways that we’ve never even thought of, ever before. – Which doesn’t mean that perpetual war isn’t an option. No no no, of course not.

Hmmmmm? Come to think about the expected growth in climate refugees. What’s the servants of the military-industrial complex going to do? – - Stand at the border and shoot, I guess.

Only kidding. ;-/