Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 29, 1993 TAG: 9310150362
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KERMIT W. SALYER JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Statistics can be manipulated, of course, to demonstate any viewpoint, even those which are diametrically opposed. But these statistics, when used by someone with wide readership to divert attention from a real and present danger, become a danger in and of themselves.
I refer to David Osterfeld's Sept. 14 commentary, "Earth isn't over- populated."
Perhaps Osterfeld's myopic viewpoint stems from the rose-colored glasses afforded those who, by chance, live and work in the "developed" world.
Before readers of Osterfeld's commentary breathe a collective sigh of relief from the "averted" population explosion, they would do well to take a closer look at the evidence presented.
Could it be we "are fed a barrage of stories" on the coming apocalypse by the few who can see beyond this week's headlines (health-care reform, drugs, next year's model, who had whose baby) and can actually know of - or feel - this unheralded, writhing mass of flesh breathing ever harder down our necks?
Osterfeld takes aim at Thomas Malthus and his empirically weak but elegant theory that population increases geometrically, while food production increases arithmetically. The net result: Population expands to a subsistence level equal to the production of food.
The "catastrophists," of whom Malthus is characterized as one, are said to have never stopped long enough to realize their predictions have not come true. Up until now, the predictions haven't. There has never been a total world population of 6 billion people having a doubling rate of only 30 years.
The sole reason for this theory's weakness is that, until now, the values for the most important variables for the actual test case had not been reached. Among these are the large world population, high growth rate in the "developing" countries and arable acreage, now at a maximum.
As an example of where these explosions will occur, take a look at sub- Saharan Africa. More than half of the population in this region is under the age of 15. This is because developing countries have no form of social security, other than to have as many children as possible so that some will survive to care for their parents in their later years. And what system will be in place when this younger half begins to assume its parental "right"?
And when the population of Mexico City doubles to 40 million over the coming decades, in a city which has not the infrastructure to handle its present population of 20 million, many will decide it's time to get out. Already an arid land, shifting climatic belts could make the entire country a true desert. Where do you think they will go?
Osterfeld is correct when he says the history of agriculture is a history of increasing yields per acre; food production has outpaced population growth since data began to be collected in the late '40s. But these were the years of the green revolution, when scientists dug in their heels, weeded out the worst and bred in the best characteristics of the same crops that have been in use since the beginning of agriculture.
The world's ministers of agriculture are still looking to science for methods of getting ever-higher yields per acre. However, science has just about reached its limit, with only fractional improvements ahead, and no new revolution on the horizon.
Food production was also increased through history by opening up new lands, including marginal lands, a fact not mentioned by Osterfeld, and there is no more of this available, unless we see the rape of the tropical rain forest as an increase. For the few years of productivity gained from such land - which later becomes unarable wasteland - this is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization has said 10 percent of the world's arable land will lose its value as cropland in the next 20 years due to overgrazing, deforestation and bad management, and this leads to erosion. With what will this land be replaced?
And since 1987, world fisheries production has declined by 7 percent; this, as technology has improved and fishermen have increased to keep up with demand. There may no longer be more fish in the sea.
Osterfeld is also correct in his statement that, while population has increased sixfold in the past 200 years, productivity has increased eightyfold. But of what does this productivity consist? Part is wages and another part is the ever-increasing service industry.
But what remains? A new car every three years; aluminum foil; cheap, subsidized oil to make ice cubes; lava lamps; disposable lighters, razors, everything? And what will you give up over the next generation to bring 5 billion extra souls up to a reasonable standard of living? Where will the Bangladeshi find the wood to keep their heads above the waters as their country washes out into the sea?
But to be fair, this is not all Osterfeld's fault. Pope John Paul II, the greatest living mind of the 15th century, recently reiterated most vehemently the 1966 Papal Encyclical which confirmed contraception as a sin. In 50 or 100 years, which will be the bigger sin: killing your fellow man because he threatens your food supply or because he looks like he would make a good roast?
And finally, let's not forget the recent scientific evidence that climate changes are not slow and easy but hard and fast. Man has come to this technological level during one of the most unusually stable climatic periods ever recorded. What may be prime farmland today may be desert tomorrow.
We are but tenants of this world, and the landlord has been away far too long. Mankind may make it through the bottleneck ahead; maybe not. But the only way to avoid the coming Dark Age is for all the governments and peoples of the world to realize that zero population growth is the requisite objective that must be met if civilization as we know it is to survive.
One can only hope that Osterfeld survives to be in the front lines of the coming resource wars, frenetically waving his arms and saying "this is only your imagination" just before he is crushed to a pulp under the heels of the hungry, homeless, wandering hordes.
\ Kermit W. Salyer Jr. of Roanoke is on the staff at Virginia Western Community College's library.
by CNB