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28th December 2007 | Draft
Challenge of Nonviolent Population DecimationReducing effects of overpopulation on resources
and climate change
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| Can the ecohackers save us? (Danny Bradbury, The Guardian, 29 May 2008) |
One of the biggest worries... is that such tinkering could produce complicated outcomes. For example, spraying sulphur into the atmosphere might reduce the sunlight by 2%... but what will it do to the rain? ... Some would-be ecohackers... may have been over-optimistic, but most of today's geoengineers are more cautious in their studies...[and]... would be horrified if we did this for any reason other than as a last resort.... The potential side-effects of geoengineering and the cost of doing it in space would be inhibitors to doing this unless we felt desperate, The simplest thing is to stop putting in the gases that cause the warming... When it comes to preventing the conditions that might make governments take geoengineering projects seriously, we all have our hands on the climate dial. |
Since these proposed remedies by distinguished scientists are a response to a symptom rather than a cause it would appear that there is also a case for radical thinking regarding overpopulation and the consequences of population overshoot in relation to resources. None of the above solutions addresses the fact that continuing exponential growth in population will rapidly undermine any such short-term remedies to global warming. They are in fact conceptually ill-founded from a systems perspective -- as first demonstrated by the Limits to Growth study in 1972. Ironically, given the root of the population issue, such climate change remedies are well-caricatured as a "fig-leaf" to avoid recognition of the underlying issue -- a dubious "cover-up".
As asystemic remedies, initiatives to reduce global warming can be justifiably recognized as intellectually dishonest and irresponsible in the face of planetary emergency. Any "silver bullet" response may then be credibly proposed from that mindset -- provided it does not address the issue of overpopulation.
As dubious forms of "value exchange", global carbon trading and carbon offsetting initiatives may well come to be judged by history as systemically analogous to the medieval sale of papal indulgences which were the subject of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences (1517) -- considered to be the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. This comparison regarding "sins of emission" has already been strongly made (Carbon Offsets, Economist, 3 August 2006; George Monbiot, Selling Indulgences, Guardian, 18th October 2006; Carbon Trade Watch, The Carbon Neutral Myth: offset indulgences for your climate sins, 2007; Saul Gomez, Offsets: the indulgences of today? Policy Innovations, August 24, 2007). The comparison is discussed separately (Global Market in Indulgences: extending the carbon trading model to other value-based challenges, 2007).
Clearly it is an environmental analogue to the "protestant reformation" which is to be anticipated -- although lessons will hopefully be learnt from its failures. The policy mindset from which the strategy has currently arisen could promote application of the model to other forms of "sin", including criminality, violence, and the like -- and may well be seen to have effectively done so already in the case of human rights abuses.
It is curious, if not symptomatic, that most of the technological fixes should emanate from the country widely recognized to be least prepared to constrain the exploitation of resources associated with its lifestyle. Curiously also, in the light of the painful difficulties in establishing any consensus on the Kyoto Protocol, the purportedly "scientific" proposals fail to address the issues of the political consequences of a technocratic group of nations undertaking such geoengineering unilaterally without seeking the consensus of other nations of the world.
As argued by Gregory Benford, professor of physics at the University of California with respect to the "suspension of tiny, micronized harmless particles" in the stratosphere, this could take place "outside national boundaries":
High-altitude trials over the open ocean are little constrained by law or treaty, so show-stopper politics may br avoided. These first stages will be scientific experiments, not vast engineering projects... As economist Robert Samuelson recently said, 'The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade whenn it is really anengineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we dont't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless'. (Save the Arctic -- Now, 2007).
As reported in a helpful summary of the above initiatives by Pat Mooney (Global Warming: The Quick Fix Is In, Foreign Policy In Focus, February 20, 2007), the US government has been lobbying the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in support of such geoengineering options. Experimentation by governments and corporations, notably on weather modification, has long taken place in the absence of public discussion. As Mooney notes, the political and ethical dimensions of such climate modification are huge.
Seemingly with little recognition of the unpredictable consequences of the introduction of species (to which Australia is so sensitive, with reason), Alun Anderson, former editor-in-chief of New Scientist, advocates a genetic engineering approach to the energy challenge of global warming, namely "reprogramming the genetic makeup of simple organisms so that they directly produce usable fuels -- hydrogen, for example" (The Sunlight-Powered Future, 2007). The technological fixes proposed within the current techno-optimisitic mindset take no account of disastrous consequences, considered to be of "low probability", that may be associated with them -- as so ably documented by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan Effect: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007).
With healthy frankness, Ross Gelbspan (Beyond the Point of No Return, Grist, 11 December 2007) remarks:
Perhaps such frankness is to be considered a characteristic of the "protestant reformation" -- a "naturist" response to the "cover-up"?As the pace of global warming kicks into overdrive, the hollow optimism of climate activists, along with the desperate responses of some of the world's most prominent climate scientists, is preventing us from focusing on the survival requirements of the human enterprise.
The environmental establishment continues to peddle the notion that we can solve the climate problem. We can't.
We have failed to meet nature's deadline. In the next few years, this world will experience progressively more ominous and destabilizing changes. These will happen either incrementally -- or in sudden, abrupt jumps.
The rate of global warming is now recognized to be directly related to the activity of a human population of increasing size. Other increasing resource-related challenges are also associated with the size of the human population.
It is widely assumed -- to the point of avoiding debate on the matter -- that population growth cannot be restrained in any significant manner. The possibility is considered fundamentally unacceptable according to current political norms and values -- to the extent that the possibility is even raised. The role of religions in avoiding any significant form of global family planning strategy is discussed elsewhere (Root Irresponsibility for Major World Problems: the unexamined role of Abrahamic faiths in sustaining unrestrained population growth, 2007). The point is notably made there that from a systemic perspective the current appeals for urgent "action now" on climate change are usefully to be understood as a "fig-leaf" designed to cover up the challenging underlying issue of population overshoot.
The language used in denying the implications of population even has a freudian quality, as illustrated in the argument of Gregory Benford (2007): "The main thrust is to carefully use our ability to attack warming at its roots -- incoming sunlight now, carbon dioxide later". There is even ill-considered enthusiasm for increasing human lifespans, despite the existing challenge to social security safety nets for the elderly (Leo M Chalupa, We Will Lead Healthy and Productive Lives Well Past our Tenth Decade, 2007; Marvin Minsky, New Prospects of Immortality, 2007).
Clearly any deliberate effort to reduce the population by mass termination (or even voluntary euthanasia) is unacceptable, although the "inadvertent" reduction of population numbers as a consequence of natural disasters, epidemics and war may well be seen as having some "positive" consequences -- however much the suffering is to be regretted (as in the case of the so-called Great Famine in the Ukraine, 1932-33).
Much emphasis is placed on arguments that appropriate economic development would lead to a natural reduction in fertility rates. This argument would seem to be inadequate in the face of the rapid increase in world population in past decades accompanied by only a very partial reduction in the level of world poverty -- and with little prospect of any future reduction impacting significantly on issues of population overshoot. Faced with probable demands on resources, the optimism of some is unbounded, as for the science editor of The Economist, Geoffrey Carr (Malthus was Wrong, 2007) :
However, it is impossible to argue with the facts, and the facts are that the rate of population increase is dropping and that the drop is correlated with increases in pesonal economic well-being.... None of this means that the eventual human population of say, 10 billion, will be easy for the planet to support. But such support will not be impossible, particularly since economic growth in rich countries is less demanding of natural resources for each additional unit of output than is the case for growth in poor countries.
In the spirit of thinking "voluminously" (From Lateral Thinking to Voluminous Thinking, 2007), it is appropriate to recognize that many of the problems caused by so-called "overpopulation" are primarily due not to the ever increasing absolute number of people but rather to the ever increasing total volume of people. The latter is to be understood in terms of size or body mass of the human population as a whole. The issue discussed here is not primarily one of individual obesity, as evaluated by the body mass index, but rather in terms of the total mass of humans and the resources required to sustain it.
A radical possibility that merits some consideration is therefore one in which the total volume (or mass) of humans is reduced within a foreseeable period of years -- commensurate with the predicted impact of the consequences of unrestrained population growth. Given the above constraint, a basic design requirement for any viable remedy is one that does not constrain fertility rates nor accelerate mortality rates.
It is therefore proposed that consideration be given to reducing radically the average size of human beings through administration of growth inhibitors or retardants.
The biochemical products for growth acceleration of both plants and animals have long been studied and marketed. In the case of animals consumed by humans, growth hormones are a common product used to increase farm productivity -- and contribute directly to the increase in human body mass (cf Causes of Obesity: Animal Growth Hormones). Growth hormones are available to enhance human growth, especially if this is inhibited by some inherited genetic condition.
It is therefore clearly possible to develop growth inhibitors, as used in growth hormone deficiency treatment, to reduce the average size of an adult human. This can be achieved over one or two generations -- within the time predicted for the full problematic impact of some of the resource-related problems, including climate change.
| Average human height as a measure of wellness of individuals and as a measure of the degree of threat to the planet |
| Human height and growth have long been recognized as a measure of the health and wellness of individuals. Average height is increasingly used as a measure of the health and wellness (standard of living and quality of life) of populations. However this narrow focus takes no account of the progressively increasing impact on restricted environmental resources associated with such growth in height. Average height increase is therefore a measure of the damage of populations to the environment. Would ever taller people make for both ever increasing wellness and for an environment of ever improving quality? |
Family planning: The recommendation avoids the problematic issues relating to family planning and the constraints of religious injunctions to "go forth and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) -- providing that such injunctions are not interpreted as applying in terms of increasing the number of cells affecting individual size (cf Begetting: challenges and responsibilities of overpopulation, 2007). Theologically it might therefore be considered as a creative reconciliation of multiplication and division.
Right to life: The proposal avoids the fundamental concerns of the "right to life" advocates concerned at the "murderous" termination of a foetus through abortion -- or even the use of contraceptives. It should not therefore engender opposition amongst such constituencies.
Nonviolence: The proposal is essentially nonviolent, little different from the current use of other forms of remedial medication. As such it should in no way be compared with the much-cited proposal of Jonathan Swift (A Modest Proposal, 1729) -- although his fictional account of the constraints on his excessive size, as considered necessary by the Lilliputians ("not six inches high"), is of some relevance (Gulliver's Travels, 1726).
Dissemination of growth inhibitors : Growth promoters have been successfuly, if inadvertently, disseminated through the growth hormones used in the meat selected as food of choice in the fast food outlets that proliferate in countries exposed to the western economic growth model. Deliberate choice has ensured the successful dissemination of sexual enhancement drugs (Viagra and analogues) -- a surprising growth industry. Water fluoridation has been successfully introduced in some regions on the assumption that it reduces tooth decay, by analogy with fortifying salt with iodine, milk with vitamin D and grape juice with vitamin C. With respect to any such dissemination of growth inhibitors, careful review of the opposition to water fluoridation and to beef hormones will be required.
Existing size variation: One concern would be any apparently discriminatory application of size reduction medication given the differences in average sizes of peoples and ethnic groups around the world. This matter therefore merits careful exploration. There is a case for recognizing the extent to which the anchoring of an extraordinary proportion of resources within the human biomass has also effectively been accompanied by a form of "gigantism" -- of which growth in average height over past centuries could then be considered an indicator.
Trading body mass credits: The concern of the previous point might well be approached in the light of the various innovative policy initiatives now being developed for carbon credit trading and emissions trading -- however that is understood. In this case however the "carbon" is that tied up in human body mass -- suggesting another connotation to personal carbon trading. There are however clearly challenges to be resolved in any initiative enabling the "fat to get fatter" (or larger) by paying the "thin to be thinner" (or smaller) -- although it might be argued that this is effectively currently in place between "developed" and "developing" countries.
Impact of size reduction: A comparative investigation is clearly necessary into the precise relation between body mass and ecological footprint -- and how this would be affected by the reduction in the average size of an adult human. How would such figures aggregate nationally, regionally and globally? What degree of individual or collective (average) size reduction would have what effect on various resource demands? How significant would this be and over what period of time?
Measurement framework: Of specific interest is the relation between calorie intake and ecological footprint (cf Ecological Footprint Calculators), notably in relation to industrial output (cf H. A. Kraut and E. A. Muller, Calorie Intake and Industrial Output. Science, 1946) in the light of estimates that, despite their achievements, American pioneers had only half the calorie intake of their descendants today. These three together create a triangular measurement framework within which viable individual size(s) for a sustainable society might then be determined. This approach should take account of the reframing of industrial output as gross domestic product (GDP) and current interest in what lies "beyond GDP".This is especially significant in that a study has shown that high population growth, depletion of natural resources, and low savings now pose new risks to development prospects (UNEP, Beyond GDP: new measure of wealth shows that many developing countries are in the red, 2005).
| Smaller people -- Much smaller
footprint ! One foot height people -- Very small footprint guaranteed ! |
| Do ecological footprint calculators enable people to understand the beneficial impact to the planet of much smaller children? If not, why not? Do they enable understanding of the lower ecological footprint of populations of lower average height? If not, why not? Would there not be great merit in enabling people to understand their cumulative ecological footprint through their children and grandchildren -- allowing them to experiment with decisions they might make on both the number of children and their average height as adults. How does the size of the family (envisaged) over one or more generations get factored in for consideration? One could be very "light-footed" in the first generation but have a very heavy footprint through one's grandchildren! |
Impact on infrastructure requirements: Any envisaged further study (and simulation model) would need to distinguish the impact of individual size and human biomass reduction in relation to: food requirements, space requirements (housing), transportation requirements, energy requirements, etc. For example, at what point does it become feasible to:
A particular issue is at what point such effects will impact usefully on urgent problems such as carbon emissions and the like
Psychosocial sensitivities: Given current experience and concerns relating to discrimination based on obesity and various measures of size, further study would need to clarify sensitivity on these matters -- especially during a period in which a younger generation would be of smaller average size and facilities would have to be maintained for those of the passing generations of elders of much greater size. There may indeed be real challenges to positioning the strategy appropriately given the cultivated mindset that "size does matter" and despite the unexplored connotation of the seminal study of E F Schmacher (Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, 1973)
Assumptions regarding size and development: There is a case for exploring any psychological associations between socio-economic development and physical size -- and the implicit assumption that the pursuit of the conventional development growth model is in any way correlated with expectations regarding growth in physical size. Is a "developing country" in effect assumed to be one in which the body mass of individuals is expected to increase, whether or not the total body mass of the population increases? Of particular interest is the extent to which the dominant economic "growth" model in society is "incorporated" or "embodied" in individuals, whether physically or metaphorically in some way.
Overuse of resources and size: There is a need to clarify whether relative overuse of resources by a society is directly correlated with excessive increase in average size, and how increase in average size may be inappropriately associated with status or age. Societies with people of smaller average size might then usefully be reframed as "more developed" (rather than "less developed") -- in relation to the challenges of size reduction in order to meet the conditions of environmental carrying capacity.
Discriminatory sizeism: The previous point clearly calls for a new focus on discriminatory "sizeism" both within societies and between societies around the world -- notably in relation to pygmies and dwarfs (and the vital genetic potential they may represent).
Relative brain size: The ratio of brain weight to body mass is correlated with intelligence. Brain size offers a rudimentary indicator of intelligence. The brain is however a metabolically expensive organ, and consuming some 25% of the body's metabolic energy. Smaller brains might be advantageous from an evolutionary point of view if they are equal in intelligence to larger brains. Any reduction of body mass might therefore be usefully associated with a relative increase in skull size to accommodate brains of proportionately greater size.
Impact of greater range of sizes: The above clarification may be vital in the light of the increasing spread in size of individuals in any population as a variety of approaches to size reduction are developed within societies or within families. The challenge evident in the range of clothing sizes currently required would be expected to be considerably increased..
Dynamic adjustment of optimal size: Given the vaunted possibilities of genetic engineering, it may be a matter of ensuring that average size of members of the human population is adjusted dynamically in response to resource availability. As resources become less readily available, the average size might then be progressively reduced -- as has tended to occur naturally in times of food scarcity.
| Viability of size reduction through animal-human genetic combination? |
As reported by Nic Fleming (Britain Signals It Will Allow Creation Of Animal-Human Genetic Mixes, The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2007), scientists are to be allowed to create part-human, part-animal embryos for research into potentially life-saving medical treatments. The government:
Whilst initial research will focus on hybrids involving larger animals, including rabbits, there is presumably no reason to oppose genetic mixes involving smaller animals -- such rats or mice -- in order to meet the decimation challenge -- surely of "life-saving" merit. Consideration could also be given to human-cockroach mixes, especially since the latter are much more efficient in converting foodstuffs into bodymass and energy. Such possibilities have been extensively explored in terms of "human enhancement", as understood within schools of transhumanis, posthumanism or transformational activism -- notably as reprogenetics (a reframing of eugenics). However consideration has not as yet been given to "enhancement" as human miniaturization to reduce ecological footprint. |
Regulatory focus on total family body mass: For example, if some families remain committed to having many more children, there may be no politically unacceptable need to discourage this (in violation of religious injunctions) when it is instead a simple matter to require that the children of such families then be of proportionately smaller size. This suggests the possibility of elaborating a norm for the total body mass of a single human family as a basis for ensuring appropriate resource requirements -- possibly resulting in newer additions to that family being of smaller size to meet those requirements.
Degree of size reduction required by planetary carrying capacity: Any study of the feasibility of this recommendation should clearly consider just how small it might be appropriate for humans to be in order to ensure a sustainable pattern of use of resources by the total human biomass. The widespread recognition of the future impact of nanotechnology may offer implicit recognition that humanity can be suitably "downsized" in phase with such developments.
Fiscal implications: Given the fiscal ambiguities associating size with adulthood and the consequent call on public resources, careful investigation is required into how fiscal incentives might be used to provide early encouragement of size reduction. Such investigations might fruitfully be associated with issues relating to costs of transportation, housing and use of utilities in the light of the diminished use of resources following significant body mass reduction..
Miniaturization of security forces: Given the great military interest in future miniaturization, whether for battlefield robots or for remotely controlled airborne devices, it is to be expected that defence research might take the lead in exploring size reduction of military personnel. As stinging insects continue to demonstrate, size does not matter in controlling behaviour of those of greater size. Given the deadly capacity of modern weaponry, even when miniaturized, much larger security forces could be maintained with a much lower call on resources.
Body mass of role models: This proposal raises interesting challenges for future leaders and role models who may be expected to be of relatively smaller, rather than larger, size to exemplify their credibility in response to the challenges of diminishing resources (cf Dan Harbord, Heights of Famous People).
Implications for sport: Related adjustments may be appropriate in sporting activities in which physical size is a factor. Categories for smaller sized people could usefully be created (as in "flyweight" for boxing) and appropriately valued above those of (an increasingly obsolete) larger size -- in contrast with current practice. This could lead to team sports, such as football or basketball, either being based on teams of different sized players or, alternatively, having a mix of players of different sizes such as to constitute together a permissible total body mass.
Infrastructure implications: Aside from the advantages of size reduction, the transitional spread of sizes may necessarily impact significantly on urban planning, architecture and furniture design -- beyond that confronted by current requirements to facilitate access for the "disabled" (eg Small People's Huge Problems, Russia Today, 19 December 2007).
Aesthetics of size reduction: Consideration could be usefully given to the aesthetic standards associated with the art of bonsai, especially in the process of repositioning small as beautiful.
Miniaturization as an evolutionary process: As argued by J. Hanken and D. B. Wake (Miniaturization of Body Size: organismal consequences and evolutionary significance, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1993):
Miniaturization, or the evolution of extremely small body size, is a widespread phenomenon in animals. It has important consequences for organismal biology and phyletic diversification above the species level. The miniaturized phenotype is a complex combination of ancestral and derived traits, including reduction and structural simplification, increased variability and morphological novelty
Some of the implication were later explored (P. J. Miller (Ed.), Miniature Vertebrates: the implications of very small body size. Zoological Society of London Symposia, 1996) as reviewed by Graham Stone (On Being Very Small (Like Piglet!), Journal of Biogeography, 1998).
Fictional anticipation: Miniaturization is an option already explored in some "world building" computer games and simulations. It has been explored as a science fiction possibility by Kurt Vonnegut (Slapstick, 1976) which was an inspiration for the Human Reduction Institute's Very Small People Project (Ion Zwitter, Expectations Shrinking for Very Small People Project. Avant News, October 2005). Slapstick (adapted into a movie Slapstick of Another Kind, 1982) usefully explores the possibility of competitive miniaturization between nations, initiated therein by the Chinese to the point that they become so small that they cause a plague among those who accidentally inhale them, ultimately destroying western civilization beyond repair.
Cultural heri